“That was a lot all at once,” Ben muttered as he rested his head against the final mini-gate the gods had requested of him, finally complete with that task.

It felt good to be done with it, but he had a headache once again and decided to give himself the mercy of a one-minute break to think about his skill growth before moving on to the next task, just to see if there was anything he could try and get from it all.

Intelligence enhancement had been the most expected. In the month and a half since he’d got back from teaching, he kept gaining levels too, with his newest one putting him at the seventh, but he didn’t know how he could train it to make it faster, not that it really mattered. While he enjoyed the fact that the skill seemed to raise his growth rates for the attribute, it was one that was already constantly growing, having been his highest by far for a while.

It was to the point that Ben wasn’t even sure if it really did anything for him. Supposedly, it was an attribute that aided in learning and thinking, but with the shape of his mind what it was, he had no issue with either. Its continued growth at that point felt satisfying but largely unnecessary.

As for unnatural thought speed, Ben could already feel the minds he kept moving at their maximum potential immediately going faster which meant he’d be able to get even more work done. He tried to ignore the hint of dread that fact provoked in him though to focus on the other two skills that had just leveled.

By that point of puppetry, any time he used his homunculi just felt like he was using his body, no extra bit of focus necessary. Everything was perfectly smooth and natural, though he wasn’t sure if that would be the case if he ever got the chance to try it again with something that didn’t perfectly match his shape. Still, it was good to have and meant his work would be just a little smoother from there, same with his level of fine motor control.

Ben held his hands out in front of his face, looking at them as he bent and wiggled his fingers. He didn’t have much doubt in his mind that the skill had only been so easy to level thanks to having puppetry to pair with it, but now that it was at the ninth, he didn’t really see it growing farther. Unless he suddenly became able to move his fingers against the directions of his joints, he didn’t really see how it could possibly awaken, even with the help of his title, meaning that where he was at was likely its ending place.

Which is fine, it’s not like I need it to grow farther and my awakening bonuses are now so small that they don’t make a huge amount of difference so there’s no reason to try and force the skill to awaken, just for the sake of awakening. Still, it’s always possible it could merge into something else in the future…

For a second he allowed himself to imagine what he viewed as the most likely candidate, with the skill merging into his unending crafting should he ever get it to the third tier, even if he had to admit that felt more like a dream than anything else. He’d do his best to not think on his impending doom too much, but getting to the third tier was unrealistic enough even before one considered the time limit the world was on, that wasn’t even considering the hurdle it would be if he somehow got his skills high enough to try in the next couple years.

If it was before the war ended, Ben knew there was no chance of him getting Yuzu or Elvat’s help to lower the barrier to awakening. The priority for the world was fighters which was why Falk hadn’t received the soul mages’ help either, even if the gods and world as a whole were more than happy to take advantage of his teacher's success after he’d managed it on his own.

And I’m not going to have the time to spend a decade or two chipping away at it to make it happen like he did. Ben sighed to himself. God, I want it so bad but the only chance I have to get any skill there right now is only king of sacrilege and taking every sacrilege job just isn’t doing it. What the hell is it going to take to get it over the edge then? I can’t exactly attack some random god and hope it gets me there, especially since I’d lose. I guess if I track down Olensia’s oracle then I could just beat him up till it awakens, no matter how many hours or days it takes. Since the gods have already shown they won’t punish important members of any faith right now they’d have to let me get away with it, and even if Olensia tried to make Myriad pay up a blessing the same way I made him, I could just threaten to not help anyone else awaken their magics. Easy-peasy.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Myriad groaned, revealing that he’d been listening in.

Important classification, I’m not thinking of trying to hurt a person, I’m thinking of hurting an oracle who tried to kill me.

Not to me. Besides, I’d be so much nicer than he was. No matter how many bones I need to break to get my level, I’ll make sure he lives in the end.

Ugh, fine, it’s not like I have no other ideas. Myriad, you won’t complain if I burn your church down, right?

Come on man, pretty pretty please? I promise I’ll have you a new one built after, bigger and better than before! What could be better for finally tipping my sacrilege over the edge than burning down the church of my own god? Plus, wouldn’t there be a beautiful sort of symmetry to it? Making you a church got me my first levels, destroying your church could get me my last.

His god muttered in his ears.

“Okay, you had me at you’d be sad, I won’t do it,” He sighed. “It’s just the only thing I’m close with, I don’t know how I’m supposed to get it in any way that could be considered tasteful.”

Myriad admitted to him.

“Ha, that’s quite the thing to hope, isn’t it?”

“Well, as it stands I only have two jobs right now that I’m sure would help with it, but soul defiling gardener might and I’m for sure taking master of all next which is going to give me bonuses to everything so maybe I’ll get lucky.”

Though I doubt it.

Still, there was no point worrying about something like that, in the end either he’d manage it or he wouldn’t but it wasn’t something to dwell on when he still had work to do, so with that frame of mind he got back to making weapons now that the gates were complete, even if his god wasn’t done with him.

“I don’t need a break and having a high output is good. The more powerful weapons I make, the more demons die. The more demons die, the more the folks killing them gain levels. Let nobody say I’m not doing my part.”

Myriad agreed, his voice holding complex emotions as he said it.

“Good news then, the one I had earlier has been going away a bit when I got a level to my unnatural thought speed.”

His god didn’t need to ask, Myriad could already tell.

“All of them.”

Ben could think of thousands of things at once, how could he not use that for the problems he had? All of his projects were big enough that they needed that level of dedication if he was going to see any success, even with an entire team of others to help with at least one of them.

“Deal.”