CH735
Added 2024-10-14 16:09:14 +0000 UTCWith the information he’d wanted acquired, Ben took the others and began to move. The fact the demon had killed itself before they’d arrived meant the jig was up, the one controlling it was aware of their presence and would likely be doing what it could to catch them, they just needed time to arrive and with an awakened space mage on their side, he didn’t want to wait around to see how long that would take as he began pulling things from his rings to make what he could.
The first of which ended up using ten of his new guns. Able to endlessly fire off ammo, he hadn’t even had the chance to properly use them yet and he was already breaking them apart to harvest the voidstone within, wanting that material’s properties for the first idea he’d had for handling the time limit of the demon’s prophecy, even if it was going to depend on how well he could time things as he began enchanting on it, managing to get the magic placed down successfully after dividing his total volume into three which left him needing to pull out three more of his guns than he'd hoped to get the fourth.
That meant he only had seven left, the recent redundancy of his creation showing its worth as he shoved the materializers that had been being held within the guns back into his rings, even as a question sprung into his mind.
Each of them had souls built in to power them, shouldn’t he take that power for himself to use in a situation like that? The lives and safety of himself and Thera were at stake along with the rest of their group, things had clearly progressed to the point of a full-blown emergency. Wasn’t that the time?
…No, I need to be able to overcome this.
The entire point of not bringing the church of Myriad with him was to ensure he wouldn’t have endless power available to him to face his problems given the coming future where doing such a thing was going to be a place of vulnerability. He couldn’t just steal power to face any challenges before that when he was supposed to be doing his best to make sure he could make the most of his own strength, even if that fact left his stomach in knots.
He was essentially putting people’s lives at risk in the name of practice, with one life in particular he cared deeply about, but he was still looking to a future beyond that instead of giving everything he could at that moment. The fact he was able to compartmentalize to such an extent made him question how much of what his mind had become could still be called human but he pushed the thought away.
It didn’t matter because at the very least, with the strength he had, he knew he’d be able to save Thera. Really, the main issue was the risk he’d be under for trying to do it, not her when all of the power she held would be pointed at him and as for the others…
Well, I’ll do my best. If I can’t beat one demon without relying on overfilling my soul then that just means I’ve never had a shot to begin with and need to start devoting myself to a different plan.
It was while he was grappling with himself like that as they ran that the first of the demon’s pawns arrived, Pato in front of him and already casting his next spell as he appeared, forcing Ben to throw himself out of the way while grabbing hold of the others to do the same, narrowly avoiding being teleported who could say where while another spell was already being cast, the speed of it telling Ben that the demon in control had gotten better at using those in its thrall with all of the danger that implied.
But with a spell of his own, Ben shot out a cloud of stone around him, hitting the other summoned but to no effect, with the light, desperate blow being shrugged off without any attempt to dodge. Why bother when all paths to the future showed how harmless it was going to be?
At the very least, if there was any harm to be had it wouldn’t be making itself known in the next five minutes and trying to make it appear like a random choice, Ben began running with the rest, vaguely in both the direction he felt bind and where he knew the demon in control was. He wasn’t going to go right at them, he didn’t want to give any indication he was doing anything other than running away to make it the demon’s choice to send Thera his way or to attack him itself while Pato stayed on his heels, seeming more that content to keep forcing him forward by throwing out casual attacks to keep them running as bits of space and death magic went off, continually forcing them forward while Ben’s attention was divided between the world around them and the gods above.
Myriad, tell me as we’re running if you see any demons preemptively move out of our way, but only after I’ve passed them, okay?
<Alright, but I can’t help but feel like you have bigger priorities right now.>
If he’s not going for the kill then I have the wiggle room.
<Fine, in that case, you just passed one.>
What? Damn it, okay then, keep telling me until I say you can stop.
He felt his feet pounding against the ground as he ran with all he had while Pato avoided that same fate. Any time he fell too far behind he teleported right at the edge of Ben’s range, firing off a new attack and forcing them to dodge each time, with the attacks constantly feeling closer despite the continued misses.
<Are you sure he isn’t actually trying to get a kill? This is all looking rather close. Also, you just passed two more hidden demons again.>
Ugh, damn it. And I don’t know, it's all feeling close but not overwhelmingly so and I’m not feeling Thera moving closer which is what I think it would really be utilizing if it wanted to kill us but on the other hand, it has a few more options for figuring things out than I do so all I can do is my best to plan more than five minutes into the future.
<Alright, just don’t die and don’t get taken over. I don’t want to imagine how far into the future a demon like this might be able to see if it got a hold of your mind. Also, you passed another.>
God damn it!
