Ugh, finally got around to finishing this chapter.

Chapter 7

I stood in front of the altar, staring down at the group of six before me. All were graduates of Sanctum Academy, which kind of made sense as the place they were going to was in a pretty dangerous area, with a couple even having a few years of mercenary work under their belt. It seemed that not all graduates of the academy went on to continue their huntsmen studies.

The group knelt before the altar as they muttered prayers and gave offerings. I watched as one placed some incense on the altar and lit it with her lighter as another placed a crystal of lightning Dust a bit further away from it.

You have received 12 Faith Points!

(6 Prayer, 6 Sanctuary Bonus)

You have received 16 Offering Points!

(5 Various Small Offerings [1pt], 1 Small Offering of Dust [3pt], 8 Sanctuary Bonus)

I watched the numbers tick up for a moment then turned back down to my worshippers. I raised my hand, currently invisible to all at the Temple, and let my blessings flow into each of them. Wind blew through the Temple grounds and each of the quest takers shivered as some of my power flooded into their bodies.

Bless has gained 1 level!

Bless, Level 30:

(Rank: Divine Spirit)

Bless the target with your godly power. This skill's rank is of the Divine Spirit rank so only minor or insignificant blessings and their effects may be granted.

Cost: 100DP

Rank Increase: 142DP (200)

My Bless skill was sitting at level 30 now. It was pretty tedious to level it up, most of my skills tended to take a while to gain level proficiencies. I attributed it to the fact that I was a god and thus had the time to wait. Immortality shifted one's views towards time and, honestly, I now consider the months I've spent in this world to be kind of short in hindsight. As if everything had happened a day or so ago. I think I've become a lot more used to my new existence than I thought.

Anyway, my Bless skill has had its upgrade requirement slowly go down since it began leveling up. The upgrade cost appeared in the skill's description after I had ranked up. I figured out pretty quickly how it worked too. For every level over the first level, the total cost dropped by a percentage which was represented by the number in the parenthesis. So, at level one hundred, the cost would be reduced by a whole ninety-nine percent!

I had enough points to rank it up between my current offering and faith points but I still wanted to wait a bit. Every point counted and I wasn't exactly in a rush.

The chosen quest takers eventually stood up from their kneeling positions and gathered their belongings. The rest of the cult gathered around them and wished them safe travels and other such niceties, all with many smiles and friendly back-slapping. For my part, I hoped that my minor blessings of health, physical prowess, and good fortune helped them on their journey.

The distance between Mistral the city and the mountain itself wasn't super long but after a certain point, it was mostly wilderness that wasn't exactly tamed. Or perhaps it was tamed at one point but eventually, the people living there were pushed away. Still, their blessings will help them until they return back to Argus or my temple, whichever came first. Unlike Elena, I wasn't going to give permanent blessings to people unless they deserved it or served my greater interests.

The quest party finally left the temple grounds and headed down the dirt pathway I had created between the temple and the road to Argus. While I had considered earlier that my sense of time had shifted ever since I came to this world as a god I still found that being a god involved a lot of waiting.

"Well," I said to myself as the noise in the temple grounds slowly quieted, "I guess I'll go back to my forge."

I still had lots to work on. My clay-made creations were a slow process as I was carefully sculpting them by hand, my inner perfectionist had come out to play in the process and I refused to allow any imperfections in them. I also really wanted to start working on actually forging something with my forge even if I had to resort to using inferior mortal-grade metal like iron.

I mean, at least it would be giving me some much-needed practice.

I waved my hand over the cloud floor and a pile of iron ore manifested itself on top of it. Making mortal-grade material was child's play but even without having worked the material at all my eyes could still see that even with all of my skill and godly abilities the metal would never reach the divine tier without some serious enchantments placed over it. Even then, my minor domain of forging told me that it still wouldn't be enough to make what I wanted with it. Plus, the amount fo power needed to bring it up to that level would probably destroy the object long before it reached it.

I sighed, "Oh well, even so, I better get started. Maybe I'll get something out of this anyway."

I eyed the iron sword in my hand. By all mortal accounts, this sword would probably be considered to have been forged by a master of the craft. But, to my godly senses, it was found lacking. Even if I didn't have my minor forging domain to aid me my godly sight would still have been able to pick up the subtle impurities, blemishes, and even the sharpness that wasn't quite able to reach the supernatural level. All things that barred the blade from being anything more than exquisite to those who could not see as I did and did not require a higher standard, and worthless to those who could and did.

With a sigh, I gave it a lazy toss in the air, caught it by its blade, and unceremoniously flung it off my cloud forge. The blade rocketed from my hand the moment it left it and soon I lost sight of it as it made its journey across the world.

