Ruho stared at the rack of ribs in his hands, then at the empty air where he assumed the gods were watching him from whatever divine dimension they occupied. "Okay, before I do anything, who the hell are these people? Gordon? Trevor? I need context here."
Azirel's voice immediately shifted into full fanboy mode, the kind of excited energy that suggested he was about to info-dump hard. "Oh man, okay, so Gordon is the Divine Trainee God of Cooking. Like, THE cooking god. Well, trainee cooking god, but still. He's incredible. His dishes can grant temporary buffs, heal status ailments, even provide permanent stat boosts if the quality is high enough. He once made a soufflé that gave someone fire resistance for a week. A SOUFFLÉ, Ruho!"
"Okay, but—"
"And Trevor is the Divine Trainee God of Diet and Nutrition. He's basically a food nerd but like, elevated to cosmic levels. He can look at any meal and tell you exactly what it'll do to your body down to the molecular level. He's helped design dietary plans for entire civilizations. He's like if a nutritionist and a scientist had a baby and that baby became a god."
"Cool, but why should I—"
"Oh, and they're both descendants of major gods!" Azirel continued, completely ignoring Ruho's attempts to speak. "Gordon is the great-great-great—uh, times fifty I think?—grandson of Hestia. You know, Greek goddess of the hearth and home? Fire and cooking and all that domestic stuff? It runs in the family apparently. And Trevor is descended from Demeter, goddess of agriculture and harvest. Also Greek. Also legendary. They're basically cooking royalty."
Ruho blinked. "Wait, Greek gods? Like, actual Greek mythology Greek gods? Those are real?"
"Well, yeah," Azirel said, like this should have been obvious. "Where did you think gods came from? We don't just spawn out of nowhere. Well, some of us do, but the old pantheons are definitely real. Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Hindu, all of them. The trainees are usually descendants or proteges learning the ropes before they take over domains or create their own."
"Huh." Ruho processed this information. "So Hestia and Demeter are real. Zeus is real. All those myths about turning into swans and eating kids and—"
"Let's not get into Zeus's track record," Gordon's refined voice cut in dryly. "We'll be here all day. And yes, mortal, I am Gordon Pyrosthenes, fifty-second generation removed from Hestia's line, and I have been perfecting the culinary arts for three hundred years. That meat you're holding is a delicacy, and I would very much like to examine it more closely."
"And I'm Trevor Karposthenes," the nasal voice added. "Forty-ninth generation from Demeter, and I've been studying nutritional science for two hundred and seventy years. Those macros I listed earlier are just the beginning. If you give me proper access to that meat, I can tell you about the amino acid profiles, the—"
"Nobody wants to hear about amino acids, Trevor," several gods said in unison.
Ruho looked down at the ribs again. Greek god descendants wanted his raw meat. His life had gotten so weird. "Okay, fine. Neat. Greek gods exist and their great-great-times-fifty grandkids want my food. Now about this wheel thing?"
"RIGHT!" Tyrix's voice practically vibrated with excitement. "The Wheel of Powers! Let me explain how this works. See, there are approximately—and I'm rounding here—several septillion possible spells in this world."
"Septillion?" Ruho repeated. "That's not a real number."
"It absolutely is," Tyrix said. "It's a one followed by twenty-four zeros. Anyway, most of those spells are way beyond your current capabilities. Like, you'd need thousands of mana points to even attempt them. But! There are about one hundred and two thousand spells that are perfectly scaled to your current mana capacity of twenty points. These are your entry-level spells, your basic building blocks, your starter kit for magical development."
"Okay..."
"So I took all one hundred and two thousand of those spells and put them on a wheel!" Tyrix continued. "You spin it, it lands on a spell, and boom—that spell becomes permanently encoded into your magical repertoire. You'll instinctively know how to cast it, what it does, and how much mana it costs. It's instant magical education!"
"That sounds too good to be true," Ruho said suspiciously. "What's the catch?"
"No catch!" Tyrix said. "Well, except you only get one spin. And it's completely random. And some spells are way more useful than others. But those aren't really catches, just... variables!"
Seria's voice cut in, more measured and professional. "Before we get to the wheel, Ruho needs to understand how offerings work. The process is actually quite simple. First, you need to remove anything you personally own from a fifty-meter radius around yourself."
Ruho looked around his six-square-meter dirt chamber. "I own literally nothing. I'm wearing borrowed pants with no underwear and no shoes. This step is already done."
"Excellent," Seria said. "That makes things easier. Second step: you need to verbally dedicate the offering to a specific god or trainee god. Be clear about who you're offering it to—the divine bureaucracy can get messy if offerings aren't properly directed. Third step: that's it. The food will disappear, transported to the god's domain for their examination and consumption. If they deem the offering worthy and of sufficient quality, you'll receive a blessing based on what they determine you need most."
"What I need most?" Ruho asked. "Don't I get to choose?"
"No," Seria said firmly. "The god decides. It's part of the whole divine wisdom thing. We see the bigger picture, understand your circumstances better than you do, and provide accordingly."
"That seems like a terrible system," Ruho muttered, but he was already lifting the rack of ribs. Nine thousand calories versus a potentially game-changing spell and divine blessing. The math was clear, even if his stomach disagreed. "Okay. Fine. I offer this... ground-aged fatty venison rib thing... to Gordon, Divine Trainee God of Cooking."
The rack of ribs vanished from his hands.
Just gone. One second he was holding ten pounds of raw meat, the next his hands were empty and faintly warm, like he'd been holding something that had been gently heated.
