Carrying her on his shoulders as he walked, Ben could feel Delair swinging her head around as they passed through the magic towers, enjoying different sights than the last time Ben had brought her as the city caught her eyes, the two of them catching more than a few themselves. Ben still had his particular level of fame there after all, and was easy to recognize for many, even if the presence of a child made a few think they were mixing him up with another of his kind, with those curious gazes settling down only once he reached his destination and passed through its doors.

Setting her down, he gestured to be quiet, now in that city’s great library and faced with another problem. He was there for Verbum, who was always hiding away on the fifth floor, but Delair didn’t have access, and while he could leave her to herself on the first floor to read whatever would catch her interest, his student really was too advanced for such things by that point, bringing a different option to mind as he brought her to the front desk, seeing a librarian there he recognized who recognized him in return, giving him a broad smile.

“Ah, Ben, welcome back. I believe we might have a few new books in. Killi has asked me to keep a list of where they’re located for you to save you some time if you’d like it.”

“Oh, that would be great,” he agreed, not having expected it yet still more than pleased to hear such a thing. “But I’m actually here about… well, Verbum, but also this little one while I’m talking to him. Is there any chance I could have her tested for the second and third floor while I’m up there? You don’t need Killi for that, right?”

“No no, she’s only interested in the fourth and fifth. Of course, if it’s concerning your student, then she might be a bit more curious, but I can administer the tests for those two. All I need to know is what branches of magic she would like to be tested on.”

Delair glanced at Ben. “Which ones did you choose?”

“I got to skip these tests,” he grinned. “But, when I was tested on the fourth and fifth floors, I told them it was okay to test me on anything.”

“Okay, then same for me,” she told the librarian, looking confident and, after the woman gave a small glance Ben’s way for confirmation, she took Delair aside to start giving the questions, leaving her in safe hands while he started making his way up the stairs, finding Verbum at the end of them.

As always, his head was buried in a book, and as always, he jumped when Ben got his attention, but there was no more than that. No screaming, no fainting, no running for help, leaving Ben to laugh.

“Looks like you’ve worked through your fears a bit, huh?”

“I’ve just been telling myself to prepare for whatever you’d look like next, yet you’ve still gone way beyond anything I’d guessed. So the system has finally accepted you as a demon, huh?”

“Eh, side-effect of my demon body passing a threshold, it seems like it’s fine though. And you? Keeping busy?”

“I’m never not busy. Everyone on this stupid planet wants one bit of info or another pulled from the system, I just should have guessed that taking your stupid circlet wasn’t going to shrink my workload at all. Ugh, so what is it you want this time? Am I looking at how becoming a demon has changed you? Maybe going over some of your weird skills or jobs?”

“No, not this time. Right now, I’m looking at going over the quality of something I’ve made.”

“Mmh, I think you’re probably a better judge of your own craftsmanship than I could be.”

“Not in this case. Here, give this a look.”

Connecting to Verbum, Ben looked through the other’s eyes as he looked over the soul crystal and felt as the record holder covered his own mouth to keep from screaming, hyperventilating for a moment before calming down.

“Why do you just have a god’s soul on you, and why does it have a blessing with your name on it?”

“God souls make for excellent training materials, and it has my blessing because I had it on hand when I first made it. I can do that now, but I wanted to borrow your eyes to judge and compare the quality as I do my next couple attempts. So, you mind?”

“Do I even have a choice?”

“I mean, sure, but you’d be breaking my little heart.”

“Mmh, let’s just make this quick,” he grumbled, not getting to see Ben grin, with his eyes too focused on the crystal and the soul it contained, the system information on the topic filling his vision for Ben to pour over.

As always, there were extra details mixed in, bits that felt meaningless, which seemed to have to do more with how the system stored information than anything else, but the strange part to see in that particular case was how much of it related back to himself and his life. It was his blessing, and that meant it was a piece of his soul, but that hadn’t left him to expect to see details of what he’d cooked five nights ago mixed into the information on the overall blessing quality.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Still, after twenty minutes, Ben had gotten enough, seeing how it compared to other gods and used that to refine the process as he pulled some rainbow mana crystal from one of his rings, materializing a new soul within it before slicing off a piece of his own, seeing Verbum flinch at the sight but ignored it as Ben gave it proper shape, placing it on the trapped soul for another evaluation.

Again he improved; inefficiencies and imperfections from his first attempt now needing only to be refined a bit further by the time he finished his reading to try his third, once more building on his progress, with the results being more than he’d expected.

