Ikem remained seated, silent, studying his father carefully. The weight of those words did not escape him.

"How could you possibly help with this, Father?" he asked at last. "This is a matter of faith refinement something so far away from Origin gods such as yourself. I would imagine someone like yourself would find it even more hard to come with a probable solution."

Ikenga laughed, deep and unrestrained, the sound echoing across the open hall.

"Indeed," he replied, amusement still lingering in his tone. "I have no understanding of the burdens of faith as ascended gods experience it. I was never shaped by mortal belief."

His expression softened slightly.

"But your grandmother, Nana, once spoke of how other ascended gods overcome such limitations."

At the mention of Nana, Ikem's posture shifted almost imperceptibly. The name carried authority.

"She once told us," Ikenga continued, "that ascended gods like yourself often wage war upon the realms of Origin gods, gods like me in order to glimpse the 'Altar' from which we were born."

The word lingered in the air.

Altar.

Not a structure of stone or ornament, but a primordial convergence point. A divine crucible where pure cosmic principle condensed into existence. It was not shaped by faith. It did not fluctuate with mortal emotion. It simply was.

"These Altars," Ikenga said, "are designed to handle the instability of mortal belief in the case mortals decide to worship us. They filter it. Stabilize it. Refine it into the precise divine energy required. In your case, the faith energy would purer, untainted by emotions."

Ikem's eyes narrowed slightly as understanding began to form.

"As the son of an Origin god," Ikenga went on, "you are not bound to follow the same perilous path as other ascended gods. You do not need to invade or conquer to gain access."

He turned fully toward his son.

"My realm is open to you. My Altar is open to you. You may come and study it, observe its refinement process, understand its structure."

His voice lowered, sincere.

"If you do so… there may be hope. Hope to resolve most of your struggle with mortal faith energy. Hope to refine it without it draining your time and strength. Hope to stand prepared for the age that is coming."

Hearing his father's words, Ikem's mind began to race.

The implications unfolded rapidly before him. It would not be easy, studying an Origin Altar, dissecting its principles, adapting its refinement process to his own ascended nature but if he succeeded, the danger of faith energy could become a thing of the past. No longer would he spend endless cycles purifying unstable belief. No longer would mortal doubt erode his focus.

He could devote himself fully to the next stage of his path as an ascended god.

His gaze lifted to Ikenga, a weird look on his face, for as long as he could remember, his father had always seemed to possess an answer, if not immediate, then inevitable.

Yet even with the promise of the Altar, another question gnawed at him, one far more personal.

It concerned his divinity itself.

Ikem was the God of Verdant Communion, the principle that the microcosm exists within all things. That every grain of soil, every cell, every fragment of existence mirrors the greater whole. His authority governed the unseen interactions that shaped reality's foundation, the subtle exchanges between decay and growth, death and renewal, consumption and transformation.

To him, rot was not destruction.

It was preparation. Decay fed growth. Growth invited excess. Excess collapsed into decay. A seamless communion.

His doctrine resonated most strongly with mages who studied living systems, those who understood that biology was not mere flesh, but an intricate web of balance. Experienced farmers who knew that cultivation was more than planting, watering, and waiting. Druids who felt the pulse of ecosystems and respected the quiet intelligence of forests and soil.

They understood but they were few.

Most mortals did not grasp microcosm or communion. They did not contemplate the invisible architecture beneath reality. Even farmers, who benefited daily from his influence often reduced him to something simpler.

A god who should make crops grow. A divine hand that multiplied harvests.

Nothing more.

Ikem's jaw tightened slightly.

If he solved the problem of faith refinement… if he mastered the Altar's principles… that alone would not resolve this deeper issue.

Faith was shaped by understanding.

And mortal understanding of his doctrine was painfully limited.

To bridge that gap, he would need more than refined energy, perhaps intermediaries who could interpret his divine truths into concepts mortals could grasp.

His divinity was vast and intricate and mortals were narrow and practical.

Ikem turned back to his father, the earlier frustration replaced by contemplative resolve.

"If I learn to refine faith as you suggest," he said slowly, "then my next challenge is not power… but mortal perception of my divinity."

Ikenga considered his son's words carefully before speaking.

"So what you are saying… is that the threshold of your divinity is too high for mortals? That they cannot fully grasp it, cannot truly anchor themselves to your doctrine?" Ikem nodded to Ikenga break down of his problem.

Ikenga did not answer immediately. Instead, he tilted his head slightly and asked,

"When did you begin overlooking the fundamentals?" The question for some reason struck deeper than any critique.

Ikem froze.

He searched for an answer, some justification, some reasoning but none came. He had been thinking in terms of scale, complexity, cosmic refinement… and perhaps had forgotten where his path had truly begun.

Ikenga observed his silence, then gently asked, "May I?"

He was requesting permission to exert his will within Ikem's realm. Ikem nodded.

With a simple snap of Ikenga's fingers, space folded. The grand hall dissolved into wind and crimson horizon. In an instant, they stood upon the open plains of Ikem's realm.

Before them prowled one of the realm's creatures.

It bore the powerful frame of a tiger, its muscles coiled beneath newly formed flesh. Yet woven into its structure were the elegant traits of a deer, slender limb articulation, heightened sensory awareness and from its brow rose a pair of branching antlers, polished like living ivory.

The creature exhaled softly, steam rising from its nostrils, unaware of the divine presences observing it.

Ikenga pointed toward it.

"How did you learn to create beings like this?" he asked. "When did that interest begin?"

Ikem's gaze lingered on the creature and memory answered where words could not.

He was no longer standing in his realm, he was back to his mortal time in his kingdom when there had been a sickness.

At first, it did not concern him deeply. Plagues had come and gone before. Healing magic had always resolved such matters swiftly. Clerics channeled restorative spells. Mages wove purification arrays. Symptoms vanished within hours.

But this time was different, magic did not cure it. It dulled the pain. It slowed the deterioration. But the people continued to suffer and die.

Confusion had spread first among the healers… then fear among the populace.

For the first time, Ikem had witnessed magic fail to address the root of a problem.

That was when doubt entered him, not in himself, but in his understanding of mana and the elements. Had he misunderstood something fundamental? Was there a layer of existence untouched by spellcraft?

Determined to uncover the truth, he turned to Bara his companion. Through his connection, he extended a fragment, just a sliver of Bara's essence into the bodies of the afflicted as a probe.

And that was his fist contact with microcosm, that was when he saw it, a world beneath the visible.

An invisible ecosystem of minute organisms, replicating, mutating, interacting in patterns far too small for ordinary perception. Life that existed within life. Conflict occurring at scales no mage had ever considered.

He realized then that mana did not govern everything directly. There were processes, fundamental, biological, structural that operated beneath magic's reach unless properly understood.

The sickness was not a curse. It was imbalance, it was living matter interacting with living matter in ways that required comprehension, not brute magical force.

That was when his doctrine began to take shape. The microcosm within all things.

Ikem slowly returned to the present, eyes still fixed on the horned tiger.

"I did not begin with an intial intrest in it," he murmured. "I began because magic failed."

Ikenga's voice came softly beside him.

"And what did you do then?"

"I observed," Ikem answered. "I studied. I understood the smallest components before attempting to command the whole."

Silence followed and within that silence, the weight of Ikenga's earlier question returned.

When had he stopped doing that? When had he shifted from teaching mortals the smallest truths they could grasp… to expecting them to comprehend the entirety of Verdant Communion?

Ikem turned fully toward his father, the memory still fresh in his eyes.

"It all began with a desperate desire to heal my people… my children."

There was no grandeur in that confession. Only desperation and love. Ikenga nodded slowly.