CH938

<What did you just do?> Myriad asked in open horror, unable to believe the notifications he just heard going through his apostle’s head, even if he’d barely been able to figure out that that was what Ben had been aiming for before it happened.

My best. We’ll talk about it when I go up to your realm later, so grab the other two for me because this is going to be a long night.

With the heavens blocked for all but his god, he had a while until word would get around that he’d had a new awakening, which meant he needed to focus on the world around him first.

He could tell there were eyes on him, both from the workers harvesting fruits as well as from one dryad who’d been close enough to come see what had happened, but his eyes instead were on the two he was with to gauge their reactions.

With Thera’s face telling him of the mixed feelings she held about it while Yuzu was directing her gaze squarely at the ground, not trusting herself to look at him without taking a peek to which he was grateful for the restraint, letting him instead focus on his girlfriend before he spoke up.

“It wasn’t connect, you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Ah, then what-” she started, sounding embarrassed to be caught hoping for his failure, even if he paid it no mind, placing a finger to his lips as he did.

“Secret. For now, at least. I’m trying my hardest to make sure this doesn’t get out to the other gods of the world, but… well, it’s going to happen eventually, I just don’t want it to be before I can talk to Myriad. I’ll tell you soon though, okay?”

“You’d better.”

“And you’ll tell me too, right?” Yuzu said, fighting against her curiosity as she squeezed her eyes shut tight.

“When I see you next, sure. Out of curiosity, are you going to be involved at all in the mass soul modification I’m doing the day after tomorrow?”

“Wait, is that what I’m participating in?”

“If you’re booked, then I’d assume so because having a soul mage around could only help. Okay, in that case, I’ll let you know if you can look at my soul then, so do me a favour and suppress it until you see me.”

“I don’t think I can be trusted to open my eyes while you’re still around right now.”

“Then keep them closed and we’ll guide you home, but before that, you,” he called over to the dryad standing off to the side. “There should be a metal band wrapped around the trunk of this tree here. Can you take me to it?”

“Um, yes I can,” she agreed, not sure about what she’d seen or overheard and thus resolved not to think too hard about it, instead leading the way for him and watched as he slipped down to where it was, trading the crystal it held for the one on his arm before she could react and left everyone to watch as the nature of that forest-like plant was altered before all of their eyes.

“And with that, we can get out of here.”

After making sure Yuzu got home safely and getting away from there as fast as possible before she could decide she wanted to sneak a peek, Ben and Thera went back to Anailia to get home, with Thera full of unasked curiosity along the way.

He couldn’t deny her that curiosity either; he would have felt the same, but he needed time before he could reveal all of the changes within himself. Even if those awakenings had helped to push him to the third level of his sacrilege earlier than he’d expected, granting him a level of power and protection from the gods of that world that he didn’t think they could beat, he still wanted to try to manage how they’d react when it was revealed, being something he’d instead need to talk about that night.

No, she would find out eventually but in the meantime, he needed to explore what the changes in himself would bring as well, with some at least already felt in the form of a new sense stretching out from him, touching all of the people they passed along the way.

Even without connecting to her, Ben could clearly feel the sacrilege in Thera’s soul and while not as clear, he was aware of a few of her other skills as well, with her earth and dark magic being the most blatant, same as he felt for many others. He couldn’t necessarily identify everything they held that he believed he could now affect, but what was happening was clear enough. To varying extents, he was detecting their evil and destructive skills.

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Does how much of it I’m feeling depend on how much it qualifies as such? Even within the same skills across different people, it seems like I’m feeling them differently, so it might be depending on how evilly or destructively they’re used or else how they, the holder of the skill, or society itself views them. Mmh, when I focus a bit, I think that might be a mix of it all, a bunch of different factors all at once. Hmm, let’s see.

The perks of walking through Anailia meant that nearly everyone he passed had a natural charm that he could now identify through his new skills, a power that was viewed poorly across the planet and even by those who innately held it and as he focused he believed he could tell who and what was classifying it as evil or destructive, be it the holders of it or society or a mix of the two and with plenty of test subjects around he reached deeper with those new powers, connecting to his targets and hearing a few get levels as he did.