1 Aiolos, The Crafting God
"Low-tiered Crafting God, Aiolos, is here." a godly individual introduced himself. The moment he entered the building, his stature of 2.6m height shadowed most of the people standing inside.
His curly golden hair, buffed muscular body, and a chest armor laced with golden stripes distinguish him from regular individuals. On his lower side, the skirting of a long robe can be seen, further hinting everyone else who he is, if they didn't hear what he said just now.
"Ah, Aiolos! You're finally here!" a fellow god, Micos, takes a peek and greeted him. In comparison to Aiolos' golden hair, Micos has bluish curly hair.
"Mind paying me so I can get home earlier?" Aiolos opened his palm on a table nearby. Then, the sound of supplies landed on the table surprised them.
It was a mixture of swords, axes, spears, and staffs. As a Crafting God, making things like these is no difficulties at all.
"Sure. I'm happy that you're here early today. How's the dungeon?" Micos scanned the products and tapped on them. The weapons mystically fly to the nearby weapon shelves and gently sits on the available hooks.
In terms of godhood's designation, Micos is a lower-tiered Trade God. Doing business with mankind and other gods are how he collects the resources to advanced his cultivation.
The currency used widely in this Tianyuan Continent is known as Heaven Crystals, the main product from the Heavenly Dungeon. They are denominated according to their color, a brown copper crystal worth 1 unit, a white crystal worth 10, and a golden crystal that worth 100.
A weapon made by lower-tiered Crafting God can be sold for three copper crystals. But as a supplier, Aiolos is paid twenty copper crystals for supplying ten at once. After he collected the 80 copper crystals from Micos, Aiolos left.
"My God! We're back!" the voice of a young girl came in a hurry and knocked on Micos' belly head first.
"Little Silkie, if you're doing that often, even a God will throw up," Micos jokes and rubbed her head. He smiled at the crest holders who followed behind.
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"Please come back earlier..." Aiolos interlaced his fingers together and prayed.
"We're back!" a youth holding a black sword and scabbard shouted. Three girls about his age followed behind, looking exhausted.
"Aiolos! We found an Iron Boar today! Look!" the youth opened the item-case on his waist. Inside, a corpse of boar is taking up one of the ten available space inside the item-case. The remaining is filled with herbs, wolves, and ore.
"Hey! Call him God!" one of the three girls knocked his head for disrespecting Aiolos.
"Aiolos loves all of us! He won't mind if I called him familiarly." the youth, Hansen, said.
The four of them, Hansen, Alrune, Yesha, and Pharcis, are Aiolos' crest holders. The followed him when they reach adulthood, and it's been a full year now.
"Let's go back. We'll visit Tetros' shop on our way home." Aiolos smiled. The safe return of all of his four crest holders is the most important. And after walking for 15 minutes, the five of them are finally outside the Tetros Grocer.
"Go pick what you like," Aiolos said. He took the chance while they're busy talking with Tetros. Although it looks like that, in fact, they're the ones doing that on purpose to let Aiolos and Tetros to have a private time.
"How are you?" Aiolos asked. The goddess before her had a patch of flour on her face. Her hair is remarkably long, almost reaching her feet. Although she's not as tall as Aiolos, she's still a towering goddess around 2.3m.
She wears a sleeveless robe that shows a little of her cleavage, but Aiolos knows that this brown-haired goddess is shier than a Mimosa. She's a lower-tiered Food God, with the ability to make foods that won't spoil.
Her crest holders are mostly breadmaker or food artisan. That's because of her blessing, Food Succession. It allowed her crest holder to make food no matter how bad is their skills.
"I'm fine, thank you. Would you like to try my pastry today? It's a butter Apricot Pastry," Tetros shyly move a tray to Aiolos, hoping that he'll say it's delicious. It was a hexagonal pastry with halves of the golden apricot in the middle.
Caramelized fruit sugar brownishly sits around the apricot, trying to protect the fruit from slipping away. Added with the well-baked pastry skin holding it, it made Aiolos hesitated.
While looking at Tetros' shining eyes, Aiolos took a bite. It was crunchy on the pastry, crispy crackling on the caramelized fruit sugar, and soft juicy apricot flesh. The flavor of the butter glazed across his tastebud, forcing Aiolos to stuttered.
"I - It - It's delicious!!!" Aiolos screamed.
His excited expression after eating something Tetros made always made her day better. And for the sake of seeing him daily, Tetros made sure that Aiolos only think of her when it's time for a meal.
"We're done!" Hansen came with a few paper bags holding the bread and pastry. They close a few loaves of bread since one of them is going to sneaking to the Meat Shop beside their house for some meat.
