Six years later

"Rize... Rize wake up."

Rize opened her eyes slowly taking in her surroundings giant trees towered all around her their roots warping the forest floor into an uneven and unnatural look. Birds fluttered around in the patches of sun light that filtered thru the canopy. Her hair was sprawled out around her as she propped herself onto her elbows. Where am I? She thought to herself. With blurred vision a figure stood in her vision with a hand stretched out to her. The body blocked out the sun momentarily obscuring her view further.

"Rize come to me!" the deep gentle voice was so familiar to her... how long was it since she last heard it? She couldn’t even remember the last time that voice entered her ears.

Rize's vision cleared and before her stood her father they were in the middle of the great trees of the Northern forest wearing his cloak he always wore on their hunting trips.

Smiling Rize jumped up from where she was laying.

"Papa? You are back from the frontlines?! Is the war over?" Rize said excitedly.

"War? What war?" his face gave away to confusion as he pulled back his hand.

Rize paused "Yo-you don't remember?" she said paused.

As she said those words she realized she didn't remember how she got here, but how was that possible? She wasn’t crazy he

"Rize... I'm sorry for not making it back to you" as her father spoke those words Rize stared in horror as an arrow was shot from out of view impaling itself into her father's skull sending shards of brain, blood, and skull bits from him. Crumpling to the ground hitting it with a sickening thud his blood sprayed onto her face making her not able to utter a word. The moment had passed so quickly she couldn’t process what had just happened.

After a few moments passed by her vision narrowed as if she was pulled into a long tunnel her soul seemed to be having a floating out of body experience as she watched her father die before her eyes. As if being pulled away from the horrific scene she reached out as she was pulled into a tunnel of pure darkness.

"FATHER!" Rize let out a silent scream as she tried to yell out to no avail... only silence... “Come…to me…child.” A whisper could be heard before everything when black.

Silence was all that could be heard…no it was more than silence it was a complete lack of sound…the world was silent and black.

Rize's eyes shot open as she found herself laying in her bedchamber she was breathing heavily as she had the same nightmare every time she dreamed, but a different way her father died each time.

Perhaps it was her imagination running wild, but ever since her masters told her that her father died in combat five years ago she had not had a peaceful night of sleep since. She stared at the ceiling a single tear rolled down her smooth cheek.

'Curse him... he promised' bitterly she found the willpower to pull herself up from her bed and looked into the mirror right across from herself. In the reflection was a small athletic girl with piercing blue eyes and long, black, messy hair. "aww" she let out a mildly disappointed sigh before running her slender fingers thru her hair to comb it in place.

She quickly put on her disciple's robes and left her room. The academy was enormous it had been six years since she was first entered in as an outer disciple her robes were all white with the golden phoenix of the empire on its back. The outer disciples her outer disciple robe was silver while the inner disciples were allowed to where a variety of outfits depending on the deity they followed or the master who took them in. The academy was busy this time of year as it was getting close to the annual showcase where the military leaders, scholars, nobles, and even some of the royalty would come to the academy to see the disciples show them how far the school has brought them along. Many minor nobles hoped their son or daughter would impress a high ranking noble or even one of the royal family’s princes or princesses so they could be married into the royal family something most would never be able to dream of doing. The Empire was partly meritocracy as the strong and talented could rise from their lowly places and reach levels fairly high, but even commoners found that reaching the royal family was a sliver of a dream.

Rize never realize how hierarchal society was until she came to the academy in fact the entire empire was built on a strict hierarchy that could not be broken so easily. Because of this even though her talent was decent and she was one of the hardest workers of the outer disciples she was still considered the lowest of the low due to her poor background and her cursed blue eyes. Even though many would call her a top beauty at the school no one would come near her due to this fact. She was the outcast of the outcast. Not even disciples from similar backgrounds would associate with her.

Ultimately however Rize didn't mind it, she was better off alone anyways. How could she ever trust any of them to have her back? If they won't even look past the superficial? Rize walked down the main path most of the students parting ways around her not wanting to be even thought of associating with her. The white stone paths of the academy were polished from the constant wear of students and masters walking along it and had a slight blackish glean to them.

