His divine energy surpassed the maximum he had before. ' This is awesome, should I reward them now? No I can't make it that easy, let them starve for it first.
But it's best I give them just a little bit of hope so they don't give up.' Khaladrel understood this was manipulation but he saw nothing wrong with it.
Humans were created to serve gods, not just humans, most races, infact some were accidentally created by Gaia because she was bored or sneezed wrong.
Even though he was now a mortal the mentality he had as God hadn't changed. He now had 114 divine energy points.
He used 14 of them and directed it towards the humans. They all opened their eyes, surprised.
Their hunger was not as bad as before, they were still hungry but not so much so their stomachs hurt and barely having enough energy to even move.
As for Viona, her wound healed a little, the radiation stopped spreading and receded infact.
Just as she was about to celebrate, the wound stopped healing. It was no longer as bad as before but all this did was delay the inevitable.
She felt despair almost overwhelm her, having seen hope and then having it taken away was too much.
She grabbed Khaladrel by his collar. " Why why isn't it healing? I prayed didn't I?" Khaladrel almost smiled then stopped himself.
He still needed to practice his smile. " Miss Viona, if you could please let go of me. Thank you " he fixed himself.
" Nothing is free miss Viona, even for Gods, he gave you what you prayed for, an equivalent of it.
He has no reason to assist you beyond what your beliefs can afford you." She looked dejected, they all did.
" So what should we do?" Asked a middle aged man who was nothing but skin and bones.
Khaladrel smiled inside. " Pray." They looked confused. " Your prayers and beliefs must be genuine and you have to pray for a bit longer for the God to recognise your faith and loyalty.
Only then will he truly reward you as his own." They looked contemplative. " So if we want his help we need to have beliefs equal to what we want?
But how do you even quantify belief, can we calculate the exchange rate?" A young woman with squinted eyes started counting using her fingers.
The woman obviously needed glasses. Khaladrel sighed. " No no no, it's not a transection, the God help you because he want to.
If the only reason you pray is because you need something then your prayers and beliefs will not be genuine.
He will have no reason nor desire to assist you, as I said, you have to pray because you believe in him or wish to thank him not only when you need something."
The woman and Viona nodded at the same time. " I see, so the reason we received so little is because our prayers were not pure, they were only out of desire and not beliefs?"
Viona asked, Khaladrel nodded. " Thank you Mr Khali." Then she turned around and limped to a conor and fell asleep.
The others followed her, they were exhausted from running all night. Khaladrel watched them sleep and shook his head.
' This is going to be a drag.' these people knew nothing about how worship worked, of course this made them blank slates he can brainwash as he sees fit.
However doing that was going to be too much effort. He was the god of dreams, sleeping was part of his authority.
He hated working which was ironic considering he was also the god of progress but who could blame him.
As the youngest of the five, his older siblings spoiled him rotten, even more so than their parents.
However this was another thing that separated primordial Gods and other Gods. Primordial Gods like him could receive divine energy from their authority.
However there was a condition, it had to be within their domain. Khaladrel was currently very weak, his domain did not extend beyond the cave.
It will grow larger alongside his energy pool. Withing his domain though as long as progress occurred, he will receive divine energy points.
Whether it's scientific progress or magical progress, somebody inventing a spell that was not known in their world, even if it existed somewhere else he will still benefit.
Cultural progress, arts and everything is also under his authority. The most useful to him right now was his authority over dreams.
As long as people dream within his domain, it benefits him. After they fell asleep he waited a few minutes for the sweet divine energy points.
Minutes passed and nothing happened. Khaladrel was confused now. ' Strange.' even though he as the god of dreams was probably gone for a long time.
The authority of dreams still existed, people should've still been able to dream unless. ' Am I in the domain of another God? Or did something else interfere?'
Those were the only two possible explanations as to why not a single person could dream.
Either another God blocked his authority or some terrifying entity from the outer world is nearby.
He sighed, " guess I'll have to do it myself." He whispered. The people were sleeping like corpses.
Their bodies did not even turn they just lay there unmoving. It was unnerving to say the least.
He opened his hand and a tiny leather sack appeared. He poured pure golden sand out of it into his hand then blew the sand.
Golden particles flew gently through the air like fireflies. The sleeping people breathed them in.
Within seconds they started shifting in their sleep finding the perfect position. They smiled while sleeping.
The dark circles that were constantly under their eyes started disappearing. Khaladrel smiled, even with his authority, he was too weak to peer into their dreams.
But he was certain they were good, after all the golden sand can only create good dreams.
Then he started getting divine energy points, he couldn't help but smile. Because of his authority he didn't even need to use his energy to earn this one.
Creating dreams using the golden sand didn't require him to use any energy at all unless he intends to create a specific dream.
He sighed happily. " Ahhhhh, free things truly are the best."