… What can I say?
I spent over a month editing these chapters—adding, deleting, rearranging, trying to make sure everything sounded just right… To be honest, even now I still feel like I can improve them.
BUT.
I don’t want to get stuck on polishing the chapter to the point I never move on. (Weird parallel that occurred to me: Orestis is stuck in a loop. So was I.)
Which is why!!
Let’s just say this is the final version and move on.
Maybe I’ll come back to this one day. Or hire an editor to do it for me. We’ll see.
Chapter 3 notes
No one would want to feign idiocy for years on end, so it made perfect sense to try and explain his situation to his parents. But nothing comes without consequence—well, it shouldn’t, in my humble opinion. Especially not in a good story.
I wanted Orestis’s intelligence and confidence to be the thing that screws him over. The moustache-twirling villains should come later (although, now that I think about it, having a villain that constantly twirls his moustache sounds strangely appropriate. Let’s put a pin on that).
Interesting fact: the idea for the plot came while I was writing the mother’s description.
I liked the idea of beads being woven into her hair. Since I needed a reason for that, I decided to make the mother religious—which in turn led to the idea of her faith being the leading cause of discovery. The cruel irony of the disaster coming from love and pride also appealed to me.
Funny how a purely cosmetic detail ended up turning into an actual plot point. But hey, that’s how it usually goes.
This way, using divine power was not the mistake—the mistake was underestimating religion. And gossip.
…
Regarding mana and aura, they were mentioned in the first chapter as well. Most can guess what they are.
But, for the sake of clarity:
Aura, in this context, refers to the physical force that can be manifested as a form of energy.
Attained through rigorous training. A stronger body can use more aura. I’ll go into details later. But basically, more training equals more aura. Of course, there are limits. At a certain point, the body will be unable to handle the punishment (i.e. increased intensity of the training) and will break down.
No one’s squatting their way to godhood here.
Mana is the magical energy that we all know. No need for elaboration.
In this world, everyone is born with a natural limit to how much mana they can hold—some have more potential, others have less.
Anyone can learn how to sense mana, and then train to increase their reserves. But only up to their personal limits. After that, no amount of meditation or training can make their mana pool grow further.
There are ways to go past the limits for both mana and aura, but those usually involve gods, demons, or dubious life choices.
As for divine power, we’ll get into that later. But just note that mana, aura, and divine power are the three forms of energy that exist in this world.
Mental and spiritual power are a thing, but those are not energy based. Not important yet.
(Details of all systems will be added to lore after I clean it up—right now, it's still a mess of scribbles on my notebook).
…
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A bit of foreshadowing with Lyse (her name rhymes with peace) that probably won’t pan out until much later.
There’s also a hint about why immortality became a problem for Orestis before. Again, will get to that eventually.
Chapter 4 notes
A bit of an info dump in this chapter. Tried to add some more foreshadowing. A bit of history. Some character background… but it became too much. Had to cut out some of it because it was starting to feel too information-dense.
Apart from that, tried to keep the whole interaction with the priests quiet, controlled, but threatening. Not overtly—I wanted quiet menace. Wasn’t exactly playing to my strengths here, but I think it turned out well.
I was even thinking of giving the lead priest a name and making him a named character with a bigger part in the story. Again, felt like too much too soon.
In the end, Orestis is not going to be interacting with the temples, so all the priests ended up nameless.
…
At the end of chapter 3, Orestis feels the gaze of a god. That was from Silio, not Demerius.
Here’s the sequence of events:
Avra (Orestis’s mother) tells her cousin—who works at the temple—about her son performing a miracle. The cousin believes her because Avra is not the sort to lie about religious matters. The cousin (who happens to be a senior cleric) tells others in the temple about it. Senior clerics are pretty high up, so her words carry weight—meaning people do not simply dismiss the claims.
Some people in the temple make a fuss about an ‘unsanctioned miracle’. Demerius hears about it and grows curious. He decides to take a look since he was bored. Merely taking a look costs him nothing.
Demerius recognises the power signature of Silio, who is not supposed to have any agents in Demerius’s territory (professional courtesy to let each other know when miracles are being used).
So, he checks up with Silio—who has no idea any of his priests or champions were in the area, so now he takes a look.
As far as Silio knows, only his worshippers should be able to access his personal pools of divine power. Having a worshipper in a different god’s territory is not unexpected since this world is not monotheistic. BUT. For the worshipper to be such a young boy is a bit odd.
Normally, there are only two ways for a mortal to be able to use divine power:
- They are blessed by a god.
- They become a follower of a god and spends a few years in worship (common belief being that the more pious the worshipper, the more power they can access—not true, but very few people know this).
Since Silio had never seen Orestis before (and thus, never gave him a blessing), the god decides to take a closer look at the boy who was able to use his power. This kind of close examination can be sensed by mortals—though most do not know or understand what the feeling is.
Orestis, having experienced it many times in his long life, is immediately able to identify it.
Key point: Mortals—even someone like Orestis—cannot know when a god is watching. That would be ridiculous. What Silio did is the metaphorical equivalent of shining a spotlight on someone—which can be sensed.
Silio is checking to see if there are any anomalies within Orestis, or whether he is carrying any holy artifacts that might grant him access to divinity. Obviously, he finds nothing—which puzzles both Silio and Demerius.
It is, however, not to the extent of making them too invested in the whole thing. Why? They are gods; they get random worshippers all the time. And if one of them happens to be pious enough to be able to access their divine power—well, good for them.
Still, he asks Demerius to let him know how things turn out, since he knows that the priests will soon be on their way to investigate.
…
That should have cleared up some of the questions.
As for why I didn’t write a chapter about the interaction between the two gods… I didn’t want to break the POV away from Orestis. Yet.
Plus, it feels too soon in the story to have gods become too familiar.
Chapter 5 notes
The next time Orestis feels a god watching is when the priests arrive. This time, it is Demerius letting him know he is under the proverbial magnifying glass.
Orestis’s behaviour intrigues Demerius. He feels something is off about this kid—he is too calm, too composed. And his words implied knowledge about the workings of gods—knowledge that he should not have.
This is why Demerius increased the intensity when the invitation was brought up. To let the boy know he wanted to talk.
As for why Orestis acted the way he did—after he knew they were not there to punish, he knew they’d either assign a ‘handler’ to him or take him in for a routine questioning. That being the case, there was no benefit in acting subservient or fearful towards the priests.
The invitation from Demerius was not something he was expecting. But he also realises that it was an opportunity to resolve things quietly—by getting Miera involved.
Yes, the risk was having Demerius’s eyes constantly on him, but Orestis never had any plans on doing anything to stand out.
In his mind, he could just keep living a simple, quiet, boring life in his mansion. Considering Demerius’s personality, Orestis is sure the god will get bored sooner rather than later.
Naturally, we can’t have things be that easy. I also wanted things to end up so bad he would have no choice but to start over.
However, I also don’t like the idea of using the time loop constantly—it makes consequences obsolete.
No consequences = no tension = boring.
We can’t have that.
So, I wanted this event to be a lesson on caution. One that Orestis will take to heart.
As for why such a lesson is necessary?
My thoughts were like this: Orestis has lived for over a thousand years without having to worry about consequences.
Or rather, he had wanted consequence (death) but was unable to get it. Which led to him acting in supremely reckless ways—ever escalating—while trying to achieve his goal.
Habits like that don’t change easily.
But he is smart, and disciplined enough to change his habits if he wanted to. He just needs a reason/realisation—which this event would serve as.
And thus, the first mini arc comes to an end.