I woke up to the sunlight pouring in through the same large hole in the roof I used for stargazing.

  Grumbling to myself, I mentally push fixing the hole up the list of priorities. While I enjoyed the night view, I didn’t care for the sun directly in my eyes.

  Sighing, I picked up the bags I had used as cushions and began my daily stretches. While many people do not enjoy morning stretches, they improved my general mood and athleticism throughout the day, so I made it a habit.

  Wrapping up my stretches, I quickly got up and went to the feast table and ate the daily meal, a conglomerate of grains, fish, and a small portion of meat, Of which type I do not know, and frankly, I do not want to know.

  Since the hole in the ceiling guaranteed I would wake up early in the morning; there were only a few villagers, mostly the people who had to leave early to hunt. I am surprised they can do that with those large snakes around.

  Shrugging, I stand up, finishing the food and stacking the plate on the few others at the end of the large table.

  Walking back to the forge, I probe my core, measuring my divinity.

  The small, dull core was rather pathetic, but the amount of energy I had gained from the snake and a few days of rest and food helped me regenerate the limited amount, but it should be enough for what I wished to make today.

  Getting back to my smithy, I closed my eyes before the anvil, meditating and entering my soul.

  The soul space is a unique region of the body, and it takes many decades to be able to enter it; only around half of the gods could do it, and a much smaller portion of mortals could. However, in my previous overthrowing of Olympus, it was preparation I had done ahead of time. It had taken me close to 23 years, if I remember correctly, and even longer to do anything with it.

  The special thing about the soul is its effect on reality. While divinity has the ability to interact with it, it is more of a temporary change in the laws of space rather than a rewriting of it. On the other hand, divinity can affect others, while the soul only affects an individual. Much later on in my life, I learned a method to manipulate the soul to define in quantifiable terms your capabilities and power. Once I had created this method, it increased my power level significantly.

  There are many situations where other major deities created ways of doing this, but my personal favorite –the one I had created– was the most efficient.

  This was the system.

  It allows me to determine how far I am away from ascension and my relative power level. If I wanted to begin my destruction of Olympus earlier than the last time, I would need to create it now.

  Taking a moment to view my soul, I looked around and enjoyed it, most would never see the soul, but it truely is a stunning sight, long strands of glowing silky white wrapping my soul space in a large bubble, seemingly rippling like a river pouring around me. Bringing my attention away from the strands. I begin preparations for the system.

  Confirming that my early estimates were correct, I observed my core once more. It has just enough; creating the basic framework of the system will take 97% of the energy, and that is just for the basic features…

  Shrugging, I decided to begin. In the worst-case scenario, I burn through most of my divinity and will need to take some time to regenerate until I can try again.

  The concept behind the system is an interface that allows me to interact with my soul’s and body’s power more directly. It has some basic automatic processes that run in the background, consuming tiny bits of divinity to maintain it, but I found it to be more useful than some of the other methods of power quantification that other gods created.

  The hardest part of constructing it, was the forging of the soul itself, fortunately, I happen to be the deity of the forge and fire.

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  After confirming the mental image of the soul construct, I breathed out and began tugging on the strands that made up my soul.

  Infusing my actions with my concept of the forge, using the image it conjured in my mind, I wove the strands together into a coherent pattern, slowly changing the chaotic but beautiful rhythm into one no less stunning but considerably more organized.

  Every additional strand added to the new weave interrupted the natural flow, putting strain on both my will and the soul, making it harder to add new pieces. Nonetheless, I continued, pulling more and more of the soul, ensuring that it was the strongest I could make it at the moment.

  As I approached the halfway point of the process, I felt my divinity drop, a large portion of it being consumed to essentially give the system a kick for it to begin automatic construction. After maintaining a steady stream of energy for some time, the new fabric that ran the system took over, taking the strain off my will and instead draining divinity as it grew, causing it to pulse with a golden light.

  Taking a moment to breathe, it looked as if the system was wrapping up, which was good as my divinity was beginning to sputter out. Eventually, I would need to come back to develop the system more, but for now, it was sufficient for my needs.

  Feeling it is finishing up, I exit my soul as the rest would be done by itself.

  The sun had already passed the middle of the sky, meaning I likely missed lunch or was at the back end the lunch rush.

  Before I could eat, however, I had a screen in my face to deal with first

  Grinning, I mentally acknowledge its greeting and dismiss it. First things first, while time may not have felt like it passed in my soul space, my body wouldn’t be upset with eating something. Even if I am a deity that can sustain myself off divinity, I never liked to, as it always felt similar to cannibalizing.

  I got a few looks from the natives as I whistled happily, but not a lot would put me down after I made my first step to ripping down Olympus again. Also helps I made something, even if it’s not metal just crafting something gives me a small amount of divinity back.

  Sitting down at the feast table next to a man slightly shorter than 6 feet, I grabbed another plate of the same thing earlier today and a small addition of an apricot.

  The man grunted acknowledgment before looking at who was next to him; he became slightly stunned to be sitting next to a much larger man.

  Looking at him, I chuckled and began eating the meal. Choosing to focus on my new abilities instead of the shocked man.

  Pull up my status

  I grimaced. My status was considerably lower than I had preferred but higher than expected. Some of my mental and soul strength had been kept from the time reset, which I assume is why they are considerably higher than my body or divinity.

  It’s better than last time, I suppose, but it's still disappointing.

  The basic version of the system only had a few statistics that it could show, with all of them being rather self-explanatory. The mind was really a category for my willpower, and processing speed, but does not increase my intelligence. Soul being for the general shape and size of my soul space. With Body being for strength, dexterity, and other similar aspects.

  The only two things that are different: Divinity, and the Tier. The Tier of a stat directly impacts the efficiency of the stat point; at Body [Tier 1], a single stat point is the strength of an average man, with each point representing an additional man’s worth of strength, but if I had Body [Tier 2] it increases the worth of a stat point by 25%, with each tier after adding a 25% increase on top of that. Meaning Tier 2 is 125%, while Tier 3 is 156.25%. While it may seem a bit extreme and overpowered, after the first Tier or two in any stat, it becomes much harder to progress, taking an extreme event or encounter to begin the process needed to upgrade.

  If I remember correctly, in my first life, it took being burned for days by the fires of Apollo to increase my body’s tier to 5. Alas, if it were easier, I wouldn’t be here.

  A light appeared in my eyes; rubbing my hands together, I mused out loud, “I wonder what will happen if I introduced it sooner than later.”