“Ben, why are you a god now?” Mora asked in naked confusion when he arrived, perking up Delair, Fontesh, and Sachel who were all in the room with them in shock and surprise as he scooped the boy up.

“Because I managed to have a very, very productive day yesterday,” He laughed. “More importantly, did you have a good time? You behaved for Fontesh, didn’t you?”

“He did but I don’t think that’s more important,” The dryad told him, looking between him and the others. “Mora, what are you talking about?”

“I hit the third tier,” Ben explained. “It’s a long story-”

“It’s really not,” Thera cut in.

“Okay, it’s not but there’s some details to it that might not be great to bring up around the kiddos. Either way, I’m fine, and powerful, and I’m going to politely ask you all to not spread that fun fact around if you can avoid it.”

“And why are you wearing a different god?” Mora asked him while the rest of them were struggling to process what they’d already been told before that new tidbit was thrown into the mix, getting a wink for the question.

“Training. Again, don’t worry about it too much. You’ve seen me wear souls before, right? This is the same sort of thing.”

An answer that appeased the child at least but left the adults in the room only with more questions but it was Delair who managed to squeeze a word in next, her eyes positively gleaming.

“What skill, what skill?” She asked, overflowing with curiosity while Ben cleared his throat.

“My mind skills, so I’m a mind god now,” He said, trying to keep it simple and cast a small look to the soul spirit in his arms, Mora catching on and not adding anything from there while his student’s energy dropped.

“Oh, so not your crafting?” She asked, instantly sounding less interested and leaving him to chuckle. “I guess that’s still cool. Can you do anything new then?”

“Ha, a bunch but seeing as most of the changes are going to be in my head, one of the more interesting bits is going to be how my attributes have grown,” He said, materializing a handful of metal and squeezing it, letting the others in the room watch as it deformed in his grasp. “I am substantially more powerful.”

“And going to be a real, genuine god,” Sachel repeated as she blinked. “Wow. Just… wow. Wait, should I be offering you prayers now?”

She was slowly bringing her hands together as she asked, only being stopped as Ben materialized a plank of wood between them.

“Don’t you dare. I’m not dead yet, I haven’t ascended so I’m still mortal, I’m just a third tier and while that is exceptionally cool, everyone just treat me the same. This isn’t even the skill I was trying to get to this tier.”

“How do you accidentally become a third tier?” Fontesh asked him in naked disbelief, getting to see her question immediately bring him down.

“By not considering how my big attempt to reach it might technically apply better for another skill I’ve had at the ninth level for a while longer but it’s fine, what’s done is done and I’m going to keep trying to awaken that one too. Anyway, it’s getting a bit late so we should head home. Delair, I’ll see you tomorrow for lessons. Fontesh, thanks again for watching Mora, and Sachel, just remember that anything Myriad has to say about my awakening is probably just slander that should be ignored.”

----------------------------------------

He wasn’t tired but he still forced himself to sleep since he hadn’t the night before, dropping the connection to the god he was wearing as he forced his mind to a higher realm, finding three more staring him down when he arrived.

“Ben.”

“Myriad.”

“Should I even ask? Do I even want to know?”

“I mean, seeing how it looks like you were all waiting for me, I take it you at least kind of want to know.”

“What are you doing with Quox’s soul?” Helori asked him, her own curiosity trumping Myriad’s expected horror.

“Well, I have enough fruit in storage that I’ll be fine as far as potions go for the next couple years, so leaving him there was really kind of a waste,” Ben said innocently as the rest searched his face for whatever he was skating around. “And you know me, I just love my efficiency and all.”

“Which means what?”

“Which means, you’re looking at the evil god of sacrilege. Just this once, I’m putting a bit more emphasis on the evil.”

They all stared at him as he said it, waiting for him to be a bit less coy as he finally gave in, giving an exaggerated sigh.

“Okay, okay, fine but all of you just do me a favour and be cool. First, you guys are the only ones that know, right?”

“You blocked everyone else from seeing you, didn’t you?” Nare asked him. “How would anyone else have noticed?”

“One of you three feeling chatty or more likely, looking through Thera?”

He’d tried to extend his anti-god privacy effect to her too and he felt somewhat confident it had worked but without verification, he didn’t actually know how it had turned out, with Myriad being the one to answer.

“I believe it worked, although later try and block someone from my sight but not yourself and we can confirm. As things stand though, since nobody’s raised a fuss yet, I’m comfortable saying nobody else knows.”

“Of course, if anyone else pokes around in your lover’s thoughts while she happens to be thinking about what you did then the secret’s going to be out,” Helori added. “Whatever it happens to be.”

“Yeah yeah, okay, I get it already. So, long story short, I’m torturing Quox for power. I got some results but it is going worse than I’d admittedly hoped. Either I need way more experience than I was expecting or else the experience rate of how I’m doing it is abysmal. Probably even a bit of both.”

