Chapter 1121

Less pain than there should have been for what he’d just put his soul through, the changes that came with making soulcraft a blessed skill went unexplored for the other skill that had been affected, Ben getting his first transition in what felt like ages.

A skill transition, but an unusual one. When that occurred, the original effects were meant to be maintained; that was how all of the recorded ones had gone, but in his case, he didn’t receive any growth to his mana. Instead, the skill’s nature had changed in its entirety, seeming to have switched to improving his ability to expand the number of possible blessed skills instead of his mana pool, like it had in the past.

Which is interesting, even if it’s a mixed bag. This means I might be able to grow it and keep squeezing more skills into my blessed section, but the fact that I just lost such an easy way to boost my total mana… well, it’s not like that’s happened for a while, has it? It wasn’t awakening, which really was my only hope, so maybe it couldn’t grow more in that way? Maybe I hit some fundamental limit to how much a soul could be stretched out by mana, so instead, when given the chance, it grew another way? On the one hand, I can’t really prove that, but on the other, it’s a nicer way to think about it than it just being that I lost an easy way to grow my mana pool, so I’m just going to try and make myself believe the more positive option.

It wasn’t like there was anything he could do about the way his skill had transitioned, and at the very least, the result he’d gained was still a positive. By combining the effects of his new blessed soul expansion, his eternal soul protection, and his evil god’s soul enhancement, the odds seemed in his favour that the new skill would continue to grow, meaning that, by the time the third wave took place, he’d hopefully be able to have a few more skills empowered.

I’ll have to look at how much it changes at its first level when I get there, but… that’s a later thing. For now, soulcraft.

Immediately he stretched out his soul as far as it could go and felt how his range had grown. What had been two kilometers in all directions had grown by an extra three hundred meters, the fifty percent increase that came with converting the power to a blessed skill affecting the total volume of his soul, rather than just the radius of it, but even that was more than enough. Within that range, he materialized both souls and skills and felt how the cost behind the act had dropped, and that increase in power meant he’d likely be far more skilled when it came to creating skills of his own too. His strength only became more overwhelming, and it left a smile on his face.

If only all of the gods who thought it was a good idea to kill me could see me now.

…Well, I guess seeing this would only make them feel more right, but oh well.

He’d gained more benefits than he’d hoped as his knowledge of how to craft skills had grown, but with all of that testing as fruitful as it could be, there were no other experiments he could think to run. With results that could change the world at his fingertips, it was time to go home.

“You’re actually never going to guess what I’ve managed to do,” Ben said as he forced his way to his god’s realm while Ogilt took him home. “You’re going to have to gather the other gods at this point, because we’re talking payment.”

“Alright, what?” Myriad asked him, Nare and Helori both there too, with both looking equally curious.

“Nope, too easy. Nare, Helori, come on and shove some hands in me. Feel around and see for yourself.”

“So long as you never ask to have your soul examined in that manner again, then fine,” Helori gave in, with both gods going over to reach into his chest and look over what he held, only for both to immediately rip their hands away in shock.

“It seems your soulcraft is far more powerful than we’d expected,” Nare said, the first of the two to gather himself, leaving only Myriad in the dark.

“What is it then, since my blasted apostle doesn’t like it when I examine his soul?”

“We’ve been over this,” Ben said. “You eat people.”

“I do not!”

“I saw what you tried to do to Eneth when I was in hell, Myriad!”

“That was an extenuating circumstance; it doesn’t count!”

“Both of you, stop,” Helori told them, too shocked to get any amusement from the back and forth. “Myriad, your apostle has given himself more blessed skills.”

“What?”

“Specifically, four more,” Ben grinned. “But it also got me a skill transition, so it looks like I’ll probably be able to convert a few more of my skills into blessed ones in the future. Didn’t even hurt either. Well, at least not until I went past five, but it’s already getting better. You’re now looking at someone with evil authority, destruction authority, crafting affinity, and soulcraft as blessed skills.”

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“Dare I even ask why evil god of sacrilege hasn’t made the cut?” Myriad wondered while dealing with the horror of knowing his apostle had somehow made himself even more powerful in his ridiculous authorities than he already had been.

“Simple, I don’t need it yet. I’ll worry about that when I’m off to get myself killed, but until then, I have more useful skills to work on. So, having said that, since this isn’t something difficult for me to do, we need to discuss what it means for me to do it for the wider planet, and how I’m going to be getting paid. I’m currently saying two inclinations. Magic inclination and a non-affinitied magic inclination.”

The first was something he knew the gods had a blueprint for, having plundered their collective minds upon his return from hell and, as such, knew he could make it himself within the span of a couple of days once he converted their way of creating a skill to his own, but getting them to do it would save him time and pieces of his soul that could be spent on other projects. The second he knew they’d have to first design themselves, but that didn’t particularly matter to him. He was putting in endless effort for the world; they could at least put in a bit of effort to pay him.

