Chapter 1125

Alone in the shop, Ben pulled out the demons he’d captured one by one and took them over with his mind to keep them from causing any havoc within town, all while he looked through their thoughts and judged their souls, surprised at some of his results.

With the time dilation they’d been put through, the demons had experienced almost five days since they’d been trapped away and, while they’d gone through the food and water he’d left them with faster than he’d hoped, there were all still alive, letting him see how they’d adapted to the changes he’d made in their souls.

With those given six blessed skills the worst to adapt of the two groups. While there was some improvement, based on how they felt, it seemed it would be months before their souls completely adapted to being warped in such a way, so long as they didn’t get anything akin to his blessed soul expansion first. A disappointing result, but going over the changes in all of them might have at least made for decent data points that could be used to design a soul spell that would let one adapt to such an alteration fast. He still had hope that he’d be able to give Thera at least a sixth blessed skill without leaving her to suffer for who could guess how long, and he did have some ideas as to how he might be able to make that possible, but nothing he could immediately put into practice.

More relevant to him, though, was the other group: those demons who had increased their affinities or resistances by a single point, with their minds giving him better news than he could have hoped for. After a span equal to about a day, they seemed to have healed.

A result that led him to add another point to their various souls to continue his testing and found the results of it only as bad as the first time he’d done it, leaving him to believe that they’d continue to heal at a similar rate with each time, even if he was going to need to conduct further tests. With that confirmed, though, he put them away again, giving them more food and water to make sure they’d maintain their viability as test subjects before sitting down to focus on himself and just what he should do.

“Even if the results end up showing that it slowly gets worse with time, I still have to do it,” he sighed to himself. “This is literally the only way to grow my resistances, and growing my death resistances is a must if I’m going to have to fight a soul god.”

Though not without worry, that was a driving enough motivator that Ben forced himself to start, cutting open his soul in a way that left him to gasp before materializing a single point of death resistance into what he already held, the act leaving bile to rise in his throat once it was done.

<MULTIVERSAL AFFINITY LEVEL INCREASED>

<EVIL GOD’S SOUL ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

The act itself came with no notifications, even if it had seemed to have led to two others, but looking at himself and the system bound to his soul, Ben could see it clearly. Even if insignificant, his death resistance had risen from seventy-eight to seventy-nine, leaving him that much safer from any death mana that might be used against him.

A level to my multiversal affinity, huh? He told himself through the pain that he was already feeling slowly fade. Yeah, that tracks. This was something that nobody ever could have done back in my old universe.

He took a moment to let his stomach settle before he stood up and stretched, knowing that, as significant as it was that he could change his soul at such a level, it still wasn’t much. So long as it was consistently repeatable, then in the time he had left, he could bring it up to a hundred points and move on to a different change, but that also meant weeks of tormenting himself, just to grow a little stronger.

“Yeah, and what else is new?” He groaned, knowing that he would do it. Pain could be regulated, and power meant increasing his odds of survival. He couldn’t expect to kill the most powerful god in the universe without a bit of agony, let alone survive the attempt.

And besides, this leveled my soul enhancement too, so that’s some training on that front at least. Maybe doing this ‘til the third wave will be enough to make me a contender.

<MAGIC AFFINITY LEVEL INCREASED>

<MAGIC AFFINITY LEVEL INCREASED>

“I’m home,” Thera called out, joining them in the kitchen where Ben and Mora worked on dinner.

“Welcome back,” Ben told her. “How was working with some other contenders?”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Mmh, a little disappointing. I had them fight me, but, well, I wouldn’t say it was easy, but it should have been harder.”

“Ha, you’re a third tier with the most mana on the planet; I think expecting them to be able to be on your level is kind of unfair. If you’re really worried about fighting someone, we should be seeing Abel in a couple of days. I’m sure she’d love the challenge.”

“Never mind, no thanks. I don’t want to know what she’s like after you got the gods to start feeding her leftover bodies.”

With Abel having become the disposal system of all of the flesh that went unused when turning more people into demigods, there was no doubt the girl had likely grown by leaps and bounds since then, creating what was sure to be one more very scary figure on the world that could have given Thera a significant fight, which she very much didn’t want. She liked the other girl, but her skills were frightening enough, even without considering her outer ancestry that warped her flesh or her third-tier power to create endless monsters. Even if Thera wanted a challenge, it felt like there were probably better places to get one.

