As the three children stumbled along the beach, sore and tired and doubly so for Donny, they couldn’t help but shout with joy at the sight of the large outline of a giant turtle flying towards them silhouetted by the sun, a small figure standing on its back waving and shouting something unintelligible. It was a massive turtle, its head and rear legs largely resembled the snapping turtles from Donny’s old world, but it had the smooth, sleek shell and large, boomerang-shaped front flippers of a sea turtle. There was a long, thin tail with a wicked barb that glinted dangerously at the tip extending out and above its shell like a scorpion.
This was his grandfather’s familiar, an evolved sky turtle that was as old as his grandfather and over the years had become part of the family. While the beast may have been an ancient and all-powerful being he had always enjoyed letting Donny and his friends jump off his shell into the ocean, often seen playing with them and flying the group of boys around. The old turtle was very protective of his kids.
“Children, get on, we must go.” The deep, grating voice of the massive reptile vibrated in their chests as he came down to hover before them, front flipper extending out and scooping them onto his shell while turning and shooting out over the ocean in one smooth motion.
“Uncle Kosher, what’s going on? Donny asked after taking a moment to catch his breath.
“I’ll explain what I can but first, are there any injuries I can’t detect?” The rumbling reply came calmly.
The magic of the turtle’s shell allowed the boys to move and speak freely, even at high speeds. A barrier blocked the wind and gravity that would otherwise require a harness or palanquin, as well as ear and eye protection.
“No, we’re fine for the most part, Chucky and Lyle got their heads smacked together. We’re mostly just shaken up” Donny answered for them.
“Shaken up, eh?” Kosher cocked his head to give Donny’s calm and determined demeanor a skeptic look with one of his great-shield sized eyes.
“Now’s not the time to panic, Unc. Now what can you tell me?” Donny said seriously, meeting the turtle’s gaze.
The large sky turtle chuckled and straightened his giant head, looking forward as they flew.
“That technique that was used back there is called ‘Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil’, a technique that is commonly used in political assassinations. It’s a Ritual type of technique that’s outlawed in many galaxies due it requires self-sacrifice to deploy and the fact that none below the divine level can resist its effects. Even I would lose my senses if caught in its area of effect.” Kosher explained. “It’s also completely silent and undetectable.”
“Yeah ok, but what’s that got to do with why they were targeting us?” Donny asked, wishing the old turtle would get to the point.
“Because that means the people targeting you have enormously powerful backing, which is why we must leave. There is a lot I cannot tell you, child, but your grandfather will explain more when we meet.” The sky-turtle sounded apologetic at being unable to tell him more, but Donny was able to get a glimpse of what was being hinted at, so he didn’t mind, there was already so much to think about right now. And besides, he had messages to sift through.
Focusing his mind a menu popped up in view of his closed eyes as a menu popped up, Donny immediately noticed that some options were underlined with a red exclamation mark, and some were grayed out showing that he couldn’t yet access all options.
Donny first selected the setting options and adjusted the menu to only the options he could currently select. He knew from his father’s lessons that there were a multitude of different formats in which to view the system’s communications. The system would typically provide a general interface in a format that is easy to understand for the denizens of newly integrated planets. Apparently, his blue status screens were common in societies that were technologically advanced, and there had been an entire section in the library dedicated to the subject.
Then, thinking about it some more, he set titles to automatically show the description of the effects (he still had to go find out what his title “I will not bow’ title offered). Knowing he could make further changes as he went, Donny selected messages.
Donny stopped reading for a moment. He couldn’t believe the system had pretty much bricked his divine boon! He’d been expecting the proof-of-concept boon, it was pretty much standard when it came to champion blessings and was public knowledge. But he was starting to see what Pheros meant when he told him he’d be targeted. Donny went over the missive he’d read on the subject in his mind.
“Beings who have reached the ranks of the divine may choose a champion to participate in the Champion Ladder. Champions who achieve divinity receive an allocation of divine essence in conjunction with their rank when achieving divinity. Champion rank is determined by a scoring system, which is recorded on Page 143, of this compendium. While the specific details of individual champions are largely personalized, there are base guidelines to the champion system that remain the same for all.
Each divinity who sponsors a champion is limited in both the capacity of bestowment and allotted champions. Upon reaching divinity, a divine storage will be assigned, which will reserve a miniscule portion of the total accumulated divine energy of a respective Deity. This reservoir will fuel the champion’s blessing and may not be altered. Each divinity may, however, decide the parameters of the boon’s, quests, and level rewards for a respective champion. Below is a list of the other known rules and regulations of divine sponsorship:
- Deities may provide a tiered level-achievement/reward system.
- Deities may not assist with the growth of their champions outside of the initial divine blessing itself but may assign a guardian below the threshold of divine power to offer guidance and training.
- A deity may offer a single system-affiliated development token
- A deity may offer a single divine boon, but total boon efficacy is dependent on the amount of divine energy accumulated
- A deity may provide a trial boon.
- A deity may provide a trial quest.
- A divine boon may not offer benefits which directly or indirectly aid in the success of a divine tribulation.
The system will designate boons, achievements, rewards and quests in place of deities who choose to abstain from having a direct influence in the path of their chosen.
Donny had never heard of the system straight up nerfing a champion’s divine boon, it had simply never happened, as far as he knew. Though he was pretty sure he had obtained the first boon with a ‘Primordial’ rarity, like, EVER, he was still absolutely fuming. “What the fuck, system, it’s a DIVINE BLESSING, it’s supposed to be overpowered!” he cursed the system in his mind.
From what he’d understood, most divine blessings involved things like increased free attribute points per level or improved the potency of attribute points. There was even a rumor that Belmont Reaver, the progenitor of the reavers, got an additional FIVE attribute points per point invested!
