Chương 1113

CH1113

"Dare I even wonder how that all went for you?" Myriad asked him in the stretched out microseconds between welcoming new believers.

"Mixed bag. Some things I can immediately put to use, but a lot of them were honestly pretty boring."

"How could anything you found in there have possibly bored you?"

"Well, for one, not everything was strictly about magic, so there was plenty of non-spell information. For example, there was a book dedicated to the best enchantments to focus on in the event anyone got and took the job 'cursed item maker', which was pretty cool, except wait, I took that one myself and had no trouble getting through it at all.

The there was the book talking about heretic in a level of detail that makes me suspect that an awakened analysis holder had to have gotten some information from the system itself on that job, except wait again, because I finished that one easily too, along with its second tier variant, along with its third tier variant, so I already knew more about it and everything that comes from it by a mile."

"Did realizing that leave you with any desire to reflect on yourself at all?"

"No, and I'm not done complaining. So then we get into spells, right? Impressive, complicated things for anyone who's not me to have designed. A petrification spell using the water affinity instead of earth for example as a way to permanently get rid of a target without having to worry about it being undone, except I already independently invented not only that, but a bunch of other affinitied versions of petrification too!

Even while I was reading that, I used some of my new experience to figure out a space affinitied version that would let a space mage turn someone into spacetime-""Please stop inventing spells like that."

"Still no. And then beside that were multiple books written on the topic of how to permanently overwrite someone's personality to greater and lesser scales, using a few different affinities and, while some of the ideas presented were admittedly interesting, once again, I can already do that in a fraction of a second and even just did it only a couple of days ago, with an effect substantially deeper than what any of these spells can do!

So many of these stupid forbidden spells I've already figured out in my own time, and with stronger effects too!"

"Please stop complaining for a moment to actually think about what you're saying and just how it sounds."

"It's just a little aggravating is all," Ben sighed.

"Stupid gods up here, making such a big deal about how evil and bad these forbidden spells are when I could make a book of significantly worse options in an afternoon."

"Wow, you're really committed to not acknowledging that the fact you can do that might be a problem, huh? Dare I even ask about anything you found interesting?"

"Mmh, well, like I said, it wasn't a total write-off. There are things that I hadn't considered or discovered and things I'll be able to immediately use. One interesting one was what appeared to be from some old conspiracy where some nut decided he was going to try to cheat the fact he couldn't reach the third tier by binding himself to an existing god. Kind of silly when you think about it, though.

If he'd done some research, he could have just started praying to you and then BAM, technically instant godhood the second he would have died, instead of whatever happened to him."

"Ah, I remember that. The spell failed so the other gods were going to treat him somewhat lightly before it was discovered that he had only failed in casting it; the theory was sound. Not sure I enjoy the idea of being considered an easy path to godhood for mortals, though."

"Why not? You literally are."

"Because by becoming part of me, they merge into the mass that is my total existence instead of some dominant personality like that one seemed to have been going for?"

"I'm not saying it's a good path to godhood, but it's arguably better than nothing," Ben shrugged.

"Everyone who becomes a part of you has their memories continue to exist in you, right? That's kind of like eternal life. It's just the bargain bin variety."

"Okay, being described that way actually made it significantly worse."

"Still pretty accurate though, right?"

"Mmh, but given everything else about you, I'm going to assume you're not looking at pulling anything from that spell to use?"

"No. I don't exactly need it, do I? And as things are, I really do think I'm getting to the point where I'll be able to push other people's minds skills to the third tier. If there's ever anyone I desperately want getting to godhood, I'll work on learning to materialize parallel thought or mental expansion or complex mind and then just subject them to a bit of training till I get there, and I have a couple of hopes about how it might become easier too-" This book is hosted on another platform.

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"Should I be worried?"

"Won't know until I succeed first," Ben shrugged.

"But for now, don't worry. I have no reason to do it, and if it comes down to it, I would only do so using the defeated gods and as things are, I have better ideas on how to use them instead of just turning someone else into a god."

"Don't want to hear about it. What else then?"

"I'm going to have to do some testing to see if I can improve my divine potions. A lot of works on that in there, considering that they're specifically recipes that use people as ingredients, but there's also a few novel ideas in there I'm going to need to test the effects of. It won't involve murdering anyone, don't worry, just a few unexpected ingredients and preparation methods that I haven't seen before."