"Oh, this is EXQUISITE!" Gordon's voice rang out, filled with genuine delight. "The marbling! The enzyme development! The fat crystallization! Trevor, are you seeing this?"
"The nutritional density is OFF THE CHARTS!" Trevor practically squealed. "This is perfect macronutrient balance! This is—this is BEAUTIFUL!"
"Glad you guys are happy," Ruho said, trying not to think about the nine thousand calories he'd just given away. "Now about that wheel?"
"ON IT!" Tyrix shouted.
A blue screen materialized in front of Ruho, much larger than the previous ones. This one took up almost his entire field of vision, displaying a massive wheel divided into what looked like thousands of tiny segments, each one labeled with a different spell name. The text was too small to read from this distance, the segments blurring together into a rainbow of colors and shapes.
"Press the button!" Tyrix urged. "Press it press it press it!"
Ruho reached out and pressed the glowing "SPIN" button that had appeared at the bottom of the screen.
The wheel exploded into motion.
It spun so fast the individual segments disappeared completely, becoming a solid blur of color. A dramatic fanfare played from nowhere, the kind of music you'd hear on a game show right before someone won a car. Lights flashed around the edges of the screen. Confetti that didn't actually exist seemed to rain down in Ruho's peripheral vision.
The wheel spun for what felt like forever, gradually beginning to slow. The segments became visible again, individual spell names flickering past as the wheel's rotation decreased.
METEOR STRIKE... ARCANE SHIELD... MIND READING... GREATER HEAL...
Slower.
SUMMON FAMILIAR... LIGHTNING BOLT... INVISIBILITY... WATER BREATHING...
Slower still.
THREE LIVES... FIREBALL... KILLER INSTINCT...
The wheel was barely moving now, ticking forward one segment at a time. Ruho held his breath. Fireball. Come on, fireball. That was a classic. Everyone needed a fireball.
KILLER INSTINCT...
Tick.
EARTH WALL...
Tick.
SOLID JUMP.
The wheel stopped.
There was a moment of absolute silence.
"Solid Jump," the screen announced cheerfully, as information began appearing below the spell name. "Basic mobility enhancement. Increases jump height and distance."
Ruho stared at the screen. "Are we deadass right now? My power is 'jump good'?"
"Hey, mobility is important!" Tyrix said, but his voice lacked its usual enthusiasm. "Jumping is... it's a valuable skill!"
"I CAN ALREADY JUMP!" Ruho shouted. "I don't need magic to jump! I needed something useful! Something that would help me survive! Something that—wait." He paused, an idea forming. "Wait, maybe I can spam it? Like, jump, then jump again mid-air? Basically fly? Or do those video game double-jumps?"
Azirel's voice came back, and Ruho could hear him reading directly from a file. "Spell description: Solid Jump allows the user to perform enhanced vertical and horizontal jumps up to fifteen feet in any direction. If the user's natural jumping ability already approaches or exceeds fifteen feet, the spell will instead increase jump distance by one hundred and fifty percent of their base capability. Costs ten mana per use. Cooldown: none. Cannot be activated while airborne."
Ruho's hope died. "I have twenty mana total. I can use this exactly twice before I'm completely drained."
"Well, yes, but—"
"And I can't use it while airborne, so no double-jumping."
"True, but if you look at the bright—"
"Instead of summoning abilities," Ruho interrupted, his voice rising with each word, "or fireball, or necromancy, or literally ANY of the other hundred thousand spells on that wheel, I got JUMP. I got the ability to jump slightly better than normal, twice, before my magic runs out completely."
"Jumping is very useful in combat situations!" Azirel tried. "You can dodge attacks, reach high places, escape danger—"
"I LIVE IN A FOUR-FOOT-TALL DIRT TUNNEL!" Ruho screamed. "Where am I going to jump?! What high places?! I can't even stand up straight in here!"
"Okay, but when you get out of the tunnel—"
"I gave up NINE THOUSAND CALORIES for this!" Ruho continued, pacing in his small chamber, his hands gesturing wildly. "Nine thousand! That's a week of food! That's survival! And what did I get? The ability to jump good! JUMP! That's not even a real spell! That's just... enhanced leg strength! That's a gym workout, not magic!"
"To be fair," Trevor's voice chimed in, "those nine thousand calories would have been difficult for your body to process all at once. You probably would have gotten severe indigestion, possibly vomiting, definitely some intestinal distress—"
"NOT HELPING, TREVOR!" multiple gods shouted.
Ruho slumped against the wall of his chamber, sliding down until he was sitting on the ground. His head fell into his hands. "Jump," he muttered. "I can jump. That's my power. Jump."
"Look on the bright side," Azirel started.
"There is no bright side," Ruho cut him off, his voice flat and defeated. "I'm in a crocodile burrow, I have no food, I'm covered in mud, I'm wearing pants with no underwear, I have twenty mana points—the magical equivalent of a ten-year-old—and my one spell, my ONE spell that I traded a week's worth of calories for, is JUMP."
From the divine peanut gallery, someone started laughing. Then another god joined in. Then another. Within seconds, the laughter was universal, dozens of divine entities absolutely losing it at Ruho's expense.
"This is the best reality show ever," someone managed to say between fits of laughter.
"I had 'useless utility spell' in the betting pool!" another voice crowed. "Pay up, everyone!"
Ruho sat in his dirt chamber, surrounded by the laughter of gods, and wondered if it was too late to request the ghost option instead.