The fact the demons around kept preemptively avoiding him was as annoying as it was expected and each time he tried to alter how he was using connect to see if he could get through, using lighter and lighter touches each time while planning out exactly what he’d do without straying to avoid splitting the future in a way that the watching demon would be able to see to give the game away, but he was reaching the limits of his skill.
He’d never needed to worry about having a delicate touch before beyond just making sure his mind didn’t kill or cripple anyone exposed to it. The fact that the link that bound the horde was so delicate was a major issue when breaking it in the future would act as a warning sign in the present to the demon in control, forcing him to practice blind while he was running for his life with the others to worry about too, only changing the second he had his success.
The connection was made to a hidden demon as Ben felt its mind and going no further, let it break as he continued on.
His first success with a need to get at least a few more under his belt. If he could touch their minds without being noticed then that was a good step on the road to fighting a prophet but he wanted to understand the link that bound them deeper so he continued on, hearing his god speak up at each new failure as he did.
<You passed another.>
AUGH!
It was aggravating, not a way he’d ever choose to train if he had the choice and with the feeling that he was failing to lure Thera to him, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was doomed to failure in the end, if despite the strategies he was trying to make, maybe facing off against something that could predict so many of his moves was simply too much.
In the end, he didn’t have time to worry about it. It wasn’t Thera who came for him but Fone, the oni standing in the woods to block his path, mace in his hands and lightning on his fingertips.
Comments
The souls use the mana and the info coded in them to materialize bullets into the guns. Ben specifically can't use connect, as it expands his soul out of his body, leaving it vulnerable, whereas materializing is basically just a high level magic, no soul extension required. I also doubt Ben is intending to use the guns on Oaun, at least until he enchants one with 3rd tier sacrilege.
Cameron Baldwin
2024-11-03 05:06:00 +0000 UTCA powerful person destroying your weapon means they aren't destroying you. Sure Ouan could use their special affinity to break Ben's gun but that means that Ouan isn't trying to kill Ben in that moment
Corvusamous
2024-10-17 16:38:31 +0000 UTCYes, but how do the souls provide the guns with ammo? Either they also leave their "shell" and gain the same vulnerability in the process, which should make them just as useless against Oaun as the Church, or they don't do that, in which case Ben needs to modify the church so that it can provide mana to him the same way the souls do to the guns
Hydrabogen
2024-10-15 20:22:01 +0000 UTCTFC
Rain
2024-10-15 18:42:02 +0000 UTCI think the problem was him extending his soul out of his body to connect, which leaves him extra vulnerable to soul attacks
Clara
2024-10-15 08:57:12 +0000 UTCWell, antimatter, I can actualy see as really dangerous, one mistake and it's his planet and people that get the conseqences, so I can see that being held back to the last minute kind of thing, like yep were gonna lose, might as well take them down with us, since were screwed even if I (ben) make mistake and antimatter bomb explodes here. Soulmana? The conseqence for that goes only to him, so,,,,
Tomáš Blábol
2024-10-15 01:17:42 +0000 UTCYeah, Infinite Mana was one of those "Rule of Cool" decisions the author made. Same with Antimatter. Both were pretty neat in the moment, but they dealt lasting damage to the story. There is a reason why people have been shouting for Ben to use his instant win button in the form of Antimatter for 400 chapters by now. And why we always get the most threadbare excuses why Antimatter is actually totally and completely unusable. It's the same with Soulmana.
Hydrabogen
2024-10-15 00:03:52 +0000 UTCI'd like to metion that the infinite guns themselves are problematic. It's either: A - They are immune to the hypothetical power of the demon god, in which case Ben should use the exact same mechanism to inject mana from souls into himself without using Connect or B - They are not immune to the hypothetical power of the demon god, in which case they should be just as forbidden as the church and all other soul-powered items
Hydrabogen
2024-10-14 23:24:20 +0000 UTCThis is mostly to prevent power creep as best I can tell. Yes, there's something to be said for 'being able to handle problems without infinite power' but since oversoul gives Ben more mana to work with even in a non-oversoul'd state, Ben should be trying to awaken the skill constantly, since it makes him more powerful in both modes. He also has minimal reason to believe he won't be able to use infinite soul in a fight against the Demon god. And if it is, he should be trying to unlock a skill to keep the mana supremacy as best he can. And even if that's a problem, he has so many minds and time to think, that 'practicing problem-solving' is sorta silly for him. I'm sure there will be a payoff in the end, narratively speaking, but from Ben's view at this moment, it's peculiar (and out of character) for Ben not to be maximizing his soul advantage and ability to oversoul. Especially given that Ben is, as he has said numerous times, not a fighter, but a craftsman. I would like to see Ben using the infinite mana, as is logical, but struggle to utilize it effectively in these situations - i.e. where he can't even locate his opponents consistently. There are plenty of problems that Ben could still need to overcome with infinite mana if we explore it more and put qualifiers on it. Even if he had infinite mana right now, for instance, what spell or enchantment does he even have to help him? He can't blow up everything indiscriminately and he can't scry. Furthermore, if oversoul was laid out earlier with some sort of short-acting timer on it (he has 10 seconds before his soul is damaged, instead of minutes/hours), then that could be an aspect for him to improve.
nugitoBambino
2024-10-14 20:18:06 +0000 UTCInteresting to try and apply time enchantments to the problem. I suppose if you can locally make five minutes pass very quickly (or very slowly?) you could jump past the predictable amount of time.
