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With the sounds of work filling the space, both his clones and Delair doing their various tasks, the real Ben sat and watched as Foast spent his magic, casting and filling the room with his power as balls of water flew around while the man rubbed his head, not in the exhaustion he was still feeling but for the migraine that was forming in it as more and more information was forced inside of him, only being free of that particular skill as he got his level.

“Ugh, done,” The shifter sighed, not even having the energy to give Ben a dirty look for all he was being put through. “Your skill is horrific.”

“Excuse you, my skill is useful. Do you think it gets better for anyone than just having raw information inserted into your head of such quality that you can instantly level with only a bit of practice? Look at how many you’ve already gotten and even if I haven’t been a third tier long enough to confirm it, I’m willing to bet that this is going to drop your leveling difficulty for all of those skills in general too.”

“Mmh, how long has it been since you reached the tier anyway?”

“A few days. Anyway, on to the next. You’re improving your fire magic now so be careful, once that’s done, your magics are covered and we’ll move back to leveling some of your more physical skills.”

Given the long list the shifter held, he was the perfect experimental material to test to see if there were any limits to Ben’s new and improved way of teaching, finding few. There were a handful of skills that he didn’t seem to be able to help Foast level despite the knowledge he held but they were uncommon and the fact that he didn’t share Ben’s personal weakness meant that the options the other held were broad.

The man before him held a soul more reminiscent of Myriad’s than anyone else’s he’d seen in the world due to the nature of its skill but because of that, redundancy unseen in any normal one abounded. No matter how different they could be, every soul had similar parts and Foast had access to them all, with one section more relevant than the rest.

Affinities. The one thing Ben lacked in entirely and static for everyone else, Foast alone in the world had the chance to improve. Everything he killed became a part of his own and if a creature had higher values of one then he’d originally held, those new ones would in essence take over, not replacing what his original soul was built upon but providing a new option to pull from, leaving Ben to shake his head.

Between this and that immortal asshole, it’s pretty clear that not all third-tier skills are created equal.

It meant that every affinity of magic and any affinitied skills were open to the shifter, if there was anything he’d lacked in then he only needed to kill a creature with an innate magic of the type he wanted to both get its power and the ability to use it but because of how easily he could grow it seemed he hadn’t invested too much time in training in any skill he didn’t particularly care about. While he had plenty to choose from, he lacked the knowledge and experience to best utilize significant swaths of his options, something Ben had decided to change.

Just a shame he didn’t train his magics at least a little bit after he acquired them. Six levels of water and air after my help and seventh of earth, if he was only a bit higher then I could have awakened him for all three.

Still, there were months to go before the next wave and as one of the more important fighters, there was no doubt he’d continue to be sent off, slaughtering demons and turning their skills into his own. So long as he added a bit of practice into the mix too, Ben was sure the man could reach the eighth for those three for all of the benefits that he could add for getting to that level.

Which is great but-

He watched as the flames around Foast sputtered out once the level rang out in the other’s head, the shifter yawning and briefly closing his eyes before Ben could give him a new skill to work on, with every moment of peace feeling precious.

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But maybe I should try to talk to him about this.

“You okay?” He asked, not forcing him to learn anything more, at least in that moment, while the other just waved his hand.

“Ah, don’t mind me, just tired. Haven’t been sleeping well.”

“How long haven’t you been sleeping well?”

It was a question that left Foast to crack open an eye. “The gods mentioned something about that to you too, did they?”

“Would they need to? It seems easy enough to notice.”