CH860

He didn’t open his eyes when he went down, at least not immediately, with his focus directed to something beyond the world around him, his attention placed entirely on feeling the changes within himself.

With there being plenty on that front alone to sort out. Beyond the basic pain from what remained of his wounds, injuries still far worse than what he’d expected to find when his god had told him he was nearly fully healed, was what seemed like nearly endless strength filling him to the brim and permanently altering the level of power he had to play with.

Awakening a skill to the second tier for the first time may have boosted a person’s attributes by half but a third-tier awakening would double what a person had and Ben had just gotten two of them. Even if the effects were going to be halved for the second one given the rules awakening bonuses seemed to play under, in an instant he’d turned himself into one of the most powerful people in that room, all of the more so for the favour he’d asked before he’d gone up.

Keeping it discreet at the time, he’d asked Yuzu to cast spells on him while he closed his eyes, both lowering his awakening threshold for whatever help it would give, but more importantly, enhancing his awakening effects as well, same as she’d done for everyone he’d helped to awaken in the past and leaving him all the more powerful for that fact. Even reduced by his resistances and his resistance enhancement, with the power he’d already held, any extra boost was going to be significant.

While his intelligence was going to be hard to quantify the difference for and likely to remain that way until he could test how easier actualizing would become for him. Other than that, any changes that might have come with it would be left as likely to be a side effect of eldritch mind for all of the changes it brought to how he would think.

Vitality too would be harder to judge, especially as broken and beaten as he’d felt in that moment, but everything else was a matter of how much he could properly experience while laying there.

With the most obvious of them being his strength, his body overflowing with it. Holding a value that had to have been nearly nine thousand compared to the ninety he’d arrived on the world with, it felt like he’d be able to crush diamonds in his fists and tie a crowbar into a knot. He immediately had thoughts of trying to sculpt metal like it was clay and that was only one attribute.

Stamina was another he’d need to wait a bit to get a sense for the full degree it had grown but even his hated agility felt inherently higher, needing to be above three thousand after all of that and practically leaving his body twitching with a need to move. He could only imagine the changes he would see when he got to physically testing that attribute but everything else paled in comparison to one above all else. His mana.

An attribute that needed to be at nearly thirty thousand when it had been less than ten that same morning, he could feel every drop of it in his soul, begging to be used and played with but held off for the time for what else he could feel around him. Eyes.

His senses had changed drastically and would need to be explored but one thing above all else was present and that was the feeling of being watched, not by the people around him and not caused by the ten hands pressed against and healing his body but from somewhere far higher, his sacrilege telling him that there were gods staring down.

Each one identifiably, at least to an extent. He could tell which ones were coming from Myriad, Nare, and Helori, and both Anailia and Jagal were clear too. He could notice Phixth and and even both Eneth and Olensia staring down from the heavens above and of the gods he didn’t know by name, he could tell from either the sight of them in any of the meetings he’d been through or else the faith he’d felt from the last time he’d passed through a communal church and he wanted none of it. On his side or not, what he desired was privacy and with that thought came that very thing, his sacrilege reacting to his will to make the gazes he felt vanish, only leaving questions in his mind in their place.

Did that make it so they can’t see me or make it so I can’t feel them? Either way, another thing to experiment with later. For now…

He could put it off no longer and finally opened his eyes, greeting the world around him for what more changes would come.

Instantly he could see Thera, Yuzu, Steph, Lux, and even Jake swarming him, hands pressed against his body and covered in his blood doing everything they could to heal him and the panic they held for just how much work it was, with a small part of him noting that none of the non-healers had left the room, Jake either having filled the small job Ben had given him in the form of a note asking he make sure to keep everyone in there or else not needing to. It had been a party after all, a break from the madness of the world and filled with some of the highest quality food anyone could eat but either way, he was grateful that no healer had slipped out for a break from it all.

But beyond just their presence, he was seeing something else in each of them. He’d been able to see the faith in a person since he’d awakened his sacrilege to its second tier, or at least he’d thought he had been, but now it was distinct in a way it had never been before, making it clear that he’d what he had been seeing that whole time was two different aspects that could be found in a soul. The faith it generated, sure, but beyond that, the divine system bound to it.

He was seeing it on a purely structural level, still not able to view titles or jobs or affinities the way he could a person’s skills, but that alone was interesting for him, leaving the feeling that his sacrilege had enhanced what soul sight he already held and giving him more to think on when it came to how he’d make then, with more modifications he could test coming to him in a flash now that his thought structure had changed so radically, even if that was a future problem. While not in perfect condition, he was in good enough shape to give the healers around him some leeway, letting them notice that he was finally awake.

“So thanks for keeping me alive,” He started with, making sure the gratitude came through in his voice while he was stared down by everyone around him.

“Ben-” Thera began, hesitation in her voice that was cut off by two others speaking over each other, Steph and Yuzu screaming at him.

“What just happened!”

“What did you do!”

One was already far more informed than the other, Yuzu able to see both awakenings in his soul but it was clear there were questions on all of their lips, with their minds splitting them between those who understood what happened and those who didn’t, all of them waiting for his answer.

