CH755

“Hmm, you know, while I’m out here I suppose I could visit those three,” Ben muttered as he walked through the hot city, trying his best to ignore the nearby volcano as he went through the streets of Nare’s lands. “I could get them one more level of connect while I’m here, maybe even easily so long as they’ve been practicing.”

<There’s really no need.> Nare told him, gently trying to give a bit of mercy to his granddaughter and the summoned of his nation. <Nati and Xilly are working hard, they haven’t been slacking.>

“Yeah, but seeing as how the world is ending we want them getting all of the growth they can, don’t we? Come on, send them over to the research center so I don’t need to find them. I’ll help them both get a quick level and then be on my way.”

<...Very well, I suppose it really would be for the best.>

“That’s the spirit, and is everyone else I asked for already at your church?”

<They are.>

“Cool.”

He picked up his pace as he heard that, making his way to the first church of Nare before letting himself in and finding fifty people waiting for him, all at his and their god’s request. People who either wanted strength or felt enough loyalty to the world to be willing to participate in what many would call a mad experiment to let Ben carry on the testing he couldn’t just do with the demons to see the further results of altering their base souls.

“Hello there, I’m the apostle of Myriad,” He greeted them brightly. “Sorry to keep you waiting, I believe Nare already gave you all the details of what’s happening but if you could all take out your cards so I could see them I’ll go over the details with you again before we start, okay?”

He got some nods and some rummaging as the people who were waiting for him pulled their cards from their pockets while he went around, not only looking at them but also secretly ruffling through their minds and memories to see the various other times they’d checked their cards in the past and how much time had passed between each one in order to create a rough evaluation of each of their natural growth rates to compare against for his tests, leaving him to smile in the end.

“Perfect. Now, as for why you’re all here, to put it simply you’re about to have your souls modified. The process has already gone through preliminary testing and while I’m confident it’s safe, there’s always the potential for some risk. What I can say is you’re going to be sore for a few days after this and there’s no escaping that fact. I feel pretty safe assuming most of you have never experienced soul pain before but all you can do is wait it out. Now, what I can tell you is the purpose of this all. All of your attributes are going to grow after this and rather significantly too. Your mana alone will grow by a few hundred points and your intelligence by almost a thousand which may feel a little weird to you but while gaining that growth so easily may seem more than worth it, what we don’t know for sure are the long-term effects. Namely, if that's going to affect your personal growth rates at all. As you already are undoubtedly aware, being buffed can pretty severely stunt how your attributes grow while under them so there’s a chance that this could do the same thing on a permanent level. I think that result is unlikely but it is a possibility all of you have to be aware of before we start. Now, having said all of that, if any of you want to leave, neither Nare nor I will hold it against you.”

Nobody left, not that he expected them to. Ignoring how hard it was for mortals to ignore the gods who they gave their faith, Nare had also been selective, searching out his believers for the ones who wanted easy power or the ones whose growth rates were low enough that they’d never have a chance of getting such high increases to their attributes before the third wave, which was admittedly the majority of people by then. More power meant better odds of survival, if the only thing they were risking was their potential for further growth when they’d be getting hundreds of points in some attributes in exchange without the need to work and train for them then that was a trade many would make.

So with all of them consenting he got started, moving through them one by one as he looked at their souls before materializing on them, each person getting one of the three potential options that would give them five percent of his attributes in order to see if there’d be any difference in how any of those configurations acted, with the only thing left being to wait.

He could feel the pain in them all, not overwhelming but undoubtedly there and he tried to sound at least a bit sympathetic while telling them what to do.

“Alright, you’re all done for now but even though it hurts you can’t take any breaks. The point is to see how this affects your growth rates so live how you always do and Nare will be in touch with all of you in around a week to see how your attributes have changed.”

They gave their agreement, many through grimaces, before they began filtering out of the church and back to their lives, Ben appraising them as they went. Even with the change he’d just caused, with how high his intelligence was especially, he could tell that some were already thinking clearer as he subtly connected to them, an already worthwhile result for anyone in the world even beyond the growth to any of their others.

And so long as that works I can then begin doing that on a much, much bigger scale. I’d need to make sure I get at least a couple more levels of soul expansion and I’d need to get paid if the gods want me doing this on a big enough scale, which let’s be real, they will and in that case, I should try to get them to raise my attributes even more since that will get paid forward to the people I help too but all of that is a future problem. For now, let’s see if Nare’s people and the researchers looking at all of the new magic materials in the world have found anything interesting for me.