A Gift

After being dismissed by the Night Watchman, Little George wandered aimlessly along the street out of boredom.

He needed to find a dry, comfortable place where he could lie down.

Little George had lost his parents early and had been roaming the streets of Trino City ever since.

"When will the Lord's spirit bestow its grace upon me?"

As he walked, he scratched his messy hair.

Suddenly, something hard struck him on the head, followed by a crisp ding.

"Dammit, which bastard dared throw something at me?!"

Little George cursed at the empty air, but the surroundings remained silent.

Only the crying of children awakened by his shouting in the apartments along the street answered him.

He spat, then suddenly noticed something rolling to a stop beside his feet.

It gleamed yellow. It was a Gold Pound!

"Th-this... praise the great Lord!"

He had to beg all day just to occasionally receive a Copper Penny.

This single Gold Pound was worth two months of Little George's income!

He was so excited he could not close his mouth. His prayer had actually come true.

The surging feeling in his heart condensed into faith, forming threads through the night sky.

Inside the chapel, Ivan in the tank seemed to sense something.

A stream of faith energy twice as pure as before came to him from the distant void.

He felt that he was only one final step away from breaking through that shackle.

"What's going on? Did someone with powerful Spirituality pray to me, or what?"

Ivan was completely baffled by this sudden gift. He knew nothing about the details of faith energy.

Abel and Gais were still confronting each other before him.

Fine beads of sweat formed on Gais's forehead.

He could not understand what Abel's words just now had meant.

"Sir, I'm sure there must be some misunderstanding.

Look, I was only using a Jellyfish to pretend to be the Lord's spirit and swindle people."

His words abruptly caught in his throat, and he clapped both hands over his mouth.

"Why did I tell the truth?!"

"What else?"

"N-no, that's all, sir."

Abel took another drag from his cigarette, its ember flickering in the darkness.

He coughed and sighed.

"Ah, wrong again. Just another con artist putting on a show."

"However, blasphemy is still a serious crime. You and your assistant will come with me to the church.

Believe me, not resisting will lead to the best outcome for you."

"Sir, I... I only scammed people six times, and I truly didn't commit blasphemy!"

Gais's voice gradually faded into the distance.

The Small Chapel slowly went from lively to silent.

Only a Jellyfish glowing with a faint blue light remained on the platform.

Ivan silently watched as the Night Watchman carted away the entire scam operation.

"That Night Watchman seems to possess some extraordinary power that makes people speak only the truth.

If my faith energy breaks through its shackle, could I gain a similar ability?"

"That bastard Gais used a Jellyfish as a god to deceive people, yet sincerely believed he had not committed blasphemy.

Tsk, that's the greatest blasphemy of all."

"Good catch. At least I won't be used as a tool for scamming people anymore...

Wait, no. What am I supposed to do now that they're gone? Who's going to change my water?!"

Ivan suddenly woke up to the problem.

No matter how much of a bastard Gais was, he at least remembered to pour some salt-mixed fresh water into the tank every day.

Now that he had been arrested, this glass tank would become a cage that slowly dried out.

In less than two days, Ivan would turn into a dried-up glowing Jellyfish.

The faint blue light flickered inside the tank, mirroring Ivan's anxiety.

He curled his tentacles and repeatedly slammed them against the glass walls of the tank.

But the glass was cold and hard. Aside from shaking loose droplets clinging to the walls, he could not even make a crack.

That pure stream of faith energy was still circling within him, and he was only a little short of breaking through the shackle.

Yet that power was like floodwaters blocked behind a dam, unable to force open the final gap no matter what.

Bubbles continuously rose from the tank as Ivan struggled in the water.

The thudding slaps and gurgling sounds formed a strange symphony, especially eerie in the silent room.

"Great Lord!"

Little George suddenly stumbled in through the back door.

He ran to the tank on the platform and frantically fell to his knees, banging his forehead against the wooden floor with loud thuds.

"Great Lord!

You are ten thousand, and also one hundred thousand, you are the Spirituality...

Uh... what came after that again?"

"Your Eminence..."

He raised his head, only to discover that the room was already empty.

The words he wanted to use to ask about the prayer caught in his throat.

"In any case, thank you, great Lord, for bestowing this grace. I am incomparably honored that you answered my prayer."

And just as Little George rushed in and worshipped him,

Ivan saw a thread formed of energy fly from Little George through the air and into his body.

"This energy is the same as before!"

He gradually understood. The previous believers had long become numb in their faith toward the gods, so the power of their faith had been too weak.

But Little George's prayer had somehow been fulfilled by him.

The faith born from that response was far more powerful than blind belief.

The energy shackle within him was finally broken through.

Ivan only felt the faith energy he had accumulated earlier continuously circulate through his body.

That mass of energy surged from his tentacles to his head, then flowed from his head back into countless tentacles.

Yet he could not absorb it at all, as though there was nowhere for it to go.

"This is bad. Something seems wrong."

Inside the tank, Ivan's light flickered violently, like a broken gas lamp.

Little George, illuminated by the light, stared blankly at everything.

"The Lord... has manifested?"

Ivan felt as though that energy would burst him apart.

An idea flashed through his mind. If he was going to burst, then burst.

Divide!

With a soft pop, the faint-blue Jellyfish scattered into countless points of starlight.

Those points refracted countless blue rays in the water, like a sky full of shining stars, and the energy dispersed along with them.

Crash! The tank instantly exploded into powder, glass shards and water spilling across the floor.

The starlike points Ivan had divided into floated in midair.

The points rapidly gathered together, reforming into the shape of a Jellyfish and slowly drifting through the air.

"Phew... This power of faith truly isn't so easily gained."

He only felt much lighter all over now. The flowing energy had disappeared, as if it had merged into the depths of his soul.

"So this is my power."

Ivan used one tentacle to prop up his chin while another made a turning motion.

The Jellyfish shell amid the shattered glass on the floor gathered into a point of light in response to his tentacle.

It shot fiercely toward Little George below the platform.

The point of light entered Little George's brow, and his entire body suddenly trembled.

A mysterious power joined the circulation within his body.

Some content he could not understand appeared in his mind.

"Great Lord, what is the Natural Aspect? What is a Shaman? What is a Beyonder?"

Little George's voice did not leave his mouth.

Instead, it appeared directly in Ivan's mind in the form of information.

Just like a god listening to a believer's prayer.

Ivan pondered for a moment and touched that cluster of information with a tentacle.

"A gift."