Chapter 48: 47. The Reign of The Uppers

Two system screens appeared in front of me, one of them had details on the title that I gained and the other had the option of scrolling as it showed a wide variety of options.

 

Initial Returnee

Tutorials are supposed to be over after twelve days, but you’re already back on Earth! Where is everyone else? Who are these weird creatures? You’re the first Earthling to go back to Earth after clearing the tutorial! - You’ll have your name broadcasted in the System Trading Stations for one week starting from the moment you returned. (Earth Time). -You gain 80 free stat points.

That’s sweet! The extra fame is going to help, and the free stat points are good!

I realized that this title meant that my name was currently being broadcasted on Earth’s Trading Stations, so the alien races should’ve already seen it.

I grinned, as this would’ve made my negotiations with them much easier once I went back to Earth.

I closed the title’s description and took a look at the long list of blessings that appeared in front of me.

[List of Blessings]	Number of Options: 794
[Agni’s Personal Blessing]		[Check the Details]
[Almighty Holy One’s Personal Blessing]		[Check the Details]
[Anubis’ Personal Blessing]		[Check the Details]
[Aphrodite’s Personal Blessing]		[Check the Details]
[Azazel’s Personal Blessing]		[Check the Details]
[…]		[…]
[…]		[…]

There were too many available options, and I kept scrolling for a while. I had no idea which deities offered the better blessings, so I went back to the beginning and checked the details of the first blessing on the list.

[Agni’s Personal Blessing]
Agni is a deity of the fire element, and many people believed that he was the personalization of fire! Revered by many people as the true god of flames, he blessed many worthy followers of his and allowed them to hold a portion of his magnificence! He’s been impressed with your control of the flames, and he wishes to bless you even though you attained your class through a shady avenue! Can you prove yourself to be worthy of this deity’s support? Advantages: -Increases Fire affinity to 100. -Allows you to teleport to his highness’s realm divine for personal training whenever you’d like. -Weekly resources to increase your power and improve your progress. -Imparts the [Brahmagni] method of refining mana. -Gain a title; [Agni’s Chosen]. -Allows you to act as Agni’s only avatar on Earth; you’ll share his teachings with the other humans and convert them into his followers. -You’ll undergo a special operation to go back to being a normal human; your system will stop glitching forever! -The next class evolution would force you to choose the class [Agni’s Underling] (uncommon).
Warning: You’ll be able to accept a maximum of ten blessings if you accept this one.
[Accept]	[Decline]

 

I like the fire affinity, but this is too much…

I didn’t care much about the inane nonsense and just skipped ahead to the advantages of this blessing. It gave many useful benefits, but some of the ‘advantages’ were too much for me.

I didn’t want to become an avatar, as that would force me to take on many responsibilities and heavily restrict my personal life. Furthermore, everything would be for naught once they forced me to give up my class to get an uncommon one instead.

Besides, I didn’t want to become a regular human, as that would’ve meant losing my latent ability. It allowed me to defeat the primordial, and that was enough for me to have an idea of how useful it could be.

This blessing had many positives that I liked, but the weird clauses made it a no-go.

I’ll skip to the next one.

I opened the description of Almighty Holy One’s personal blessing, and read its contents intently.

[Almighty Holy One’s Personal Blessing]
The Great Church is one of the most popular organizations in the Intergalactic Systematic Union, and that’s for a good reason! It saved many children from the slums and gave criminals second chances. Its leader is the Almighty Holy One, the High Deity of Light, Freedom, Prosperity, and Healing. He’s been watching your interest intently and wants to recruit you as a Special Knight and one of his agents on your planet. He’s so benevolent, and he decided to give someone like you a chance at redemption. Advantages: -Increases Holy, Fire, Water, and Ice affinities to 100. -You’ll be assigned a consulting deity who’ll be responsible for guiding you, protecting you, and answering your questions. -Allows you to teleport to your galaxy’s Great Church sector for personal training whenever you’d like. -Daily resources to increase your power and improve your progress. -Imparts the [Way of a Hero] method of refining mana. -Gain a title; [Great Church’s Chosen]. -Allows you to act as the Almighty Holy One’s fourth avatar on Earth; you’ll share his teachings with the other humans and convert them into his followers. You are reading story System Dilemma at novel35.com -You’ll undergo a special operation to go back to being a normal human; your system will stop glitching forever! -Your consulting deity will choose the next class for you when you can evolve it once more. -If you don’t accept this contract, you’ll be hunted until you die.
Warning: You’ll be able to accept a maximum of three blessings if you accept this one.
[Accept]	[Decline]

 

‘…give someone like me a chance at redemption’, huh? These blessings are pissing me off…

I inhaled a deep breath and decided to look at these blessings objectively. The blessing would improve my affinities nicely, and that would allow me a lot of freedom in case I wanted to use skills of these elements.

Furthermore, it seems like they were more generous than Agni when it came to resources. On the other hand, it seemed like I would only meet my consulting Deity instead of the Almighty Holy One himself.

I only opened this blessing’s description to get a quick laugh, but the last clause scared the shit out of me. I didn’t know whether they’d send an overpowered being to hunt me, or if the Great Church’s blessed humans would hunt me.

