CH722

It was a few short jumps to their next location, the second group they were supposed to be going after close enough to the first now that they were all so far out and everyone filtered through to the new stretch of woods, with Fone already looking to the chimeras.

“Found anything yet?”

“Further west,” One said, with enough of the others in agreement that they started walking, keeping on guard the entire time for anything that might come and their voices low, with Ben taking advantage of the lull to train a few of his skills the best he could.

With deep connection still being the most important one. One of the first ways he’d learned to use it was out in the woods after all, treating it as a bug killer by exposing his greater mind to creatures that just couldn’t handle that contact.

His mental structure had grown in ways he never would have expected back in those distant days though and as much as he enjoyed the bit of comfort that use of skill provided, he turned his training to something of a gentler sort. As he stretched out his soul as far as it could go he took in any insect that came close enough and threaded the smallest bit of himself he could into each one without causing them harm before taking them over completely with another skill, making the bodies of hundreds of small creatures his own to use as he joked with himself.

Really putting the hive in hive mind.

It was a skill that seemed useful and was already growing quickly thanks to the powerful job he was currently under along with so many of the others he’d finished but it was still a challenging one to train to its full potential due to the ethics of it. When treating it like he had before it had awakened, to only strengthen the minds of those around him and more efficiently share information, it was fine but there were laws about so thoroughly taking over another, with its new form going beyond even the scope of dark magic in some cases.

It had its limits since unlike that magic it could only be used in the area he could reach out with using deep connection but it had strengths that made up for that in droves. It wasn’t affinitied, meaning nobody like him would have a natural resistance to its effects and more importantly, it wasn’t even a magic since it didn’t cost mana. It was a result of linking his soul with another’s which meant even something like magic nullification wouldn’t be able to stop his effects and they would go on for as long as he was awake to use it.

As for how anyone could escape it, he had his theories but without testing the skill on far too many people he wasn’t actually sure what might let a person break it off. Soul magic was almost certain since he’d already had the effects of connect blocked by it before and he wouldn’t be surprised if a more powerful mind could overcome it, leaving only the question of if any minds more powerful than his own actually existed.

Beyond that though was a mystery that wouldn’t be answered by his current test as he looked at the surroundings through hundreds of compound eyes, feeling what little they each had of minds incorporating their structure into his own for what minor changes it would bring.

And still it wasn’t enough to really strain him, even as the number of bugs he was controlling went up, leaving him to increase the difficulty by adding in another skill as he actualized a few more around him, maintaining their existence to train that skill too and topping it off by continuing on with something he’d never actually given up on as more souls were materialized around him, praying for the notification he so desperately wanted.

He continued on with it all for a while too, and with how big the range of deep connection currently was he was largely staying out of the way of the group, but as the number of bugs he was managing changed from hundreds to thousands it was eventually noticed.

“Hell, a lot of pests in this area,” Pato finally said, wrapping himself in a thin layer of death mana to act as a simple bug killer the same way Ben would for his connect, with Fone seeming to agree.

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“Mmh, just a moment, you may all feel a brief tingle.”

It seemed figuring out tricks for dealing with bugs when off in the deep woods was something common for the adventurers who spent so much time out there and their current leader discharged some static into the environment, giving them all a small shock but frying Ben’s growing swarm, breaking his connection to them all and leaving their small bodies to fall to the ground, putting a pause to that bit of training.