CH881

Well, that was disappointing.

Connecting to a dozen new gods hadn’t been enough to push deep connection over the edge, a not surprising result exactly but still one that dashed his hopes. With each new divine imprint on his mind adding a new mode of thought to his own, he’d let himself believe that he’d only need one more, being wrong each time.

But maybe as I connect to more in the future, I’ll finally get it. He thought with a sigh. Unless doing all of this just levels my mind instead which feels way too possible. More divine imprints translates to more changes in my mental structure, more changes in my mental structure means experience and experience means levels. Ugh, If I raise eldritch mind before I awaken deep connection then I might actually cry.

And that hadn’t been his only disappointment that night, with the other being less relevant yet just as devastating, at least on a personal level. After Helori’s questioning had pushed him to the point that he’d wanted to try and gain at least a single skill for himself, he’d spent hours trying, only to completely fail in the end. The one he’d wanted so badly being something that he’d not only seen a mere once and from a person who didn’t even hold it at the second tier, he hadn’t even connected to the holder of it, blocking his path to gaining his oh-so-desired bestowal.

He’d tried to cheat of course, using the feelings of it he’d gotten from both Thera and Jake through their non-affinitied magic while he’d trained them but it hadn’t been enough for it to work, leaving him with no options to gain the one skill he would have been willing to spare some time practicing with for the help it would have given him to his craft, his small bit of hope and excitement left to crumble in the end as he sat at the breakfast table with the rest, seeing Sonya’s curious eyes on Mora for the changes in the boy and Mora’s eyes on him for the change in his soul.

“Thera?” The child asked, sounding unsure of himself. “How fast do mortals grow their skills?”

“Ignore whatever you’re seeing in Ben, sweetheart,” She sighed, not yet aware of his newest level. “He’s an outlier and a bad influence.”

“I’m really not that bad of an influence.”

“Mhm? So you’re not going to let Abel get another bite out of you when you see her later?”

“…Depends on what she offers up in return.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was expecting,” She sighed again, her exasperation clear. “If you’re gonna give in, just try to wait until the end of the day so I can come back to heal you. Depending on how things go, I might be back a little early anyway.”

“Alright, sounds like a plan.”

Walking to the shop, what waited at the front door left Thera turning to Ben in mild concern, a question clear from what she was seeing.

“Was Abel waiting out here all night?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“She shouldn’t have been, I gave her clear directions to an inn.”

“Well, she looks like she spent the last few hours playing around in the dirt.”

The other summoned girl looked content where she sat, her back pressed against the shop’s doors while she hummed an uncomfortably familiar tune but there was no denying she was dirtier than he’d last seen, with a few leaves stuck in her hair on top of what was almost certainly some dried blood on and around her lips, leaving Ben to materialize some warm water in a bucket along with a towel and handed them over the second they reached her.

“Abel, what are you doing out here so early?”