According to what ‘Loki’ told me earlier, the Great Church wanted to kill me to have full control of Earth through their other Blessed heroes. I was curious about the identities of the three avatars of the Almighty Holy One, but I had a guess.

Stella, Igor, and Oleg… The identity of the deities that blessed them remained a mystery in my past life…

I checked a couple more blessings, but they were all somewhat restricted one way or the other. The interesting thing was that they all seemed intent on transforming me into a non-Glitcher. I had no idea why they hated Glitchers so much.

Too many mysteries about Glitchers, yet I am still in the dark.

I took a look at ‘Loki’, and we made eye contact as he was already looking at me. He was squatting and he was eating popcorn with a grin on his face, as if he enjoyed seeing my silent suffering.

“So…,” I said, “Aren’t you going to tell me which one of these is your blessing? Is it ‘Loki’s Blessing? Or something related to the ‘system admin’?”

He smirked and shook his head.

“The former is just an alias of mine, and the latter is my job!” he said loudly, “Just keep scrolling down; my blessing should be the last one on the list.”

It took me about ten seconds of scrolling to find the last blessing on the list, and its name was a bit weird. I opened its description to find more details.

[???’s Personal Blessing]
Ever since he became the system admin, ??? was always there. At times, he was Prometheus. At others, he was Loki. Sometimes he even had to erase a deity and take his place. It was a tough job, but he had to keep the scenario going forward. He seldom interacts with deities, let alone mortals. It’s a miracle that he took interest in a mortal like you, and he’s willing to bless you. Advantages: -No need for formality with ???, he’s your friend, ally, and partner! -Teaches you the fundamentals of controlling your Latent Ability. -Gives you the title, [The Candidate]. -Allows you to contact him through a special system feature; ‘InterGalacticLine’. -Teaches you a forbidden chapter of history, [The Reign of The Uppers]. -You’re prohibited from sharing anything related to [The Reign of The Uppers] with anyone that ??? doesn’t approve of. -Keeps the ‘Shop’ feature going; it’ll stop working if you accept another Blessing. -Free Maintenance! The conflict between your system and your latent ability will be alleviated until you’re proficient in controlling your latent ability. -Many growth opportunities will be unlocked!
Warning: You’ll be able to accept any number of blessings if you accept this one.
[Accept]	[Decline]

 

The lack of a name for the system admin startled me, so I asked him about it. He shrugged his shoulders and told me that no one remembers his old name anyway except for himself. He told me to call him ‘Loki’ or ‘Prometheus’, and asked me to treat him as a friend without being formal.

He hates formalities, huh? Going as far as including a clause about being my ‘friend’ in the blessing…

I read the description in front of me, and I had mixed feelings about it. On one hand, this mysterious deity seemed to tolerate my latent ability and he was even planning on teaching me about it. The title seemed interesting compared to the ones that the previous contracts offered, I’d have to take some random history lessons too if I accepted his blessing.

‘The Reign of The Uppers’, huh? I am curious about this one, and I suspect that it has something to do either with Deities or Glitchers.

On the other hand, this blessing lacked the resources and the personal benefits that the two previous ones offered.

I would’ve appreciated some extra fire affinity…

Another clause caught my eye; it said that the only way to keep the ‘Shop’ was to accept this blessing. It wasn’t that big of a restriction, because this blessing didn’t restrict the number of blessings that I could pick.

All in all, this blessing was much less restrictive than the previous ones.

So, I am free to take other blessings if I accept this one, but I’ll have to give up on the shop if I do so…

“So…,” I said as I squinted my eyes, “What does the ‘Shop’ have to do with all of this? Wasn’t it compensation for my problematic system?”

“Oh, it was meant to be like that!” he replied with a smile, “You see, the items that you’re buying are coming from someone’s pocket, and I am pretty sure you realize the advantage that the shop gave you. If you accept another blessing, then you’ll have to deal with the consequences of your greed.”

“You could’ve restricted the total number of blessings that I could accept if I took yours, right?” I asked.

“That’s true,” he said, “But I believe that the only way to build trust between each other is by giving you freedom of choice. I am pretty sure you want some extra fire affinity, and you can get it from another blessing if you deem it more useful than the system shop.”

He shrugged his shoulder and put his hands behind his head and started humming.

So, he’s allowing me some freedom of choice, unlike the other deities.

The system shop was one of the most important reasons behind my current success, in addition to my future knowledge. It would’ve hurt a lot to lose it, but it wasn’t as instrumental as it was before. I was already one of the strongest humans, if not the strongest individually; the snowball was already big enough to keep rolling on its own.

I understood ‘Loki’s perspective; a relationship based on trust was much better than one based on control and fear.

I was already apprehensive about the other deities, as some of the clauses in their blessings were outright detrimental. I was even suspicious that many of them offered me blessings to shackle me and hinder me from getting too powerful to threaten their other blessed hosts.

I thought about it for a while and checked many more blessings to see if some of them were relatively less restricted.

However, ‘Loki’ interrupted me.

“So, which blessing are you planning on choosing?” He asked.

#

Special shoutout to:

GenericKane

Bladesune

The Patreon page is good to go! There is a total of six advanced chapters at this point, and I might add more if people are interested.

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