Chương 1114

CH1114 Working in the shop, the building filled with a flash of mana, the weakest Thera had even given off yet still noticeable for just how powerful her attribute bonuses were as Ben looked at what she'd managed, taking in the rest of her soul as he did.

For the first time since he'd started awakening people, instead of gaining advanced connection, Thera had awakened a variant going by the name of soul connection, undoubtedly due to the fact that she was a soul mage, while still gaining a bonus skill like everyone else he'd trained to that level, hers ending up being mental expansion like Valaria had claimed as well, leaving her to rub her head.

"Ugh, well, this doesn't seem as bad as using one of your circlets at least," she said, still knowing she'd need to get used to it while Ben laughed.

"I think it's easier when it's your actual skill, rather than when it's a tool reshaping your mind. It'll be handy for you too; at worst, it should make doing complex spells easier and quicker."

"It at least weakened the migraine that being trained by you left me," she told him, applying healing spells to herself to reduce the strain her brain had just been put through.

"And we've reached a point where there's not much reason to go out of my way to awaken anything else. Basically only my mana's growing, and even that isn't by much anymore."

"Not much for you. When I got to this world, that would have been a life-changing amount for me."

"Okay, sure, but you know what I mean. Alright, give me just a minute and I'll try to see how it awakened for me."

"Take your time." He continued to watch her while she closed her eyes and rested, taking in the other changes to her soul. She'd finished kin and moved on to divine heretic two evenings before, making progress on that front herself thanks to the nights she was spending on training her sacrilege, while Ben himself drew closer to finishing his current job, needing to move on to the next for all of the good it would do the people of the world.

And it does feel like it's making a difference, he judged, able to feel that about a sixth of the billions he'd bound himself to were no longer receiving experience from him. If they aren't changing their jobs, then that means they're out of them, meaning more experience I create can be split between the rest. This is good. This is really good.

He'd be able to do one more job using Dewdrop, and he was still optimistic about his odds of being able to use Valaria to at least some extent, even if he'd likely create experience with her too quickly as a consequence of the fact that hers would be a mind job and the amount of experience Ben would make on that front was basically unfathomable.

Still, even if he finished that one for her and everyone else in a single day, that would still be plenty of time for people to change what they had once or twice; it was still more than worth it. It was only two more chances, and one of them wasn't even a guarantee; it was better than nothing when there was no reason to hope that any other third-tiers were going to appear.

"Okay, I'm ready," Thera said upon reopening her eyes, forcing herself to deal with the need to figure out the changes in her skill now that it had awakened as the testing began, wanting to see how her unique awakening compared to both deep connection and advanced connection, with the results they'd found by the end leaving Ben rubbing his head, trying to suppress his jealousy. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Okay, the fact that it's powerful is a good thing," Ben said.

"And the fact that it's more powerful than I would have expected even makes sense. You're a soul mage who just awakened a soul skill. It's perfectly reasonable that your third-tier skill affected your second-tier awakening."

"But you're still jealous?"

"Oh god, insanely so."

While deep connection had been superior to advanced connection, with that latter variant providing a weaker range one could extend their souls, as well less skill when it came to probing minds, soul connection seemed like it was stronger, with its zeroth level not only letting Thera stretch out her soul a little farther than Ben himself had been able to at that level, it also seemed to be affecting both her soul magic and her mana empowering, enhancing both powers when she connected to a target.

It was not only better than what he himself had worked so hard to grow when at that same level, it was well-tuned to her own core abilities, potentially providing powerful benefits to both the spirits and any other people of the world.

"Well, considering I'm never using it with anything other than the spirits, I wouldn't worry too much," she told him.

"I'm not exactly a fan of the fact that using this would let anyone else read my mind too. That's a pretty significant drawback to your skill here."

"I mean, you could work on getting hidden mind-""Ben, I'm far too sane to have an easy time getting hidden mind."

"Hurtful implication there."

"As hurtful as it is accurate."

"Okay, if you're sure. In that case, should we start working on awakening your new mental expansion?" Thera groaned as soon as he said it.

"Give me some time to get used to having this level of it first. I don't take to mind skills like you do."

"Ha, sure. Kick back and relax a bit; we'll see how you feel in half an hour."

"I was thinking more a day or two," she said back, even if she did what he'd said, sitting down while he went to join in on the other work he was doing through his clones, where dozens of new potential divine potion recipes were being made for later testing.

The current recipe he'd put out into the world was giving everyone seven points to each of their attributes, but he believed more was still possible and with some of the ideas he'd gotten from the library's basement, he was all the more eager to see if he was right as different potions were bottled, only needing a test group to confirm the results on. And how is that coming, Nare? <I'll have a few hundred people ready for you tomorrow in my main city who volunteer to participate in your tests.

To be sure, though, you're confident this won't harm any of them? > Yeah, but keep a couple of healers on hand anyway, just to be safe. Don't wanna discover any unfortunate allergies while I'm doing this or find out your people have bad reactions to any of the rarer ingredients I'm going to be using. <I'll make sure there'll be plenty of hands available to keep everything running smoothly. > Fantastic.

Even though they were running low on time for any improvements to those potions to make a significant difference, it would be better than nothing and would mean at least a few extra attribute points for everyone they could distribute any modified potions to in the short term, while any other benefits would be a matter for the long term when the world would be left to try and deal with all of the demons that would make it through during the third wave.

It wasn't ideal, but improving the potions would help, and it would continue helping for years to come. It was only once he had all of the new recipes done and put away that he went back to Thera, looking at his girlfriend while she continued to recover.

"So," he teased.

"Ready to level up your mind a bit?"

"Days, Ben. Give me days, and I might be ready."

"Ha, alright, in that case, if you're up to it, do you think you could give me some help with something else for a few hours?"

"Depends on what you've got in mind."

"Continuing to show my value to the planet. There's an idea I want to try for undooming the world."