“I finally broke through to the third tier. It went slightly worse than expected. Thanks for being so quick with the healing by the way.”

It was what most of them already expected but hearing him actually say as much left all sorts of feelings among them. A third tier after five years of work was the main thought of the natives, something that felt like an impossibility before them. Even if he was already an adult when he’d arrived on the world, with the amount of time he had to grow to such a height, it was like being told a child had clawed their way up to godhood.

For the other summoned it was different. Even if they knew it was absurd, their starting point had been far beyond his. They’d already known they’d been overtaken too but now they were talking about a level of power that went so far beyond anything else he’d achieved. They’d been completely eclipsed to a point that was too great to even compare themselves, leaving everyone there dealing with the inescapable truth of what they’d been told.

“Godhood,” Amy muttered while Jake’s eyes gleamed.

“For what skill and how?”

“Uh, let’s put a small hold on that, give me a second to sort myself out.”

He could feel his blood on and around him, mostly dried by that point but still annoyingly present and he spent his mana to fix that, pulling it away from every inch of his flesh and off the hands of those who healed him, pulling it from their clothing too with any that had soaked into the couch before breaking it down to its constituent parts, turning what bits of it he could into air while what was left scattered about as dust, gone and leaving the scene like it hadn’t just been a bloody mess.

“Much better,” He said as he stretched out, his state improved just a bit for being clean while Abrus shook his head.

“Getting to bear witness to a second awakening like that in my lifetime, eternity really does grant a number of pleasures. How are you feeling?”

“Different. Powerful. A whole lot all at once but I’ll adjust soon enough, I-”

His words were cut off by Thera grabbing his cheeks and squeezing, making it clear enough at least that she wasn’t entirely lost in his accomplishment.

“Ben, what did you do?”

Less a question than a demand for answers, he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer with everyone there curious. He was a contender for too many skills for them to not want an explanation and there was no way he’d be able to get out of giving them one.

“...I connected to my god and this is how it turned out. Putting my mind against a divine one was, well, risky would be the right word but given the state it had already grown to I felt pretty confident about how it would turn out.”

“And the skill?”

“Reconstructed alien thought structure, knowledge, unnatural thought speed, unnatural inspiration, and lucid dreaming all merged into my unnatural mind and awakened to eldritch mind-” He started, hearing Jake whistle and seeing a small flash of hope in Thera’s eyes that he knew he was about to crush. “And my ill intent merged into king of sacrilege to grow to evil god of sacrilege.”

A statement that would have left a dropping pin to echo through the room with his claim of awakening not one but two skills and just how problematic the name of one of them was going to be, but none of that mattered. He could see the answer crushed Thera for one inescapable reason. He’d just achieved half of his impossible goal.

She hadn’t thought he’d be able to make it to the third tier in the time they had left and so long as he couldn’t then he wouldn’t do anything suicidal for the planet but now she was faced with how overwhelmingly possible it felt that he might achieve it, basically sealing his fate if he did. He needed to awaken one more skill to have the confidence to even try to fight Oaun but what was one more awakening when he’d already proven to himself that that was a barrier he could surpass? His success had gone from an improbability to something that felt like an inevitability in one fell swoop and she was doing her best to process the emotions that left in her while he went on.

“Neither of those was the goal, mind you. I was trying to awaken connect but it was my mind that took all of the strain so it didn’t go exactly like I’d hoped but the fact I got two from this was quite the bonus.”

“And were the gods okay about this?” Yuzu asked, the only one among them who’d already been aware of his reveal. “Your sacrilege is kind of…”

“Some weren’t happy,” He said, keeping it light on the details. “But luckily, enough other gods like me so things worked out fine. I can confidently say that nobody up there should be trying to do anything about me until the war is done.”

“That still doesn’t sound good. You know that, right?”

“And if I live through the war then I’ll figure out how to deal with any outcry from them then,” He shrugged. “Just like I am for them, they’re all a future concern for me, it’s not something I’m going to stress about.”

Except if they find out some of the other stuff I’m going to try and do soon then things are going to get a whole lot more complicated for me so I’m going to have to try and keep a few secrets if I can after a bit of planning and testing is done but it’s fine, I’ll make it work. Path to overwhelming power and all of that, I just have to be able to reach it.

“Anyway,” Ben went on as he tried to get up. “Not to brag but it looks like there is a whole new reason to celebrate so why don’t we enjoy the party for just a little longer before it gets too late and-”

“Ben,” Thera cut him off, grabbing his cheeks again and squeezing all of the harder with the glare on her face taking over what worries for the future she held. “If you think you’re going to somehow get away with not getting an earful for tricking everyone into gathering so you’d have a bunch of powerful healers around during your attempted suicide, you’re out of your mind.”

“...Okay, but in my small bit of defense, it wasn’t actually you all I was trying to trick, I just didn’t want any of the gods finding out and trying to stop me.”

“Not better.”

Now that she’d pointed it out, all of the other healers in the room took on a much firmer look as well, leaving him to accept his fate while counting what slim blessings he had.

After all, it looks like they’re distracted enough with this that nobody is going to ask me what modifier compatibility does anymore.