After paying five copper crystals to Tetros, Aiolos hesitantly left. Alrune and Pharcis pulled him on both hands to travel home quickly. The quick-handed Yesha managed to grab two copper crystals from Aiolos pouch and purchase a few slices of wolf meat before reaching home.
"Are you ready?" Aiolos asked. They've showered, refreshed, and eaten after coming back home.
Actually, calling it home is an understatement.
God is born in their own Sanctuary. And that place then becomes the gathering point between the crest holder and their God. Depending on their cultivation, a Sanctuary can differ from a small water fountain into a city itself.
"We are!" Hansen answered on behalf of the others. Alrune, Yesha, and Pharcis then stand beside him as they're used to.
"Good. Let us start," Aiolos opened his palm, where a ball of light rises slowly.
"Holy Sanctuary, arise!" except for Aiolos, everyone else seemed to enter a timeless dimension. This place is a dimension only the Gods can enter and alter their crest holder's ability.
Leveling, healing, and blessing all came from this moment that only can be used once a day. And it differs between each God. As an example, Tetros' Holy Sanctuary is used in the early morning because it blessed her crest holders with food succession hands.
For Micos, he did it each time before the business start, for it to hold the blessing of removing evil thoughts from customers when they're open for business. It also blessed his crest holder from getting cheated.
But for Aiolos, his blessing can only be done once when his crest holder came back from their dungeon exploration. The reason is that his grace made the weapon and armor unbreakable. But in return, they'll receive no boost in all other statuses.
That also means his crest holder will have no reason to purchase new equipment at all because it won't break.
~Xiu!~
|-Hansen Chenyang-17-Swordsman-|Level 4|
[Strength: 9 | Vitality: 11 | Agility: 4 | Magic: 1]
[Skills:]
-Wind Slash(C) / Flame Slash (C)
-Sword Smack (C)
== == == == ==
|-Alrune Liyuan-17-Healer-|Level 3|
[Strength:2 | Vitality: 9 | Agility: 2 | Magic: 11]
[Skills:]
-Light Heal (C) / Full Heal (C) / Quick Heal (C)
-Staff Blast (UC)
== == == == ==
|-Yesha Wu-17-Thief-|Level 3|
[Strength: 5 | Vitality: 5 | Agility: 13 | Magic: 1]
[Skills:]
-Mug (C) / Toss (C) / Slid (C)
-Twin Slash
== == == == ==
Pharcis Chenyang-17-Fighter-|Level 4|
[Strength: 9 | Vitality: 7 | Agility: 6 | Magic: 4]
[Skills:]
-Rising Dragon Dance (UC)
-Magical Dance (UC)
"Not enough cultivation points today either..." Aiolos sighed. The group hunted six dungeon monsters today, an Iron Boar, two Slime, and three Wind Wolves. But in total, they only got seven cultivation points.
The cultivation level in this world can be obtained from multiple sources. Like Tetros' crest holder, their cultivation points mainly come from absorbing the denominated crystals. Hence, their level might be higher, but they're useless in a battle.
Or Micos' holders. They're blessed with an increasing point in agility every five levels. But only those close to Micos understand the drawback. It ruined the crest holder's status alignment, turning them into agility skill holders but no talent to use them properly.
That said, Aiolos' may grace them with indestructible equipment, but pointless if they can't hunt the monster properly.
After checking their status and blessings, Aiolos removes the Holy Sanctuary. The timezone returned to normal again.
"Ah! I felt stronger!" Hansen said. Only Aiolos knows that, in fact, nothing happened. Not even a tenth of cultivation point they manage to collect, and here, Hansen is talking as if he just leveled up.
The item-box that belonged to them had its content poured out. In Aiolos' workshop, a spacious table with dozens of tools on the rack behind him held the materials they hunted today.
He took the crystal pouch off from his waist and placed it on a corner before moving on to splitting the collection up. 40 spaces worth of inventory holds 6 monster corpses, 12 ores, 16 herbs, and 6 monster drops.
Inside the dungeon, everything is possible. Drops don't appear all the time. And a slime doesn't always drop its core. Sometimes, Gemstone, colored crystal, or even radish might pop up from the spot.
But a Crystal can always be harvested from the corpse, as long they're processed by the God. And as a crafting God, Aiolos is capable of processing everything. Of course, that doesn't mean he's capable of making potion out of the herbs or delicious food out of the meat.
In exchange, what hunted by the crest holders are always bartered between the Gods. And a friendly relationship between them is a must because a Lower-Tiered Crafting God, like Aiolos, is not just one or two.
Especially here, inside the Southern Tianyuan Sanctuary.
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Note: The story has five Ancient Gods that provide the Sanctuary with air, water, wood, etc.
It's my first attempt trying to reach out using the Writing Prompt Contest. I hope this new work of mine will be accepted and voted by all of you! Thank you!
