Althos and the wizen jackaloid quickly exited the elderly creature's yurt. The rest of the pack and Althos' newest familiar were awaiting them. Althos made eye contact with each of them and then he spoke.

"Listen, everyone! Camaxtli," Camaxtli was the elderly jackaloid. "My pet, and I are going on a hunt. We will be back soon. Until then... go back to your yurts."

The creatures in front of Althos nodded at the deity and then began to slowly drift back to their own yurts. Althos didn't doubt that they'd be discussing what memories he infected them with, and possibly what "blessings" they had been bestowed.

Shortly after the last of the jackaloids retreated back to the privacy of their yurts, Althos, the deity's dire scorpion familiar, and Camaxtli ventured into the sandy wilderness.

Forty minutes into their trek through the desert, Althos' mind began to wander. At that particular moment, the trio of creatures was in the heart of a part of the desert that was flat.

The creatures had explored the sandy waste in silence. They had walked over an entire kilometer away from the encampment of jackaloids and hadn't been followed so they were in the midst of a fairly peaceful hunt.

Camaxtli carried a single spear in one of his hands, the thing's frame not made of wood but of bone, and a handaxe in his other hand. Althos carried the simple sword he had taken from one of the jackaloids during their first encounter in one hand, and his other hand was free of artificial weapons. He wore no armor and because he was in his odd true-devil form his thick muscles were on full display.

The scorpion's body was free of any artificial equipment or armor, and the thing preferred it that way. During the journey into the sandy wastes, the scorpion and Althos spoke freely, using their mental connection, and the thing made it abundantly clear that it liked its natural weapons and armor. Althos could respect such an attitude and told it that he wouldn't force it to fight in a way that made it uncomfortable.

All three creatures wandering the desert were lost in their own minds. I wonder if this thing can even hunt... Thought Camaxtli, not even trying to hide his skepticism. He seems... strong physically but strength alone does not make one a good hunter. Camaxtli mentally reminded himself, his eyes gazing over the strange form of the self-proclaimed "father" of the jackaloids.

I wonder what sort of creatures we could find in this desert... Thought the dire scorpion familiar, eager to try and hunt something with its new powers.

Should I deceive this one? Althos questioned, wondering what to do about the jackaloid who was wondering the desert with him. It'd be nice to have one ally amongst the jackaloids who knows the truth... Althos thought to himself.

In time the deity refocused and decided to inspect his allies. He noticed that his pet was fine, enjoying the trek and mentally hoping to have a chance to test out its new powers and size in battle in the near future.

On the other hand, Camaxtli was skeptical of Althos, and his thoughts laid bare this skepticism, even as the young god starred at him.

"Camaxtli... I sense that you have thoughts. Observations. Care to share them?" Althos asked, his voice polite and his curiosity genuine. Althos could have read the mind of the creature but decided not too.

If I want creatures to worship me of their own free will I should give them a chance to share their thoughts of their own volition right? He thought to himself when deciding not to read Camaxtli's mind.

If I decide to reveal the truth to Camaxtli, then that makes it important that I earn his trust, which would be a slow process. Althos thought to himself, aware that the route he may choose would require patience. But it'd be nice to have one creature here be my worshiper truthfully and in full awareness of my deceptive powers. Althos also thought to himself, chuckling internally all the while.

Camaxtli thought quietly to himself for a full half-minute before opening his mouth to speak. When he opened his mouth to speak, a confident smirk was etched on his canine face. "I was just curious if you could actually hunt." The thing said, his amber eyes lit up with cruel mirth as they starred directly at Althos' own heterochromatic orbs.

Althos looked at the jackaloid and then spoke. "Would you care to experience my strength firsthand?" The deity asked, stopping all movement aside from opening his arms wide as if to invite the jackaloid to strike. The jackaloid stopped as well, looking at the deity for a moment. He considered what Althos said, and then lifted the spear he held into a position from which he could properly launch the weapon at Althos.

[Don't interfere.] Althos sternly warned his pet, sensing that the jackaloid was a strike first, talk later sort and figuring that the canine-humanoid hybrid would strike soon. He was right.

The distance between the deity and the shape-shifter was measurable in meters, and Althos grinned as he saw the muscles on the jackaloid's hand twitch in the instant before the spear was lobbed at him. The spear was forcefully hurled at the deity thanks to the strength of the jackaloid who had spent a lifetime surviving to old age in the harsh desert.

The thing sailed through the air, having been thrown quite beautifully, and in moments was close to Althos. The deity didn't fret, however, and plucked the thing out of the air with his empty hand in a single, fluid motion.