Sesharan
2024-10-14 19:26:23 +0000 UTCI had completely forgotten that part of the agreement for the Spirits *not* abandoning the planet in moral protest was the skill collector guy learning that Spirit nurtering skill from Thera and spreading it around for a while. Yea, they might be doin pretty good. Bens time might be better spent elsewhere.
Emily Gurnavage
2024-10-14 19:23:23 +0000 UTCI suspect Ben considers that a problem that’s under control. Between the skill having been taught to a number of the world’s awakened mages and Thera having developed a passive form of the skill, the spirits’ reproductive needs are probably handled for the foreseeable future. Presumably they don’t want to just keep popping out children infinitely as long as they have mana, after all. There definitely is a future where Ben makes items to handle that problem so that Thera doesn’t have to, but it might be a post-invasion concern.
Sesharan
2024-10-14 19:06:43 +0000 UTCOooh cool point. It made me think of another. Now that Ben is capable of operating with a Great Spirit's level of mana (even if temp) *and* at their level of thinking, perhaps he can think of some stuff to make for the Great Spirits themselves. They are the single strongest fighters the world has, even above the tier 3s. They cant be produced/trained up/multiplied, but perhaps Ben can make something that when in the hands of a GS is beneficial on a global scale.
Emily Gurnavage
2024-10-14 19:03:38 +0000 UTCI love how this fight is so scrappy on both sides. Literally both the Demon hive mind and Ben are dodging near guaranteed death constantly
Corvusamous
2024-10-14 17:36:33 +0000 UTCWith the discussion about Myriad's church jacket... can't Ben in the future help the spirits reproduce? I mean, he has so much mana at his fingertips, their population can skyrocket. And make them something similar to the mana bracelets he distributed to all mages.
Luboš Hemala
2024-10-14 17:32:47 +0000 UTCWhether he is wrong or right about it depends only on the result (and here comes the authors intent). He might solve issues easily in the short term, but lose to Oaun. Or he might struggle or even lose short-term and ultimately prevail against Oaun. Either way is a risk. Though, I would expect Ben to have some failsafe.
Luboš Hemala
2024-10-14 17:29:58 +0000 UTCEach of them had souls built in to power them, shouldn’t he take that power for himself to use in a situation like that? The lives and safety of himself and Thera were at stake along with the rest of their group, things had clearly progressed to the point of a full-blown emergency. Wasn’t that the time? …No, I need to be able to overcome this. Seriously? Like, I get normaly, but when others are in danger(okay, maybe he would not realy care)? But when thera is in danger? Like I like this story, but this seems just too stupid no matter how you look at it. Yay my love is in danger and can possibly die, be forced to do atrocities, etc... , yep let's go train. I once read story that is currently discontinued and I liked it a lot, but there was this one thing that was just unnecesary and totaly stupid, kinda similar to here, except little worse, since it wasn't needed at all, encounter that mc had perfect skills to counter, except it was too strong so mc used sacrificial magic and that did it, problem is the sacrifice was immediately healed by, wait for it... goddess ,that somehow showed up, sure it was explained why she showed up but, whole encouter was totaly unnecesary, and while I still liked the story, I hated that part with passion. There was no need for it. And while you could argue that there is need to awaken his connect to 3rd tier, this is just too sus, and I think that simply his experiments + finnishing world destroyer job could be enough to awaken it(since it is suspected to be 4th tier job, if I remember correctly), sure it would be little sus, since world destroyer isn't connected to connect skill but, not sure if I remember correctly, it gives benefit to everything right? Sure It would be bit of a stretch, but I think it would be better than this.
Tomáš Blábol
2024-10-14 16:44:44 +0000 UTCHmm. I wonder if Ben will discover a new side of connect or level it up in his attempt. Interesting way of using his skill and a more subtle touch would allow him to awaken even more people without risking frying their minds.
SacredSteel
2024-10-14 16:32:54 +0000 UTCTftc
Lyncher98
2024-10-14 16:26:44 +0000 UTCLmao literally a precisely engineered skill leveling gauntlet for Ben and his Connect
Clara
2024-10-14 16:13:45 +0000 UTC