I'd done that to every mundane thing I've made with the iron I created and I'd been aiming it towards the Grimmlands in the hope that I'd either kill a Grimm by accident or hilariously make Salem's day bad if I was especially lucky. To be honest, I wasn't sure if the things I'd been throwing were making it there but something in me said that they were. It was a gut feeling kind of thing and oddly I trusted it.

It was probably some god-related thing that I hadn't fully explored yet.

A new shrine has been created in your honor!

I quickly stopped what I was doing and opened up the religion menu to take a look at the new information.

Religion Information

City: Argus

Status: Cult

Priests/Priestesses count: 8

Temple: Well-maintained Modest Temple

City: Mistral

Status: Unknown

Priests/Priestesses count: 0

Temple (city): None

Temple (Eastern Mountain Range): Basic Shrine

I chuckled and stood up from my work stool. It seemed that this power system of mine considers the mountain shrine as technically being part of the city of Mistral. It made sense, I suppose, as the city was probably the closest concentration of people near it that can call itself a civilization and not just a single building or two.

I carefully moved the few clay creations I'd made today into their designated storage area and glanced in the direction where I now knew the shrine was. Closing my eyes I felt for any new areas of influence and then my body flashed with divine power and I soon found myself standing near a cave entrance that faced a large rocky ledge and an equally rocky path down the mountainside that eventually turned into dirt and forest.

It was a good place for a shrine. I gave the cave a considering look for a moment and nodded my head. It was a good place for an Oracle of some sort to live in and could even be expanded if it wasn't a very deep cave. I was already envisioning a more built-up temple grounds near the base of the mountain for general worship while the Oracle lived further up in the cave for prophecies.

It just seemed right and, honestly, kind of fun.

I made my way inside the cave after taking in the scenery. I didn't see the quest takers outside of it so I figured that they would be inside the cave instead of being out in the open, something that was easily proven by a few motorcycles that lingered just inside the cave's entrance. Once inside I saw them sitting around a small Dust powered heater chatting with each other.

Off to the side in a small alcove around chest height in the wall sat a small shrine dedicated to me. It was decorated with small wooden statues of me and things that I told them through Elena that were considered sacred to me. Like eagles.

My faithful quest takers seemed a little worn now that I had a closer look at them. They all had some kind of battle damage in them but they also didn't seem to be injured. Well, they had spent a week traveling and probably fighting Grimm this entire time so it was only natural.

Now that I was here I raised my hand and used my magic to help heal them anyway and restore their stamina. They jumped in surprise when they felt my power wash over them and stared at the altar of the shrine in wonder.

That was when I appeared at the entrance of the cave and slowly made my way inside.

"You have done well," I told them as I took my own seat around the heater. It wasn't needed for me since I didn't feel cold at all but it still felt nice. "Have you eaten yet?"

Most of the six still sat petrified in wonder at the mere sight of me but one managed to gather his wits and shook his head, "N-No, Lord Zeus, we haven't yet."

I hummed and waved my hand. The heater was now sitting in the middle of a table that had appeared between all of us. Surrounding the heater on the table was a wide smattering of various foods and drinks. I waved at the table, "Then please dig in and take a moment to rest."

I watched as each of them grabbed their plate that was on top of their part of the table and began piling food onto it. Once each of the six questers had started eating I began speaking once more.

"The day is still young, so take this moment to rest. However, do not linger in this place for long for I will begin cleansing it of its Grimm taint. If you stay then you will risk being caught in the crossfire at your own peril," I told them. I didn't want to hurt them but I really wanted to start getting rid of the Grimm right away and they did no good here doing nothing anyway.

"Of course, Lord Zeus," the one who had his shit together spoke once more. "We weren't planning on staying for long anyway. This part of the wilderness has a lot of… eh, older and stronger Grimm that don't like to linger near established settlements. We'll be gone in a couple of hours."

I said nothing as he finished speaking before giving him a single nod before turning back into a spirit. I flew up to the summit of the mountain and took a moment to take in the sights. It was a nice view seeing everything from up on top of this mountain, I could even see the top of Mistral from here.

Once I had finished taking in my fill of the sight before me I turned my attention down to the mountain summit itself. Gathering my power I used my Bless skill and began pumping the ground with it. The mountain itself was rather tall but I made sure to have this new sanctuary of mine to encompass at least an eighth of the mountain starting from the summit.

I had to pause only a few times to let my divine power recharge itself but after the third time, I finally had the notification appear.

"Sanctuary of Zeus, Mistral Mountain Range" has been created!

A religion information sub-menu is unlocked! Now that you have more than one sanctuary you may see a list of them all so that you don't lose track!

Warning! You are about to bless this sanctuary until mortals may not tread upon it without divine intervention! Are you sure you wish to do this: Y/N?