The jackaloid wasted no time, attempting to close the distance between himself and the god while the deity pretended to be focused on the spear. He lunged forward while shifting into jackal form to compress himself and minimize the area in which he could be attacked by the speedy deity.

Althos considered what to do for a moment. Should I swing my sword...? No. If I did and I couldn't control it, and I can't perform a true resurrection... the end results would be bad. I should just do what I've been doing till now: use my body as my weapon. Althos thought to himself, quickly coming to the conclusion that using his own limbs as weapons was his safest bet.

The deity was still, now confident and watchful since he knew what he'd do, as he now openly turned his attention to the jackaloid. His quarry was quickly closing the distance between himself and the god, and that made Althos smile. Before the creature could strike, it found itself in the range of Althos's long legs and was still too far to lash out at the deity.

Althos didn't hesitate, launching a single powerfully aimed kick at where the canine shape-shifter was heading before the creature even realized he had entered Althos' own area of attack. The kick faced no air resistance due to Althos willing away any impediments to its power and sped through the air before coming to a harmless and abrupt stop millimeters away from the jackaloid's nose.

The jackaloid's eyes opened wide as he misstepped due to the kick, and tumbled into the sand right next to Althos. Althos turned around, his back exposed to the creature, and then spoke. "My body is my weapon. Make no mistake Camaxtli, I am at least as good a hunter as you are." He said, his voice confident, calm, and self-assured.

"If you don't believe me I'm more than happy to do this all day." He said, smirking even though the creature couldn't see him. The confidence in his voice communicated the same emotion his smirk did.

Camaxtli's head dropped and the creature conceded, silently, that there was a chance the deity's power was real. That attack just now would have killed me... The jackaloid realized with a start, instantly conceding this fight to the deity.

That doesn't mean he's a god but his power is at least greater than mine. The canine-creature confessed, quietly. The jackaloid was proud, but pride isn't the same as stupidity or arrogance and the main reason Camaxtli had survived so long was that he differentiated the three.

I... don't know if I've ever been so close to death. The jackaloid confessed, to himself and no one else. His eyes were wide as he reflected on the experience.

Althos looked at the warrior and acknowledged that the battle was over. It was at that moment that he received a surprising notification, one which would delight him due to its length and what it revealed.

[Alert:

Your unwavering dedication to acquiring knowledge and your constant usage of your own body as a weapon, especially when you have the choice to use another weapon and you decide to use your body anyway, has caused you to gain your first class and your first level! You are now a first-level monk. Congratulations!

Of course, as a deity you being a level one monk isn't the same as a mortal becoming a first-level monk. This is primarily to indicate that you have demonstrated a pattern of behavior that aligns with the behavior of other members of this class and that the system recognizes your actions. That's not to say that there aren't any benefits to this though.

Mortals who possess the ability to see class levels and investigate stats can see your class levels and deities don't have a cap on the number of classes they can have or the total number of levels they can gain, though eventually gaining the necessary experience to level up becomes nearly impossible.

Deities in the past have used classes and class levels to gain the respect of mortals they wished to convert to their worship, and they have used classes and class levels to build certain types of orders dedicated to their service and worship, such as monasteries, temples, covens, martial fraternities, and more.

Classes themselves refer to the titles the system has given to quantify and categorize people who share types of powers and skills.

Over the course of your life, you've met a witch, a rogue, brawlers, archers, an alchemist, an oracle, and people who are becoming clerics and scouts. You yourself were called a druid by various sorts of people and creatures. Each of those things are classes.

Class information alert: Monks.

Monks are fearless creatures who not only train themselves to fight using their own limbs or occasionally specialized weapons, they are intelligent and worldly creatures who value the pursuit of knowledge. That is what separates them from less academically inclined limb-users like brawlers.

As a monk, you fight by training your body to be a powerful weapon and the few non-natural weapons used by monks are weapons that amplify the damage your limbs can cause. Some monks use weapons like brass knuckles or bagh nakhs, beast-like claw weapons which humanoids affix to their knuckles, as ways to empower their own deadly blows but many make the choice not to do that. Monks who follow a different path surely exist but they are quite rare.

Gaining the right kind of experience and leveling up the monk class brings with it skills and abilities that empower one's body, so-called hard skills and abilities. Eventually, monks also gain access to skills related to qi, the air-like lifeforce that flows through all living creatures. These are often called soft skills and abilities.

