Not only had she finished teaching Nick the parts he was missing and then correcting those he had wrong but also let him advance his plans against Zeus. On the final day of this time though there was a bit of a commotion as Nazgul returned from wherever she had been this whole time. She had simply left shortly after Grindelwald completed his ritual and Nick hadn't bothered to try and figure out where she went since he could feel that she was fine through their bond. That said he also wasn't aware that she was coming back and thus couldn't warn those living in his settlement.-
Nazgul might be a beautiful creature but she was also the size of a large dragon and extremely powerful. So when the scouts reported her approach the alarms went off and it was all hands on deck as they prepared to confront the powerful beast that had shown up. Nick had donned his armor and was floating in the air outside his settlements walls to wait for this unknown creature. When he saw her however he laughed and told everyone to stand down which confused many until Nazgul crashed into him and chirped affectionately as she rubbed her head against his chest.-
"You must have been eating well girl , you've grown!" Nick said with a wide smile as he gave her attention much to the dumbfounded looks of many of his settlements residents. "Uh sir can you explain your relation with this creature?" one of the muggle guardsmen asked respectfully but also with more than a little fear towards Nazgul. "Ah right I totally forgot to make that public what with the way the world has been recently. Anyways this beautiful creature here is my familiar , Nazgul." -
"She was born from an experiment I made while I was trying to give ghosts corporeal forms and is an absolute sweetheart so no need to be afraid of her at all." Nick said without looking away from Nazgul. As if to prove his point Sirius walked out of the crowd and scratched her under her horns without any hesitation. Sad as it was Nick was less believed than Sirius was in the settlement due to how unapproachable he was as he rarely made public appearances beyond shows of power. Sirius on the other hand was an active participant in the community that was formed in the settlement and well known by everyone.-
With the man confirming what Nick said with his actions everyone relaxed and a few of the braver folk even tried to pet Nazgul as well if rather nervously. She just flopped down with a heavy "THUD!" with a content expression at the attention. Seeing as he wasn't needed anymore Nick went back to the island and Nazgul shrunk down and followed after once she was satisfied with the attention she received. At the same time Hephaestus was finishing up her lesson and was ready to go back to the normal world.-
Nick thought nothing of it and let her out but the moment he did so the goddess noticed Nazgul and stiffened as a look of terror appeared on her face. She immediately hid behind Nick like he was able to protect her from anything that could legitimately threaten her. "W-what is that thing!?" she asked in panic while Nazgul just tilted her head at the goddess in confusion. Nick was equally confused about why the goddess was so afraid of Nazgul until he remembered what she said about the true nature of gods and how they were uniquely vulnerable to soul based attacks after their bodies were "killed".-
Nazgul was a perfect counter to gods as she was able to bypass ones body and attack a soul directly even to the extent of truly destroying it. In other words Nazgul was the natural predator to the gods that had never known what that was like. One would think that meant she was a genuine threat to them at this moment but that was not actually the case as despite being a perfect counter she was still only tier four much like Nick himself.-
Compared to a tier seven she may as well be a bug with how easy any god could kill her at the moment , a fact the goddess seemed to not notice at the moment. "This is Nazgul , my familiar. She's quite friendly I promise." Nick said reassuringly. The red haired goddess relaxed minutely but was still highly vigilant against Nazgul who got bored of the interaction and yawned before curling up to go to sleep. It was rather amusing to see the goddess be left speechless at the sheer lack of care given by the hyper dangerous soul devouring beast in front of her.
It ended up taking a few days but Hephaestus eventually got comfortable with Nazguls presence. Nick had a sneaking suspicion that most of that time was merely a ploy at trying to get closer to him. The goddess was not subtle at all in what she wanted even though she seemed to think he didn't notice. Nick chose to play dumb however like he was Ron levels of romantically dense since he absolutely did not want to deal with the matter. He had far too much on his plate to even entertain the thought of romance with even a human much less a literal goddess.-
Still she was at least being vague enough that he could play it off easy enough. Honestly speaking Nick could understand why she was trying to partner up with him as on an existential level he was damn near perfectly attuned to her. Their personalities and domains just sort of clicked with each other and to top it off he was just as immortal as she was. In her own words he was "a god waiting to happen" as he was existentially on the same level but was merely three tiers of power lower though that was soon to be only two.-
Yes with the worlds mana levels now capable of supporting higher tiered beings Nick had stopped restraining his manas growth and was firmly pressing against the edge of tier five needing but a small push to advance. Hephaestus was a font of helpful information about this process as she had the experience of witnessing a mortal become a god in the form of Asclepius. Tier five was the first step on this path so it was obvious that only those truly talented or willing to sacrifice could succeed at becoming divine. Tier five was different than the first four tiers that were all about mana accumulation as it was a qualitative leap forward if a minor one.-
According to Hephaestus one reached tier five by firmly grasping the domains associated with them and infusing ones mana with them to cause a transition to begin. That was the essence of tier five , a transition period from mortal to divine. This infusion of domains was the reason why a gods energy when not controlled turned into whatever their domains were. For Hephaestus it became a metal that was in a malleable form for crafting. For Zeus it was a thunderous storm that crackled with lightning.-
Nick unfortunately had this distinct problem of possessing too many domains that needed to be infused equally into the tiniest part of his mana. Grasping ones domains was not an easy matter at all as it was a bit like closing ones eyes to pin point the location of a sound. It took practice or a serious amount of luck just to grasp a single domain but to get eight and it was multiple times more difficult. Hephaestus even suggested that he discard a few of his domains to ease the difficulty but the mere thought of relinquishing them at this step enraged him greatly.-
Relinquishing a domain was not as simple as merely choosing to keep it out of this process but rather dropping all talent , accomplishments and abilities related to it entirely. This meant for Nick that he had to give up a part of what made him , well him. For those willing to give anything to reach divinity it was a small price but for Nick it would be catastrophic. Each of his domains were tied to each of the others in a delicate balance that if he dropped even a single one his entire path up to now would be voided out almost entirely.-
He had worked far too hard and paid in blood , sweat and tears to get where he is and refused to be set back for a faster and smoother advancement. For someone born divine like Hephaestus she couldn't understand what about it enraged him so much as grasping domains to be used was as easy as breathing for her. Nick explained it as a difference in starting points to her where she began life far ahead of people like him and thus simply couldn't understand what it truly cost to get there from rock bottom.-
But for wizards like him it was a thing they were intimately familiar with and almost always proud of. To be told to discard all of ones effort and struggles to get to the next step was like insulting everything they had done to get there. Nick as a result stopped reading the lexicon with his second body and instead used the entirety of it's attention to the task of grasping his domains with very little to say for it after two weeks of time.