Circe, who was already a little apprehensive about his magical abilities, now looked like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
The titanic water creatures that were constantly battering his wind shield simply dissolved into mist that sank back into the water, to Nick this was as clear of an answer that he figured he would get.
"Come here, let's talk." Nick said using his intent to instruct the wind carry his message, he wasn't stupid enough to enter a literal regional god's lair that would be like a mouse entering a cat's lair.
Circe looked visibly angry but still obliged and started walking towards him, however instead of his spell to freeze the water to walk on it she appeared to simply walk on top of the sea, the water itself appearing to support her movements.
Once she reached him, he could now fully appreciate how beautiful she truly was, though now that he knew that this wasn't her actual body but a puppet she made, it suddenly didn't look beautiful but rather disturbing.
Once she reached him, Circe waved a hand causing a small island barely 10 meters across to rise from the sea right below them. With another wave plants sprouted from the new ground and grew into the shape of chairs and tables.
"What do you want brat?" Circe said with an almost tired look on her face, sitting down at the newly created table.
"Oh, its brat now, is it? Wasn't I Athena just moments ago?" Nick said genuinely curious as to why she believed him, following her lead to sit down.
"As if. That old crone would have run off immediately after finding out about the Ritual. She wouldn't have stayed here and asked me for tutelage. She would have used this opportunity to blackmail me into again participating in whatever scheme they are planning these days." Circe said, an unconcealed contempt practically radiating off of her face.
"Again?" Nick thought before continuing "Well, I am glad that we have finally sorted out the confusion. I am indeed here not on behalf of my mother, and I would sincerely like to seek your teachings"
"To that end I have prepared a few gifts as a price for my apprenticeship, a beak of a creature comparable in strength to the Minor Gods, my very own rituals and spells and a most importantly a solemn oath to never reveal what I have learned here. I hope that would be a sufficient price for your teachings?" Nick said trying to use both the carrot and the stick in one sentence.
With a wave of his hand the wind carried the beak and his tomes from out of his backpack and slotting them into place next to the island, the water freezing below them to support their weight.
"Interesting… It's the beak of a kraken. Very powerful creatures… Yes, this will do nicely, and the tomes?" Circe said carefully concealed greed coloring her puppet's face.
"I will unlock them but only after you agree to be my teacher." Nick said, quite enjoying how this conversation is going
"Yes, yes. Fine brat, I agree, but you must agree to making an oath to the river Styx to never reveal that I am your teacher or anything about my ritual!" Circe said, impatiently.
"I Nicholas, son of Athena swear to the river Styx never to reveal who taught me magic or anything about the ritual I saw here today but only on the condition that Circe teaches me magic without reservation" Nick said immediately not wasting any time.
Circe nodded, quite satisfied with the oath before continuing "What do you want to know first? Nicholas, was it?"
"I know that magic is not taught to demigods, and I was wandering why that was? Would the Gods be unhappy at me learning magic?" Nick said, asking the most important question that was weighing on his mind.
"Unhappy! Ha ha ha! That's the understatement of the century! Hades, If one of the Gods even got a whiff of you learning magic from me, your own mother might just smite you down." Circe said with amusement etched on her face.
Nicholas frowned, "Damn! This seems like even more trouble than I was expecting.", he continued however "What? But why?"
"Why? Why he asks! Silly child, why did Kronos eat his children? Why did Uranus stuff his children back inside Gaia? Why did Zeus eat Metis? For power boy! It's all about power! It's the world's only universal currency!" Circe said, the puppet's face contorted in a fevered expression.
"But why even have demigods if they could threaten their power? What's in it from them? I have a hard time believing that beings that are thousands of years old would have a hard time keeping it in their tunics. I mean why risk it?" Nick said.
"Good intuition kid! But you are missing a crucial piece of the puzzle, understandable given all that they did to cover up this story. Do you know what makes someone a God?" Circe said, condescension practically dripping from her voice.
"Authority over an aspect of reality?" Nick answered in a questioning tone, failing to see where she was going.
"Exactly right! And do you know how someone might acquire such authority? Do you know how even the Gods got their authority?" Circe continued.
"Weren't they born with it?" Nick asked, though he was starting to see where this conversation was going.
"Indeed, they did, they were born with their domains. That's how it goes doesn't it? Godly parents give birth to godly children! But if that was all that it was then you could use that logic infinitely to create infinite gods."
" However, there is an origin to even the most primitive authority. In the Greek lands the most important would be Uranus and Gaia the Primordial forces of the Sky and of the Earth, they who are without parents!" Circe said, almost casually, as if they were discussing the weather and not the primordial forces that made up their world.
Circe continued "How were they born? Spontaneously created out of nothingness? No, what created them was belief! The most primitive belief there is, the belief in the kind mother earth and angry father sky. It was humans who created the Primordials! Not the Gods that created humans as they would like us to believe."
"I will try to cover the essentials of the truth about Greek History, I will be skipping over the unimportant details but do try to keep up." Circe said with a smirk.
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