Beyond that, there are specialized paths available to monks that grant them a range of powers, from hardening their bodies to ironlike levels, to granting them increased dexterity, or specializations which increase their knowledge and ability to learn. After all, being a monk isn't just throwing punches or dodging blows.

To learn more, work hard and level up! As you level up this notification and the monk entry in your codex will increase in detail and in length.]

Althos smiled widely at this. It was a pleasant surprise and it made him grateful for his tendency to use his fists, and legs to lash out at those determined to oppose him. But he knew that he wasn't quite done yet. He willed away the notification and turned back to look at Camaxtli so that he could be sure that the fight was over. Althos quickly spoke.

"Are you ready for us to continue our hunt? Or do you want to head back for now?" Althos asked, his voice cold and arrogant. Camaxtli heard the arrogance in Althos' voice and though the creature had to fight to swallow his pride, he eventually agreed to head back to the camp. His fear didn't help him here.

The three creatures began their trek back to the camp, Althos quite satisfied with the whole thing and Camaxtli frustrated at his weakness. The scorpion was quietly annoyed that it had yet to experience combat in its new body. Fortunately, that would change on the way back to the encampment.

A creature skittered over a seemingly endless patch of sandy wasteland in the Infernian desert. Its multiple legs carried it quite speedily over the wastes, and its variety of eyes gave it the ability to detect any sort of obstacles in its way long before they would have obstructed its journey.

The thing had swiftly moved out of the way of a variety of obstacles that may have otherwise slowed its journey thanks to its clear and magnified vision.

It dodged corpses that were only shallowly buried in the sandy sea, it avoided traps set up by other scorpions and miscellaneous desert dwellers, and earlier that day it had even changed directions to avoid a rare patrol of devilish warriors who roamed the wastes looking to capture non-humanoid creatures for the inhabitants of Bastille to torment and torture.

Such constant redirections did have an unexpected effect: it caused the girtablilu, a scorpion-person, to be on a collision course with the jackaloid encampment. A collision course the thing would become aware of if it climbed just one more sandy dune, a dune it could already see. A dune it was approaching. A dune that already had climbers walking over it, from a different angle. Its angle hid it from the sight of the hunters, rendering them unaware of its gradual approach.

Althos still wasn't sure how to handle the elderly jackaloid, and it was only when the girtablilu entered the edge of Althos' radar and continued its generalized approach towards the party that the deity seriously considered whether or not to make this so-called hunt into an actual hunt.

He sensed the creature that was approaching the party and decided to scan the mind of Camaxtli, to see what the elder would think of an actual hunt taking place. He stopped the party while he did this. They were nearing the top of a sand dune, one that obstructed their sight of the encampment. All of this confused Camaxtli, which didn't help the wizen creature's pride.

Why have we stopped? Oh, heck if I know! I sure could use some stress-relief... And something big to attack. Fighting something real dangerous may help my pride recover. Camaxtli thought to himself and unknowingly to Althos as well, anger and hurt pride dominating his emotional state. Althos chuckled and continued to read a bit more of his mind.

Giving something a good stabbing would definitely let me vent some of this... anger in a way that at least gives the tribe more food. The elder thought, revealing a surprising concern for the rest of the tribe. This rare selflessness brought a smile to Althos' face.

That second thought really sealed the deal for Althos. He nodded, an odd gesture that no one present understood, and moved the party in the direction of the creature. The scorpion-person was rapidly approaching the party, but since the party stood near the top of the sand dune and the scorpion creature was coming at them from another angle, only Althos could detect the approaching creature, and the creature could not detect them either.

As it drew ever nearer and as the party began to sense the noise it made as it traveled through the desert, Althos smiled and turned in its direction. In a matter of minutes, time that passed with the party members trying to identify the noise the creature was making as it stampeded across the desert, Camaxtli began to question what to do.

If I can't defeat Althos... how can I defeat this? Camaxtli wondered his pride in tatters after meeting and losing a fight to a god. This annoyed Althos who was not the patient sort.

I won! Why don't you just serve me already!? Althos impatiently asked himself, even as the scorpion-creature drew closer and closer. I thought canines respected strength... Althos thought to himself, inaccurately assuming jackaloids were canine-like, due to their relationship to non-shape-shifting jackals. It was an inaccurate thought, one which would have greatly annoyed many jackaloids if they ever happened to hear it.

And then, as Camaxtli was in the middle of throwing himself a pity party, and as Althos was impatiently wondering why jackaloids weren't like beasts like the scorpion who served him, beasts that served the strong, the scorpion-person drew ever closer.