Reincarnated as a goddess

Chapter 2: Athena and first temple

I look at Athena shocked by her beauty. I am not second-guessing my own appearance, but this does not mean I cannot admire another person's beauty. She is as beautiful as goddess Athena herself. She does not have the shield that Athena usually had, instead, she has a golden owl on her shoulder. She has a long, white silk garment and a golden breastplate that is like Armour. She is white in color, but her skin is Sunkissed at the same time. Her eyes are hazel with a golden ring and her hair is chocolate brown. She has a shine that I imagine only goddess owns.

I am looking forward to knowing her powers. She is now a goddess of her own and her emotions are now apparent. "Although I am a goddess with my own feelings and actions, there is one thing I am unable to do and that is to disobey you. That is because you have given me a body and life and doing so would be putting shame on me as much as you. I am also a lesser goddess, while you are a true goddess" she tells me while I examine her. That makes sense in a way but I doubt I will ever control her. That doesn't seem right.

"Now what should I do. You still have not answered my question about how many people are needed for the game." I tell her and as soon as I do her eyes widen and she bows. I am so shocked, I don't know what to do. What did I do? Why is she bowing like that? I feel weird having a goddess bow to me like that but I am unable to speak. Apparently, I have decided to impersonate a goldfish because all I am doing opening my mouth and then closing it the next second.

"I apologize, my lady, I should have explained this to you earlier. The number of races needed for the game is 500,000, however, the number of divinity needed is 100," she explains and starts to get up.  I nod as I stop acting like a goldfish and start acting normal again. "how many races are there now?" I ask her taking a deep breath beforehand just in case she bows like that.   "The races count has reached its maximum amount, the systems are now transferring the excess to other worlds. As for the god and goddesses, it has now reached 10," she tells me as she smiles.

"I am very bored Athena!" I whined as she chuckled. Two days have passed since she was named and gained a body and I have learned all I could about the game and my powers. "isn't there anything I can do, before the game?" I asked with a pleading look to Athena. She thought about it for a minute as her expression changed from a confused to a bright face. "You can build a starter temple for your domain," she said and then stopped before clarifying "you need to choose a starting place for your domain. Your domain is different from the worlds you create, it is in your galaxy but unseen by your creations". She nods and guides me to the black space. My domain does not seem like a galaxy, it is just a black space.

"You will be able to build your own galaxy after the game starts." Athena smiles and tells me. I look around and imagine my own domain in my mind. I smile and I start to follow Athena's directions for building the temple.

[anylizing different temples and shrines...]

[chosen shrine template]

Everything looked so beautiful, it was hard to figure out what to choose. "Before you choose anything, I suggest you make a base, an island or a piece of land to place the shrine. The shrine can float all on its own, but it would look weird in my opinion," Athena voiced as I nodded my head in agreement. A base, I can't create life forms so I am not sure how the base would look. "The base at the start would just be a large piece of earth floating in one place but after the game begins, you can add plant and animal life and also houses and palaces," she informed me.

Allright, let's go with a piece of land the size of Africa because I have plans with all that land. Although Athena said it is very big and is taking a lot of energy, I explained that I want more of my creations living in my domain. Now I need to make streams of the river leading to the center of the island shape. The body of the biggest water and where all the rivers led to is around CHAD and SUDAN, those two places are covered with water. Of course, there are smaller bodies of water all around the continent. I want my continent to fill with plant life, which is why there need to be many sources of water. Since I can't create the sun and the moon at the moment, I might as well create the water system.

My temple will be floating in the biggest body of water in the center of Sudan. There will be four staircases that are connected to the land and the temple. The names of these places won't be the same as in Africa, this is for location reference. I start with the four stairs, white steps, and golden railings. The temple looks like a silver and golden palace. Inside the temple, there is a statue of me in a pool of water. I am not naked. Athena's statue is standing behind me smiling as her owl statue sat on her shoulder. This pool of water was in the middle of the temple. The ceilings were very high with candles lighting the walls of the temple.

This is a very beautiful temple and I know once I get to making trees and plant life, this place will be even brighter. "You added me in your temple," Athena says in awe, and I look at her confused because I thought this was an obvious statue to add. "Well, you help me, and it is only right I add you," I tell her with a tilt of the head. "Usually, gods and goddesses don't give any signs of the systems in their temples," she says, and my eyes widen at the realization. "Has the game happened before or are the gods and goddesses right now making temples of their own?" I asked her hurriedly.

"This game has never happened before, and it will only happen one time. The 60 gods and goddesses are starting to make their temples in their domains. However, their domain is quite small compared to yours." she tells me as I jump in excitement. The game will start soon and I can't wait.

[message from the great library: you have been the first to complete the temple despite it being large. Therefore, I will give you a gift for not only giving life to your system but also being the first.]

I look to see Athena jumping around the pool after hearing the notification. Her personality, I imagine, does not match that of Athena's. "You would be terribly wrong. It is true Athena was serious in front of her people, but she was not cruel. The myths about her curses' are not true. Furthermore, behind the scenes, she acted very childishly. She was actually one of the most childish ones of the Greek gods" Athena informs me with a giggle.

Suddenly, a large stairway to somewhere opened up at the corner of my temple. As I walked through the stairway leading down, small flicker of light shined my way. It was like a lot of fireflies but there cannot be any life forms other than us here. When I finally made it down, I found a room. The walls and floors were gold and in the middle was a black box. It looked like one of those ominous mystery box from the dark web.

"This is the gift from the great library. Her life tree is black, that is how we know it is from her. The runes on the wall tells me that this is where every gift she might give you in the future will come...what are you waiting for, OPEN IT!" She yelled as I still continued to look at it.