CH810

<I thought I was going to have a heart attack.>

I think that would have actually been the better option than what I went through.

<Quiet you. Can you imagine how I felt when you wouldn’t let Thera grow you a new one?>

Can you imagine how I felt when my heart was destroyed by some bullshit trial design? Speaking of, where’s Nare? I have complaints.

<Busy right now.>

How convenient for him. Ben thought dryly, assuming the god had found an excuse to delay his ire with Myriad moving to correct it.

<The trial sustained more than a little damage. He and the other crafting gods are all already moving to fix it.>

What, damaged how?

<You mean aside from the platform you got your girlfriend to break? A platform I might add that wasn’t supposed to be able to be destroyed?>

Sure then, aside from that.

He could hear the god sigh in his head. <You weren’t the only one whose existence caused some trouble for the final floor. It might not have been able to replicate your mind but it was doing everything it could to draw the power needed for producing copies of Thera, even if it still wasn’t enough in the end. Some systems within it were basically destroyed trying to run as power was being diverted from all over.>

Huh, cool, good to know. If they’re already fixing it, maybe tell them to make it so people can’t have their hearts destroyed in the very first millisecond of the tower.

<I’d like to point out just how improbable that was.>

And yet, that doesn’t matter. It’s the fact that it was at all possible that’s the problem. I’m still pissed.

<Well, try to temper some of that once you get your new heart, though I honestly don’t know why you need to go back home to do it.>

Just wanna make sure no silly gods decide to get in my way, now if you don’t mind, I’ll just need a minute.

He was waiting at Thera’s family home, his girlfriend off to get some of the people he requested for help while the rest of them stood outside, all of them having tried to ask what he was going to do and all of them being rejected. Nobody would know until it was too late to stop him, even if that did leave other questions coming up.

“Alright, if you won’t say then so be it, I can be patient but in that case, what did you do to your copy?” Vasta asked the question she’d wanted to before the trial rewards had interrupted her. “How did you end things so smoothly?”

“Oh, that? I gave him a soul and merged it into my own so there’d only be one Ben on the world once again. Worked out well too, I got some decent levels.”

Not one of the three knew how to react to it and they weren’t given the time. Thera had come back to join them, two of her aunts in tow.

“Ben,” Lux greeted. “It seems my niece was right when she said you’ve been walking around without a heart. Did you ask Funa to come along too to try and fix whatever’s wrong with your head that made you think that was a good idea?”

“Not exactly but I appreciate you both sparing me some time to help. I promise this will be quick and probably won’t have disastrous consequences for me.”

“Ben, I really hate hearing that,” Thera sighed. “Was there something else you needed before we get out of here?”

“Hmm, if you don’t mind, I guess it would be good to get a new homunculus made early for the next bit.”

“…Fine, make me a knife then.”

He felt its bite across his arm as she took his blood, giving it new life as he materialized meat and plant matter to feed it instead of destroying the lawn and ended with a new Ben clone for him to use, materializing it clothing before inhabiting it and speaking in one voice.

“Alright, now if you guys don’t mind, let’s get back to Stonewall.”

With the way the trial had worked out the hour was still early when they got back home, walking through streets empty enough that not much attention was drawn to the great spirits, even as Ben stopped in place, still far from their destination as he remembered something else he needed to do.

“Hey Vasta, meant to try this earlier but I got a little distracted by everything, you mind if I test something with you real quick?”

“Is it somehow more important than getting you a real heart again?”

“It’ll mean I’m not distracted when I do that, so…”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

He watched the older mage sigh. “Alright, fine, what do you need?”

“Just gonna merge into your mind a bit, I wanna see if I can help you materialize a soul.”

He was currently the only person in the world capable of it, with neither Mora nor his own copy able to pull it off, with the latter likely coming down to a matter of the number of minds it had held and limits of the trial that made it but he wanted to see if he could change that if they received his help to do it, along with what payoffs there’d be for such an achievement. He had his hope after all, it was an accomplishment so great that it had unlocked him a third-tier job and Vasta was officially a contender with her final level the tower had given her, he wanted to see if he could push her beyond that.

She seemed to get an inkling of what it was he was thinking as well, making no attempt to stop it as he merged his mind into her own, same as he’d just done for Thera but giving a vastly different type of information.