“Unfortunately, those are the only abilities I have to give you. The others I don’t use all use mana and I was told angels can’t use mana.”

  Victoria says “That is correct. It is more than I was expecting. A low rank angel such as I wouldn’t normally be granted a single ability, let alone four. Honestly, I am surprised that you are even able to grant abilities. I may have underestimated how powerful you are.”

  “I will have to see if I can gain more abilities that use divine power to give you. For now, you will have to make due with those. Here, these are the rest of the cores I collected. Go ahead and absorb them, just don’t rank up so fast that it damages your foundations.”

  Victoria says “I don’t need to worry about that. An angel’s foundations are set, ranking up does not affect them. I could have been born at rank ten and it wouldn’t have changed anything.”

  “Oh, that’s good to know. Alright, go ahead and absorb all of them then.”

  Victoria takes the pile of cores I give her and heads into her room to absorb them. Asuna also heads to her room, I take the now sleeping puppy with me and Lin into our room. I put his nest on one side of the bed and then have some fun with Lin on the other side.

  Somehow, the puppy manages to sleep through all of it, which is fairly impressive. Once we are done, Lin falls asleep in my arms and I open the normal soulscapes. However, after I am done having fun with the goddesses, I ask them to hang around for a minute.

  Seronia says “Do you have more questions about your angel?”

  “Actually, yes. I wanted to ask about how to gain more abilities that use divine power that I can grant her. Is it like mana, can I just create abilities?”

  Krenocia says “It is possible, but it is a lot harder than what you normally do.”

  Seronia says “Divine abilities require a rigid structure. They have to be carefully organized, even formal in a sense. You have to use the divine language to form the base, then create a spell form around it and add more language to tell it what to do. It cannot have any incomplete phrases or elements.”

  Krenocia says “There cannot be any chaos involved, something you will have more than a little trouble with.”

  “Hey! I can do structured!”

  Seronia says “You can try it, but don’t be surprised if things go wrong. The divine language can be really tricky when it comes to creating abilities.”

  Krenocia says “Remember, no matter how tempting it may be, you cannot create any new words for the divine language!”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “I won’t forget. Just to be sure, this means I have permission to experiment, right?”

  Seronia says “Yes, unfortunately, it does.”

  Krenocia says “That’s mainly because it isn’t too dangerous. The worst you should suffer from a failed attempt is a headache that will last a couple of days. Still, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful.”

  “I will be careful. I am just hoping to create a few basic spells to give Victoria. I want her to be able to heal, but I don’t want to give up my heals.”

  Seronia says “In that case, here. This is the basic heal spell form. This sentence is the only one that will work as a spell foundation. Don’t try to change it!”

  “Why is it the only one that will work?! There should be a couple of different words that could be used in it.”

  Seronia says “There should be, but they don’t work. We don’t know why. We just know that this sentence is the only one that works. Don’t try using anything else unless you want a seriously painful headache.”

  “Is that something you were told? Or did you actually try it?”

  Krenocia says “We have both tried it. The headache is no joke!”

  “Okay, I believe you. I won’t try messing with it!”

  Seronia says “I find that hard to believe. You must be curious about it!”

  “Of course I am! However, I have learned to temper my curiosity when it comes to things dealing with the divine. I don’t want to become a god and those kinds of secrets can lead to that.”

  Seronia says “While that is true, I’m not sure that I believe you can control your curiosity. I think there are many headaches in your future.”

  Krenocia says “This time, I agree with my sister!”

  “We will see. Thank you for the information. I will try it out right away!”

  They both give me loving kisses and say goodbye before they leave my soulscape. When I end the soulscape and open my eyes, I find that there is a warm weight on my neck. At first, I think Lin has wrapped an arm around my neck, but she is holding my waist.

  I shapeshift my neck just enough to take a look and find that the puppy is lying across my neck. He is sound asleep, so I am careful not to move so as to not disturb him. I close my eyes, gather some of my divine energy, and start trying to construct the spell form that Seronia showed me.

  I don’t try any modifications or experiments, I need to confirm the basics first. Only once I have increased my understanding of creating divine abilities will I start experimenting. It turns out that even creating a basic ability like healing isn’t as easy as it looked in the soulscape.

  The whole thing collapses as I am putting the last divine word into it and the headache hits instantly. It feels like a brain freeze times ten, but it isn’t anything I can’t handle. However, it would probably be a completely different story if I didn’t have the Pain Resist skill.

  The pain fades after a few minutes, way faster than I was led to believe it would. So, I start over and make another attempt at building the spell form, but the same thing happens. It happens at a different point in the construction, earlier than it failed the first time.

  It seems that in my haste I made a simple mistake early in the form and it caused the collapse. I bear with the pain and once it passes, I try again, but I take my time and do it properly. It still fails, but this time it is almost complete when it fails, I am getting closer.

  I make a few more attempts, but they all fail and then my attempts are interrupted. The puppy wakes up and starts licking my neck, it is very distracting and prevents me from trying more. So, I give up working on it for now and give him my attention and some affection.

  This goes on until he starts mewling at me, at which point I feed him his breakfast. He still hasn’t opened his eyes, but he is growing and being more active when he’s awake. Unfortunately, while I love dogs, I have no idea how long it might take for him to open them.