CH862

“You give blessings with your soul?”

“Among other things,” Myriad admitted. “They go towards giving skills too, as well as placing covenants and, in our histories when we’d have the power for such things, some of us would place more powerful restrictions, curses on mortals we’d want to teach a lesson rather than sending them to the hells. In essence, it’s used to strengthen or restrict another.”

“Interesting, interesting,” Ben muttered, already reaching out to his god before him with hand and soul, his intentions clear. “Let me see.”

“So you’ve already gotten uncomfortably open about wanting even more access to our minds,” Helori muttered while Ben shrugged.

“It’s literally the most convenient way of gaining information. Besides, it’s for Myriad, why would he mind?”

Connect was derived from his god’s people’s way of linking their sub-brains for information, he was literally using it for its intended purpose with the being who was most suited for such a thing in all of existence, with the cube in question mostly fine with it.

“As long as you aren’t looking for unrestricted access to my thoughts then it’s alright. So I assume you want to access my memories of how I’d give my blessings, skills, and covenants?”

“And curses too now that you’ve told me about them, pretty please.”

“Well, unfortunately for you I’m wholly benevolent, I’ve never bothered cursing a mortal, at least not in any great way. Covenants are technically weak curses since they are a restriction but you won’t be getting anything like a curse of old from me. I do, however, understand how they’re done so I can pass that information along.”

Before he answered, Ben looked at the other two, both shaking their heads.

“I wasn’t one to curse,” Nare shrugged. “It seemed pointless.”

“And insufficient,” Helori added. “If any mortal were bad enough to be cursed it made more sense to either kill them or have them thrown to the hells, why would I waste parts of my soul just to spite an unruly believer?”

“Alright, fine. Myriad, give me what you’ve got.”

With those words he was instantly in his god’s mind, seeing the thoughts the cube was putting to the front of it that held some of his more recent memories of blessing his believers, creating and giving them connect, and placing his covenants on the demidemons, letting Ben understand the process of it as if he were the one who’d done it himself and leaving him to tilt his head as he processed all of the information he’d received.

“So you cut off pieces of your soul for all of that,” He muttered as he mulled it all over. “With blessings needing the biggest pieces and covenants the smallest, interesting.”

There was more to it as well, the pieces needed to be shaped, both with faith and mana to build the correct structures in the second two entirely, but overall he’d describe what he’d been shown as straightforward. Certainly something that could be understood, even if it left a different question in mind.

“But then, Myriad, why aren’t you the biggest god in the world right now?”

“As flattering of a question as that is, I have no idea what led to it.”

“Your soul is denser than any other gods I’ve seen and that should be shocking to no one given your nature. You have so much of it so you should be able to give so freely compared to any other god and I feel like I’ve been seeing that fact considering you make sure every one of your believers gets a skill and blessing, why aren’t other gods coming to ask you to also bless some of their believers too? Sure, it would spread your name and maybe risk some converts once word got out that you’re particularly generous but it would also help this entire stupid planet so why isn’t that happening?”

“Ah, I see. Well, unfortunately for me, it’s mainly to do with the fact that until recently, I was basically in poverty. Yes, I have more to give but considering the damage you’ve had to your own soul and what you’ve just seen in my memories, you should know that removing pieces isn’t pleasant and we use faith to heal the damage we sustain doing it quicker. It’s only recently that I’ve had a reasonable amount of the stuff and I don’t want to spend it all on constantly repairing myself just to get my name a bit more out there. Maybe in a couple centuries if I have a few tens of thousands of believers then I’d be able to justify a bit more extravagance to get believers thanks to the investments I’m making right now but as things stand, while I’m giving as generously as I can I’m forced to let myself heal from the experience with time which is all around a not ideal experience. Considering it’s only been a few years since I’d gotten you, even with all of my new believers and my name known to the world, I haven’t had the most time to build myself up.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Didn’t you get a lot of faith gambling on me when I was in Galwax’s tower?”

“Yeah, and you know what happens to most people when they win big? They spend it all and are stuck in poverty again almost immediately after, only with a couple extra doodads. You won’t be watching me make the same mistake after so long.”