I accepted the prompt and the ground up at the mountain summit seemed to glow a bit brighter and become more vibrant. I assumed that was because of the divine power now flooding through it, it was making things… more. I glanced down the mountain towards the shrine cave and briefly considered making another sanctuary down there for the extra bonuses praying and offering would give me but dismissed the idea.

One sanctuary was enough for this place. Plus, it was more of an out-of-the-way kind of worship area anyway. There weren't going to be a ton of people that'd live here permanently and constantly go to the shrine to pray so it'd be a bit of a waste. It'd be better to focus on making the sanctuaries for the temples in cities.

I saw the quest takers start to leave the cave and nodded. It was nearing time to start cleaning this area up of Grimm. The mountain that I, the shrine, and my future seat of power were on sat at the edge of a gap in the mountain range. It was like a very large alcove in the mountain range where a large lake sat in the middle of the gap that was further surrounded by forest and then encased in tall mountains. My mountain was right in the center of the gap's inner cul-de-sac edge, facing the small valley that led out of the mountain range towards the city of Mistral.

It was a good defensive location all things considered but the Grimm still managed to keep people out of it. Mostly because of the flying wasp Grimm that made their home in the mountains themselves, away and protected from most people while still able to attack anyone they felt like.

I stretched my body, rolled my neck, and said to myself, "Well, I've got part of this quest done so might as well start cutting loose a bit now that they are gone."

I gathered my power and thunder clouds began to appear above the mountain summit as I channeled my control over the weather itself. I rocketed from my spot above the mountain and flew over all the places where my influence reached, searching for the locations of all the Grimm in the area. I found several gatherings of the creatures and stopped my flight at a random mountainside at the biggest yet.

Hundreds of the wasp Grimm fluttered about and I gave a wicked grin. I raised my hands and lightning gathered around them in great arcs of power. This seemed to get the attention of the Grimm as they all focused in my direction but didn't seem to be attacking, they looked to be sort of searching for me instead. A few did launch some stingers in my direction but they either missed or passed through me.

Once my lighting gathering was completed I pointed a hand at the Grimm and let it loose. Bolts of lightning launched forward from my hands and even the sky itself and struck the Grimm, bouncing between the monsters and cooking them alive. I laughed as they began falling down and dissolving in the air as they died in droves. I had no mercy for these intruding beasts.

Due to your increasing influence and display of dominance you have attracted attention!

x1 Ancient Queen Lancer and its lesser minions have been attracted to your display of dominance over the region!

I gave a grunt of acknowledgment and teleported back up to the summit of my mountain, searching for my new enemy. I spotted the beast half a minute later, it was flying with a large posse of lesser lancers, which I figured was what this type of Grimm was called, and was very large. It had risen from further into the mountain range and I could hear the buzzing of all those wings even from here.

I laughed and formed a lance of lightning in my hand. It was time to play Zeus and start flinging lightning from atop a mountain summit! For a moment the world around me flashed bright as the lightning left my hands and sheared through the flesh of the Grimm. The one-sided battle had truly begun.

Ozpin carefully scrutinized the information he was presented with. On-screen over his desk was a video of the many strange phenomena taking place on the continent of Anima. Freak storms, sudden rain, and lightning strikes that went against all previous weather forecasts were the most common and for a moment when he first heard of these occurrences, he feared that Salem was making a move.

But then the video of the raging lightning storm that occurred in the mountain range east of Mistral city was spread around. Ozpin couldn't for the life of him think that Salem would have started blasting lightning magic around and killing her own Grimm, particularly an Ancient Lancer Queen of all things, for no reason. That mountain range wasn't located anywhere important and the amount of people that lived in that region would be considered sparse at best.

The real kicker was the shaky camera footage showing all of this that came from a group of people that had apparently hiked their way to the mountain that the lightning was concentrated around. The small group of people were staring at the lightning with awe and had been rambling on about this god of theirs that they worshipped and built a shrine to on the mountain.

A quick search on the internet confirmed the existence of such a new religion. However, they were a small-time one that was based in Argus and seemed to worship a storm deity. Their biggest claim to fame was the grapes they were somehow able to grow and sell every week. If the comments from the religious group and the people of Argus that tasted the fruit were to be believed these grapes were quite divine, if differing in meaning.

"Perhaps I should try and visit Argus sometime to try some myself, it has been a while since I've been there," Ozpin mused to himself. He did need to get himself out of the Academy every once in a while and the headmaster of Sanctum was an old friend of his.

Well, he'd need to think about it. If he couldn't perhaps he'd be able to send team STRQ there on a mission and as an afterthought bring some of those grapes back so he could see what all the hubbub was about them.

For now, he'll need to wait and see what all of this will come to before he makes any long-term plans. Hopefully, it will be something that can benefit the world, the world could surely use some more hope and good.