Vol.6 Ch.5.2 – Serious Upgrades II

It took a few moments for her words to sink in. Before I could open my mouth Alisha asked:

“So with this ring Felix will become as strong as a god?”

“I doubt the effect will be quite that severe,” Athena said.

“Only one way to find out,” Anna said, then locked eyes with me and nodded at the ring.

I swallowed, then walked toward Athena, picked up the ring and slipped it on my middle finger. Not only was I not ready yet to put a ring from Athena on my ring finger but traditionally magical rings were worn on the middle finger. Immediately I felt the effect settling into me, just like every other magic ring I had ever worn, except orders of magnitude stronger than anything I had experienced. It felt like the world around me twisted to meet the ring's presence, like the axis of the world had just shifted to orient around this ring. I felt like I could crush mountains and dance on the wind.

“Now, how should I test this?” I asked, trying my best to keep my voice calm.

“You could punch Athena,” Alisha mused.

Athena's eyes widened in terror. “Why would you even suggest that?”

“Well, you said the effect won't be that severe and if it is, you can come back to life.”

Athena considered that for a moment but before she could agree I asked: “Can you use time magic, Athena?”

“I can,” she said. “Why?”

“Let me try bending your spear.”

Her eyes widened. “Palladion is a mythic weapon.”

“I know,” I said. “That's why I'm asking. If I do bend it, can you roll it back?”

“I can,” she said, “but you're not going to be able to bend it. A dragon once bit down on it and it didn't even flex.”

“All the more reason to try it,” Anna said. “If he can bend it, that means he's stronger than a dragon.”

“Very well,” she said, then looked at Alisha. “Keep your healing miracle ready in case he breaks his arms or tears his muscles.”

Alisha nodded and only then did Athena summon her spear and hand it to me.

Palladion was a gorgeous weapon, the handle intricately decorated and with a wing design on the butt end, all of it made out of an alloy I couldn't identify. The weapon fairly hummed with power in my hand. I could tell that there was more power invested into the spear than into my ring but I was still certain that what this ring did to me was more immense than what the spear did for Athena.

I took a deep breath and then flexed my strength, trying to bend the spear. At first it felt exactly as hopeless as Athena had said but as I kept flexing my Strength something began to shift and suddenly the weapon felt like putty in my hands, something I could bend like a fresh tree branch. I dropped the weapon on sheer reflex and saw deep indents of my hands in the metal, ruining the gorgeous decorations.

Athena stared in horror at what I had done to her spear and immediately cast a time spell, rolling the weapon back to before I had damaged it.

“That should not have been possible,” she said for the third time. I couldn't fault her. I was just as shocked as she was.

“I distinctly remember Bres bending Felix's sword,” Alisha said.

“Yeah, but that was only a legendary item,” I said. “Even if we assume that this ring makes me as strong as a god that has an entire race of worshipers, mythic items are an order of magnitude more powerful and more durable than legendary items.”

“Maybe it was because of his Luck,” Anna said. “His Strength alone would not have done it but his Luck let him find a structural weakness in the spear.”

“There shouldn't be any structural weaknesses in Palladion,” Athena said.

“But that's easy enough to test,” Alisha said. “Let's test your Dexterity instead.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Anna asked.

Before anyone could come up with something I got up and pulled out a fan of throwing knives. What I was planning to do was objectively insane. There was no way this would work. And that was precisely why I had to try it. Because something inside me was screaming at me that this would work.

I balanced the first knife on its point, placing it on the ground so that the pommel stood straight up. Then I jumped on top of it, balancing on the knife's pommel with one foot. Then I threw the other four knives into the air, letting them spin like a juggler's clubs.

I jumped off the knife and onto the first one I had thrown. I was loaded down with all my gear. There was no way for the knife to hold my weight. But somehow, impossibly, I was able to kick off it and gain height, just enough to jump up to the second one. From there I hopped up to the third, then the fourth, somehow avoiding stepping into the knives' blades on every pass, and then I kicked off one last time, now ten feet in the air, and let myself fall down, grabbing every knife out of the air as I went, then landed on the knife I had balanced on its point.

