18) Goddess of the Dawn

(Author's Note: There is slight info dump in this chapter, I have tried to explain the entire Falna system is brief, and in an immersive way, please read the info, as I have detailed the workings of the falna system in whole, if you are ever going to write a danmachi fic, it might help!

A/N: Sorry for the late chap! Again a problem with a timer!)

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Ember Pov

Yesterday's event was a complete shock to everyone including me, I was just strolling in the forest, when I heard a beastly roar, I quickly ran towards there as my experience told that the monster was probably an Orc and had met a prey for it to release such roar, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't any human and sadly it was. They were Maria and Jason; one was heavily wounded while another was chased by the monster.

I got on top of a tree and quickly charged on the Orc, with my flexible and Agile body, with my impeccable sword skills I managed to slay that Orc. It involved risk though; I would have preferred to use Magic but finishing the long ass chant in time to save Maria involved significant risk on her life, and so I had to engage in Close combat.

Thankfully, it was just a single Orc, and I had experience battling in close combat before, or I would have been in a hitch, after that we took the unconscious Jason to the village, and rest is history. I was a little conflicted when I handed over the High-Potion to save him, technically me and Jason were still strangers, we just knew about each other, and for him I was a traveller who would soon leave the village.

I was definitely not some good-hearted hero, but neither a fucking prick. I had eight High-Potions with me and two Elixirs for emergency, so the hesitation within me lasted only for a moment, saving the life of the poor guard, and earning the gratitude of everything. I also managed to analyze Goddess Aurora, she was one of the good Gods, like Njord if it isn't an alternate world.

I had observed her for days and then I have come to this conclusion, I have now planned to join her familia. To be honest as lucrative it sounded to join an already established familia, currently only Zeus and Hera familia were worth the effort, but joining them had a significant risk, and I would rather play safe. Afterall slow and steady wins the race, when you have time.

So, now I am in front of the house where Goddess lived, amusingly, she lived alone in a house, and while it was quite big it still fell short in front of the Village Chief's house, as for why she didn't live in village chief's house? Probably she didn't want to disturb in their love life, though that's just my guess. I knocked on the door, and waited for a while, and she opened the door.

"Ah, sir Ber, you are quite early today, it is barely 4:OO A.M", she said with an yawn, I said," Goddess Aurora I have something important to talk with you", I won't lie I was a bit nervous, I even had questions like,' What if my decision is wrong?' or ' What if She isn't the Kind Goddess she pretends to be?' in my mind, but to be honest it was now just pure paranoia acting up.

" Well, come in", she said, and I entered the house, closing the door, she took me to the guest room, and we sat on a sofa, she smiled and said before I could say anything, " Sir Ber, you can call me just Aurora, after all the Goddess title is so long... And well thank you for yesterday", she bowed before me," You lots have already paid the money for the High-Potion", I said.

She looked at me with a sincere look and said," It isn't about money- You saved Jason... I can't thank you enough for that. I have literally watched his parents since they were kids, and him as well. Seeing the person, I watched since kid and played with him, dying slowly before me as I was helpless to save him, it wasn't a good experience, never was."

" I see... First, how to say this? My name isn't Ber actually, though I know you must already know it", I said truthfully looking in her eyes, she giggled and said," Indeed, children can't lie in front of Gods, same cliche stuff, so what's the reason for telling the truth? Just you know Ber, it doesn't matter. I have a lot of experience knowing whether a person is a bad person or not... And even if you lied, and stalked me, I knew you weren't a bad person."

Hearing her say that I stalked her I winced internally, I thought I had played smart, well I fell short in front of a Goddess with centuries of experience, I guess. I sighed and said looking at her," My real name is Ember Ljos Alf, yes I belong to Royalty, not long ago I ran away from Alf's Forest, and had been looking to join a familia ever since."

" Oh! You were observing me for that reason? Ara Ara and I hear I thought you had fallen in love with this voluptuous body of mine", she said as she puffed her chest and her milkers jiggled, the previous me would have blushed like an idiot and gulped his saliva, but as I said, my sense of beauty had been long destroyed by the Elf beauties that surrounded me since my childhood, so I just stared at her deadpan.

She coughed with embarrassment seeing her usual antics didn't work on me and said," Anyway, Your Highness Ember, do you really want to join my familia? I won't lie, while I am very open to grant you my falna, I would probably feel quite accomplished to have a High-Elf as my child, other than the falna, I don't have much to offer, at best a house to stay, clothing to wear and food to eat."

She then looked at me seriously," Honestly you won't accomplish much by joining my familia, your highness, someone like you deserves much better to be honestly", she said, she wasn't berating herself but just stated plainly I chuckled and said," I wasn't looking for a Grandeur familia to join in the first place, otherwise I would have headed to Orario to try my luck with Zeus and Hera Familia."

