<SOUL ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<SOUL ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<SOUL ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<SOUL ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<ETERNAL SOUL PROTECTION LEVEL INCREASED>

Four days since he first learned of the aspect of his new power, and with them, Ben had gone out, giving sixteen blessings to the people he cared about. Thera and Sonya were obvious, as were his friends. Steph, Will, Amy, Jake, and Yuzu all got to benefit from his new power, all of them feeling various levels of surprise. Delair and her mother as well couldn’t not be allowed to benefit from all he could give, and beyond them, there were others he wanted to grow further.

Toltho had to get it, as one of the more devoted and powerful believers of Myriad, there’d been no doubt, with the same applying to Valaria, with Ben still having the ambition of forcing a third-tier awakening on her one day. Sachel and her party had made sense too, adding four more names to it, even if he’d made Skoe beg, not having forgotten the man’s previous mistreatment of Thera and only allowed it because any strength he gained would go on to protect the rest who Ben and Thera both actually liked, and finally there was Thera’s mother Pelenia, with more still to do, that fifth day being used to fill a few more uses of his aching soul before he was going to start slowing down on it.

There were more people he wanted to bless, of course. There were plenty he’d grown to care about in the world, but at a certain point, he was losing out on far too much time by traveling to do it.

With only two stops marked for that day, the first being to see Thera’s younger cousin Seren, the only other mortal half-spirit, now a toddler who greeted him with a smile before looking surprised at the notification going off in his head at the blessing he received, Ben only hoping that gaining it would give the boy a bit more luck in learning to use his light magic than Thera had ever had with her earth.

“We can’t thank you enough for this, Ben,” Lux said as she hugged him, fully aware that some of her niece’s issues with her magic were already showing themselves in her son, even if the boy was still too young to deeply care.

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “And besides that, there’s still one more here to go.”

Nodding at the other man’s way, Ben’s attention turned to the light spirit’s partner, the satyr, Writ, and, seeing the look of surprise in the man’s eyes, Ben gave the blessing before the other could react, an unexpected result coming from it.

Mana flashed and filled the room, feeling like a light show to the child, but instantly pulled his and Lux’s attention, the one it had come from left looking at his hands before laughing.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Writ cheered. “That’s one way to break that barrier!”

Ben was well aware that Writ and Lux had met when the latter had saved the former's life after he’d tried to forcefully awaken his unarmed combat and had been bitten in half in the process, and had seemingly given up on such dangerous things after falling in love and having a child, yet with the blessing, he’d surpassed that long-standing hurdle, with the man pulling Ben into a hug of his own and slapped his back just as fast.

“Um, yeah, that’s fantastic,” Ben told him, returning the hug but having a different thought in his head. Having gotten some impression of the skill through his authorities, Ben didn’t think Writ should have been quite close enough to awaken it, and while there was a margin for error, it raised a different thought in his head.

Could he have been affected by anything in my status when he received a piece of my soul?

It was something he wasn’t sure about, with his investigation with Verbum having more to do with making sure he was making each blessing to the best of his abilities, but he couldn’t deny the potential either. Even if getting his blessing wasn’t giving others an outright buff to breaking that threshold, he also had his awakening title which helped lower his and other people’s barriers in the right conditions, and he couldn’t deny that it might apply.

Well, if I ever get the time, I’ll do more research later.

As it was, Lux was happy enough just knowing that her partner had gained a significant boost to his lifespan, but with Writ already wanting to test his awakening out, Ben could only make his way to his final destination for the day, not wanting to see Pelenia jealous that her blessing hadn’t turned out the same, and with that, he bid a quick goodbye, back through the gate kept in Thera’s childhood room to the shop and to the magic towers from there, his god speaking up to him as he did.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

<Alright, it’s all set up, we’ve got your next job run ready for tomorrow. Bring Thera, obviously.>

Sure, but it really took you guys long enough. It’s been a week, and I have an entire second job still to go through after. Someone’s been slacking.

<It’s simply been a matter of trying to get those who could use the experience the most.> Myriad told him, the tone sounding like he’d be shrugging if he had shoulders. <Besides that, planning’s been mixed in with more meetings about you. I feel like I’m never going to have a quiet moment again.>

I’m saying it now, but if you guys want me to do any more blessings on people I don’t care about, it’s not going to be cheap. Every three I give, I want one blessing in return, or thirty for a tower blessing equivalent if that would be easier for you all to split the load; payment upfront.

