Taking the matter-energy conversion spell he’d taught Jake and absentmindedly trying to apply it to a weapon, the force of Ben’s thoughts was more devoted to a different topic. Awakening deep connection, with the fact that so many gods he’d now linked to hadn’t done the job of getting it to the third tier could be nothing but a bad sign, leaving his progress feeling stalled.

It wasn’t like he had no ideas of course, he could still try and fit all of the spirits of the world into his range at once to connect to like he’d lied to Myriad about in the past and if he could come across a mind more dangerous than a god’s then that might do it too, even if that couldn’t help seem like a horrific idea if only for the singular example of such he could think of.

Yeah, before I get myself killed or, just as likely, drive myself insane trying to connect to an outsider, I need to at least think of a few different options. Especially since I can’t know the effects of having whatever mental structure they hold imprinted on my mind.

With thinking about it forcing him to look at what connect was and what made it grow. It was a mind, enchanting, and soul skill of course, a power that linked two people equally beyond some simple one-way mind reading and it grew when it was practiced as such, or at least it had until it had reached the awakening barrier.

Now though? He may have treated all of the work he put towards it like he was chipping away at it, but that didn’t leave him feeling any closer. Hell, with how he’d been using it to train his sacrilege on the forbidden gods, it should have been getting the benefits of his evil and destructive affinities, not to mention the authorities they currently were and his soul affinity as well. He was basically specialized in growth by that point, yet despite every insane thing he threw at it, it still wasn’t growing, meaning one of two things. Either, much in the same way as his inclinations, connect as a class of skill was simply uninclined to reach the third tier in a way that any mortal could hope to achieve in any natural length of lifespan, or else instead, he was missing something.

When he’d spoken to Myriad and Helori about it in the past, back when he’d been struggling to get connect to just the second tier, they’d been clear in outlining some of the problems he might have been having with it with the main one being the other skills he had. Having other options to merge into an awakening could help lower the threshold, yet there he was, still missing plenty of good contenders.

With the issue being that they were ones he could never get. While he could hypothetically learn mind reading as a non-affinitied skill for its compatibility, he didn’t care about doing something that would help raise the mind aspects; what he wanted was to raise the enchanting and soul ones. He already had the enchanting and on that front, there really wasn’t anything else for him to gain, pointing the issue squarely on the soul half of the equation.

There was no real denying it. With connect being a soul skill, that meant the biggest ones a person could get to help lower it was almost certainly either life or death magic, the precursor to proper soul magic and was clearly involved in other third tier awakenings to one extent or another, such as Foast’s true shifting or his teacher’s soulsmithing. Two magics he would never get.

Which means, short of finding a way to get either, I’m left banging my head against the wall, he admitted, instantly feeling as other parts of his mind tried to work through any hypothetical way he might get those magics before pushing them to the back of his head for the impossibility of it. Which isn’t a real solution. What I’ve been doing, no matter how crazy and extreme, continues to not work. I need a different option.

With his authorities telling him how to best raise his sacrilege through what he inflicted on Haro’s soul, he turned them towards seeing if there was anything more he could do to that trapped god that would improve connect instead but found minimal in the way of raising that skill’s experience gain. Not nothing, yet so marginal that it didn’t change the original scope of the problem beyond making sure those skills were aimed at connect at all times too in case anything might spring up.

As far as options go, the most feasible one would be to start practicing some of my less ethical connect-derived skills on a living god instead of just their soul, but that would obviously cause problems, he admitted, knowing that for as many lines as he might have been willing to cross when it came to the gods, now that he was the future god of sacrilege, evil, and destruction, he couldn’t do anything like that to any deity unless he was both certain it would work and certain he could come up with grounds to get away with it. Which is basically the same as still having no options.

He thought about it from every angle he could before giving in to the truth. A few potential ideas, but they were all slim and inadvisable, leaving him to sigh at the same time Thera came through the gate.

“Well, one of you doesn’t seem too happy,” she said, seeing his true body working on the gun as well as a clone acting far more cheerful with the kids. “What’s going on?”

“Despite all of my power, the world still won’t bend to my whims and I’m taking personal offence to it.”

“So the usual then?”

“Maybe a bit more than usual, but yeah. Also made a cool new gun.”

“That somehow feels more worrying.”

“It might be, we’ll have to test it first. Come on, let’s give it a quick look.”

He took her hand and stepped just outside of the shop doors before materializing a bullet and took aim at the sky, watching as all of its mass was converted to energy as a beam of light was shot off, Thera needing no clue to guess what it was as she looked at it with narrowed eyes.