" I wanted a God, who would truly cherish me, and won't see me as a pawn to his game... That's all I wanted", I said looking at her and she blushed and looked away," Your Highness, you are pretty handsome and even cute on top of that... If you look me that intensely, I might not be able to hold myself back", she said, my eyebrows twitched at her nonsense.

" Anyway, Goddess Aurora you don't need to call me ' Your Highness ', or anything like that, just call me Ber, or Ember since we are alone, and please tell me your answer", I said to her, she smiled and said," Ember, it had been exactly 352 years since I had descended into lower world, at first I lived in a city which was run by my friend and her familia."

" It was by chance I happened to run into this village, unlike now, that time it was in a desolate condition. The villagers were extremely poor and lived a very bad life. I wasn't able to see their misery and decided to stay in this village and improve the quality of life of the people. In two decades, all the villagers were literate and well off, but by then I had developed quite the affection for this village", she said.

She sighed and said," I feared what would happen if I left this village, what if after a few years it returns to what it was before? Thus, despite my friend's insisting me to leave this place, I stayed here, and after that, I just remained here... New generations came and died, and I was unable to leave, but to be honest I am happy that I arrived at this village that day, since I am finally happy."

She stood up and said," Ember I can't grant you lofty status, I can't even grant you quality weapons... potions or meals, I always joke what seems nonsense to others, my otaku side often acts up, but I promise, if I am your Goddess, I will never betray your trust, that you put in me", her voice serious unlike her usual self.

' Don't trust her, she might be lying ', or, ' She might betray you for this village ', rang in mind, to be honest it wasn't even funny. But I ignored them, and with a smile I took her hand and planted a kiss on top of it, " Nice to meet you my Goddess", I bowed slightly, she giggled and suddenly hugged me taking by surprise," Nice to meet you... My Child", her voice, it was filled with so much joy that it felt unreal.

Soon, I was lying on her bed naked with my back facing her, she prickled her finger and dropped her blood on me, as I felt some shackles inside me being broken. It was done, I had falna. I could see the figure of holographic status from the corner of my eyes. She closed it, and copied my status on a paper and handed it over to me. She said," You are really talented, you already have one skill and one magic!", and I looked at my status.

[Level 1

Strength: I0

Endurance: I0

Dexterity: I0

Agility: I0

Magic: I0

Skills:

Decipher: Helps the user Decipher the truth, theorems, and workings of the world through logic, prediction and guess.

Magic:

1) Cremation (Chant): " O'Flames of Legends! Burn brighter than thy enemy! Turn them into cinders! Let their Ashes wash in your blue flames! Cremation!"

2) N/A

3) N/A]

It was pretty simple, unlike what others assume it didn't show the name of the person or their race, only their level, basic parameters, development skills if any usually along the basic parameters as they are growth type, then skills, and finally magic and magic slots and the familia the person belongs through an emblem of the familia as a tattoo in a side. Seeing my skill and magic, I smiled a little, after all having a skill and magic from beginning is already good start.

" Well, Ember now that you have got falna let me explain how it works, and everything else", she said, taking my attention off my status, and I nodded ready to listen to her words carefully. She smiled and standing in front of me she explained," Firstly, Falna only breaks off the inherent shackles of the Adventurer, doesn't expand their innate talent."

" Now, you have five basic parameters, namely Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, Agility and Magic, they do as their name suggests, to increase your parameters you must gain excelia, there are a few ways to do that, physical training is one of that, however battling opponents and killing monsters are the most efficient way", she explained to me.

" The growth in your basic parameters is proportional to your own abilities, if I were to explain in a simple way- Let's take a normal human and a beast man, if both are Level 1 and have Strength A800 then the beast man will be much stronger than human, as his innate strength is already greater than and so will be his senses", she said and I nodded.

She suddenly smiled with excitement and said," It means! You will be already much stronger as compared to others at same level! Your body is already peak of what Elves can achieve, and I am sure you already know congenital magic, and as High-Elf have a pretty good innate mind. It would mean physically you will be stronger than all humans at same level and parameters, even many beast men and amazons, since you fucking killed an Orc without any falna and so will be your magic!"

Her excitement was valid and so was mine, as I grinned at hearing her words. She continued,"*Ahem* We went off topic, now returning to my explanation, the parameters are shown with a rank and number which are from 0-999 in number and I to A, then S in alphabetical order from low to high, represented as 0-99 is I, 100-199 is H, and so on till 900-999 is S, that's the limit of the falna container or so I know", she said, I nodded, as I already knew this much.

" Then comes natural talent, while in earlier stages of parameters amount of hard work is equal to gain in parameters for everyone, in later stages, for some it becomes a bit harder to raise their status than others. That's why not everyone manages to achieve an S in their parameter before level up", she said.

" Now comes Level up, the Level starts from 1 and goes on, I don't know it's limit considering it is still unknown what is the maximum level one can achieve, basic parameters increase through gain excelia and one can rank up using high-rank excelia which is obtained from feats that could impress Gods, meaning achieving things that isn't meant for their level such as defeating stronger opponents", she said.