“You sure? Because I’m pretty confident she’s going to want to fight me again, and I’d be more than happy to be able to avoid that.”

“I’m sure, and… Mora? What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Thera asked, seeing the boy look at her with curiosity without saying a word, and left him to shrug.

“Just waiting to see how long it takes you to notice.”

“Notice what?”

“Ben.”

A response that turned her eyes back to her partner, making her wonder just what she could have missed in his jumbled mess of a soul before eventually giving up, with nothing looking too out of place.

“A few new levels, a new inclination, and another couple skills turned into blessed ones? I know he can be a weirdo, sweetheart, but trust me, I’m used to it.”

“Hey-” Ben tried to say in his defense, not getting the chance to go further as Mora went on.

“His death resistance increased.”

“What?” Thera yelled, looking him over again before focusing on his eyes in shock. “Ben, genuinely, how horrifying does your soul need to become before you’re satisfied?”

“One, rude. Two, this is just a result of the same tests that led me to figuring out I can bless skills. Actually, you’re pretty lucky, because I did two tests for increasing affinities and resistances, and the one I can use will only let me grow mine by a point at a time. You, I’ll be able to raise significantly. I was just going to wait till a bit later to really discuss the issue with you because as my mana grows, so does how much I’d be able to help you with it.”

Hearing that, she could only shake her head. “Alright, you know what? Just tell me about it over dinner then.”

“Alright, another night of sacrilege training then?” Ben asked as they laid down for the night. “Or maybe you want to take a break?”

“I’m not taking a break.”

“Okay, okay, just checking. It seemed like there was something on your mind, is all.”

“Mmm, there is. The opposite of a break, actually. I want your help raising a few other skills too.”

“Dare I ask?”

“I know you can help me become a contender for knowledge and connect, and I know you can help me awaken mental expansion, so I wanted to ask you to help me with all of that, please.”

“I mean, I don’t mind, but I can guarantee you’re going to hate doing that. Why do you want all of this all of a sudden?”

“You think you can get Valaria’s mental expansion to the third tier, right?”

“I do.”

“Then that’s why,” Thera groaned. “I have the same skill as her, which means there’s no reason you can’t help me push it that far too, and considering I have soul magic, it should even be easier for me. We both know the attribute bonuses would help a lot, and when I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to awaken my earth magic before the next wave, this is at least a way I might be able to get a bit more meaningful growth.”

“And you want to raise knowledge and connect too because…?”

“Knowledge is a mind skill so it will probably merge into whatever mental expansion would grow into, and even if I’m not crazy about connect, since it pairs well with both my soul magic and my mana empowering, I can’t just ignore it either.”

“... Alright, fine, if you’re sure. Just remember, you can quit at any time.”

“Ugh, don’t tell me that; I already know I’m gonna want to. I can do this. We’ve got nearly two months still for me to reach those levels in everything.”

“I can probably get you to be a contender for a couple of those skills in a few days, but those days are going to feel like months with how much time you’re going to be spending in my head.”

“Don’t want to hear that either. I’m a soul mage, and you’ve got your authorities to help me grow too. I’m just going to tell myself that it’s not going to be that bad, so let’s get started on everything before I change my mind.”

Mustering her determination, Ben pulled Thera into his mind to begin helping her with all of the skills she wanted to grow, trying to be as gentle as he could about it while still doing his best to get her those levels, while at the same time, dealt with a result in himself that he hadn’t been prepared for either.

Be it because of his eternal soul protection, his evil god’s soul enhancement, his soulcraft, or even his soul affinity, he could tell that the pain he was under from modifying his death resistance was already substantially less than it had been for any of the demons under the same timeframe. His soul was healing faster, to the point that it seemed he wouldn’t be able to just give himself one extra point to his resistances in a day, but two.

From the way things feel, I should be able to do it to myself again in about an hour then, he sighed, looking forward to the day that he could give up on doing things that would hurt his soul. Whatever. This is good news. Forget just death resistance, I’ll be able to hit the third wave with a few different resistances at one hundred.

<PLANAR MANIPULATION LEVEL INCREASED>