“...Elaborate on that,” His god asked him, suddenly seeming significantly more weary as he listened to what Ben had to say as the boy tapped the side of his head.

“I’ve said it before, time is relative and I’m trying my best to take advantage of that fact. I’m still limited by my flesh but within my mind I’m not, which has created a number of opportunities for me. For one, pulling Quox into my head and well, like I said before, torturing him is an avenue to not only try and raise my skills but also finish third-tier jobs even faster. Admittedly, the whole mind user pairing would probably do it too as things currently stand with how much experience I’m sure my new thought structure is going to generate compared to what it was like before but it never hurts to have a second option and considering that I should be getting a couple new sacrilege variants when I complete a few new master paths, I’m honestly in great shape for getting them done. Of course, if I don’t end up with more sacrilege options then we can always find a few people who have access to the heretic job, even if there’s not going to be many, there has to be at least a couple. Hell, both Thera and Greed would be options for it.”

“That just leaves so many further questions,” Myriad muttered, leaving Helori to take over.

“Alright, for now, what exactly do you mean by torture?” Helori asked him, sounding genuinely concerned. “I know your morality can be, shall we say, complex? But what exactly are you doing?”

“Well, for the first few years, I was experimenting with my sacrilege but I think I’ve figured out everything I can on how to use it when it comes to mental and spiritual fronts so all of that is being applied for what experience it would give me, along with the simple fact that doing such things to a god in general should be acting as experience as well.”

“Empty skies, you really are trying to level your sacrilege again, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, among other things too but it’s going worse than I expected. Honestly, with just how many centuries I’ve put towards it, the fact I haven’t gotten my level yet is honestly a bit disheartening.”

“Centuries?” Nare asked in disbelief. “Ben, it’s been a few hours. Just what even is your current mental speed? How is the mere act of existing not driving you insane?”

“Eh, gotta remember that one of the original skills that my mind grew into was focus, that probably helps. Aside from the mind I have interacting with the world, the rest of me doesn’t really seem capable of boredom anymore and as for the parts of myself I have handling Quox, well, it’s not a perfect description but they’re kind of subroutines of myself if that makes sense. They know what they have to do and they do it. Of course, it gets a bit more complicated than that because they aren’t separate from me in any way, all parts of myself are aware of what the rest are doing but honestly, trying to explain my current mental structure is going to be a pain for both you and me so let’s just leave it at a firm, I’m fine.”

“Are you?” Myriad asked him. “Ben, deserved or not, inflicting centuries of torture can’t be good for you mentally.”

“Why not? I know the gods do it, they’re just hands off about it so they can feel free of guilt, like all they’d done is inflict punishment and that’s the end of it. Every time any god of this world has ever condemned a mortal to hell is for less than what any one of the forbidden gods have done when compared to the level of harm they’ve had to have inflicted by bringing the demons into the system. Fuck, you all know there’s been talks about sending me to hell and I’ve done both infinitely less damage and more good. Yes, the fact that I’m doing this is messed up and the fact that I don’t really feel anything about it is probably more so but I don’t really care. If there’s some sort of afterlife paradise waiting for me after I go through whatever true death is waiting passed godhood then I’m sure I’ve already blocked myself from its doors but this is a choice I’ve made and I stand by it. The entire time I’d been using Quox until today, he’d never felt a bit of repentance or shame for what he’d done, only thinking about revenge so if that garbage excuse for a god can be used for something worthwhile in the world, I’m going to use it.”

“I regret wanting to know,” Myriad sighed. “But fine, regardless of the frankly horrific optics of this, you aren’t wrong that he and the other forbidden gods should by all rights have had their souls banished to hell but I need to say, I feel like one day we’ll need to have a long, long conversation about empathizing with those you don’t actually like.”

“I’d like to point out that the people I don’t like are largely those who want me dead or worse and I refuse to ever be the bigger man.”

“Of course you do,” Myriad groaned. “So anything else? What other new and horrific details could have popped up in your life in the single day since you’ve awakened your skills?”

“Oh, nothing too much, really. Although I do have my own realm now, which is pretty neat.”

“...What?”

“I told you I got a skill called realm access, right?” Ben shrugged. “It looks like the realm I get to access is my own. It’s pretty cool though, since someone is very rudely keeping me from spending one hundred percent of my time here, it gives me a different place to send a part of myself.”

“...Ben, are you really just going to slowly grab hold of everything that should be a domain of the gods while you’re still alive?”

“I’d be doing it quickly if I could.”

“Ugh, I know you’re in a hurry to get yourself killed but please, consider living the longest, healthiest life you can. I’m already worried about seeing how things go when you ascend.”

“Hey now, a long, healthy life is literally all that I want. It’s the rest of the universe that seems to want to get in the way of that.”

REALM ACCESS LEVEL INCREASED