<Not going to lie to you, nobody actually wanted to deal with asking you, but that’s surprisingly reasonable. I suppose I’ll bring it up in the next meeting.>

It’s more than reasonable, so no negotiating it down. That’s still over a week of cutting off pieces of my soul, you know? I deserve to be properly compensated. But if you all weren’t talking about that, then what was coming up?

<Mmh, well, thankfully, the more vocally opposed to your existence seemed to actually calm down a bit after we took our break. Obviously, there’s still a rather unhappy sentiment up here about what you can now do to souls and how much power you’ve been accumulating, but the tone has gone from what a blight your existence is to what work we should be getting you to do.>

Pass. I know how you all like to work the other third tiers, avoiding that was the best perk of being hated.

<It’s nothing so horrid, don’t worry. There’s some talk of asking you to do another mass awakening as soon as you can, while being paid of course, and talk of ramping up production in your factories, which means asking you to stay on top of upgrading them and going to provide souls to the items that need them more frequently. Nothing you don’t already do.>

… Fine. Yes, if the factories are going to be running more, then I can go make sure everything is nice and ensouled, and if you all want to arrange another awakening day for whoever needs it, then I can go do that. Just don’t let anyone think they can get away with keeping me from home for weeks at a time; I’ll raise a fuss.

<I don’t doubt that fact for a second.> Myriad told him dryly. <Just going to take the wins I can get.>

Yeah, yeah. Is there anything else you guys want me to do then? Anything I might be less agreeable towards?

<Surprisingly, nothing in particular. There’s been some talk about if we should have you be giving lessons to any particular group, but given a significant portion of the world got to receive any relevant knowledge you had while you were modifying their souls, there isn’t much to do there, and while there’s been talks about doing the second modification earlier than we’d intended, to try and create a bit more room for the world to get use to that sudden boost of power before the next wave, there’s discussion enough about if there should be a second round of soul modifications at all. You’ve only become more powerful since the last time and all of the strength people got from it is something we’ll all need to keep living with afterwards if we survive the next wave and bring an end to the war between us, which is feeling more and more likely by the day, by the way. We’re trying to determine at what point strengthening people further will only hurt us in the long term.>

Do we really have so much leeway that we can worry about the long term? Trust me, I’ve seen the sort of worlds demons create when they win. Even if doing this leaves the world a post-apocalyptic hellscape of supermen able to twist steel beams with their bare hands, it’ll still be better than the complete and total devastation that a completed demon invasion would leave it.

<Perhaps so, but if it comes to it, we’d still prefer some sort of middle ground where we might take a few more losses in the war itself but society doesn’t collapse immediately after. Unless you think you can undo the change with your new skill, we want to be somewhat cautious.>

Impossible, even ignoring the ethics of it, Ben told him. I didn’t materialize on the planet’s souls, I materialized through them. What you’re asking is the equivalent of wanting me to unscramble a couple of eggs.

It was possible that such a thing would be doable for him in the future, but as things were, there was no way, and he wouldn’t have felt right about it even if he could. Unmodifying souls was a strange issue for Ben. It wasn’t exactly the same to him as stealing away the skills a person may have worked hard to claim for themselves, but in the time since he’d done it, people would have grown used to that new level of power. To weaken them all so significantly again once the war was done though, if he were in their place, he knew he’d feel somewhat resentful of that fact.

<And thus, there’s discussion of coordinating something similar, just on a smaller scale.> Myriad told him. <Give a chance for those who hadn’t decided to participate the first time to come and correct that mistake. A smaller gathering for people that hadn’t fully realized what they’d be missing, and you can’t deny, it would be a lot easier for you this time than last.>

True… Ben hesitantly agreed, remembering just how many days he’d spent on it the first time but knowing that conditions would already be different now than then. With the sheer scope of the awakening he’d just done through, how many people he’d be able to modify and teach at once would have exploded, with so many more now able to fit in his range. What had previously taken ten days, he might now be able to finish in less than two, with the real limiting factor being his travel speed.

<It would certainly go towards raising everyone’s opinion of you up here even higher.> Myriad pushed, prompting a groan in his believer.

With everything I do for this stupid world, there shouldn’t be any room to look at me any better already, but fine. I’ll help all of the idiots who skipped out the first time if you guys set things up for me, just remember that I expect to be paid for my work.

<Yeah, by this point, nobody up here is going to forget that.>