This is, without a doubt, the most unfathomable bullshit I’ve ever witnessed.

<No, it’s the luck of the draw.>

It’s basically reality itself proving that it’s intelligent and enjoys taunting me.

<Can’t you just be happy for her?>

I am happy for her; I just can’t believe my eyes. How the fuck am I supposed to feel seeing that Valaria gained connect inclination?

It almost felt like a betrayal from the system itself after all Ben had done to try to awaken connect, only for his coworker to gain what seemed like would have been an exceptionally handy skill as a result of a job change of all things, but he did his best to keep that initial reaction from his face. As incredibly jealous as he was, it wasn’t like either of them were actually able to help it, and that would be good for Valaria as well.

Especially since, if I can help her awaken it the way I helped her with connect, she’ll get her own destined holder title for it and if I can help her get it to the ninth awakened level, then maybe she’ll even manage to awaken connect without having to resort to the sort of crap I have and… nope, still jealous. I have to be the only person with bonuses going specifically to inclinations on the planet right now; how is it that other people keep getting the ones I want?

<All of the bonuses in the world aren’t going to change whatever initial compatibility you’re working with, other people must just be inherently more compatible with them than you, so the bonuses they get are making their odds of getting these skills all the higher.>

Yeah? Well, I’ll have you know that’s colossal bullshit. The moment I completely master soulcraft, I’m gonna figure out how to restructure my soul to give me a talent in everything. At this point, I can learn almost every non-affinitied active skill if I wanted to, I just need a more surefire way of gaining the passive ones I want, and I’ll be unstoppable.

<You’re already basically unstoppable; I don’t want to see you even more so. Now, quit complaining and come up here already.>

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” Ben said as a part of himself arrived in the realm, Ben needing to be in two different levels of reality to run the tests he desired. In one, Myriad, Nare, and Helori, with Nare having made some of the arrangements Ben had required down below while Helori plunged her arms into his chest, letting him connect with her to share the experience as she examined his soul.

Down below on the other hand, he and everyone else he needed were in Nare’s church, an adventurer who had both two spare spaces in their party, a fresh true mage to allow his power over souls to be converted to experience, while the remaining three members were people Ben had helped awaken in the past, holding mastery jobs of water, air, and earth magic which significantly increased their collective mana pool for what he was looking to test.

Beside them, Sachel, Valaria, and Toltho waited, three of his more powerful fellow believers he could examine, who the gods could pull up to the realm to join him at the same time when they were going to start, and beside him was Thera, the soul mage whose eyes he would be borrowing along with his own, examining him while he examined the other three while their consciousnesses had been pulled from above, all to answer the simple question. If the event that had happened the day prior was because of his new skill instead of the divine apostle job, how exactly did it work?

With everything as ready as it could be, Ben watched as the other three believers were pulled to Myriad’s realm to have their own souls examined by the gods, Nare taking both Sachel and Valaria to save them the trauma of being consumed by Myriad while Toltho filled that roll in bliss, leaving only the need for Ben to join the party as he touched his crystal to look at his options once more.

AVAILABLE JOBS

Craftsman: alchemy pathCraftsman: artistic pathCraftsman: blacksmith pathCraftsman: cooking pathCraftsman: stonecrafts pathCraftsman: sewing pathMathematicianBeginner puppeteerEntréeDancer

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No new ones, then. If I do this, then I don’t want to take a job that I’d get experience too easily for if it works. The slower I finish, the more other jobs I can help people through, which means my options are…

The first five path jobs were almost guaranteed to be ones he’d easily pull in experience for in his day-to-day life and work, so they were out. When one was as skilled as he was, he had no choice but to be prepared for the idea that a single high legendary item might genuinely produce enough experience to finish the jobs of hundreds of people.

Really though, all of his path jobs should have been out. He had a student to teach; he couldn’t just ignore training her in certain skills for his own convenience, and for an even greater reason, mathematician was out too. Just the background math he did in his head as he considered different projects and theories by that point would likely finish the jobs of everyone there before he could even properly consider how his new skill might be affecting anyone else, leaving only three real choices.

