Nairmis sat beside the fire, his fingers absently rubbing the sharpened branch. Inspiration kept flashing through his mind, one thought surfacing and fading after another, until he finally seized the brightest of them.
The strokes and structures of the characters from his previous life were built on a particular linguistic system. Letters corresponded to sounds, and written forms corresponded to meanings. It was an entire system that had taken a long time to evolve.
But this world had possessed its own laws of language since Chaos first came into being. Gods and nymphs could speak from the moment they awoke, and speech itself was an extension of the laws. It did not belong to the same system as the characters from his previous life. The writing in his mind could not enter this world's framework of laws at all.
To bring it into this world, he first needed the divinity of writing. Only by using that divinity as a bridge could he translate the written forms in his memories of his previous life into something this world could record.
As for obtaining the divinity of writing, he traced back through his inherited memories. Before writing could emerge, it would inevitably need some form of language to guide it, determining which sounds corresponded to which forms and what kinds of symbols should be assigned to which concepts. So he needed the divinity of language before he could create writing.
If he remembered correctly, the divinity of language lay in the hands of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory and one of the twelve Titans.
This is troublesome. Mnemosyne was currently imprisoned in the sky by Uranus. Even if she were not imprisoned, Nairmis could not think of anything he could offer her in exchange for the divinity of writing.
The goddess of memory was a Titan, a first-rank deity. If a low-ranking deity like him went up to her and asked whether she could share a portion of her authority with him, he might be crushed to pieces before he even finished speaking.
He sighed and was about to abandon this approach when his thoughts suddenly took a turn.
If I can't write, what about pictures? Pictures are a form of recording too. He did not need to write anything using the characters from his previous life. He could use lines, shapes, and colors to paint the scenes he had witnessed in the chaos.
The growth of plants, the expressions of living creatures-everything itself offered him an endless supply of lines and shapes.
Painting required no permission from the divinity of writing. All he needed was a flat surface and tools he could draw with.
The instant his thoughts fell into place, a familiar fluctuation of laws came from within his body. Nairmis froze for a moment. What had he done this time?
He turned his awareness inward. A new strand of divine essence was condensing into being. The information conveyed by the laws was clear and concise: spark of wisdom, representing the flash of inspiration that brought enlightenment amid difficulty and the unknown, classified as a wisdom-type divine essence.
Nairmis's eyes lit up. Wisdom-type divinities were famous in the world of Greek mythology. Athena, Prometheus, Metis-which of them was not a renowned figure?
The fact that he could obtain a divine essence of wisdom, even just a strand, meant that his system of divinities now had another branching path leading higher.
Heh, I really am a genius.
On the vast sea, on an island standing alone amid the waves.
Metis stood at the edge of a seaside cliff, the sea breeze lifting her long, dark blue hair. Her gaze passed over the churning crests toward the far end of the horizon. In that direction lay the sky, where her parents, Oceanus and Tethys, were imprisoned.
Ever since Uranus had taken her parents away, the sea faction had been left leaderless, and the forces of the deep sea faction eyed their territory hungrily.
Relying on her own divinity of wisdom and the support of her many siblings, Metis had barely managed to stabilize the situation. But the aftermath of that divine war had inflicted too many wounds on the sea. The two sides were now only barely maintaining a truce, and no one knew when the next conflict would come.
She was considering how to consolidate their defenses next when she suddenly felt the divinity of wisdom within her tremble gently.
Her divine power had increased when it should not have. The increase was small, but it had indeed increased. She focused her attention and examined it closely, discovering that the domain of wisdom had gained a new corner: inspiration.
That sudden flash amid difficulty, that momentary insight that allowed one to find a way forward. This concept was very new and had not yet grown into a power capable of shaking anything, but its direction was clear.
Metis lightly tapped her fingertips against the reef beside her. Translucent seawater washed back and forth through the cracks in the rock, churning up scattered flecks of foam.
As a fellow deity on the wisdom side, she could not help growing curious about the holder of this newly emerged divine essence. Very distant, very weak, but undeniably there.
She could sense the general direction, but could not pinpoint the exact location.
Meanwhile, up in the sky, Coeus's face had gone completely pale. He was the god of intellect and celestial bodies, representing the intellectual dimension of wisdom.
Just moments ago, his divinity had trembled slightly for no apparent reason, then risen a notch. The domain of wisdom had expanded.
He had done nothing, but his divine power had indeed increased.
The other Titans all caught their breath at once. At this rate, tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that, every one of them would get a turn.
When Uranus awoke and discovered that all twelve Titans were gaining divine power, what would await them?
No one dared think about it, and no one dared speak. Fear spread.
At the foot of the mountain, Nairmis knew nothing of this. He was crouching beside the dried wool, kneading a fluffy wad of fibers as sparks of wisdom kept flashing through his mind.
With the combined blessings of the divinity of crafting and the divinity of tools, the structure of a simple loom gradually took shape in his mind: two upright wooden supports, a crossbar, several hanging weights to keep the warp threads taut, and a simple shuttle to guide the thread through.
Several nymphs bustled about at his direction, helping carry timber. Petra chopped and hacked, while Dryope climbed up and down. Before long, a primitive upright loom stood crookedly beside the pool.
Nairmis sat down and clumsily guided the thread, passed the shuttle, and pressed down with his feet. When the first length of cloth was finished, it was so rough that even he could hardly bear to look at it. The weave was uneven, loose in some places and tight in others, and its edges were crooked.
But the laws responded all the same. A lesser divinity, the divinity of weaving, quietly settled among the pile of divinities within him.
Nairmis barely even raised his eyelids. He was used to it by now. He cut up the cloth he had woven and made several simple, loose tops and short skirts.
After the nymphs changed into them, they were indeed much more comfortable than grass skirts. But Nairmis glanced at their temples, which were faintly beaded with sweat. The woolen fabric was still too thick. The weather in this world was mild and on the warm side, and wearing clothes like these would only feel stuffy and uncomfortable.
Sparks of wisdom began flashing through his mind again. He vaguely realized that perhaps he should consider other directions.
Behind a distant thicket, Hemera, the goddess of day, was still there. She had already stayed for an entire day, longer than yesterday.
She watched Nairmis crouching before the loom, clumsily guiding the thread, and watched the faint curve of a smile at the corner of his mouth as he handed the finished clothes to the nymphs. The sight left her heart soft and tingling, but the divinity of day trembled gently within her again. The laws were urging her once more.
She bit her lip, took one final look at that golden-haired figure, then turned and quietly left, her steps a little slower than yesterday.
Night finally fell in full. From places Nairmis could neither see nor sense, two gazes settled on him at the same time.
One came from deep within the earth, the other from within the profound darkness of night.
Beside the fire, five nymphs sat in a circle a few steps away, quietly watching Nairmis work, not daring to disturb him.