Chapter 74 Gifts

"Since you were so nice to come out and greet me I would feel bad if I didn't give you a little gift now." Miriam smiles gently at the flood dragon in front of her, the smile immediately smites Reign and the others who stare at her with their jaws wide open.

Miriam's hand glows with a deep violet color before a small flame clads it, she simply touches the dragon's head with it again and the flame enters inside, leaving a small purple-colored symbol between its eyes. The dragon's eyes open widely as an unmistakable joy is shown on them, its gigantic body starts whipping around, like a little child that got a present for his birthday.

Miriam smiles again before saying. "Don't be too happy yet, the mark is a blessing, but also a curse, if you fail to properly wield its power you will be consumed by it, not to mention, if your powers do not grow quickly enough you might end up as a mount for someone." Miriam glances at Beast briefly and winks at him. The poor boy feels his body temperature rising at an exponential rate at that moment, as that was enough to make him almost fall in love with the woman.

"Kid, take this." Zeus flicks a small bolt of lightning at Reign who catches it by reflex, the bolt was pure, its color was white and a scorching heat was being emanated from it, strangely Reign couldn't feel any pain coming from his hand, he only felt a comfortable feeling from it, as if coming back to him mother's womb.

The lightning bolt explodes in a radiant fashion and the millions of small bolts pierce Reigns chest, but they do nothing, his clothes were still intact and he was fine.

"Wha-" Reign exclaims in surprise before Zeus explains what had happened.

"Don't worry kid, it's nothing bad, just a little test to check if you were good enough to receive my mark, and you passed with flying freaking colors." Zeus chuckles bitterly as he watched the whole scene, the white bolt was not something he would normally use for a mark, it was far too precious and powerful for that, only an incredibly smart percentage of beings were worthy of such an honor, and even then most of them failed miserably when trying to receive it, some even dying.

"You'll soon get a notification from the darned system about it, that will answer most of your questions so don't bother asking, I won't be here for much longer."

"Um, alright, thanks, I guess?" Reign chuckles worriedly as he scratches the back of his head, everything happened so suddenly that he didn't have time to even think about it, simply thanking the obviously much more powerful guy that was in front of him.

"Tch, at least you know how to behave, not bad, kid." Zeus smiles at Reign and nods in satisfaction, the trip he took this time had to end fruitlessly because of what Miriam said, but he at least got something good, a possible new protégé was immensely valuable to anyone, not to mention one of such a high caliber as Reign.

"Well while I'm here I guess I could try out my luck as well." Miriam comes close to Zeus as she seductively says, turning around she looks straight at Wolf and beckons him with his finger.

"Umm, me?" Wolf asks, befuddled, it wasn't as if he never met beautiful women in his life, in fact, he had many casual relationships before, and most of the times hot girls simply threw themselves on him, but someone like Miriam, he had never seen someone being as perfect as she was, it was hard for him to control himself in front of her, almost tripping after his first step.

Miriam sees that and chuckles. " Don't be nervous boy, I don't bite, I promise." Those words happen to work the opposite way she intended as Wolf's face reddens slightly and he immediately turns his head away from her in embarrassment.

Taking a few steps Miriam comes right in front of Wolf, staring at his eyes without even blinking.

"Quite nice, the look in your eyes, the emotion they show, well, the lack of them rather, you seem to be a rather promising one so far, hope you don't disappoint." Miriam chuckles again after finishing her sentence, the purple flame lights up on her finger and she gently touches Wolf's chest with it.

"Give it your best, I hope to see you again kid, who knows, you might be able to bring me quite a surprise the next time." Finishing her sentence she gently smiles at Wolf as she brings her palm up, caressing his cheek briefly.

She abruptly stops and turns around, walking back to Zeus. "We should really go now, as for you lot, I'm afraid there's nothing we can do for you, after all, your abilities differ from our expertise quite a lot, not to mention that a lot of those old farts will probably gain interest towards this place after today, it wouldn't be nice if we stole you from them."

Miriam looks over enchantingly at Shadow and the other 2 before turning around and nodding to Zeus, "Let's go Z."

Zeus nods in affirmation and looks at the sky. In a moment a huge bolt of lightning hits them and they disappear in a flash.

"Oh, and don't worry about the monsters around you, they won't dare to hurt you now, you will be able to safely exit the forest this time, but only this time." Miriam's voice echoes in everyone's ears as they snap out of their daze, only to find them completely surrounded by hundreds of monsters.

The monsters however do not attack them, they merely observe them with interest, it seems what Miriam is true and they won't have to fear for their lives anymore.

'Huff." A gust of wind blows over at them as the flood dragon huffs, it looks straight at Beast with slight anger. They all notice that and get incredibly nervous, fearing that the humongous beast will attack them. Luckily that doesn't happen as the flood dragon simply turns around after a while and returns to his lake.

"Who, who were those two?" Shadow asks Wolf and Reign in bewilderment, after all, what they all saw now was incredible, not even Eldar or Jack could do anything like this, the power shown by the couple seemed to be just the tip of the iceberg and it was already so immense.

Reign removes the upper part of his armor and inspects the mark that was put on the left side of his chest. The mark looked like some kind of an ancient symbol, one resembling a lightning bolt, it looked simple but incredibly mysterious.

As Reign brushes against it with his hand he gets a notification.

Ding!

[ Player has successfully received the "Mark of Zeus." ]

Description: A mark given to those immensely gifted in controlling lighting, most marks are given by proxies and underlings of Zeus, few are as fortunate as you, to have been given the mark by the God of Lighting personally. Give it your best to find the hidden knowledge and power that is in the mark and you will be rewarded handsomely.

As Reign finishes reading his mouth stands agape, he makes sure to read the description a couple of times in case he simply misunderstood the words, but no, he did not, the man that showed up in front of him was indeed Zeus.

"Z-Z-Zzeusss?!" Reign shouts in confusion as his whole body trembles noticeably, maybe it was from fear, maybe excitement, or perhaps it was just the pure shock of learning that gods truly exist.

"What?!" Everyone looks over at Reign, shocked with what they heard, after all, who on Earth hadn't heard the name Zeus before?

Reign wastes no time explaining things to them and simply shares the description with them. Everyone does the same as Reign and reads it a couple of times before they stare at Reign.

"T-that man, he was Zeus, as in the leader of gods Zeus?" Tank nervously asks Reign, fully knowing the answer that he was going to get.

"Yes, that man, he is Zeus." Reign nods in confirmation as he looks over at Wolf, "What about you Wolf, who was the woman?"

Wolf looks over and shares his description as well.

[ Player has successfully received the "Everlasting Flame" ]

Description: The everlasting flame is one of the most mysterious and strongest flames found in the universe, its heat can easily destroy planets and even stars will burn out when matched against it. You were given a tiny part of it by the "Immemorial Dragon" Miriam who hopes that you can master it and discover its secrets.

"Immemorial Dragon, wait, that lady was actually a dragon?!" Shadow exclaims as he reads the description fully.

"Seems like the universe is much bigger than we thought." Beast simply nods after he finishes reading, seemingly not shocked by it, even though his whole body was shaking uncontrollably.

"Anyway, we can think and talk about this later, let's first exit this forest, you never know if these guys decide to attack us at the end," Wolf tells everyone before they all nod and start walking towards the end of the forest, their journey was perilous but fruitful, and now, it was slowly coming to an end.