CH858

“So I suppose I’d first like to ask if the mystery skill you had us awaken contributed to all of this somehow,” Nare asked him, wondering if there could have been a connection with Helori laughing as she answered on his behalf.

“It strengthens the effects of inclinations, jobs, titles, and blessings. Take a guess.”

“That’s what it does? How, no, why haven’t I heard of it already?”

“Myriad asked me to keep it to myself,” He shrugged. “He thought some gods might overreact if word slipped out and yeah, honestly I see his point. So touchy up here, everyone has a problem with a cute little god of sacrilege existing as if I’m not just the sweetest little guy who's ever reached the third tier.”

“And as curious as I am about all of that,” Said the goddess among them. “For now, let’s focus on the actual change you went through. What all happened?”

“A bunch. I got three levels to my integrated divine body which is pretty nice considering how much it’s been boosting my healing rate. Speaking of, how’s my body doing down there?”

“Traumatically bad but thanks to the efforts of your friends it seems certain you’ll live,” His god sighed. “Still, you said you’re aware of your body a bit while being up here but if you’re not feeling the pain then I wouldn’t go down until they’re done. I’ve never actually seen a mortal link their mind to a god’s before but there are unexpected levels of damage. Your muscles spasmed so hard they ripped to shreds with enough force to break your bones and well, as much as I absolutely hate the fact that this isn’t the first time it’s happened to you, you’re also bleeding pretty heavily from every pore in your body.”

…Oh yeah, they’re going to be so pissed down there when I get back.

“Okay, staying up here for a bit longer sounds like a plan,” He nodded. “And as for other changes, well, I’m going to need to experiment a lot with both skills before I really talk about either of them but I’ve got two new titles and two new skills too, which I guess shouldn’t be surprising since bonus skills are guaranteed for third tier awakenings but still interesting.”

“Well, start with the titles,” Nare told him. “One’s going to be first of the faith I’m sure, what’s the other?”

“First human god, which is pretty cool. Didn’t expect being the first human on the planet to reach godhood to come with an extra little perk.”

“Interesting,” Helori muttered. “In this universe, normally every race is born under a god so anyone who rises to godhood can never be the first of their people but the third tier summoned we got didn’t come with that title themselves despite being in the same position of godless races.”

“Well, Yuzu’s people actually did have gods, same with Abel, sort of.”

“Sure, but not in this universe and the natures of those ones seemed objectively different from what makes someone a god here, it shouldn’t have counted. Plus, we got third tiers from realities that really were godless too, just look at Verbum. The fact you have this title but they don’t can’t help but be a little surprising.”

“But none of those third tiers worked for it either,” Nare pointed out. “The system might be treating them as, if not akin to us then as something close. Natural gods who didn’t grow for their power. What a curious result.”

“Considering that the few other summoned who came with completely new skills didn’t get the skill learner title like he did either, it could also just be a matter of some titles needing to be properly worked for,” Myriad pointed out. “A certain level of effort tends to matter.”

“And as far as titles go, there was actually one more interesting result too,” Ben added. “Destined holder of alien thought structure grew to destined god of alien thought structure. The title was upgraded.”

It was something he’d been vaguely aware could happen, even if it was the first time he’d experienced it himself, but the only cases he knew of were for royalty who ascended to their thrones, with titles like prince or princess growing to king or queen. Considering how many he himself held at that point, for it to happen at all came as a neat surprise, with the rest capturing Helori’s interest.

“Considering a second-tier unleveled skill merged into it, the system must be treating it like that skill itself was the one to awaken as well, which we’ve seen before in second-tier awakenings but still, what an interesting find. So that means any skills that you’re the first to hold which grows to the third tier will likely always get you that title upgrade.”

“Which means if I awaken connect to the third tier, you’ll be looking at the destined god of connect! Eat your heart out Myriad, while I suppress the crushing fact that despite awakening two fucking skills to the third tier, I now have to manage one more! Ugh, why!”

“Myriad, you said this all happened because he linked up to your mind?” Helori asked, ignoring Ben’s outburst to focus on the other god who seemed mostly confused by the question.

“What, did you not know he was going to do that? He said he asked you to distract me.”

“He did but he didn’t tell me why, he just said it was important. I was in no way expecting any of this. Anyway though, if that’s how you awakened them then the answer of how things turned out this way is simple.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ben said, pinching his brow. “The strain from connecting to him that I’d wanted to push my connect into growing was all placed on my mind instead, it was a rhetorical why. A very unhappy rhetorical why.”

That had been his best bet for trying to awaken connect. He could come up with a few more ideas, hell, he could even try the one he’d made up for Myriad in the past to try to avoid any suspicions of his real goal and connect to every spirit in the world at once, but there was no denying that his best chance had just failed.