Meanwhile, His boon had pretty much been made into the lowest level of attribute boons. He didn’t even need any help with skills, his natural talent before even getting this stupid boon already had him to the point of hitting his first bottleneck by the age of five years old! His aura manipulation and skill manipulation were already at least level five, and all he had done was passively practice his aura manipulation. His father and mother constantly bragged about his achievements in chi manipulation to the other great powers, and even their enemies had to admit his innate talent was above S tier.
And it didn’t help that his quest to save his family was beyond what he’d imagined. Although helping to clear his familial debt was a given at this point, wiping out seventy percent of their enemies? What the actual fuck! As far as he knew most of the galactic sector in this part of the universe was against them. And the ones that weren’t didn’t exactly sympathize with them after thousands of years of being oppressed and looked down upon. He couldn’t help but feel that he was in way over his head.
Donny stopped and took a deep breath. “I need to focus; I can’t change what’s already been set in motion. Just need to get so strong that it doesn’t matter who stands against us. I’ll brute force my way through this damn quest if I gotta!” He told himself as continued through his system messages.
Looking at who skills Donny’s eyes grew wide as he saw the pages and pages of skill updates. “How is this possible?” He breathed as he quickly organized the screen to separate the disorganized jumble of updates, he hadn’t been able to see throughout the years he had been improving his skills.
“What happened to not passing level 5?” Donny couldn’t wrap his mind around what he was seeing as an exhilarating thrill bloomed in his chest. From what his father had said skill growth was the most explosive between levels one through twenty-five, tapering off to a slow crawl by level thirty. Most people would have their main skills around level forty by the time they reached level fifty. And even the most supreme geniuses would only be around the level sixty mark in most skills by the time they hit one hundred. And he had almost doubled that threshold by the age of five.
Suddenly, Donny was shaken out his trance as he felt a ping of danger, he came too, realizing his friends were surrounding him defensively.
“Donny, wake up man! WAKE-”
“I wasn’t asleep bro, chill out. Why are you guys freakin’ out, anyways, we’re with Unc. What could happen to us?” Donny said, annoyed at first but softening his tone as he saw the absolute panic on his friends faces, feeling bad for snapping at Chucky.
“We’re under attack, some sort of giant bird is coming after us, look!” Lyle pointed out, towards the sky, looking at Donny like he was a moron.
Donny looked out, realizing that the giant turtle they were riding on was maneuvering through the air at incredible speeds, flipping and turning in a series of aerial acrobatics that would put any Blue Angel pilot to shame in his grace. Donny was confused at first, then realized the magic that his bestial protector surrounded the kids with had kept them from feeling any of it, inside the bubble it was as if they were always right-side up and standing on firm, unmoving ground. And then his face blanched as he looked out into the ozone and noticed the massive bird the size of an Airbus A380 that seemed to be staring right at him, a single impossibly large eye locking gazes with him from across the clouds.
The massive bird had bright blue feathers that shined with a pearlescent hue when reflecting the light of the bright sun above. It boasted a long, powerful neck with a vulture-like head and a rainbow-colored beak that was half again as long as it’s head and curved into a viciously hooked tip. It had two pairs of wings. The uppermost pair extended out long and powerful, at least twice the length of the massive avian’s torso but slimmer than the typically wide wings of most birds.
The monstrous bird had a second pair of wings closer to its feet that were short and wide and seemed to rotate instead of flap, like a feathered variation of a whale’s tail. From its rear extended long and luxurious feathers that seemed to flow and blend with the sky like a river. They twisted and moved and folded into each other and Donny felt like he could see waves crashing together in the bird’s tail.
Donny shivered, knowing that if that massive bird were to so much as cough towards them, without the protection of the powerful shield encompassing the shell of his grandfather’s familiar they’d all be turned into dust. And somehow, he knew in his heart that the unimaginably large bird was there for him.
“Fuck, Fuck, Fuck.” Donny said out loud as all his friends gave him wide stares.
“Dude, you can’t say that word!” Chucky said, somehow looking more afraid of the curse-word than the literal death-bird flying behind them.
“Right now, we got worse things to worry about than watching our fucking language. Uncle Kosher, how bad are things?” Donny dismissed the other kids and spoke to their chauffeur.
“He’s so cool!” Whispered Lyle to Milo. Chucky gave Lyle a flat look.
“Now that you’re up, you can give me permission to place you in my inner world. I can only allow others in with mutual consent, and your little siblings here refused to go without you regardless of my assurances that I would protect you.” The rumbling voice didn’t seem bothered in the least that he was in the middle of an intense chase. “Now please come along, my shell is a large portion of my strength, and I cannot cook this little seagull with it being used to defend a bunch of little brats.”
Donny couldn’t help but feel a surge of warmth as he looked at his friends, knowing that he had chosen correctly when picking them for his future crew. Even at this young age, they were loyal and dedicated friends. He couldn’t help but smile warmly at his friends for a long moment, appreciating each of them dearly and-
“Bro, you’re giving us a super creepy look, like my mom does to my dad before she takes him into the bedroom to argue with him. You’re not going to start yelling at me and mess up my hair, are you?” Milo looked skeptically at Donny, eyes squinted with a foot cocked back and body turned as if he was primed to run at a moment’s notice.
“Naw man, what? I-” Donny began, face heating up and eye twitching as he felt black lines forming on his forehead.
“GET IN NOW!” Kosher suddenly bellowed, his gravelly voice shaking their minds. Donny flinched at the hint of panic in the turtle’s voice as a sort of spiritual pull tugged at his mind. “Accept the tug!” he shouted, waiting until all his friends blinked out of existence before finally releasing his resistance to the tug of power from the massive turtle, allowing himself to be pulled into darkness.