“So, what exactly did you leave out?” Thera asked him as they cuddled in bed that night, Ben trying to play coy.

“What makes you think I left anything out?”

“You were more uncomfortable about whatever secret way you were planning on trying to awaken connect than you were at the prospect of destroying your brain connecting to Dewdrop, and you very blatantly skirted around how you actually pulled it off. So, what are you hiding, and how worried about it should I be?”

“... Okay, fine. You shouldn’t be worried; it wasn’t dangerous to me, but as for what I’m hiding… shame.”

“Ha, I didn’t think you could feel that sort of thing.”

“I’m being serious here, Thera.”

“Okay, then tell me what happened?”

She could feel his body tense up in her arms before he forced himself to relax, recounting the missing details of the day. How he’d used a demon to strengthen himself and the sort of power that had come with it, leaving him to attach a ninth-leveled magic cancelling to Yuzu’s soul. The very reason he’d gotten another soul mage to help him rather than Thera stemmed from his conflict over what he’d been doing, not wanting her to take part in it, even if she didn’t have the same hangups about it he did.

“Alright,” she said as he finished, not understanding the moral issue he was going through but not needing to to support him. “This really is bothering you.”

“It’s been on my mind all day since, yeah. Here I am, ignoring a path to basically unlimited power because my sense of pride is in the way. Sorry world, can’t help you, too proud to take the easiest way out.”

“It’s okay to be proud of your effort, Ben,” she whispered in his ear. “If you don’t want to do it again, then don’t. I’m not going to judge you for it if you think it’s wrong.”

“I… thanks. I’ll keep getting stronger in other ways. I’ve got more things to awaken, and I’ve got time too. I’ll make it work.”

“And now you’re just bragging,” she told him, taking a teasing tone and trying to lighten the mood. “I’ve lost track of how many second-tier awakenings you’ve gotten by this point.”

“Never enough,” he smiled back, wanting to respond to her efforts. “I can’t stop getting them until I finally get an awakening bonus for one. It’s a ten percent chance for it to spawn a new skill in me or for my third-tier awakenings to give me a second-tier skill, and yet I keep not managing it. At this point, it’s either the system or my own soul bullying me.”

“That’s just how odds work sometimes.”

“Then statistics itself is bullying me.”

“Ha, maybe this is your punishment for all of the souls you’re making.”

“It would be a rude as heck punishment, considering I was having this problem before I got soul production.”

“True. Maybe there’s some other super-god out there somewhere that just has a grudge against you then. Did you ever offend any vast, cosmic entities in your old world?”

“Mmh, I have always wondered if my past agnosticism was ever taken poorly by some higher power,” he joked. “The unwillingness to commit might have been worse than just being wrong. It’s only in this world, acting as a representative of a god and constantly having to deal with other deities, that I managed to firmly decide on atheism.”

“I’m sure Myriad’s just charmed to hear that.”

“Of course he is, he loves me. I add all sorts of excitement to his life.”

“It does leave me to wonder if a god can die from stress. It would feel almost unfair if they couldn’t, just having to suffer through it constantly filling up.”

“Don’t you worry, he’s a master of handling stress by this point as well. He gets all sorts of practice. You should have seen his reaction when he found out my race changed.”

“I think I can probably imagine.”

“So, you guys had an interesting meeting, I take it?”

“It was actually fairly standard, as far as meetings revolving around you go,” Myriad told him. “Why?”

“Because for some reason, it landed me one nice and three fairly rude titles, so I need to know who’s been talking shit.”

“With those being…?”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Blessing to the world-”

“Ah, that seems to be from me,” Nare told him. “I suppose a few others there must have taken my sentiment to heart.”

“Followed by abomination, mockery to all that’s good, and horrible thing. Give me names, because I have words for them.”

“Considering how people feel about what is apparently your newest power, we don’t need you making things worse for yourself by acting out,” Helori told him. “We didn’t even officially finish this particular meeting; Phixth just called a break to try and get everyone to calm down and stop riling each other up.”

“Mmh, I guess that makes sense. Mark the calendar because this is going to be the only time I am willing to look at things from the more dickish gods’ perspectives.”

“I suppose that’s personal growth of a sort,” Myriad muttered, while Helori went on, shoving her hands into his chest as she did.

“Did you learn anything else about the skill while we were busy then? The details we got seemed to focus exclusively on what Yuzu saw, and that alone made things hectic enough. Nobody even bothered trying to ask Myriad for more.”

