Rafe looked at this new arrival. The former chosen of Primus, Goleon. He died before even making it to the D grade, yet somehow became one of the local deities. If possible this was information he was a little interested in, but only just a little now.

"How do I know you are telling the truth? No, why would I even care about this succeeding nonsense you are spouting? As far as I know, you are the ones who need me, not the other way around," Rafe said, keeping the smile on his face. He must look deranged.

"Don't you want to kill the Chosen?!" Ma'la said as she tried to stand straight again. "It is impossible for you to get strong enough to do that in two months. And after the promotion event, well…"

"I wouldn't need to go against him if you lot hadn't got me stuck on this damn planet! Since I can't kill him, why not go after the easy targets?"

The room was silent for a while after he said that. The three gods present shared a look. Then Ma'la stepped forward, her gait quite weak.

"We have wronged you, Mr Kingsley. I am ready to atone with my life. Let the others go for now. You'll need their power when the time comes."

"Ma'la!" Goleon and the wind goddess shouted at the same time.

"Remember what you told the princess that time you came to the city!" Ma'la spoke over them. "You said you wouldn't judge my children too harshly, didn't you?"

Rafe flinched when Ma'la spoke about the princess, but the memory still came to him unbidden. Then the anger in his heart surged. Were they trying to poke at barely scabbed wounds, these absolute bastards.

"That's right!" Goleon came back into the conversation. "The drowned god took Helare's corpse. Aren't you curious—"

"I am not!" Rafe shouted. "I am not curious about it! Don't speak of her. Don't ever say her name to me again."

The three gods looked a little shocked at his vehemence. And what did he expect, these kinds of creatures probably did not know what emotions were.

"Go," he said slowly. He wasn't going to get any information out of them for free. He wasn't going to enjoy killing them now as much as he thought he was. Why were these emotionless things looking at him with sad and pitying eyes? To hell with them! "Go! Go, go, go!" He yelled.

When he opened his eyes again, he was alone in his cell.

He closed his eyes and attempted to get into his soul void. Of course the shackles blocked his access to his stats and skills, but he hadn't expected them to block off his access to his void storage space.

After a bit of checking, he realised these shackles were made to bind E grades, and so against someone like him who was low level even for an F grade, they were especially effective.

Just like that, he knew the next few days were going to be inconceivably boring. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and opened his soul senses. Ma'la did say the gods were planning to help Rafe work on strengthening his soul, but maybe his attitude just now had scared them off.

All he could for now was work on his soul quality. He had only been using this new cultivation method for months. He was yet to even finish building his soul core completely. Previously, he could only work for an hour or so a day. Now he had nothing to do for days on end.

The only limiting factor was the spiritual energy stored inside his soul. Once the shackles were removed, Rafe would need to get one of his spiritual energy rich natural treasures from his soul void. After thinking about it for a while, he decided to get another of his prizes from the Skyholm training tower out as well. He had never used it before, but he hoped it would alleviate his boredom now.

He was still making plans when he received a notification from the system.

'Ding': World quest received.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Objective: Win your first fight in the pits.

Reward: Soul walking training method, divine soul empowerment.

Rafe frowned at the world quest. So the gods were still planning to help him? Not that he was going to thank them. They needed him after all, though he still didn't know why. Presumably they'd tell him after one of his fights in the pits.

****

Filoria waited for her father in his office. She didn't know why he called her here. It had been three days since the whole mess with Rafael Kingsley, and she was not sure how much her father suspected.

Maybe he called her to punish her? There was no point in worrying though. She'd deal with it when the time came, or she would not. She was starting to like this new devil may care attitude of hers.

She was still sitting there when the sound of a door opening roused her from her thoughts. She turned to the door, but it was still locked.

Then she turned to the book shelf on her right, and sure enough, there was a secret door there. Her father was closing it behind him.

She wondered if he had meant to show her that. But then why was he acting like she was not here?

He went and sat down quietly behind the desk. He sifted through a bunch of papers, completely ignoring her for more than thirty minutes. Then his work was done, and he slowly lifted his eyes to meet hers.

She stiffened even more, though she tried her level best to control her breathing. She gripped the armrests tightly, though she was not yet strong enough to destroy them.

Bodhia Benhaven, the Chosen, sighed.

"There is no need to sit on pins and needles, girl. Your mistake can be attributed to me. I have told you a lot of things before, but…" He hesitated, then sighed again. "You don't know enough about my plans to truly help me."

Filoria felt her breathing quicken. This was another thing she had wanted for so long. She got a hero's treatment at the camp in Deufont, and she won the battle for Rafael, and now even her father was finally willing to acknowledge her. When it rained, it surely poured.

Rafael was acting hard to get now, but what would happen after his first fight? In this moment, Filoria felt she had everything she would ever need.

Although the future was sure to be messy, she would deal with it then. Her father acknowledged her, and this was the most important thing to her. Maybe he could compromise and let her keep Rafael. Or maybe she could give Rafael to her father, depending on his plans. Rafael was important, but her father was more so.

She could have Rafael for these next few months anyway. Her decision made, Filoria nodded to her father, holding her breath for some reason.

Her father nodded and got to his feet. "Then let's go!"

They walked straight into the secret compartment. Filoria had never been in it before, though she knew of its existence. She toured the pods, yet her father did not say anything. He only stood by the door with his hands folded over his chest.

There were only about four pods carrying specimens from Primus. The others were occupied by aliens. But that was not very surprising, as many aliens had indeed fallen through the spatial distortions in the dungeons on the planet. That her father captured most was something she knew before.

Those people never escaped, she remembered, which was why she tried to save Rafael from his clutches back then.

There was a pod she looked at that gave her goose bumps though. In it was a female dark elf with white hair. The aura coming from that pod scared her. That female seemed to be stronger than her father.

"I got that pod directly from the multiverse proper. My sponsor was experimenting with soul engineering. This woman has been asleep for a thousand years, and she has been forcibly leveled up. She is a C grade user!"

Filoria felt her breath catch. She was new to the multiverse, as was most of Primus. Her reference for strength was her father, a D grade user. She could hardly imagine what a C grade user was like. And according to her father, this girl gained this power while sleeping. She did not need to train or enter dungeons or anything to get as strong as she was. And she could probably squash her father like a bug.

"Don't worry though. Even if she was the only one who didn't die from the procedure, she is still a faulty product. She cannot wake up. She is in an eternal coma, her soul sundered."

Filoria nodded and then moved on.

She saw the small pods, and the beings in them that were unlike anything she had ever seen. They were tiny and cute and magical, and did not deserve to be locked up the way they were.

She could tell they were not as bright as they would be if they were free.

And then she saw another one among them that was different. It had all the colors of the other types. Golden wings, blue face, grey arms, yellow legs, black torso. Its body was a patchwork of different colors. She looked at it, looked at the others. Tried to compare. Obviously this thing was an artificial attempt at creating this new type of life form that Filoria had never seen before. She decided not to ask about it at all on this occasion.

"This isn't what I brought you here to see," her father said as he stepped towards the other side of the room.

He touched a panel on the wall, and the wall slowly retracted. Behind the wall there was another secret compartment. There was a screen in this compartment, showing a scene under the great seas of Ma'la.

Filoria felt her breath hitch again. She couldn't do anything else with all the surprises her father had for her this day.

There was a large thing under the water. Like an under water ship.

"That is a space ship," her father said unprompted.

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