And I can keep connecting to more gods once I verify that doing it isn’t going to destroy my body a second time which it shouldn’t based on the changes I’ve gone through with awakening but if I’ve already done it once and it wasn’t enough… No, it might just be a matter of repeated exposure to keep lowering the barrier, this idea hasn’t failed yet.

“And then your new skills?” Nare asked. “I can only imagine what might have grown in you from this.”

“Well, since eldritch mind is one of my blessed skills I have a new second tier one called mind break which, I don’t know, from the name alone is either going to help me break other peoples’ minds or keep my own from breaking-”

“Not that you’d even need something like that with the new shape of yours,” Myriad cut in. “The bit you showed everyone had a big enough effect and seeing it in its entirety was traumatic.”

“And as rude as that was to hear, it’s a fair point. As for my sacrilege-derived skill though, it’s called realm access. No way of knowing if I won the dice roll and got a second-tier skill for it but the name sure sounds like it, right?”

Helori’s face scrunched up with the answer. “As all of us have seen by this point, you can already access whatever realm you want just fine.”

“Yeah, so I have no clue but I’ll be taking a day or two to figure this out, with one more thing you guys probably aren’t going to like hearing.”

“I’d actually prefer it if you didn’t tell me,” Myriad tried, being completely ignored for it as Ben focused on Nare.

“You guys have said before that a couple people have managed to get a level to their third-tier skills in the past, right? That’s part of why I’m helping all of them get through their jobs, you’re all hoping that at least one of them might be able to get a level, even if the odds are slim?”

“Correct.”

“And before, when I was asking you about world killer and the topic of the hypothetical potential of fourth-tier skills came up, you said that perhaps it would be possible for a mortal with thousands of years and talent to go with it, yeah?”

“I believe the implication was that it would only potentially be possible if a mortal was able to live in and fully use that sort of timescale but… Ben, where is this going?”

“Forget thousands of years, I’ve just gotten hundreds of thousands at least,” He said, tapping the side of his head. “I’m not actually sure yet, I’d need to try and measure my new thought speed but that’s not the point. The point is that time is relative and if I can make a couple ideas work then not only will I be able to level my sacrilege a few more times before the next wave, I’ll even be able to awaken a couple more skills I couldn’t care less about to the third tier for the attribute bonuses and if all of that works then I’ll maybe even end with as much as a ten percent chance of not instantly dying when I try to deal with Oaun so long as I do get my connect awakening in the end. I’ll tell you, even if it wasn’t the goal, awakening my mind has left me with all sorts of fun options the other gods of this world are going to want to kill me for all over again.”

No matter how much they wanted to, not one of the three gods could tell him what he was saying was impossible after all he’d just done. They were no longer dealing with a mortal but instead a mind god like no other who’d been finding better and faster ways to grow ever since he’d arrived on that planet, leaving all of them to only imagine what sort of chaos Ben was about to unleash with the new level of power he’d claimed for himself.

“Empty skies,” Myriad muttered, his despair clear. “If you really do level your sacrilege even once more it might be impossible to keep the other gods from killing you.”

“They can try all they want, I’ll turn them into experience under my feet,” He laughed as he imagined the future. There was still so much for him to do and so many things he’d need to pull off to if he wanted even the slightest chance of both victory and survival but he’d already been working for that for so long, the chance to have some real, significant progress was tantalizing as new plans were shaped in his head to achieve every one of his goals.

Author’s note!!!!

So here we are, end of an arc and what an arc it was! Craftsmans’ tower finally done, I hope I’d made it somewhat entertaining for you all, with the promise of a new goal from the crafting gods and Ben’s biggest success until this point, reaching the third tier! God, I’m just so pleased. And other things happened too, with the demidemons moving to stonewall and new great spirits being born and oh my god this was a full story arc. I feel like so many things all happened at once!

Okay, so the good as far as I can see it. I’m extremely happy with how reaching the third tier turned out. I know it happened right at the end but I’ve been thinking about it ever since he first reached the second tier in ch256 and I’m just so happy to have it done. It feels so good.

For where I could improve though, I feel like I probably could have done a bit better with the middle floors of the tower. I’m really happy with the first and last but I think the middle bits just don’t have the same strengths, even if I’m not sure how I’d go about improving them.

Having said all of that, I’m thrilled, everything feels great and writing ch855 and 856 left me feeling insane as I wrote them and I loved every minute of it. That’s going to be all for this post-arc note, a bit shorter than a usual one but as always, I hope you enjoyed and I hope you look forward to what’s to come!