CH771

Myriad and Helori were the only ones in the realm when he arrived, the goddess with her usual seat perched atop his god, being rotated as the cube turned to face him.

“Well Ben, anything happen today?”

“Thera adopted a child and I had another one sprung on me, screw you for that by the way, so it’s been pretty busy as a whole.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t try to deny it, Sachel already said you decided to not give me any heads up about Delair coming to train under me.”

“Oh, that.”

“Yeah, that. Why didn’t you tell me? What if said no?”

“That’s simple, you were never going to say no. No matter how much of a pain you may be Ben, I’ve known you for years now. No matter what other ways you might surprise me, I was never going to be wrong about this.”

“And that made it okay to not give me any warning?”

“Consider this my revenge for everything else you’ve ever put me through.”

“Hold on, but is that actually a good idea?” Helori cut in. “No matter what some of the dumber gods might think, you’re a genuinely important figure in the war, Ben, for more than a few reasons. Do you really have time to try and train an apprentice who, to be blunt, might not even live to see whatever waits beyond the third wave when you have so much else to be doing, even just among your own goals?”

It was a fair question but what it got her was a shrug. “Probably not if I want to be nothing but purely efficient in the months we’ve got left but that prospect went out the window the second the other gods of this world decided to get in my way. And none of that even matters because in the end, I still need to live in the time I’ve got left. Training up an apprentice might not be the best way to spend my time when I’m keeping the planet as my focus but I’m looking at myself and the people I care about right now instead.”

She looked at him for a moment in silence before shaking her head. “Well, it’s your life so do whatever you need to enjoy it I suppose. Now, what’s this about your lover adopting a child? Did she stumble upon a war orphan?”

“God, I wonder if that would have been less complicated. No, it’s family. The great life and death spirits have succeeded in having a child together.”

It was an answer that got the goddess to move. In a flash she’d left her place atop Myriad, practically flying right at him in her excitement.

“Tell me everything.”

“There’s not too much to tell. The kid was born as a great soul spirit just like they’d hoped but Vividus abandoned him. I guess it sounds like he refuses to use his magic so she decided to leave him with Thera to see if that would help. Oh, and as an extra fun result, however she and Nox had been raising him to that point has left him with depression.”

The answer left Helori crinkling her brow. “And while all of that is interesting, why would he need raising if he’s a spirit? They should be independent from birth.”

“Oh god, another complication but from what I can tell he’s roughly ten mentally, at least by human standards, and I’m almost one hundred percent sure that stems from a combination of just how unlikely his birth was, tied into the system doing it’s best to help mana-based life interbreed with the more physical life that makes up the rest of the world.”

He went on to explain his theory that the boy’s almost mortal mental structure was tied to the fact that Vividus had been arranging the mana in her body to a structural, if not cellular level, while Nox was continuing to act as the soul of a dead incubus, contributing his form as well that ended with Mora’s unique existence, with the goddess in front of him nodding the entire time.

“As far as ideas go, based on the limited information we have it’s not a bad one, but it would be hard to verify unless more are born, which does raise an interesting question. Do you think Vividus would be able to get a repeat if she tried again? There’s only ever been one of each affinities great spirit before but there’s never been a mixed spirit before either, at least not a mix between the affinities within its own kind. If it could be repeated though, bringing more great soul spirits into the universe, well, that could dramatically reshape the landscape of the entire planet, if not the universe as a whole. Which isn’t to mention the potential that further discoveries might be made if she were to succeed in giving birth to more.”

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“Discoveries like?”