“The freaky spell you taught Jake?”

“The very same.”

“Do I even want to know how powerful it’s going to be?”

“There’s a reason I didn’t set up a target in the shop to shoot at, I don’t know how many walls it would go through before fading away. Matter has a lot of energy trapped inside of it.”

“... This feels too dangerous for you to mass produce.”

“Oh, you’re definitely right on that front,” he agreed as he broke it down into atoms, having the design in his head if he ever needed to remake it. “Give these to soldiers during the next wave and sure, they’ll kill a lot of demons but odds are just as good that it will carry through and hit someone it shouldn’t on the other side of the circle. This is a hell of a lot of energy, and it would definitely go far.”

She shook her head, happy at least that he was showing some sense about a weapon like that before going on.

“Well, I guess you’re not the only one who figured out something dangerous today. Anailia got in touch and taught me a spell.”

“No kidding? Mind if I check it out?” he asked, tapping the side of his head and getting her consent.

“Go for it.”

He peeked into her memories, seeing the conversation with Anailia where she was taught the spell as well as her own practice learning it before taking the structure and applying it as an enchantment, materializing a ball to place it on.

“Interesting,” he muttered.

“Interesting as in you just made all of the work I spent learning it look like nothing?”

“I was only able to do this because of the work you spent on it, but no. Interesting because, honestly, even if it needs an awakened skill to use, this normally shouldn’t be a very good spell, at least relative to the level needed to pull it off. It’s limited to the normal range of a succubus's charm, and while that's enough to cause some chaos in a normal town or city, for hunting it actually isn’t that great unless the target is already close. Not bad, especially if you’re looking to keep something specific from escaping or make something go to you without it realizing that’s what’s happening, but not incredible either. Your strength makes this a far more viable spell, I can see why Anailia wanted you to learn it.”

“Ah, well, it does seem handy,” she admitted, pleased with the compliment to her strength while Ben kept looking at her.

“And I saw you were training your life magic too. Trying to make it act like death to try and awaken it?”

“I mean, you did personally say you want me to try and become a soul mage in front of a bunch of gods. I do genuinely have to try when there’s expectation on me.”

“Fair,” he nodded, falling silent once more before coming to a conclusion on his own and nodding as he did. “Alright, let’s try to shove a bit more knowledge in your head.”

“I think you missed a step in your explanation.”

“Okay, my bad. If you’re going to become a soul mage one day, it would make sense to give you all of the soul spells I know from both my reading, as well as from Yuzu and Elvat. A bit of preemptive learning couldn’t hurt.”

“Well, okay, if that’s all-”

“But that’s not all,” he stopped her. “A thought, one I’ve already applied to Jake, but in all honesty I can’t see a reason it shouldn’t hold true for you.”

“Considering the way he talks about the way you taught him, I’m officially a little worried.”

“It’s fine, just something to test. Obviously, you can’t use the spells of a proper soul mage right now, but then, that’s not all there are. If you can use death spells then why not some of the minor or low soul spells the demons use?”

“Are you seriously about to teach me demon magic?”

“Sure, why not? I’ve been in enough of their heads to know the spells by this point, and this could be a path to getting you closer to your own awakening. Besides, even if demons are monsters, it’s not like their magic is inherently evil.”

“Fine,” she gave in. “Then, are you shoving it directly into my head?”

“Did it the second you said fine, but we still need to go over it, meaning you’re getting quizzed. You may now know it, but you need to be aware that you know it.”

“I wonder if there’s any point that everything you’ve shoved to my head will translate to a knowledge skill?” she sighed. “With everything you’ve been forcing in there, I feel like I’m due.”

“Ha, then on those grounds, the entire world might be due by this point, which is actually an interesting thought. I wonder if all of the information I gave is going to impact the rate of knowledge and mind skill acquisition across the planet? Add in the fact that I boosted everyone’s intelligence by a few thousand points and the odds feel pretty good. When I go for my next round of soul modifications, I’ll have to examine everyone’s skills too to look for changes. As things are, I have a pretty healthy understanding of what skill distribution looks like across all races and locations across the planet, which is all very interesting and off-topic to what you’re about to do.”

He materialized a sheet of questions as he ended, leaving her to sigh. Even if she complained, she knew he was right and, at the very least, it lent him some comfort. He may have been having no luck getting the awakening he wanted, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t help Thera on her way to hers, leaving him to just hope they’d both find their success in the time they had left.

DEEP CALMING LEVEL INCREASED