“What did I just watch?” Anna asked as she stared at me. All of them were staring at me.

“Art,” Yume replied.

“I think it's safe to say he didn't just find a weakness in the spear,” Alisha said.

I couldn't disagree. The idea of my Luck and Strength interacting was easier to swallow than the idea that the ring made me strong enough to bend a mythic weapon, but if my Dexterity had also grown to the point that superhuman acrobatics were not just possible but effortless, that put things into perspective.

“The only question,” I said, “is whether to keep the ring or not.”

They stared at me even harder.

“Are you kidding?” Alisha asked. “We just established that this ring makes you a god.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But if I take it then there's only one mythic item for all of you.”

“Didn't you just get done scolding me for not picking anything for myself?” Alisha demanded.

I winced.

“Don't be an idiot, Felix,” Anna said. “Athena is right. This ring was meant for you.”

Why did she have to phrase it like that? Yes, the ring's effect was perfect for me but I despised the idea of something called the 'Destined Hero's Band' being meant for me. I wasn't a destined hero, nor would I ever be. The gods didn't even allow me to call myself a Great Hero after this. Sure I had called myself that but that had mostly been to convince the Heroes of Elysium to help us. Did I honestly believe I was worthy of that title? Yes. Yes, I did. I was a Great Hero, even if Zeus had a problem with that. Even before this whole mess in Olympus I had been. But even so, 'Destined Hero' sounded like too much. No oracles had foretold my coming, no prophets strung people along waiting for my arrival. Sure it was just a name but even so...

I looked at Alisha, seeing the look in her eyes, filled with so much love. I looked from her to Yume, in awe of how powerful her mate was. I looked at Anna, glaring at me, daring me to contradict her. And finally I looked at Athena. She looked subdued, chastised. Like she was taking it as a personal insult that I even considered turning down this ring.

I held the sigh in.

“Thank you, Athena. I'm taking it.”

**

Thankfully there were no more emotional outbursts after that. We decided to postpone the rest of our shopping trip for another day and simply went to find Melinoe and Selene.

Melinoe had found herself a brooch she could pin to her toga that functioned very similarly to the dress I'd picked out for Alisha, though she hadn't had much luck with finding anything else. It made sense. As a demigoddess, legendary items weren't that special to her. They were still nice to have, sure, but her dagger was at least as good as any spell focus she could find in that treasury.

Either way, with Meli in tow we made our way to Hephaestus' tholos to find Selene.

Hephaestus shared his tholos with his wife Aphrodite and the difference between the two gods was apparent from their tholos. Most of the inside of the structure had clearly been decorated by Aphrodite, with an obscenely large bed at the center and a large comfortable lounge chair that very conspicuously faced the bed.

The damage their captors had done to the tholos was gone. The marble floor was once again pristine, no trace left of the chains that had been crudely hammered into the floor. The pillory Hephaestus had been stuck in was gone without a trace as well. And, thank the gods, the bed sheets had been changed. Or rather, the entire bedding had been changed, as I was sure the mattress underneath those sheets had been ruined as well. The last time we'd been here their wine-red bedding had been stained an off-white color thanks to an inch-thick layer of dried goblin spunk slathered all over it. But all of that was gone now. On the bed lounged a very beautiful, very naked Aphrodite, waiting for her husband to come to bed. But Hephaestus was still at his smithy.

Unlike all other tholoi except Prometheus', this one at least had one solid wall and built onto the outside of it was a smithy. Not particularly opulent as far as these things went but all the equipment was higher quality than what any mortal blacksmith could afford. And next to that smithy were Selene and the man himself. And he was holding... huh.

“So that's what you wanted to ask Athena about?” I asked as we came up behind Selene.

She turned around and gave me a sheepish smile. “It is,” she admitted.

Hephaestus gave us a nod in greeting, still utterly absorbed with the weapon Selene had picked out for herself. It was one of the muskets those knights had been wielding.