CH881

Well, that was disappointing. Connecting to a dozen new gods hadn’t been enough to push deep connection over the edge, a not surprising resu

Well, that was disappointing.

Connecting to a dozen new gods hadn’t been enough to push deep connection over the edge, a not surprising result exactly but still one that dashed his hopes. With each new divine imprint on his mind adding a new mode of thought to his own, he’d let himself believe that he’d only need one more, being wrong each time.

But maybe as I connect to more in the future, I’ll finally get it. He thought with a sigh. Unless doing all of this just levels my mind instead which feels way too possible. More divine imprints translates to more changes in my mental structure, more changes in my mental structure means experience and experience means levels. Ugh, If I raise eldritch mind before I awaken deep connection then I might actually cry.

And that hadn’t been his only disappointment that night, with the other being less relevant yet just as devastating, at least on a personal level. After Helori’s questioning had pushed him to the point that he’d wanted to try and gain at least a single skill for himself, he’d spent hours trying, only to completely fail in the end. The one he’d wanted so badly being something that he’d not only seen a mere once and from a person who didn’t even hold it at the second tier, he hadn’t even connected to the holder of it, blocking his path to gaining his oh-so-desired bestowal.

He’d tried to cheat of course, using the feelings of it he’d gotten from both Thera and Jake through their non-affinitied magic while he’d trained them but it hadn’t been enough for it to work, leaving him with no options to gain the one skill he would have been willing to spare some time practicing with for the help it would have given him to his craft, his small bit of hope and excitement left to crumble in the end as he sat at the breakfast table with the rest, seeing Sonya’s curious eyes on Mora for the changes in the boy and Mora’s eyes on him for the change in his soul.

“Thera?” The child asked, sounding unsure of himself. “How fast do mortals grow their skills?”

“Ignore whatever you’re seeing in Ben, sweetheart,” She sighed, not yet aware of his newest level. “He’s an outlier and a bad influence.”

“I’m really not that bad of an influence.”

“Mhm? So you’re not going to let Abel get another bite out of you when you see her later?”

“...Depends on what she offers up in return.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was expecting,” She sighed again, her exasperation clear. “If you’re gonna give in, just try to wait until the end of the day so I can come back to heal you. Depending on how things go, I might be back a little early anyway.”

“Alright, sounds like a plan.”

---

Walking to the shop, what waited at the front door left Thera turning to Ben in mild concern, a question clear from what she was seeing.

“Was Abel waiting out here all night?”

“She shouldn’t have been, I gave her clear directions to an inn.”

“Well, she looks like she spent the last few hours playing around in the dirt.”

The other summoned girl looked content where she sat, her back pressed against the shop’s doors while she hummed an uncomfortably familiar tune but there was no denying she was dirtier than he’d last seen, with a few leaves stuck in her hair on top of what was almost certainly some dried blood on and around her lips, leaving Ben to materialize some warm water in a bucket along with a towel and handed them over the second they reached her.

“Abel, what are you doing out here so early?”

“Huh? Waiting to hang out, obviously. Hey Thera, you come to play a bit too? We never did get to fight before.”

“I’m just on my way to work, that’s all. Abel, you didn’t sleep outside last night, did you?”

“Ah, only a little,” She said, completely indifferent to it. “I made hunting for a midnight snack easy though! Oh, and is this your kiddo? Raising another little peeker, are ya? He sure smells strong too.”

“He is but you’re not getting any bites of him,” Ben sighed. “Now come on in, you can wait with me while we wait on Foast and my apprentice.”

“Or we could do something while we wait instead! Come on, let’s have some fun!”

“Abel, if you really want to spar I’ll do it with you sometime later. For now though, clean up a bit and come on in, I need to set up for the day.”

Deflating a bit, the girl did as he asked, following them inside while Ben said his goodbyes to both Thera and Mora and began some of the smaller prep work he needed to do while Abel watched from a seat, kicking her legs as she did.

“So you really are a crafty guy, huh? That wasn’t just a bit?”

“Of course not, this is my job and I love it.”

“Huh, bit of a shame though, isn’t it? You’re strong, you should be out fighting with the rest of us.”

“We all have our places, this is just mine. You ever sat down and made anything before?”

Considering that in her original reality, she’d been living in a post-apocalyptic hellscape ruled by the outsiders who’d murdered its original god, he had slim hopes for her answer but there was always a chance she’d indulged in some since arriving, even if he wasn’t holding his breath.

“No, why would I?” She asked in genuine confusion. “It looks boring.”

Instead of answering immediately, Ben just stared at her in thought. Biologically, by the standards of her race, Ben suspected she was around the middle of her teenage years, though a bit of an emotionally stunted one due to the nature of the universe she’d been forced to grow up in. Really, the fact that her summoned group were almost certainly better off for being brought to that doomed world than they were surviving in their original homeland said nothing good about her upbringing and left the fact that she managed to be both positive and friendly despite her more cannibalistic tendencies a matter of luck more than anything else but still, he had a good impression of her. As far as he could see, she was a good kid who’d simply missed out on a lot of the things a kid should have gotten to enjoy, leaving him to materialize some items and sit down with her with his real body while he left his other clones to work.

“Alright, well then why don’t I show you how fun this sort of thing can be?” He said, putting pencil to paper and quickly sketched her out before showing it and seeing her light up for the display. “While we wait, try doing some art with me and who knows, maybe it won’t be as boring as it looks.”

“What? No way, I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause how do a few scribbles turn into that, I don’t get it?”

“Well, it does take a lot of practice,” He said, trying to come off slightly haughty to capture the competitive spirit he knew she had and seeing it start to work as she puffed herself up. “But if you enjoy it and want to learn then that’s something I can help you with. Plus, there’s something way more important than that.”

“Yeah, what?”

“You said you wanted to have fun, right? Well as far as I’m concerned, this right here is some of the most fun in the whole entire world.”