"Hey! Look who it is guys!" a familiarly vile voice came from ahead of her. Looking up she already knew who the voice belonged to. Masaru Hyudo the biggest jerk of the outer disciples and his posse of moronic henchmen.

"What do you want Masaru?" Rize said slightly annoyed these were the only guys who gave her a majorly rough time for her eyes the rest simply left her alone or just talked behind her back "just leave me alone."

"AHH! Minako you are so cute, but why are you always so stand offish we just want to hang out with our good friend Minako Rize" he said mockingly his posse snickering in the background.

"Don't use my first name. We aren't that close Masaru..." she growled when she heard him speak her first name.

Masaru's eyes narrowed slightly as he glared at Rize "really now...who are you a daughter of a poor waitress and a lowly pathetic hunter tell me or anyone here at this academy what to do? HUH?"

Pausing for a second an evil look flashed onto his face “oh wait…isn’t that right your father died pathetically in battle. I heard they never found his body…maybe he ran away like a coward. I mean your parents didn’t have the bravery to abandon a cursed child like you in the first place. How much honor could he possibly have?” his entire group along with a few onlookers snickered at the sharp words.

Rize felt a surge of blood begin to boil in her veins as she lost control. Without a seconds hesitation shot forward with speed of a girl who had been training martial arts and Ki for six years now. Rize didn't know what she wanted to do, but she knew she wanted to make him hurt for what she said about her bastard lying father. Only she was allowed to insult him not some pathetic punk like Masaru. As she quickly closed the distance between her and Masaru. Not even flinching he stood up straight and sent out his fist at her colliding with her forehead sending her flying back several feet don't a backwards somersault in the air Rize sprung off her hands and landed on her feet again.

"Rize, you are pathetic you think that cause you train more than anyone you can overcome pure talent? Right now you can hold your own, but as soon as our spiritual innate natures are revealed the gap between trash like you and people from noble bloodlines like me will widen and you will have to keep your temper in check." Masaru berated Rize before turning around "Let's leave this pathetic wastrel."

Rize hated all these morons...they were all idiots. Getting up she left and went to the library where she wanted to study more about innate natures it was her only hope in leveling out the playing field is if she could figure out a way to discover some deity who was compatible with her innate nature of her personality and Ki.

...

There was only one person she respected in the outer disciple core and that was the librarian who helped her study since she was young. His name was Tomo and he never had the talent to reach the rank of master, but found his talent good enough to keep track and tend to the ancient tomes and scrolls of the academy.

The man was in his mid-thirties with brown hair and small reading glasses always on his face and half his face was almost always shoved into a tome or scroll whenever she saw him. Rize had an appreciation well up inside her. Rize had much to be thankful towards Tomo.

Looking up from the current tome he was reading he smiled towards the small girl that was marching towards him. His face wasn’t particularly handsome, but wasn’t ugly either. It had always surprised her that Tomo had never gone and found himself a wife.

"Why hel---waaawwwh" he let out a gasp as Rize grabbed him by the back of his collar dragging him towards the second floor of the library. Her tiny frame was significantly shorter than Tomo, but she still managed to reach up and drag the middle aged man around.

Stopping in front of the locked stair case she looked at Tomo with a look of pure seriousness "Tomo...let me into the second floor."

The words fell out of her mouth so quickly it took Tomo about five seconds before he busted out laughing.

"BAHAHAHA!"

Rize's frown only deepened as she waited for Tomo to be done. After about a minute he regained his composure.

Taking a deep breath he looked at her seriously "Rize that is for inner disciples only I can't possibly..." he paused looking at her deadpanned face.

"Tomo... I am serious."

"Eh?" he paused. “Rize. Your Ki is not strong enough to go up there the dense amount of Ki was made to stop people like outer disciple from going in…” he paused as he looked at Rize who had not flinched at a single word he made “fine…follow me.”

