Harry Potter: The Ring Maker

Chapter 563: Truth

Eventually Nick finished the tour of the manor with the guest room that he was going to let her use for as long as she wished. "It will serve my purposes well enough." she said blandly after looking over the room. "That reminds me but can I ask why your form is female? The records I have all allude to you being male in nature." Nick said finally unable to resist the urge to know what was going on. She actually looked sad at this question which told him this next bit would be unpleasant.-

"I was born with the crafting and metal domains which were until then believed to be male oriented domains. Admittedly they do indeed suit males better in general due to the innate advantages in body structure. My progenitor , Zeus was enraged at this as he believed it a slight against him by fate. He thus burnt my visage and decreed that I would only be described as and treated as though I was male." she explained before looking at Nick for his reaction only to be surprised to see a look of anger on his face.-

"It would seem the records don't do Zeus justice as he is even worse than depicted , and as you'll no doubt come to realize that is a very bad image already. Honestly what sort of monster would treat their own child in such a way for no good reason , a beautiful daughter no less." Nick fumed and the goddess looked at him in a new way. "Zeus is not a being to be mocked or disobeyed lightly." she warned seriously. "Why should I be afraid when I am already likely to clash with him upon his return?" Nick said with a scoff.-

Her eyes widened "Why would you clash with him? You draw close to the limits of mortality but are not yet a god so he shouldn't concern himself with you upon his return." she said confused. "This should serve as reason enough to believe otherwise." Nick said while taking out the book that Chronos had written to show her. "This is an ancient text older than even I am." she said seriously before opening it to read it's contents. "A written prophesy by Zeus's progenitor! I knew that he was a grand seer but nothing ever this far flung about the future." she breathed out in shock.-

"Yes and from what I gather he saw far more than a single timeline into the future as well. I can't even imagine the sort of strain such a thing might place on one." Nick said honestly. This was true as well as even in the cases of Grindelwald and Trelawny merely seeing a single timeline a few years in the future left them in a wretched state afterwards. Compared to what Chronos did by seeing tens of thousands of years into the future on multiple timelines that backlash was probably next to nothing.-

"Indeed , it was why Apollo bound his own gift of foresight to a human. This allowed him to not suffer the backlash whenever it created a prophecy." The goddess said seriously. "I am not surprised to learn of Hades survival to this date using a different method than we did. He was always a mysterious individual that rarely interacted with the world beyond his realm." she added after finishing the book and returning it to Nick. "This information changes things considerably. If Zeus's progenitor believed you capable of vying for hegemony with Zeus then I shall place my trust in your potential." she added while making eye contact.-

"For now though you should focus on catching up since I imagine Zeus will only return in a year or so. After all I doubt that he has a vast reservoir of mana attuned to himself to absorb unlike you." Nick said pointing out the trick she used to shake off the weakness that should have come from being unsealed early. It was quite clever actually as she gambled that the mana levels would return to normal before she died and placed a tiny gap in the seal to allow the molten metal to be created and accumulate over time around her seal.-

The metal being created by mana attuned to her thus allowed her to reabsorb to metal as pure energy that removed her weakness in an instant. To put it simply she made it so that she could unseal herself whenever she wanted after the mana returned to comfortable levels. If she did so early then she shook off the weakness that came with that. But if she undid the seal slowly like she would have normally she would gain a boost of extra power beyond her peak by absorbing the metal.