Chapter Two: Drawing Board, Pencil, and Eraser

Two thousand years ago, the gods descended upon the earth.

From that day forth, the legendary deities appeared one after another in the mortal world. Fortunate souls, chosen by the gods for various reasons, became the envied ones known as the Chosen of the Divine.

The power structure humanity once knew began to change. Only with the formation of the "Skill Tree" and the "Racial Origin" did the new system of power finally take shape.

Special bonds arose between gods and mortals through the Chosen.

Ye Ran, who had grown up alone in the slums since childhood, had always longed for such a destiny.

He knew many tales of the gods' descent into the world.

When Thor, the God of Thunder, came to earth, a vast pool of lightning gathered in the heavens, and twelve mighty pillars of thunder rose from the ground to greet him.

When Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and War, was born, a hundred flowers bloomed and the mountains split open to form a path carpeted with petals.

When Ares, the God of War, arrived, the brilliant sun shone upon all the lands, and twelve beams of golden light descended with him from the sky.

...

These legends were as familiar to Ye Ran as old lullabies, and he dreamed of one day witnessing a god descend from the heavens with his own eyes.

That wish was granted.

Just three months ago, he was still living in the slums, surrounded by heaps of garbage and crumbling bricks.

That evening, sitting on the windowsill, enjoying the cool night breeze, he suddenly saw a dazzling light fall from the sky. Mouth agape, he waited for the miraculous signs that would surely follow.

But there was no thunder, no rending of the heavens. All he heard was a strange “thud” from downstairs.

He rushed down and, in the narrow passageway below, found a little girl, no more than eight or nine years old.

Ye Ran swore to himself he would never forget that day—the day he witnessed the goddess of love, Freya, crash land in an unmarked alley of the slums...

"Sigh, why does fate always seem to have it in for your poor legs?" Ye Ran muttered, crouched beside Freya, changing the bandages on her calf.

The leg she had broken during her descent had nearly healed two months ago, but then, one night as she slept, she rolled over and fell from the bed, breaking it again.

Freya hurriedly scooped two mouthfuls of fried rice into her mouth, then pulled a pencil from her pocket and drew a vivid crying face on her sketchpad.

She was already nine, but could not speak. She wrote and drew clumsily but with surprising fluency.

Were it not for the strange aura that clung to her, Ye Ran would never have believed that this frail, diminutive girl—physically weaker than any human child—was of divine blood.

Every god, after all, had their divine artifact: Thor his hammer, Athena her armor and sword, Ares his spear and shield.

Freya, goddess of love, had her own as well. When she crash-landed, she carried a pencil, an eraser, and a drawing board.

Individually, these so-called “artifacts” were useless. Even together, the only thing special was that the pencil could make marks on the board that only the eraser could remove—still, a rather unimpressive miracle...

Tying off the end of the bandage, Ye Ran stood and wiped his hands. “Freya, we’ve used up all our savings. Tomorrow, you stay home and be good. I’ll go find work, and once I have money again I’ll take you out for some fun.”

Ye Ran was an orphan, his whole memory filled with the darkness of the slums, growing up among the dying, the crippled, pickpockets, beggars, and the hopeless. Yet from the very start, he had survived on his own.

No guild had ever considered him. No god had chosen him. He could not meet the threshold of any great family. But he had never given up on himself.

Since he was very young, he had worked from dawn to dusk: washing laundry, delivering mail, carrying bricks...

From Mud Lane to Lanche Avenue, in every eatery, post office, and construction site, Ye Ran’s figure had become familiar. Many knew this stubborn, unyielding boy from the slums; his refusal to accept defeat had earned him hard-won respect.

Many called him “Ye Ran the Cockroach.”

When he met Freya, he had just saved up two gold coins—a fortune.

It was no joke; to Ye Ran and anyone in the slums, this was a vast sum, enough to last nearly a year. Just a handful of copper coins had bought him a trove of medicine and food.

A few more years of work, and he could have bought a tiny house near the food market, far from the slums forever.

But Freya’s arrival changed everything. To keep her far away from the pickpockets and beggars, he spent all his savings on this little room. It was barely thirty square meters. After dividing it into a bedroom for Freya, one for himself, and a kitchen, there was no space left.

Freya grabbed the pencil beside her bowl and quickly wrote on her sketchpad: “I’ll go to work too.”

The drawing board hanging from her neck, larger than a chopping board, had been modified by Ye Ran. The original string through the hole was short, and when she wore it, it looked like a heavy yoke.

It was especially dangerous at night. She treasured this drawing board, refusing to take it off even in sleep. If it fell off the bed, her neck...

To prevent her from strangling herself in her sleep, Ye Ran had lengthened the string, making it twice the height from her little bed to the floor, and added a retractable feature.

“You’re still too young,” said Ye Ran. “No one would dare hire a child.”

“And your leg—tsk, if you break the other one, I’ll tease you about it for a whole year. Hahaha…”

He couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

Freya, indignant, scribbled on her board: “If you laugh again, I’ll start crying.”

“All right, I won’t laugh,” he said, stacking the two small bowls. “Tomorrow, you stay in and draw or read. If someone knocks, don’t open the door. Remember our secret code.”

Freya nodded obediently, making a gesture of understanding with her two fingers.

Ye Ran picked up the bowls and moved toward the kitchen—when suddenly, a knock sounded at the door.

He tensed, quietly setting down the bowls and chopsticks.

It wasn’t paranoia—the neighborhood was dangerous, especially at night. Pickpockets, robbers, and beggars prowled constantly. Three murders had occurred here in two years. Though the culprits were caught, Ye Ran never felt safe.

He knew better than anyone what desperate people might do when driven by poverty and hunger.

“Who is it?” he called softly, glancing quickly at the window, then back to the door.

A heavy voice answered from outside.

“It’s me, Ye, old friend. I’ve got good news for you.”

It was that fat man from the wealthy district.

The sound did nothing to ease Ye Ran’s vigilance—if anything, it deepened his distaste. Wiping his hands, he stepped forward and opened the door.