Ki was something that took many different forms it was what connected humanity to the heavens, furthermore it is what individual gods would use to differentiate their followers from other gods. The gods communed with the world regularly since the dawn of humanity even allowing the most powerful of humans to join them in the heavens. Often however gods were disinterested in their followers except the most talented and impressive of their disciples. If one had enough Ki and trained enough would undergo a change in their Ki, being chosen by a god who would affect the nature of their Ki. Most commonly happening between the ages of twelve and fourteen during puberty it was this time which would change a Ki cultivator to become demi-gods on this world should they live long enough. All a cultivator needed to do was pray to one of the countless gods and request their blessing then...wait.

...

Rize followed Tomo as he led her up to the second floor of the academy.

"Listen Rize you are not supposed to be up here. The selection of the gods are supposed to be up to fate you are not to suppose to know which gods you are asking their blessing from!"

Rize looked up to him as they climbed the stairway "EHH who cares Tomo I have had bad luck my whole life so what is the harm in making my own for once? I'm just going to make a list of the coolest gods major and minor. No big deal! Besides most of the larger families all have their own libraries that have the same information and their children already know the deities they will request a blessing from." Rize said as she rolled her eyes at Tomo's lecture.

"Aww you may come to regret this Rize" he sighed admitting defeat to her sheer determination, besides it was better for him to do it then have her trying to sneak up here and doing it herself.

They approached the door at the top of the stairs "okay now Rize wait here and I will go fetch the tome."

Rize nerves began to wind up as she waited anxiously for the the key to her success. Deep down she wondered what god would answer her prayers in one weeks’ time during the annual ceremony. This was her chance to become an inner disciple. That would finally make others look at her ability and not her cursed eyes.

Several minutes pasted and Tomo came through the door looking around nervously. "Rize here is the tome" he handed a large book to her that had all the gods that the empire knew of and gave brief summaries of them "hurry and choose no more than ten you don't want to make anyone suspicious okay."

"Yeah, yeah Tomo I got it, just let me take a look" Rize's hand darted out snatching the tome out of Tomo's hands.

As her fingers gently glided over the old leather binding to open it up right in the middle she look at the first name and description. "Bishamonten goddess of war, Philalar god of light, Yiseri forest goddess of the Norther Forest" she spoke each name quietly to herself until her name stopped at the one name she had been familiar with. The name sprung out at her as it was a different color ink. "Femir." She whispered her voice dripping with hatefulness. Shaking her head she moved past the name flipping the page not bothering to finish it, why choose a god that doesn't even protect those who honored him the most.

Tomo stood over her leaning up against the wall waiting for her to be finished. So far she had only found six that sounded decent to her they all had numerous disciples based on the tome and were extremely popular. Finally she got to her last pick, but who should she chose Rize's eyes darted left to right, up and down the pages trying to find any popular deity that sounded up her alley, after several minutes she couldn't decide.

"Aww Tomo I can't choose my last one" Rize said looking up at him hoping he would give her a bit more time.

"Rize..." Tomo had a vein ready to pop out of her forehead "Just pick one you have three seconds" Tomo growled at her.

"Fine" quickly looking down she decided that the other nine were good enough and to just pick one that caught her eye. The page she flipped too had a small amount of water damage so she couldn't read the description, but choose Naga-Jin god of--- just as she was about to make out the last word Tomo snatched the tome back and fled back into the second floor.

"Tomo! Wait I almost could read it!" It was too late Tomo was already behind the door.

Rize stood slightly disappointed that she couldn’t make out if the last name was any good to her.

"Oh well I found some decent picks for myself if I do say so!" she said proudly as she was going to pray directly to the other nine and get a major god to back her.

After several minutes Tomo came back and escorted Rize back out who proceeded to give him a hug and peck him on the cheek “thank you Tomo! You are the best” she whispered to him before turning away and running down the stairs.

Tomo smiled as she ran off to get to do her daily chores that girl is sure a funny little thing he thought laughing to himself.