Beginner puppeteer, he could go without controlling any homunculi for a bit, even if it would slow down his work. Dancer, meaning that he would just have to go without dancing for a while, even if that might disappoint Thera, and-

How long do I think this is going to take to finish, anyway? He asked himself, trying to avoid what might have been the best choice. Let’s really think about this. I had job crystals distributed to most of Myriad’s believers, and of the ones who couldn’t get one, Myriad told them to plan to spend the day around whatever nearby job crystal they could find. I have a true mage in the party so I can make a single soul at a time at first and see how that affects things for everyone, but I should still be able to finish this by the end of the day. Everyone else will be able to finish every job on their list and then I can end whatever I take, meaning it actually doesn’t matter what I pick because no matter what, I’ll be done by tomorrow, even if I need to take it easy on some things today. Okay, perfectly logical and simple and straightforward, there’s absolutely no reason for me to need to take entrée, so with that firm and clear in my thoughts, I’m going for craftsman: sewing path.

<ACQUIRED JOB- CRAFTSMAN: SEWING PATH LV0>

<BONUSES GRANTED TO IMPROVING STRENGTH, STAMINA, AND INTELLIGENCE>

<ALL SEWING SKILLS WILL RECEIVE A GROWTH BONUS>

No skills or levels came from it, but from a first-tier job, by that point in his development, he wasn’t expecting them. He’d been wringing out every drop of potential within his soul using far more potent bonuses; he wasn’t expecting something of that level to give him anything.

No, he’d already gotten exactly what he needed from it, an avenue into an adventurer’s party, and with all of the pieces in place, Ben began his observations, connecting to everyone both below and above before raising his personal frame of reference to its fastest as he materialized a single soul.

With immediate results. Using his own soul sight, the act showed that not only his party, but Sachel, Valaria, and Toltho all gained job experience for its creation as well, proving that it was his newest skill doing it and not a function of his previous job as he made a second soul from there, merging the observations taking place between himself, Thera, and the three gods he had on it to build up his understanding of what was happening.

Links, not completely unlike the bind that existed between himself and Thera yet meaningfully different nonetheless, had been formed between himself and the rest of the church of Myriad, it appearing that his own god had been the original medium that had been used for such a thing, at least to facilitate the initial process, before they’d formed directly between himself and the others and, looking at it through such a detailed lens, he began to be able to interpret them.

A third soul was made, and with it, another burst of experience went forth as Ben began probing the pathways himself, growing his own awareness of them before making three new souls in rapid succession, revealing more depths.

He could close the pathways, keeping all of the experience to himself and, in that case, the party he was in, or he could open them as wide as they would go, giving what he estimated was a maximum of ninety-nine percent of it away to those he was joined to, for giving was exactly what it was. Instead of merging experience pools, the new ability he’d formed diverted experience away, giving it to others to be used in his place.

A seventh soul created and he could feel the change in its flow as a couple under extremely light options who were benefiting from him finished their jobs, what he gave left to be divided among the rest instead of lost to the void like any experience he might have produced after finishing one of his jobs by himself would be and with the eighth, he felt he had a deep enough understanding of the skill to be comfortable with it.

It was a passive skill, one that, when configured to a specific arrangement, would stay that way until touched again, but when touched it could be changed, with one more way than just manipulating the experience flow to do it.

From the fifth soul, he felt sure he could break that link between himself and others if he wanted to, but without the confidence the choice could be undone he held himself back, but now at the eighth, he believed he could do the reverse and, stretching out his soul to feel all of Nare’s believers in his range, he created new links to each of them, dividing the experience he would create even further but allowing hundreds more to benefit as his testing came to an end before anyone else could blink, the result clear.

The name said as much, but he wasn’t on the receiving end of it. He was the god giving his boon, the talent he had in helping others prosper and grow having reached a new height, with the overwhelming experience he could produce now something he could share with the world as a whole.