Thera’s agreement was swift. How could she decline? Even if she didn’t care too much about advancing farther into the library, this was a request to them as rank-one adventurers, off to protect one of the most important figures in the world. It was the sort of thing she dreamed of when she’d first started, now waiting to be fulfilled.

It was obvious she was itching to take on the task now that it had been given, but they weren’t exactly being rushed for it either. There were still a couple days to go before they needed to head out. Days Ben fully intended to put to use in the top floors of the library.

His god sighed in his head as Ben flipped through the books on the fifth floor, taking them slower than he had on the third to try and savour the wealth of knowledge they contained, even if it still left him going at an outrageous pace.

Hey, I absolutely held my own I’ll have you know. I’m like, properly powerful now.

We’re ignoring that. Instead, do me a favour and get me access to the basement. I want to know what’s so special to be hidden away like that.

He’d been told he needed permission from the gods, but he was someone lucky enough to be on good terms with more than a few. He was absolutely going to abuse that for all it was worth. Or at least he was going to try.

Boo. Why not? I’m such a good little apostle who just helped the entire world become more powerful, I deserve this.

Yeah, and if I’d known about how hard it was getting into the basement then I would have tried to force that too. What’s the big deal?

Obviously. This is a library, Myriad.

His god sighed.

Hey, calling knowledge good or bad is close-minded. It all comes down to how you use it. I promise I wouldn’t abuse anything I learn.

So incredibly lame. He sighed as he put away all of the books on soul magic that floor contained, sitting back briefly to take it all in since it didn’t seem he’d wear down his god.

Even if he couldn’t get that final floor, the fifth was already proving itself interesting enough for him from all of the texts on one particular third-tier magic alone. A branch that so few had achieved, yet was largely responsible for so much of what the world had achieved thanks to the gods making sure there was always one on the planet, even Ben couldn’t help but think it almost seemed inherently noble. Soul magic. Sure, it kept its roots from the life and death it had originally grown from, but it was a magic that raised others in all ways.

Beyond just helping to lower the difficulty in leveling skills, raising attributes, and breaking through tiers for the people lucky enough to feel its effects, it had other uses too, ones that managed to be impressive enough to catch him off guard.

There were two he’d seen and heard of that surprisingly weren’t in any of the books, both giving blessings and extending life spans being largely considered rumours to keep any soul mage on the planet from being more bogged down and harassed than they already were, but they could do more beyond that.

Much in a similar vein to Zandale, it seemed if they put their mind to it, they could help people acquire skills. From what he read, it still seemed that his fellow apostle was more suited to the task, his skills being specialized towards it, but they were matters of the soul, meaning it still fell within the domain of the soul mages, and more than that, it provided bonuses that Zandale couldn’t.

While the tentacled apostle could teach someone any of the numerous skills he knew, it looked like the soul mages operated slightly differently. They would instead prime a person’s soul for learning, reducing the difficulty of gaining anything it seemed like they might acquire. It was less direct than Zandale’s method, the target not being able to choose what would come of such a thing, but then it also gave the potential for a far greater range of skills to be achieved as well.

And that’s not even considering how things might turn out if the two were used together in tandem. I can already imagine people gaining Zandale’s skills instantly if he had a soul mage by his side, which would be cool enough if there wasn’t also that one signature skill to compare it against.

It was a spell that captured Ben’s imagination like no other. A soul mage from a thousand years in the past had spent their life working on a way to essentially copy a skill that she saw from pure mana, attaching her new construct to the soul of another in the same way a god would grant them to their believers.

I mean, it makes sense given that they can grant blessings too, but to achieve such a thing is still honestly incredible. I wonder if Yuzu or Elvat can too?

Interesting, interesting, that does raise a good point. She has to be a god now, right? Any chance you could arrange a meeting so I could pick her brain?

Wow, okay, never mind. Screw her then.

Hey, I’m an absolute charmer, if she can’t see that then it’s her loss.

It was a disappointing answer, but it didn’t matter too much. Even if she didn’t like him, Ben wouldn’t deny that her notes on the topic were exceptional, he doubted he could get any more from a conversation than he already had by reading about her process.

Still, reading all of that couldn’t help but make him long for soul magic himself. He was already imagining the things he would make if he were to get it, accessories that would assist in raising skills and attributes being the big ones, but others for helping people break through or acquire new skills captured his imagination as well. He was already imagining just how it would work, even if he knew it was never going to come to be.

I can never get soul magic myself and if I wanted to use someone else’s then that would mean awakening both enchanting and connect which is just not happening. Maybe I could get really lucky and awaken both together into one new skill, but even still, the odds are low.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t ever let himself imagine such things. Honestly, it was hard to stop himself from theory-crafting just how to push any over the edge if he ever got them high enough, but if he was being honest with himself, he really only thought there were a couple that had a slim chance.

Despite being the newest to awaken, it was his knowledge skill that made it to the top of the list, given that raising it just meant learning as much as he could and then applying his knowledge enough to push it past its limits, something he genuinely believed might be possible, leaving the rest of his skills up in the air in probability. It wasn’t like there was no chance, he just wasn’t willing to bet on any of them was all.

Well, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing. He sighed. That’s enough reflecting anyway. Back to reading while I can.

With everything on soul magic finished, that left him with two choices for what to do next, either the deeply researched signature spells that some mages had spent their lives on, or else move to the information on other tier-three skills that had existed throughout history.

He knew what would be more valuable to him but gave in to what he was most curious about in the end. His prior train of thought couldn’t help but put him in the mood to see what others had achieved and he pulled out the books to see exactly that, reading the entire shelf in minutes and feeling it capture his imagination.

In the thousands of years the world had stood, less than a hundred individuals had reached the third tier of a skill, at least as long as the soul mages weren’t counted in the tally.

At first Ben thought something must have been missing. Surely that number was a little too low, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. It wasn’t considered a monumental wall for nothing, and the lifespan extension that achieving it would provide was great. There were easily races on the world who would live close to, if not more than, a thousand years if they reached the third tier at a young enough age.

Even with the soul mages doing their best to help others break through, that didn’t mean their efforts would bear fruit either. It was easy to imagine decades being spent to raise someone up, only for them to never cross that finish line.

Which really just goes to show how hard it is. Is Falk going to manage it? Our design was as good as it could be, it’s just passed the threshold of what should be possible for him, but will that be enough?

Among the books was a couple on the soulsmith, the one with the very same skill his teacher was striving for, but it granted no clues on that front. It offered plenty of valuable information on just what the skill could manage, along with the skills and jobs that went into getting to that point and had gone on to become available after, but it left out what he personally considered the exceptionally important bit that was the act that pushed it past its limits.

Stop worrying about it. If it doesn’t work then we’ll think of something else. Or I’ll just try and convince Sonya to corner him and see if he’ll cave under pressure.

He could worry about it if it failed, for the time being, he was going to focus on his own growth, taking in the records of all of the skills that had made it to their pinnacle, magics and combat ones, along with far stranger options, before finishing up that floor in its entirety, taking it in and moving on to the fourth with the time he had left.