CH758

“And there we go, perfect,” Ben beamed as he finished tiling the main floor of the church, with it just being that floor. After having his idea he’d pushed his soul a bit to materialize all he’d need but it still left the walls and ceiling of that level bare of any new decoration, something he planned to slowly chip away at in the coming weeks and months as he spoke up to his god. “Feeling anything?”

<A lot. Mostly pain coming through from your mind, mind you, but there’s already a significant amount of new faith coming my way.>

“I maybe pushed myself a bit too hard,” Ben admitted with a shrug. “But I just made a significant dent in Elvat’s job doing this and made you a few million souls to get you more faith in the process, I’d say that it’s worth the trade. And now that I’ve done my bit for you and the world it’s time for me to get my due.”

Moving to the front of the room where a statue of Myriad gently floated above a podium, Ben took the podium itself and reshaped it, hollowing the base out to fit in one of his materializers as lines of moribusial that had been placed beneath all of the new tiles directed the overwhelming volume of mana to it, all to make the hardest substance there was to create in the universe that he was aware of. Stopstone, the single magic material he was aware of that didn’t react with magic in any way and took hundreds of thousands of points to just force a few dust particles into existence that would now be being created automatically, with the materializer slowly dropping entire grains of the stuff into a waiting bucket for him to check on and collect in the future after it had piled up for a while.

<What are you even going to do with all of that?>

“Myriad, it’s something that isn’t affected by magic. I can think of a million things to do with it. Hell, it’s going to be fun just to try forging it once I get enough, I just need to be a little patient.”

<Your strong suit, of course.>

“Hey, I can be plenty patient. Look at me not immediately running back to make more soul tiles for your church. I’ve got the patience of a saint.”

<Whatever you say. Now what’s the plan for the rest of the night?>

A small grimace touched his lips as he thought about it before giving his answer.

“Dinner and what might be a slightly awkward conversation. It’s fine, the sooner I bring it up the better.”

---

“So… I want to challenge the non-affinitied tower.”

Both Thera and Sonya froze while he said it, putting a pause to their meal before Thera just shook her head and sighed.

“You know, you really gave me way, way too much hope before when you told me you were done with everything.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“It’s fine, I really was expecting something like this, even if not this soon,” She sighed again. “So when are we going?”

“Not really sure yet, maybe a week or two? I’m waiting to find Vasta to hope she and Jake took it on so I can at least get a bit of a clue about it because it sounds like I have no chance of finding people who went through it the way I did for the dark tower and then based on whatever I’m able to find out we can figure out if there’s another three on the planet who might make good additions to our team.”

“Not going to try and get those two for ourselves if they haven’t taken it on yet?”

“God, I’d love to but I’ve gotta assume they have their own plans for this. Vasta, Jake, and Amy are all doing it for sure and I’ve gotta assume that if they aren’t taking Yuzu and Uriel to carry them to the end that they’ll be taking the other two non-affinity mages… Although if they were going to do that it isn’t unreasonable to assume they might ask you to go instead of one of those guys.”

“Even if they do, I’m going with you. If we’re going to look for two more we could take Glob and his teacher?”

“I’m not against it but taking two barrier mages is a bit unbalanced for going against something like a tower but if we can’t find any better options we talk to them. After I find Vasta I’ll talk to Myriad and the others to see if they know anyone else who might be a good fit.”

“Alright, and what’s the goal then? Trying to get another level of your soul source to get through jobs faster?”

“Ha, tempting but not this time, it gets an insane level of practice right now anyway. The aim is my enchanting. I’m a level away from being a contender for it, it’s the perfect time to try to cut down on the time.”

“And is that all?” She asked through narrowed eyes. She knew his goal was to reach the third tier for two separate skills but enchanting wasn’t one of them, with him admitting his further aim from there.

“And maybe another week after I plan on taking craftsmans’ tower but seeing as how that one doesn’t kill its challengers it’s less of a big deal. Since Nare was telling me they’d be able to awaken my connect when it was still stuck at the first tier, that means I’ll be able to get my last one from them if I take it on.”

“How many skills will that leave you as a contender for by this point?” Sonya asked while Thera fell silent, far too aware of just how that challenge aligned with his goals.

“I’m currently at four so that would bring me to six, but three of them are all mind skills so it doesn’t really count.”

“Why wouldn’t that count?” Sonya muttered, her question ignored while Thera gave in.

“Alright, that at least lets me warn people I’ll be disappearing for a bit. And then what are you going to do after that?”

“After what?”

She looked at him for a moment and only after accepting he wasn’t playing coy, shook her head. “Becoming a contender for your deep connection is part of one of your goals, right? What are you doing after that?”

“Ah, well, I guess just whatever I can.”

Once he got that level the goal was going to be to awaken connect to its third tier and while he had a few ideas for how he might pull it off, all of them lacking any of the safety he would have preferred, but that was a future concern. First he needed his levels, then he’d worry about how to go beyond them.