Myth: The Ruler of Spirituality

And the earliest aristocrats were not an oppressive rentier class that burdened the populace. On the contrary, they actually fulfilled equivalent duties while enjoying their privileges; whenever demonic monsters caused trouble within their territories, they were the first to stand up and fight against them.

"But now it's different."

"Today's aristocrats have changed, becoming 'Divine Blood Nobles.' Those with great strength but without the bloodline of deities can only be classified as part of the citizenry. This is why the classical republic could stand toe-to-toe with the feudal system, because both sides have transcendent forces supporting them—let's see...

The first recognized Divine Blood Noble, son of the Divine King and Princess Danaë, the naturally born demigod, the great hero Perseus of the constellation Perseus. "

"He achieved countless feats in his life, killed the sea monster Gorgon, saved foreign princesses about to be sacrificed, and also killed the hero Phineus and his brothers. He fathered six sons and two daughters, who either established their own city-states, inherited existing thrones, or were married off to famous heroes.

Corinth, Nemea, Mycenae—all acquired divine lineage, and it was from then on that the Divine Blood Nobles began to grow in strength in the Mortal Realm."

In the reading room on the third floor, Laine perused this passage of history.

What was recorded in the book were just a few hundred words, but with the memory of later myths, Laine saw much more than that.

Why was Perseus the son of the God-King? Because his maternal grandfather had received a Prophecy from an unknown source, stating that his daughter's son would harm him. Therefore, to prevent harm, the king forbade his daughter Danaë from contacting outsiders and confined her within a high bronze tower, strictly guarded.

However, mortal guards naturally couldn't stop deities—at least not King Acrisius. Thus, God-King Zeus transformed into golden rain, passing through the window bars to mate with Danaë, and together they conceived Perseus.

Realizing his actions were futile, the king was terrified. His daughter had ended up pregnant and bore a child after all.

But the king ultimately didn't dare lay hands on the Divine Child, and he was compelled to exile both Perseus and his mother, while he lived in constant fear, even fleeing abroad—and then one day in the future, just like the Prophecy had stated, he was 'accidentally' killed at Tiryns by a discus thrown by his grandson Perseus, fulfilling the ending of that prophecy.

However, this is where the emphasis should be placed—where is Tiryns? It's the same place where another princess, Io, transformed into a white cow by the Divine King and eventually fled to Egypt. And because the foreign king was killed in his own country, this already declining small state suffered yet another blow...

In any case, it's uncertain if Perseus was a hero in the modern sense, and it's also debatable if he could actually fight, since his entire journey could almost be summed up as 'come, trick, come, ambush', or 'an invincible warrior with the backing of money.'

Nevertheless, with the aid of a dozen Divine Artifacts, each successively bestowed upon him by the All Gods, he indeed managed to kill more than one king, father more than one king, and defeated a bunch of nations and their representative figures who were dissatisfied with Olympus, ultimately spreading the bloodline of the God-King among the human royalty.

From then on, the claim that only those with divine blood could be kings spread far and wide, and more and more deities followed suit, leaving their descendants among mortals. Thus divine blood began to proliferate, and those with noble bloodlines took control of the mainstream within the Human Clan...

Turning another page of the volume, through the lens of history, Laine seemed to see the puppet-like life of Perseus.

"Then again, perhaps he actually enjoyed it."

With a smile curling up at the corner of his mouth, Laine continued to flip through the book.

Beyond the origins of the Divine Blood Nobles, this New Chronicle summary from the Church of Knowledge naturally spoke most of the city of Athens.

According to the records, this city blessed by the Goddess was established nearly a thousand years ago, a time before the New Chronicle, and the city-state was not yet called Athens.

Legend speaks of 'born of the earth,' 'human bodied with a serpent's tail,' Cecrops as the founder of this city-state. During the prime years of this king of unusual blood and long life, the Goddess of Wisdom came to the Mortal Realm to spread the mysteries of knowledge, selecting this city as the starting point for her church.

Of course, at this point, an accident was bound to happen, and the Sea Emperor Poseidon was the harbinger of this accident.

For some purpose, he too had fought for the ownership of the city-state at the time, and the two deities were at a stalemate. They ultimately decided to let the locals choose their object of Faith.

Poseidon offered the people a spring of saltwater, symbolizing the protection of the sea, but the people at the time didn't understand its significance, thinking it was useless; Athena, on the other hand, provided an olive tree, thought by the people to bring wood, oil and food.

'Food is the God of the people', as it is true in both the East and the West, and thus the Goddess ultimately gained the trust of the local populace. The city-state was thenceforth renamed Athens, continuing to this day.

"Among the great nations of today, Athens was nearly the last to be established, and for a quite a long time, even with Athena's help, Athens couldn't be considered powerful."

"And the reasons for all this are not recorded or analyzed in the book, which is also somewhat beyond the understanding of people in this era... But from the perspective of later generations, it's almost clear from the geography."