Before I know it, I have reached the center chamber of the mine where the statue of Seronia now sits. Seronia has tears in her eyes from laughing so much at my stories about the kids. Even once I stop, it takes her a couple of minutes to recover her breath enough to speak.

  Seronia says “You know, from everything you have told me, your kids are perfect for you! You absolutely deserve all of them!”

  “Nah, they are good kids, despite my failures.”

  Seronia says “I may not know everything about your kids, but I think you are too hard on yourself. If you were such a bad parent, the kids wouldn’t be good kids.”

  “Anyway, I think this should be more than enough ore, thank you. Now, how about you give me that tour?”

  Seronia says “Alright, but only if you keep telling me stories!”

  “Deal.”

  We leave the mine and the first thing Seronia shows me is the new city on top of the mountain. It isn’t complete yet, but it is already really impressive, although it looks a little weird. That is because there are no streets or footpaths, it is entirely designed for flying beings.

  Thanks to that, the buildings don’t need to be even with each other and can just follow the terrain. Rather than looking uneven, the city looks more like a mountain made out of a rainbow. Because they follow the terrain, the buildings get taller as they move up to the mountain peak.

  “This is really impressive! I really want to come back and see it when it is finished!”

  Seronia says “Sure, no problem! I will let you know when it is done.”

  “Are you planning to move your palace here?”

  Seronia says “No, I will leave it where it is. I like being close to the souls of my followers. Besides, the angels won’t need a lot of supervision.”

  “That makes sense.”

  Seronia then takes me on a flying tour of the rest of her realm, although she keeps us in the air. Her realm is actually a little smaller than Holos’ realm was, but it is more varied. There is a main city where her palace is, but there are also smaller towns and villages.

  It makes sense to me since not everyone would want to live in a big city for all time. The land itself is also a mix of forests and grasslands with rivers and lakes mixed in. Everywhere I look is beautiful and peaceful, it is exactly how I think heaven should look.

  While I would personally find it boring, for most people this would be absolutely perfect. This just goes to prove that Holos was an idiot who abused the souls of his followers. The fact that he should be somewhere in a cell writhing in pain makes me happy.

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  Seronia says “What is that smile about?”

  “Oh, I was just thinking about how your realm proves what an idiot Holos is and that he is getting what he deserves.”

  Seronia says “What do you mean?”

  “Well, seeing how well you treat the souls of your followers just highlights how badly he treated his.”

  Seronia says “I haven’t let you near any of my followers!”

  “You don’t need to. I can tell how much you care for them from how beautiful your realm is and how it is arranged.”

  Seronia says “Thank you for the compliment, but I am still not letting you run around my realm.”

  “I wasn’t asking to! What do you think that I want to do here?”

  Seronia says “My realm is nice and peaceful, just the way I like it. I figure that seeing something peaceful would give you the urge to cause some chaos!”

  “Oh, come on! I am not that bad! I am not some agent of chaos!”

  Seronia says “No, you aren’t! But you are really fun to tease!”

  “Now that you have said that, I think I want to go down and talk to your followers!”

  Seronia says “No! I will not allow it! In fact, since the tour is over, I will take you back to your castle.”

  As I am laughing at her reaction, Seronia grabs hold of me and teleports us back to the castle. She didn’t give me any chance to make good on my joke, but her reaction was priceless. She doesn’t give me any chance to tease her further, she leaves just seconds after we arrive.

  She really is fun to tease and it is even more fun now that she is starting to fight back. It is a good thing that I found Lin, otherwise I would be even more tempted to accept the goddesses’ offer. I like both of their personalities and if they weren’t goddesses I would have already accepted.

  They have both changed since we first met and I am pretty sure that it is my fault. I think that they have changed in good ways since they met me, but others would probably disagree. Luckily, I don’t really care what other people think, except for the few who are important to me.

  As I am thinking about random things, I head down to my workshop and start smelting the ore. Once it is all turned into alloy, I switch to crafting weapons and armor for the palace guard. It isn’t hard since I am crafting it just like what I made for the elites of the army.

  The enchantments will be the only real difference between them and that is because I want to try something new. I want to see if I can link the equipment to the enchantments of the city. If I can, then the enchantments of the gear will be stronger when used inside the city.

  This way, if the city is ever attacked the palace guard will become even stronger. I doubt that the capital will ever be attacked, but it is better to be prepared. Besides, I can’t really be sure of that until the driders are dealt with once and for all.

  Right now they are trapped and should be slowly starving to death, but that is just a guess. They could have gone to sleep to save their strength and wait for a chance to attack. I won’t be able to be sure of them until I go down and kill the controller myself.

  Thinking of that, according to the dragon I should be able to use soul attacks now. The problem is that I have no idea how to do so and haven’t had the time to experiment. I will definitely need to figure that out before I go down to try and kill her, otherwise I will be the one who dies.

  If my hunting trip succeeds and I evolve again, then I will be going to visit the dragon again. At that point I can just ask him to teach me how to use soul attacks and defenses. If he will teach me, that will be much easier than trying to figure it out for myself.

  That will be the plan, I just need to remember to ask the dragon when I see him. As long as I remember to ask, I am pretty sure that the dragon will teach me, it will just be painful. The dragon is a great believer in using pain to make sure you pay attention to the lesson, but it does work.