DEEP CALMING LEVEL INCREASED

DEEP DESTRUCTIVE THOUGHT LEVEL INCREASED

DEEP EVIL THOUGHT LEVEL INCREASED

DEEP CALMING LEVEL INCREASED

“Goddamn, Legs, your life sounds like a nightmare.”

“I think you’re ignoring the part where you now officially have the pleasure of getting to say you’re friends with a third-tier, even if I’d appreciate you not spreading the fact that it’s me around,” he said in his defense, only mentioning eldritch mind of those awakenings while Greed scoffed.

“You’re forgetting I saw the sort of shit you were doing to keep us alive, you getting there is only kind of shocking. Everything else, though? Your luck’s worse than mine.”

“Most of your trouble is self-inflicted.”

“Ugh, yeah, sins of the past and all of that. I’m trying my best, though. You, on the other hand, don’t have the excuse of poor decision making coming back to bite you, the universe just hates you.”

“You know, I get that a lot, but I have it on the highest authority that there’s no sort of innate luck in reality.”

Granted, that very same authority also tended to doubt that fact when confronted with Ben’s life, but at least in that circumstance, the reaction seemed unjustified, especially when there’d been plenty that he didn’t feel he could tell the crab. It wasn’t like he could just go spreading what happened with Foast, and his personal involvement dealing with the gate to hell opening was a can of worms he didn’t want getting into, especially since, no matter the reason behind it, he had ultimately killed Ather during it.

God, that really does feel so long ago now, and that was just after the last time me and Greed got to meet up. Way too much has happened since then.

Still, despite how they barbed each other, it felt good to catch up, ending all too soon when Jeeves returned, politely letting himself in for Greed to wave over.

“Well, it’s been fun, Legs but since you finished it so fast I can’t exactly delay when I’ve got my lovely bride-to-be and a kid waiting for me back home which means we’ve gotta be on our way. Thanks for everything though, and make sure you meet me early before the wedding starts! It’s important.”

“Yeah, will do, but since you’re making your way back home and all, I can help you to get there a bit faster, come on.”

Waving them to follow, he led the two to the back of the shop where his mini-gates sat, activating the one to the magic towers and getting a low whistle for it from Greed.

“You never cease to amaze, you know that, Legs?”

“I try. Anyway, this gets you to the magic towers’ adventurers’ guild, so from there it’s just a short trip to their gate network. Get you home nice and easy. So be safe ‘till your wedding, alright? I’d hate to hear someone got to you before you could tie the knot. Or would it happening after be worse, seeing as how that would turn your wife into a widow?”

“I’m counting both as pretty unideal, thank you very much. You stay safe too then, don’t want you walking too close to a forest and getting mauled by something.”

“With how powerful I currently am, if something can maul me then it’s going to be a planetary threat. I’ll still have most of my skin for your big day.”

Grinning as he said it and their goodbyes done, Ben watched the two go off and only left the question of what else he should do with the day he had left. The kids were easy enough to look after and as enjoyable as making factories was, if he set up too many for basic enchantments then he’d be stealing work from other enchanters the world over who already probably weren’t seeing much weapon work considering what Falk had made, leaving a different way of passing the time to get into his head and hopefully add a bit more of the connect practice he so desperately needed if he was going to awaken it.

Not like it will do much when connecting to so many gods by this point along with a healthy chunk of the planet’s population didn’t do it for me but… whatever, practice is practice and there’s only so many ways I might awaken it, any scratch I leave on the mountain will help once I finally bust through. Myriad Myriad Myriad, you around?

I am, what is it?

Decided to help some of your other believers. Send any demidemons who are currently free and want some connect training out my way.

Alright, considering the results a few of them got, the rest have been reared up to see you again anyway. Anyone else? I could have a few of my other believers meet you at the guild to get some practice too.

Eh, no offense to everyone else in your faith, but none of them are willing to put in the work like the demis are… ah, I suppose there’s one. Yeah, I made a promise and everything, you can send her over too if she’s not busy.

Alright, I’ll spread the word. Sit tight, I suspect you won’t be waiting long.

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

“Delair, don’t stare, they’re focusing on training. Same as you should be doing right now.”

“It’s just a little distracting,” she said in her defense, seeing hastily materialized bunks where the available demidemons were lying to train their connect, both ones who’d already awakened it and ones who hadn’t.

The group he had managed to awaken had lit a fire under the others, creating a drive to grab that new level of power for themselves, while the ones who had awakened already didn’t lose their spark either. No matter how long it felt under the effects of Ben’s mind, they all knew that in the real world, at most minutes were passing for the different levels they were gaining, letting them all come in for the help and leave again by the time they were emotionally done, letting new demis take their place.

