CHAPTER 869: THERA'S PERSPECTIVE

Moving from town to town after such a span working at the larger hospitals in bigger cities, nothing was more inescapable than just how under control everything was.

In the past, whenever she went anywhere around Stonewall, things had felt frantic. The healers would be overworked and in short supply too but the presence of the small gate network made in the heart of her town had changed that, along with the demidemons going out to work through it. In each stop she’d made, she would find a handful of them interacting with the locals and fitting in surprisingly well, chatting and laughing and creating the exact sort of atmosphere that wasn’t going to give her the sort of work she could use to distract herself.

So I could go back to one of the hospitals but… No, I’m not giving this time up either.

She’d been expecting she might be out late enough the day before that she’d told them she wouldn’t be able to make it and the day off wasn’t something she’d be willing to give up, no matter how much going in for that heavier work would have done the job of keeping her mind and thoughts occupied instead of where she currently was, sitting on a bench with her head held back, trying to suppress everything going through her.

Ben had reached godhood. At the same time it was leaving a pit forming in her stomach, it was threatening to make a smile break out on her face and no matter how she’d felt about the way he’d done it, that wasn’t the real problem, at least not then. No, the issue was what it felt like that fact meant.

He hadn’t raised the particular skill he’d wanted to but as absurd as the idea of accidentally reaching the third tier for something felt, the problem was that he’d done it for not one, but two different skills. Something she hadn’t even really turned her nose up as impossible for him despite how much it would have seemed so for anyone else, only thinking it couldn’t be done in the time they still had before the third wave but now she’d been proven wrong. He’d shown it could be done and now he had months left to try and get the second skill he believed he needed to go off and get himself killed, the danger he’d put himself through making the new bits of power he held feel negligible compared to how much safer he’d be if he’d only gotten the one and was forced to fight the war in a far more expected way.

And yet, despite all of that, she was happy too, thrilled really, for one equally as meaningful reason. If he didn’t die, either surviving his suicidal plan or else just not managing to go through with it, then he’d just gained entire decades more that she’d be able to have him for.

Awakenings affected lifespan, with Ben having had enough second tier ones to have in essence already doubled what he had remaining and now more than tripled for how third tier ones would affect it and from what he’d told her of what his people could generally expect, that meant he could have anywhere from one hundred fifty to three hundred years left to spend with her, lengthened for whatever effects her efforts to increase his lifespan with her magic held, with it not even needing to end there.

Godhood meant he’d never truly be gone unless he managed to do something exceptionally dumb. He’d ascend to a higher plane, sure, but he’d still be accessible, someone she could at least see through the nights of her long life and talk to through her days. She didn’t doubt that watching him die of old age would be traumatic but it now meant that she wouldn’t have to actually lose him either, a fact that gave her incomparable comfort in the face of past fears she still wasn’t certain she was completely in control of but of everyone else she knew who’d be doomed to die of old age or some more violent affliction, she’d still have him.

And Yuzu too, I guess. She told herself, the thought making her smile. Maybe Jake and Amy if she manages to help them break through as well. Plus uncle. When I think of it that way, I’ll have the chance to have as active of a heavenly social life as Ben currently does but…

But for everyone else she’d have, all of it would mean so much less if he went off and got his soul extinguished in a way there was no coming back from.

It almost felt unhealthy, how much his loss would destroy her, but he was her first real friend in life, the first person beyond her family to fully accept her and the first one she’d met who’d become important enough to her to make her break through her old fears to the point that she’d been able to let herself fall in love. She cared about others but she knew the feelings were on different scales and with how she’d handled any time it looked like she might lose him in the past, either from injury or going missing, if his death were ever to be confirmed she already knew it would destroy her.

…Fuck, I need a distraction.

She didn’t want to do anything but she could already feel her thoughts spiraling so without getting up she changed her focus and switched to materialization to help pass the time, having gone through plenty of lessons of her own by that point to know what she was doing and only needing to direct her focus to the areas she still struggled with, keeping the scale of it under control.

Something she could now do for any normal spell was still a struggle for that application of magic, too much mana leaving too much product as grains of dust she tried to make came out as small stones that had to be slipped away in her ring but it was still the perfect thing to practice to take her mind off her troubles, giving her at least a little bit of distraction.

Another distraction and at the perfect time too. It was only possible to do so many hours of materialization before it would grow stale and she already felt past that point, leaving a minor headache for all of the thought she’d devoted to material properties and chemistry that could now be ignored to instead focus on how to grow next.

Spirit embodiment had been a longer job than she’d been expected when she compared her levels and the passive growth she’d gained from any of her previous spirit jobs but if it had been harder, that just meant the bonuses were better too, taking that consolation as she touched her job crystal to look at all she had to choose from.

AVAILABLE JOBS

* Musician

* Bard

* Darkness mage: charm specialized

* Staff user

* Empathy mage

* Barrier mage

* High crystallization mage

* Heretic

* Mathematician

* Apprentice chef

* Master of all

“Still no new ones… Ugh.”

Her list had grown unreasonably small by that point and the choices she had weren’t even really choices. She had only a single advanced job option left and it had her feeling stifled. Her growth was already great and with the jobs she’d taken her total bonuses had to be some of the best on the planet but what she was seeing felt like a limit to that. She wanted more but she couldn’t help but to be limited by what she had.

But I guess I could take a page out of Ben’s book and see if that gives me anything. She thought after a moment. It’ll shrink my list more but it’s not like it wasn’t going to just keep shrinking after I take master of all anyway. Okay, give me empathy mage.

A far lower job would still help her grow but that wasn’t the main reason for her choice. Her non-affinitied magic was at its fifth awakened level, nothing compared to the tier one empathy magic she’d gotten the job for, to the point that when she tried to form a complex empathy spell, casting it to understand the feelings of the entire town around her and being hit with an unexpected level of hope that the demidemons had brought with them, she immediately got the expected notifications going off in her head.

Give me high empathy mage. She thought, taking the advanced version the last choice had left her, hearing basically the same notifications and finishing it nearly just as fast, touching her crystal once more with a twinkle of hope but having it dashed as no new options showed up.

Not that that was unexpected, even if it was disappointing. There was no master empathy mage job for her because she hadn’t mastered it; it had become a part of her broader non-affinitied magic instead and given her job paths from there that she’d long since finished. The idea that completing both of those might have yielded her a new path for that wasn’t outrageous but failing on that front wasn’t a shock enough to keep her from going on as more jobs were taken for the hope it left her.

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Finishing all of her non-affinitied mage jobs was what really mattered and she hesitated briefly before touching her crystal once more, giving a small prayer before taking it in her grasp and finding yet more disappointment in the end, no new option within that magic path despite the hopes she’d held that finishing everything would yield at least a single advanced choice.

“Which means now I really don’t have anything else,” She sighed before giving in to what she had left. “At least I’m ending on a good note. Give me master of all.”

Name: Thera Oress

Race: Succubus/Spirit Hybrid

Titles: Spirit Child, Madman’s lover, Spirit princess, Saintess, Destined holder of Spirit Empowering, Outsider slayer, Friend of Elementals

Jobs: Master of all (lv2)

Previous Jobs: Beginner Dancer, Dancer, Apprentice mage, Earth mage, True mage, High earth mage, Spirit mage, Life mage, High life mage, Telekinetic mage, Adventurer, High telekinetic mage, High spirit mage, Master earth mage, Earth princess, Master life mage, Life princess, Saintess, Crystallization mage, Master adventurer, Queen of mana, Mana embodiment, Dark mage, High dark mage, Master dark mage, Dark princess, War mage, Annihilation mage, Homunculus creator, Chimera maker, Non-affinity mage, Construct mage, Professional dancer, Healer, Master spirit mage, Spirit embodiment, Empathy mage, High empathy mage, Barrier mage, High barrier mage, High crystallization mage

Attribute:

* Vitality: 3390

* Vitality recovery rate: 60/hr

* Mana: 803,275

* Mana recovery rate: 444/min

* Strength: 805

* Agility: 1498

* Stamina: 1325

* Intelligence: 1685

Affinities:

* Light: 4

* Life: 22

* Fire: 11

* Water: 14

* Air: 12

* Earth: 103

* Death: 3

* Dark: 43

* Space: 2

* Time: 1

Resistances:

* Light: 5

* Life: 9

* Fire: 11

* Water: 16

* Air: 12

* Earth: 35

* Death: 13

* Dark: 42

* Space: 7

* Time: 8

Blessed skills:

* Spiritual earth magic lv9*

* Spiritual dark magic lv6*

Passive skills:

* World speak+

* Coordination lv8

* Bind

* Spiritual mana enhancement lv0*

* Earth sense lv9

* Dark sight lv3

* Magic affinity lv4*

* Sacrilege lv1

* Sleep resistance lv4

* Life sense lv4

* Dark sense lv4

* Earth inclination lv0

* Stress resistance lv0

* Intelligence enhancement lv0

Active skills:

* Calculate lv5

* Dance lv6

* String instrument lv5

* Woodwind instrument lv4

* Cleaning lv3

* Staff wielder lv2

* Meditation lv3

* Speed reading lv7

* Spiritual life magic lv9*

* Overwhelming non-affinity magic lv5*

* Mana empowering lv4*

* Cooking lv2

* Mana examination lv9

* Spirit comprehension lv6

Blessings:

* Anailia’s Blessing

* Elvat’s life magic Blessing

* Quox’s Blessing

* Eneth’s Blessing

* Earth Pantheon’s Blessing

* Life Pantheon’s Blessing

* Dark Pantheon’s Blessing

* Yuzu’s mana regeneration Blessing

* Non-Affinitied Pantheon’s Blessing

* Crafting Pantheon’s Blessing

Trials:

* Trial of Anailia and Tolona

* Earth Tower

* Life Tower

* Dark Tower

* Non-Affinitied Tower

* Craftsmans’ Tower

The unexpected awakening left her to jump, expecting all eyes on her for the mana she’d taken in but aside from some confused looks from the people around, nobody had seemed to have noticed what happened. It may have been a flash of mana but to anyone not expecting it, it would have seemed like a flash of light instead, powerful even as her seventh awakened skill because of the volume of mana she held and as a result would absorb but still ultimately brief, leaving the few people around walking the streets to at most stop for a moment in curiosity before continuing on their way.

Well, if this is going to be my last good job, at least I’m ending on a high note. She told herself. So what now?

She didn’t really want to go back to practicing her materialization, she didn’t really want to keep training at all. She knew trying to grow with the time she had was important but she wasn’t Ben. It felt like it was taking up so much of the time she could be sure she’d have left, she wanted at least a bit of peace while she could get it.

And there’s only a few hours left before we need to get Mora, I don’t need to use every minute of that time efficiently. So what do I want to do then? I think Aso is out with Sachel and her party so I can’t bother either of them, then…

With the answer feeling annoyingly plain as soon as she asked herself that. She wanted to see Ben. Even if it had only been a day and she still wasn’t happy with how he’d nearly killed himself in front of her without a word of warning, she had found her anger fading with his earnest apology, even if there were issues on that front as well.

Because even if he’s going to warn me first, that idiot is still going to try and get himself killed again.

And yet, she still wanted his company. After all, despite what plans he may have had, the likeliest option still was that they’d all be dying in a few months anyway, she didn’t want to waste too much of that time too mad to spend with someone she loved so resigned to that fact she got up, back to Stonewall and what bit of peace it held.