“The range boosted significantly, the depths of all of the thought altering skills that merged into it increased, the amount of souls I can now create would make any soul mages watching from a distance think that they were witnessing the apocalypse, and when I stretch my soul out, I can now pair it with alien sense to completely experience the world around me. Plus, as of right now, I can tell you that when someone shoves their hands into my chest, I become very aware of their soul as well.”

“And?” Helori asked, taking that last comment with all the grace she could. “Could you disassemble me?”

“... Likely, but I don’t want to test that out quite yet. Maybe if any god gets on my truly bad side in the future.”

“Trying and failing something like that would be worse for you than succeeding, so make sure you can actually do it if it comes up,” Nare told him, Myriad snapping in return.

“Don’t encourage that sort of behaviour!"

“Don’t worry, as sad as it is, I don’t see a ton of value in soul-based attacks. I mean, I guess the fact that it can be used against gods while in their realms is a plus, but I still probably have better options.”

“And I hate hearing that too,” Myriad sighed, continuing to go ignored while Helori finished her examination, shaking her head as she pulled her arms out of him.

“And I give up,” she sighed. “The constant changes you accumulate, it’s too much at this point. Is what you have even still a soul?”

“Of course it’s still a soul! It’s just gotten a little… unique.”

“Not a strong enough word. Sure, it still has parts and sections reminiscent of other peoples, but you’re lucky that all of the soul mages know you by this point. If any of them saw this for the first time, they might just assume you were possessed by some evil god, if not an outsider.”

“Wow, extraordinarily rude.”

“And having a normalish soul didn’t exactly make his first meeting with Yuzu a smooth one either, did it?” Myriad added, remembering well that what she’d seen then had been enough to get him attacked, let alone with all of the nonsense he’d accumulated in the years since. “He’s been doomed to be judged for that thing he’s been growing in him from the start.”

“Also incredibly rude. Thank you for that, Myriad. Now, if we’re all done crapping on the state of my soul, we can discuss anything more relevant. For example, how did everyone up here feel about the whole bit where I gave an outsider a body and moved it into my home?”

“I’m sorry, you did what?” Helori asked, Nare looking just as stunned.

“Ah, so I see that didn’t actually come out up here yet. Okay, it’s not important; Myriad can fill you in later. For now, since enchanting didn’t merge into connect, you guys can help me strategize a bit on how I can try to awaken that next, or anything else for that matter. Screw it, since I was really counting on those two combining and something just going right for once, I no longer care about dedicating my complete focus to the task. Any side potential for awakenings, I’m going to take.”

“Really?”

“... Ugh, I’m still mostly going to focus on enchanting, or at most skills that feel like they have high odds of merging with it,” Ben admitted. “It’s just always one thing after another, and I feel like I’m slowly going insane-”

“That ship has long since sailed,” Myriad told him, getting a silent glare from his apostle for the comment.

“I want a win.”

“You have more third-tier skills than anyone else in history.”

“A proper win. The sort of win where the things I’m working towards just work out smoothly, without me getting partial accomplishments or completely different accomplishments, or whatever. I no longer care how it happens, I don’t care about whatever skill it becomes a part of to happen, I just want to get enchanting to a level where I can unlock the full potential between it and soulcraft and then hopefully, have at least a couple days before the third wave arrives where I could live in just a little bit of bliss.”

“Considering that getting that means you’re planning on fighting their god, I don’t think there’ll be time for much bliss.”

“None of your facts and logic, let a guy just believe for a minute. Ugh, I’ve got some ideas, and hypothetically, I have a good foundation for getting it too, all I need is a bit of luck and I’m golden… nope, nevermind, I’m actually going to put all of my hopes in my next job managing to awaken it after I finish this one. Speaking of, I’m going to need Phixth to set two groups for the next job run because getting this skill got me two options.”

“Okay, sure, but do I want to know why it has you looking like that?” Myriad asked, a stupid grin spreading on his apostle’s face as the topic came up and wiped away Ben’s previous downer attitude.

“Simple. The first I got was soulcrafter, not unexpected as far as names go, but the second, and you’re going to love this, is divine apostle of Myriad.”

“No.”

“Oh, yes it is.”

“You’re lying to me. This is some sort of mind game, or a weird test you’ve decided to run on divine psychology, and you’re making me your unwilling subject.”

“Nope, you just have to deal with the truth. I’m no longer just your apostle, I’m your divine apostle. Go on, call me it once and see if it sticks as a title, you know you want to.”

“No, I refuse to lose any plausible deniability for as long as I can. You cause me enough stress as it is; I don’t need the system deciding to invent a promotion for you.”

“Well, guess we’ll have to see,” Ben laughed. “And who knows? I’ve gotten titles from jobs before, maybe this one will follow the trend.”

“And maybe I’ll go insane.”