“That might be a tough sell,” Nare muttered. “You know how the others can be, and you’ve made it clear that you’ll no longer negotiate. Two skills is-”

“The minimum of what this is worth, but don’t worry, I’ve thought of that. If they don’t want to pay, then that’s their right, but as Myriad’s apostle, I’ll be making it clear to the world that this service is then only going to be available to the believers of Myriad. No one else.”

That sentiment alone was enough to provoke a reaction. All of the gods of the world had seen what had happened once Ben had genuinely applied himself to getting Myriad believers, with the cube getting more and more converts by the day. Entire communities had been converted to Myriad, the planet had just gone through a shift in power like had never been seen before, and even with Ben slowing down now that he’d gone to all of the major communities he wanted for his god, more were coming that Ben hadn’t specifically gone after.

Be they friends or family of the new converts, word was spreading of the treatment they had received upon joining their new faith, getting to actually meet and hear from their new god, and that had pulled others that Ben hadn’t spoken to. His efforts as an apostle had shown unbelievable results, and the church of Myriad had already shown its value throughout the war effort thanks to Ben’s work and discoveries. If the people or the world heard that they could grow their number of blessed skills, all at the cost of converting to a church that the whole planet thought well of, then there wasn’t a decision to be made. While plenty would resist the temptation and anyone who already had five blessed skills wouldn’t have anything to consider, among the rest who felt like their connection to their gods was lacking and those who wanted more power before the third wave, the answer was obvious. Myriad would gain millions of new believers all over again, elevating the cube even higher than he’d already grown.

“You’re not seriously going to poach believers from us too, are you?” Helori asked, not ready for the faith she’d managed to build up since coming to that world to collapse, with Nare feeling the same, even if he sat in a better position.

“No, I’ll help the gods who’ve been good to me too, just don’t bring that fact up when you’re discussing things with the rest of them,” he said, watching the two sigh in relief that, even if the rest of the gods refused, at least their faith wouldn’t be ravaged. “Just consider this some motivation to make sure discussions run smoothly.”

“Typically that’s called blackmail,” Myriad pointed out.

“No, it’s called ‘me doing my apostle duties’. I’m supposed to be doing everything I can to get you new believers; I’m simply giving the gods a chance to bribe me not to. It’s completely different. Besides, don’t act like you’re not happy about just how many believers you’re getting thanks to me. I just turned you into one of the most powerful gods on the planet.”

“And I appreciate it, I just wish you didn’t make it look so unethical when you did.”

“And as nice as this all is for Myriad, did you discover anything else while you were experimenting?" Helori asked him once it was clear that her faith wasn't at risk of being destroyed. “Souls are complicated things; I’d be interested in hearing a bit more of your findings.”

“Oh, a couple other pretty good discoveries, actually. Two different ways I can raise affinities and resistances. Only one I can comfortably use on myself though, and wouldn’t you guess it, it’s the worse one.”

“... Elaborate on that.”

“I told you about my earlier experiments with soulcraft. I can now make souls with affinities and resistances, just at a massively inflated cost, meaning I can merge them into other people like I have in all of my previous soul modifications. Not something I can do on a global scale like some other things though, because the mana cost really does get way too high for it to be worthwhile, and not something I can do to myself because I’ve already modified my soul twice now and, based on earlier experiments, I’m worried it’s going to leave me in enough pain that I might still be affected by the next wave, or else damaged in some other way. Alternatively to that, I can now add a point to any affinity or resistance in my soul, I just need to wait and find out how long it will take to heal. It hurts too, though, so neither option is viable to do worldwide.”

“Empty skies,” Myriad said. “Even with that, that means that eventually, you’ll be able to move past the limits of your soul then. You can actually get an affinitied magic.”

“... Well, yes, but no.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ugh, I’ve been thinking about it, is what I mean,” he complained. “And the conclusion I’ve come to is that in the weeks we have left, it doesn’t make sense to try and raise my affinities to a point where I’d be able to learn a magic when I could instead focus on my resistances to make myself even more magic-proof. Since I’m already hard enough to heal as it is, I can’t be raising my light and life resistance, but if I’m going to fight a god of souls, then I can at least raise my death resistance as much as I can, depending on what the results of that experiment end up being, and if I can get that high enough then I can start working on others too. I don’t exactly expect a god of souls to fight me with fire, for example, but it would still be nice to take the option from him as much as I can.”

“But in the future, then?”

“If I survive? In that case, yeah, you’re going to see me with hundreds across the board. Hell, more if I can help it. I don’t know what the limits on this sort of thing are, but Thera’s earth affinity is at one hundred and three. I can stand to push myself a bit.”