"At the very least, I'm willing to trust you on that," Myriad sighed.

"So nothing else, then? Really no spells that managed to catch your attention?"

"Well, admittedly, there's one I'm going to have to play with a bit."

"Of course there is. Dare I even ask?"

"A tracking spell," Ben explained.

"Genuinely, the best one I've ever seen. Surprisingly, entirely life affinitied."

"Hmm? Odd. Why was a tracking spell made forbidden?"

"From what I could see, it was made specifically for tracking the magical races that were being killed for potions. Technically, it could be used for anything, but the inventor seemed to have ignored that fact so, when it was discovered, it was locked away with everything else from that unpleasant bit of history.

Still, that alone was a great pull, I'm going to have to see about doing some modifications but if I can make my idea work, then it'll have some excellent applications for demon hunting and if it doesn't, then, well, I can at least teach it to Thera to use. I'll do my testing for that in the next couple of days, though. How are you doing? How many believers are you currently at?"

"If the pace keeps up, then give it another hour and I'll be past a million," Myriad said, the joy that knowledge held managing to squash the fears of just what his apostle would use that new spell for.

"It's incredible. I'm beginning to really feel like a proper god again."

"Good, glad it's working out."

Having gone to all of the bigger settlements that worshiped the defeated gods, Ben had managed to make excellent progress on all but the most devoted believers, if not converting them immediately, then at least shaking their hearts enough to be confident that most of the would turn to them in the days that followed and so far, that was proving true, and while there were smaller settlements that he had yet to visit, it was fair to say that the churches of the defeated gods had collapsed and would only continue to crumple from there without the gods in question able to muster the strength to respond to even their core believers.

Yet, despite all of that, Ben still wasn't done. When he went out, if he encountered a believer within any of those faiths who hadn't yet converted, then he'd work to turn them, and while the coward gods weren't getting the same scale of treatment to make him want to target their homelands to convert all who resided there, he would still work on any he came across in his travels.

Ben had brought his god from one of the smallest faiths to one of the largest in the span of a few days, and the rest of the divine couldn't escape the implication of it, either. If Ben had so desired, he could have travelled from gate to gate, honing in on any little weakness to be found in the believers of every city he'd visit to begin the work of converting all of them to Myriad. The fact that other gods were able to maintain worshipers at that point was simply because he allowed it.

Any previous comments about his quality as an apostle had stopped. Seeing just what he could accomplish if he put his mind to it, the other gods all couldn't help but wish he'd go back to trying less, at least as far as the ones he stood against went.

The ones who had his approval and gratitude were quick to notice that their own churches hadn't been touched, leaving them all breathing just a little easier for having stood by their morality instead of letting whatever fear Ben provoked rule them like the others had.

"Still, with all of these new believers, I think I'm going to need some new churches too," the cube not-so-subtly hinted.

"Gathering points to give me faith are going to be pretty important for building the community around them as well, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll try to free up the time to start building some, but consider that to largely be an after the war sort of project. You can at least start using some of the funds we got from the defeated gods to start buying land and, if I'm ever nearby, I can go over and put a church and statue down, although that also leaves the issue of staffing them."

"If you bring some of your mini-gates, I was thinking of potentially getting some of the demis to act as priests in them for one or two days a week, provided that they're interested, of course."

"I can't see them declining. It seems like a good idea to me. In that case, we'll need a central hub to act as your gate network. How about your church in Allfaith? It's basically been unused since we built it; that would give it some purpose too, as well as make travel easier for locations that aren't on the network."

"Mmh, that city's still an invasion point, though. That has the potential to go very wrong, very fast when the third wave hits."

"Alright, in that case, pick another city and we'll use that for the time being and if things improve in the future, we'll move the network to Allfaith. If we don't all die then, considering how many gods have their churches and trials there, it's going to grow into a pretty significant hub again in the future. Having a gate network in your church connect to a lot of less common places would go a long way towards earning you some extra prayers from people just passing through it as well."

"Sounds good," Myriad agreed.

"In that case, I'll start looking for a decent location in the meantime."