Chương 1123

CH1123 <MAGIC INCLINATION HAS RISEN TO A BLESSED SKILL> Ben's soul had still ached before, but converting his newest skill into a blessed one brought a new level of pain that left him clenching his jaw before he managed to regulate that new bit of suffering to be dealt with by a different portion of his mind. It was horrible, sure, but it was also unavoidable. Something he needed to put up with if he was going to grow his blessed soul expansion, and something he needed to deal with for his next test too.

He'd be able to undo it later, converting it back to a common skill only once he performed his last test. But since having eight blessed skills with my soul expansion still manages to feel a bit worse than how demons felt with seven, let's try to get this over with.

Using the pain as a motivator, Ben renewed his efforts with his magic, enchanting and materializing and warping the space around him millions of times within the second, pulling power from his coat to keep up with the coast to immediately get what he was hoping for and more as he pushed his new inclination to awakening. <MAGIC INCLINATION HAS AWAKENED TO MAGIC AFFINITY> <ACQUIRED SKILL MAGE'S TOUCH> <BLESSED SOUL EXPANSION LEVEL INCREASED> Success!

Ben silently cheered to himself, getting the exact result he'd hoped for. Awakening magic inclination by that point was simple, but what mattered was what had come with it. By converting the skill to a blessed one before awakening it, Ben had guaranteed himself a bonus skill.

Considering that awakening a skill meant a ten percent chance of gaining a bonus skill when getting to the second tier or a ten percent chance of acquiring a second tier skill when reaching the third tier, Ben had always been losing to the odds. He had reached a point where he could confidently say that he had more second and third tier skills than anyone else before him, yet the only time he gained a bonus skill was when one of his blessed ones had awakened, since then they were guaranteed.

Now, though, that didn't matter. Anything Ben could awaken, he could turn into a blessed skill first, meaning he could secure a new bonus skill every single time. And combined with the fact that I can make skills now… I think I might actually have a path to infinite skill acquisition. There was no denying that those were a potent combination of abilities, and mage's touch, like all of his other touch skills, would be handy to have for all of his various goals, but that wasn't all he'd gotten from the awakening.

His level of blessed soul expansion had risen as well, bringing different questions with it. Souls change when they awaken, so could the two be related at all? Could awakening to magic affinity have driven blessed soul expansion to grow? It was hard to confirm at the moment, but when he got the chance to repeat the process, he'd have a better idea of whether he was right.

It was potentially another path to letting him hold far more blessed skills than he currently could, but even that one level had made a difference. With it, the pain he'd been under for that soul modification was less than it had been before he'd added magic inclination to the list, meaning that, even if it would still be unpleasant, he suddenly had room for one more skill to become blessed. I guess if I wanted to change out magic affinity then it could be two, but… no.

Magic affinity will help with my goals, and I should be able to raise it to the ninth level fairly easily. I'll keep it. That just leaves what else to convert. Mmh, I guess the answer's easy enough. <ARTISAN'S SOUL HAS RISEN TO A BLESSED SKILL> If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

A skill that was technically better than crafting affinity, doing the same thing, only with a power that should have been somewhere between the second and third tier of an inclination, he hadn't been certain it was acting on his enchanting to the same degree as crafting inclination before, with that little bit of uncertainty shaping his previous choice. Now, though, it didn't matter.

Even with Verbum's help, it could be hard to tell how much or how little similar passive skills might do compared to one another, but he could take advantage of both for any benefits either might give. It wasn't pleasant to go back to the feeling of pain after it had just weakened, but it wasn't as bad as it had been, and it would serve as training so that he could do more later, letting him wrap things up in that regard.

He'd gotten more than he'd hoped to that day, leaving other tasks still to do as he turned to Mora and Delair, while his student still looked smug over her own growth.

"Okay guys, looks like we're going on a little field trip today so I can get some work done. Delair, circlet on so I can help you train connect while we go, but otherwise, I'll prepare some sketch pads so you two can both work on drawing different things while we're out and about, okay?"

"Okay, Ben!"

"Alright."

"Good," he said, leading them to the gate.

"In that case, let's head out." And Myriad Myriad Myriad, are you around? <Somewhat. Why? > I'm going to go out and start converting skills to blessed ones. While I'm doing that, has anyone in your church managed to buy any plots of land for new churches yet? Since I'm starting this anyway, build some quickly. <Oh, wonderful. In that case, there's only a couple, but give me a minute, I'll give you the locations.

> <MAGIC AFFINITY LEVEL INCREASED> <MAGIC AFFINITY LEVEL INCREASED> <MAGIC AFFINITY LEVEL INCREASED> <MAGIC AFFINITY LEVEL INCREASED> As the day passed and he flew himself and the children around, Ben worked. As promised, he didn't go around converting people, at least not from the coward gods' faiths. The few he found who worshiped the defeated gods who he hadn't spoken to before were fair game as far as he was concerned, and given that Phixth hadn't mentioned them, he doubted the other gods cared either.

At that point, that pantheon had basically stopped mattering to the world. They could no longer claim faith for themselves, which meant they couldn't participate in the planet's safety. No one would care how many believers they lost, even if they were left crying in their realms in despair. The rest was simple, though.

Everyone who entered his range, Ben quickly asked to make a decision about which of their skills they would like converted into blessed ones, pulling them all into his head to give them minutes or hours to think about it if they needed to, as well as to offer his own advice on the matter, before quickly flying off, only stopping or making detours to get to any place near enough on his route that had a patch of land owned by Myriad awaiting a church.

When he came to those, he spent a large portion of his mana pool to materialize a grand building for his god while filling it with books of all sorts to draw people in, but by the time the day ended, he'd visited most of the places he needed to.

Having gone to most of the gates connecting the terrestrial world, there were a few left he needed to visit still, as well as villages, towns, and other entire cities not a part of the network he'd need to go to as well, not to mention the entire aquatic part of the world, but those were later tasks for the gods to help arrange. He'd be able to finish most of it on his own time, but to get as many people as possible, word needed to spread and gathering points needed to be arranged, with neither his responsibility.

I can try to go out a few more times until the meeting with the other third tiers, he told himself. And then it hopefully won't be long after the meeting that the gods have everything arranged for me to finish this little project up, but in the meantime, there's a couple other things for me to finish first.

"Alright, kiddos, that should be it for the day, so Mora, would you mind walking Delair home? I need to clean up here a bit first, but I should be right behind you guys."

"I can do that," Mora nodded, the two leaving soon after, giving Ben the bit of privacy he desired in the shop. Now alone, he could comfortably examine the demons he'd saved the night before, without needing to worry over what anyone else might see him do. <MAGIC AFFINITY LEVEL INCREASED> <MAGIC AFFINITY LEVEL INCREASED> <MAGIC AFFINITY LEVEL INCREASED>