" With every rank up the parameters are reset to I0, however the previous parameters are there, stored in a form of layer, due to each rank up, overall abilities increase greatly, thus it is a way to improve your strength even if you had hit your limit, with many choosing to level up once they had hit level, while ironically many choose not to", she paused and took a breath.

" Ember, Gods can choose to apply or restrain the excelia gained by their children, both normal and high-ranking type, thus a God can prevent their children's basic parameters increasing or gaining development abilities if God doesn't want to, but rarely any God does this, mostly only refraining them so that they can increase is a later on as a huge boost in parameters", she said.

" On other hand, many Gods choose to restrain the High-Ranking excelia, so that their children can increase their basic parameters before leveling up. It is a very good strategy, devised around a century ago by Zeus and Hera Familia. Now comes, Development abilities, they can be only gained after a rank up", she said.

" Development abilities are those abilities that you gain through circumstances, like a swordsman can gain swordsman Development skill, and a person who had gained a resistance to poisons by consuming them regularly, gaining Abnormal Resistance skill and so on. Development abilities are represented by alphabets from I to S, they increase by performing the same task over and over, development abilities help an adventurer increase their skills, and talents, extremely fast compared to natural methods", she said swirling her finger.

She then sat beside me, and looked at my status, pointing at my skills she said," Now comes, skill, they are like development abilities, however one gets a skill due to a desire or his own innate speciality, they are like maximum powered Development Abilities from the start, however one can refine their use through practice. Skills can be anything from increasing your any basic parameter, to your intellect temporarily or permanently."

" Now comes magic... It totally depends upon one's talents, some might have no talent for magic having no magic slot, and most talented ones have maximum of three magic slots, showing as long as they continue growing up, they would have chance to acquire maximum of three different magics. Magic with short chant is usually weaker than magic with longer chants, Ember you have a pretty good talent, since having three slots is limit", she said.

I suddenly asked her," Is there any way to increase the magic slot?", she smiled and nodded," I was getting there, the only way to increase a magic slot beyond three, and sure way to gain magic and a new slot is by using Magic Grimoires, that's all I know. Lastly, there are curses, another type of method of combat like magic, using Mind of the user or Magic status, however unlike magic they are of restraining type", she said.

" Curses like Development abilities don't show up in status unless you get them, and the way to get them is similar to magic, I don't know much detail about them, but as I said, they are of restraining type, they effect the target's strength, endurance, agility or even senses depending on their type, that's all about the Falna, Status, Parameters, Development Abilities, Magic and Curses!", she said taking a deep breath.

I have already taken her information inside my mind, and have analyzed it, realizing the vastness of this system. Truly, anime never did the falna system it's justice, not showing how detailed and planned it is. Thankfully I had read the Novel, unfortunately I left the novel in the middle, and had only watched the anime till season 6.

I looked at my status, I can already guess why I gained Decipher skill, I have basically been deciphering things since my birth, like I deciphered the race, and identity of my parents and me, the world I am, the way to train, and how magic works. I have literally deciphered the entire plan to escape from Alf's Forest on my own, so I gained this skill, I smiled a little as I could see this skill was working, as I basically deciphered the reason behind why I got this skill.

For magic, I will do tests later on, but for now. I looked at my Goddess, who was looking at the clock," Ember, it is already 5 A.M. some villagers would soon wake up", she said, I stood up and nodded, then I asked," Goddess what should I do with my name?", she looked at me and said," Indeed, you are Elf Royalty and have ran away from Alf's forest, we can't use your real name as it might get you exposed."

" What about using an Alias? Technically my name is Ber, taken from my full name Ember, however if I were to use an Alias, then there should be lower problems", I said, explaining her my intention, she nodded with a smile and said," Ember, do you know, while Gods can tell whether a mortal is lying in front of them, it is limited to what the mortal believes to be truth, thus right now when you said your name is Ber, it was truth."

I had a guess on it, but I nodded in gratitude for her, she basically told me the way to lie to the Gods, which usually no God would do. " As for an Alias... Well, I am not good in names, the last villager I named was Babyboo... And well he still resents me for that", she sighed, explaining her poor naming sense, I gave an Amen for the guy who was named ' Babyboo ', and thought for an Alias.

I smile curled up on my face as I looked at her," So what's the name?", she asked me with a knowing smile, well aware that I have an alias ready for me, without any hesitation I told her about the name for my alias," Tithonus... I want my alias to be Tithonus."

To be continued...

(Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this chapter! The info dump was very much required! I mean which God doesn't explains the detail of how falna works after granting them? Maybe it might be a common knowledge, or maybe just because the Goddess is Hestia who has her mind filled with her eyes on Bell's D than to have any other thought.

Anyway, I hope you are liking the story so far! Give this story a five star rating, a good review(Maybe when this fic has 50 chaps), and some powerstones! I will upload chaps daily for the next four days!)