When compared to the standard blessing a god would give, he’d started slightly below it in power but as he’d progressed, he’d reached just a bit beyond it instead, with the strength he’d cultivated within himself being passed on in his blessing and leaving an interesting implication.

No matter how anyone saw him, as long as he had flesh, Ben was still a mortal, but his blessings were the equivalent of the divine, with the implication of such things being clear. While gods could give up more of their souls to make stronger blessings, when Ben ascended, he would likely be able to give less to reach that same target, meaning he could more easily sacrifice bits of his soul to bless whatever believers he would one day have, while at the same time, not having to worry as much about the drawbacks of such an act. Whether he’d be able to be as free with his blessings as Myriad was another matter entirely, but on the other hand, he would have the option of giving the same-sized blessing as everyone else while rewarding a believer with far more power too.

Man, the others up there are right to be worried. I’m going to be such a popular choice to worship when I die, they’re going to lose so many believers to me. Wonder what percent of the church of Eneth I’ll be able to steal away before anyone complains?

It was a future goal, but one to look forward to, and with that, Ben was on to the last blessing he believed he could comfortably give. Even then, his soul ached, but with the help of Verbum, he’d significantly cut down on how much he would have needed to practice to improve and with that, he cut off one final piece of his soul and worked it with all of the new knowledge he’d acquired before placing it on his friend and hearing the surprise in his thoughts as the notification for Ben’s blessing rang out.

“What-”

“A little bit of a thank you for your help,” Ben told him before he could say more. “And bear in mind, that hurt, so no saying you didn’t want something like that.”

“... I wasn’t going to complain. You just caught me off guard,” Verbum mumbled. “Thanks.”

“No problem. If you give that one a final look-over, just to make sure there’s nothing I missed in making it, I’ll get out of your hair.”

Nodding, Verbum did as Ben asked, examining the final blessing and finding it to be as well made as such a thing could be, the difference between the third and the fourth invisible to all but the system itself, but under Ben’s hands, it had been mastered, an aspect of what had given soulcraft its name now completely in his grasp.

With more testing still to come, but… I’m not certain how valuable making skills will be to me, but I do know how valuable giving blessings is. If Thera and Mora patch me up, I can spend the next couple days giving blessings to the people I care about, and from there, work on skill creation after.

The plan firm in his mind, Ben bid Verbum goodbye before going back down, a different thought at the forefront of his head as he wondered just how quickly Delair would have finished her tests. He had no doubt that she was done of course, all of the lessons he’d put her through hadn’t been for nothing, but he did get a surprise as he saw her, talking animatedly with Killi, who seemed to be having just as much fun.

“I take it you did well then?” he asked, getting both of their eyes on him as Delair jumped up.

“I did great! The first library lady thought I did such a good job that she ran to grab me this one to try something harder!”

“Did she know?” Ben laughed, smiling Killi’s way. “And was this new library lady impressed by my little student?”

“How could I not be?” Killi asked, her many arms shrugging at the thought. “However you’re raising her, it’s clear enough that you’re missing out on your calling as a teacher. Both the crafting and magic guilds are worse off for not having you, and now I want to take this young lady in myself.”

“Sorry, I can’t let her go ‘till she’s hit at least the second tier. Gotta make sure that my apprentice can put anyone in her place if she needs to. And on that note, just how many of the library's patrons is she beating out?”

“The majority. You came just as we were finishing up the fifth-floor tests.”

“Seems like you were quick in answering everything,” Ben told Delair, ruffling her hair and seeing her beam. “I guess I don’t need to ask the results then?”

“The youngest we’ve had reach that floor, and without being tested on a specific magic. You’ve been teaching her well.”

“She’s been learning well. I’m lucky to have such an enthusiastic student, but… hmm, I suppose we can’t just head off then. If you got that far, then come on, you should at least look around a bit and then we can worry about getting you home.”

“Perhaps stop by the mage’s guild after,” Killi mentioned. “While they won’t be able to offer her better resources than she’d get by having you, if they start a file on her and it shows that she got full library access while she’s still a child, it might help her a bit later in life when she’s more independent.”

“Fair point, thanks, Killi. And would you care to join us while we walk around? I know you like chatting with anyone who can reach the top; I don’t want to cut your conversation short.”

“Then I’d be delighted. She was just telling me about some of the things she was making with you.”

“Yeah? Then she’ll have to stop by in the future to give you a part two. There’s a lot more to come.”