With many of the unawakened getting close. There’d been a few at the seventh or eighth level when he’d started that he’d awakened when they’d come, leaving them looking all of the worse for the experience despite the intense excitement the success had them feeling, but anyone below that he forced to stop at the ninth, for their own well-being if nothing else. The demis were hard workers and, more than that, they were devoted. If he didn’t force them to rest then they’d keep going until they genuinely harmed themselves, forcing them to take another break of a day or two before pushing them over the edge would be better for their overall health, even if being so close left them impatient.

The fact that they’re so devoted is a good thing but when I see Toltho next, I think I’ll have to have a talk with him about making sure they know when to take breaks, he told himself, already sure that Toltho in particular would show up to train more under him again when he had the chance. Myriad’s hardest working followers… well, bar maybe one.

His high priestess, Valaria, had joined too, having a drive to continue to grow for the sake of their shared god more than for herself and beyond just connect, she had plenty of room to do it.

Her mental expansion was at the ninth level now, a skill Ben wanted to help her awaken for the purely selfish desire to see how it would. His own version of the skill had merged into his unnatural mind like so many others but with everyone he awakened connect for gaining one of his past mind skills, it created the potential for him to see how it might have grown if he’d only taken a slightly different path.

Beyond that though was the very skill that had led Anailia to convince the woman to convert away from her for the sake of her people as a whole. Valaria was originally an enchanter and while that hadn’t played a significant part in any of the time Ben had spent helping her, beyond the knowledge he’d given her and every other believer he’d seen in their last gathering, it was another area he could help her grow, even if harder. Enchanting wasn’t a skill he could cheat her through, even if some shortcuts existed to speed things up.

A circlet to increase the speed of her thoughts and a mana bracelet to constantly replace her stock, the combination was potent in training, even if it wouldn’t yield instant success. The same way he could with Delair, he could give her items to enchant on and tell her way after way of doing it in her head, creating a diverse range of practice as she got better acquainted with both the blending and ring systems while she worked on her other two areas as well, the potential within it all being bloomed the moment she got her second awakening, the reaction to it forcing Ben to catch her as her mind grew to a different scale and her thoughts briefly blinked out.

“Hey hey, you okay?” Ben asked, still in her head and thinking everything looked fine but was more than prepared to pull every demi with life magic over to help, with the woman waving him to stop before he could.

“I’m fine, I’m… everything seems so…”

“Broad?” Ben offered, getting a nod when the word matched her feelings, her mental expansion growing to the new skill of unnatural mental expansion, Ben unable to deny that much in the same way that his influence had likely led to that skills acquisition, it had probably caused the unnatural prefix it had gained as well and yet, that wasn’t the only thing he noticed either. Much like with any mind he touched that was alien to him, he felt the new aspects that skill brought to Valaria’s imprinting on him as well, instantly increasing the scope of his mind in a way he hadn’t been prepared for either, even if it created a new priority for him.

If I can get any different aspects that awakened mind skills might bring to power up eldritch mind even more then that means I’m going to have to try and get the demis to awaken more to see what it does for me. Complex mind, parallel thought, focus, what would awakened forms of those look like and what would they do for me? Could this be a path to getting a level to eldritch mind too? It’s not exactly a priority, but if it happened then I wouldn’t say no.

Something to work on in the future and, with the demidemons already going to him even after awakening, then it wouldn’t be hard to see what those results looked like either, but that was a later concern. He could feel the new shape of Valaria’s mind, the vastness of the ideas it could hold reaching another scale entirely compared to what it had been like, which meant one thing in particular.

“Alright, with this, we’re putting a pin in training your connect,” he said, raising a hand before she could argue. “You’ve gotten two levels today, which is already probably more than I should have let you, but more importantly, you need to get used to the awakened mind skill you just got before training connect with me pushes that up any more levels too. The good news though is that with that awakening, you’re now equipped to learn something else. Something I’ve only been able to teach a few people, with none of them at a place where they can do it with as much skill as you’ll now be able to, at least not without some mind circlets to help them.”

“What?” she asked, her interest instantly piqued for how he was selling it.

“You can start learning my personal enchanting system, and trust me on this, even though your own enchanting isn’t awakened yet, this is going to speed up your leveling on that front if you make sure to start using it, and it’ll also make you obscenely rich.”

While he couldn’t teach her the enchanting modifier without her awakening, he could at teach her the different mana modifiers he was aware of too and started filling her mind with that information, feeling its new structure not only absorb it like a sponge but also begin to make connections that he hadn’t given her, the state of her mind primed for learning in a way an unawakened one wasn’t and brought a part of himself to a pause with what he was seeing, a new thought running through his head.

If I do start any more research institutions, I’m going to need to hire her no matter what.

“Ben?” Valaria asked, seeing his look that he waved away.

“Don’t mind me, I’m just thinking about something. For now, let's run through what you need to do to use this system for about an hour of real time, and then I’ll send you home for the day. We can work on practicing everything else a bit more in the future.”

DEEP CALMING LEVEL INCREASED

SOUL REGENERATION ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED