CHAPTER 938

Myriad asked in open horror, unable to believe the notifications he just heard going through his apostle’s head, even if he’d barely been able to figure out that that was what Ben had been aiming for before it happened.

My best. We’ll talk about it when I go up to your realm later, so grab the other two for me because this is going to be a long night.

With the heavens blocked for all but his god, he had a while until word would get around that he’d had a new awakening, which meant he needed to focus on the world around him first.

He could tell there were eyes on him, both from the workers harvesting fruits as well as from one dryad who’d been close enough to come see what had happened, but his eyes instead were on the two he was with to gauge their reactions.

With Thera’s face telling him of the mixed feelings she held about it while Yuzu was directing her gaze squarely at the ground, not trusting herself to look at him without taking a peek to which he was grateful for the restraint, letting him instead focus on his girlfriend before he spoke up.

“It wasn’t connect, you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Ah, then what-” she started, sounding embarrassed to be caught hoping for his failure, even if he paid it no mind, placing a finger to his lips as he did.

“Secret. For now, at least. I’m trying my hardest to make sure this doesn’t get out to the other gods of the world, but… well, it’s going to happen eventually, I just don’t want it to be before I can talk to Myriad. I’ll tell you soon though, okay?”

“You’d better.”

“And you’ll tell me too, right?” Yuzu said, fighting against her curiosity as she squeezed her eyes shut tight.

“When I see you next, sure. Out of curiosity, are you going to be involved at all in the mass soul modification I’m doing the day after tomorrow?”

“Wait, is that what I’m participating in?”

“If you’re booked, then I’d assume so because having a soul mage around could only help. Okay, in that case, I’ll let you know if you can look at my soul then, so do me a favour and suppress it until you see me.”

“I don’t think I can be trusted to open my eyes while you’re still around right now.”

“Then keep them closed and we’ll guide you home, but before that, you,” he called over to the dryad standing off to the side. “There should be a metal band wrapped around the trunk of this tree here. Can you take me to it?”

“Um, yes I can,” she agreed, not sure about what she’d seen or overheard and thus resolved not to think too hard about it, instead leading the way for him and watched as he slipped down to where it was, trading the crystal it held for the one on his arm before she could react and left everyone to watch as the nature of that forest-like plant was altered before all of their eyes.

“And with that, we can get out of here.”

After making sure Yuzu got home safely and getting away from there as fast as possible before she could decide she wanted to sneak a peek, Ben and Thera went back to Anailia to get home, with Thera full of unasked curiosity along the way.

He couldn’t deny her that curiosity either; he would have felt the same, but he needed time before he could reveal all of the changes within himself. Even if those awakenings had helped to push him to the third level of his sacrilege earlier than he’d expected, granting him a level of power and protection from the gods of that world that he didn’t think they could beat, he still wanted to try to manage how they’d react when it was revealed, being something he’d instead need to talk about that night.

No, she would find out eventually but in the meantime, he needed to explore what the changes in himself would bring as well, with some at least already felt in the form of a new sense stretching out from him, touching all of the people they passed along the way.

Even without connecting to her, Ben could clearly feel the sacrilege in Thera’s soul and while not as clear, he was aware of a few of her other skills as well, with her earth and dark magic being the most blatant, same as he felt for many others. He couldn’t necessarily identify everything they held that he believed he could now affect, but what was happening was clear enough. To varying extents, he was detecting their evil and destructive skills.

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Does how much of it I’m feeling depend on how much it qualifies as such? Even within the same skills across different people, it seems like I’m feeling them differently, so it might be depending on how evilly or destructively they’re used or else how they, the holder of the skill, or society itself views them. Mmh, when I focus a bit, I think that might be a mix of it all, a bunch of different factors all at once. Hmm, let’s see.

The perks of walking through Anailia meant that nearly everyone he passed had a natural charm that he could now identify through his new skills, a power that was viewed poorly across the planet and even by those who innately held it and as he focused he believed he could tell who and what was classifying it as evil or destructive, be it the holders of it or society or a mix of the two and with plenty of test subjects around he reached deeper with those new powers, connecting to his targets and hearing a few get levels as he did.

Oh wow, he thought to himself as he rubbed his face. This is… significant.

The effects of an inclination was to lower leveling difficulty of their skill type as well as to reduce the mana cost of any skills under them and it appeared that at the third tier, he was able to extend that effect beyond the limits of his own soul, giving him the chance to help raise the skills of anyone else who held an ability that qualified.

Authority is right; it looks like I’ve just gained power over the evil and destructive skills of this world. This is going to require a lot more experimentation.

Experimenting he was already beginning on the new god strapped to his arm, Haro acting as his new experience sink until whenever he ended up so broken that even fixing him would seem pointless but that was a process he’d be at for a while to come, with a different topic in mind once they reached Thera’s family home.

“So, who are you thinking? You mom, dad, Lux, or maybe Writ?”

“Huh, for what?”

“Pawning off the task of explaining the details of mortal affection to Bloom and how, if he’s not careful, he’s going to end up with a handful of children if no one explains sex to him.”

“... You know, you’d somehow managed to make me forget that by being even more ridiculous, I could have gone without remembering.”

“Sure, right until you come back and find yourself with a bunch of new cousins. I poked around the last dryad’s mind, and there’s a dozen of them there, hired on to help with those fields. It’s kind of interesting actually, from what I saw it doesn’t seem like they were even remotely attracted to the incubi they work around so Bloom either won them over entirely with his personality or, considering the usual way they reproduce, having a plant they can hold a conversation with might be having some appealing psychological effect-”

“Ben, you’re being a researcher again, and considering the topic has to do with my family’s sex lives, I’m really not interested. I’m sure it’s fine. We can ignore this, go home so you can talk to the gods, and then you can tell me whatever’s been going on in your soul. Nice and-”

“Oh, hey Bloom,” Ben cut her off the moment they ran into the great plant spirit after rounding a corner. “How are you… doing?”

He was trying to play things off like they hadn’t just been talking about him but Ben found himself immediately distracted by a change in the spirit’s body too subtle for Thera beside him to notice, his girlfriend more concerned about playing innocent too and hoping that they hadn’t been overheard, lest they themselves would be forced to have that conversation with him.

With the spirit seeming entirely ignorant to their behaviour, instead smiling brightly as he saw them.

“Princess, Ben, hello! What brings you here?”

“Ahem, just passing through, Bloom,” Thera told him. “Heading home for now, but have you been doing okay? Adjusting to the nature of life as a great spirit?”

“Oh, well, you know it was a bit of a struggle at first, but I think I’ve been getting the hang of it,” he laughed. “I’ve been practicing my magic, to be inexperienced in it feels unnatural given what I was before, but I think I’m learning fast. For the other plant spirits, soon I’ll grow to the proper standards of my station.”

“That’s great, that’s really good to hear. You seem like you’re doing a lot better than when you, well-”

“Were forced into existence?” He laughed again despite the mood, showing there may have been a touch of mental unbalance still to work through that Thera forced herself to awkwardly chuckle at as well.

“Ah, yeah, that. But if you’re doing good, then that’s great. For now though, we should probably be on our way-”

“But before that,” Ben interrupted. “Just out of curiosity, and I’m really sorry if I’m wrong here, but is that a new body?”

“Oh, this?” Bloom asked, doing a spin and seeming excited to show it off. “It is! A few of my friends convinced me to make a new one for myself! I don’t really see much difference, but they sure seem to like it.”

“... Alright, that’s great to hear, buddy. Now, a little bit more curiosity, were those friends the dryads who are working the fields, and is the plant you grew that body from one from their homeworld by any chance?”

“Ah, yeah, I think one of them mentioned that when they gave me the seeds,” he laughed. “I don’t really get it, but they’ve been helping me with figuring out what it means to be a plant spirit and they seem to like it, so it's the least I can do. I’m actually off to meet them now, so I need to be on my way, but it was great seeing you both!”

He walked off with the goodbye, not noticing the atmosphere he left behind, with Thera squeezing Ben’s arm with the full force of her strength to try to keep from otherwise reacting.

“Okay, new plan,” she said. “We split up, track down both my parents as well as aunty Lux and Writ, meet back up in the second floor lounge and then abandon them to deal with whatever is going to come from this after we explain things while I go to sleep and try to forget this entire day, hopefully without finding out that we’re too late and that he’s about to end up with a dozen children on the way.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a plan.”