CH984 Thera’s Perspective

“I’d been expecting a change in your intelligence, but I’m not sure if this is more or less than I thought you’d get,” Ben thought aloud as he read over her card. “About an extra thousand points added to it.”

“I think an extra thousand to any attribute is going to be plenty,” Thera told him as she got up and lightly stretched, feeling no lingering pain in her head, even if the pain in her soul had gone untreated and, with a thought, she called over some of the soul spirits swarming her to politely ask for their help healing it, getting a small glance from Ben as she did.

“I suppose that’s fair, it’s just that the great spirits have such a substantially different mental structure from a regular mortal, I really would have expected the growth to be in the range of multiple thousands of points or else for the change to be so alien that it would have only measured in a small change of actual intelligence. Still, ultimately not as important as how you feel.”

“Ha, how do you think I feel, mister mind reader?”

“… I believe I’m going to withhold my evaluation for a bit longer beyond saying that I can confirm doing this hasn’t seemed to harm you more than just the expected strain on your soul and there’s less strain on your brain than I thought there’d be. Your personality seems unchanged, and you’re managing the absence of senses your brain should think that you should possess better than I had hoped.”

“You’re sounding like a researcher right now.”

“Until we’ve confirmed the scope of how this has affected you, I am a researcher. For now, I’m sure you want to do a bit of practicing, so test out all of your magics as you see fit, but try to stay in my range until I tell you otherwise, please.”

“Alright, I can do that.”

She’d been itching to since they’d finished anyway, the drive to use her magics all the greater. She could feel it in the way she’d think, even if she hadn’t tested it yet, magic had just changed for her and it more than anything else left the hope that it meant she’d see some progress as she lifted her hand and the ground below raised with it, what had been a clump of dirt smoothly condensed to a strong stone knife in her grasp that she wiggled lightly Ben’s way, the sight of his eyes scrunching up being her reward.

“You know, if you want to practice your homunculus creation, you can just tell me.”

“If you’re reading my mind, it’s not like I have to.”

“When it means someone’s going to be waving a knife at me, it can just be nice to hear.”

“Ha, just consider this a handy way to get a few more to use. It’ll be fine.”

An argument Ben couldn’t help but give in to, he held out his arm while she dragged the thin blade across it, spilling his blood on the ground and empowering it as it fell, each drop becoming the start of a new clone that grew as they ate their way through the lawn around them, leaving a dozen fresh creations for him to use as he saw fit.

“One thing,” Thera said as he clothed them, about to slip them away into his rings but held off at the same time she was asking the nearby plant spirits to repair the yard. “Leave one out for me so I can do some tests with it.”

“Suit yourself.”

He took the rest while she examined the remaining Ben clone and, with the knife still in hand, cut through its throat, healing the injury as the slice was being made and nodded in satisfaction as it was done. Life spirits called next to strengthen the clone while she weakened it and then the inverse was arranged as well with the aid of the death spirits, but she could beat out the power of both of those groups easily. She felt like she had complete control of whether the homunculus before her lived or died and what that meant for one of the magics she held.

There was no denying it; life magic felt more natural. She couldn’t perfectly judge by how much, but it was enough to be noticeable and, with a thought, she broke her knife back down into basic dirt, done with her tests on the homunculus and allowed Ben to take it away.

Making dark her next choice as she took aim at the most complex spell of that category she knew, the targeted charm that Anailia had taught her, but instead applied it to a broader group than the demons she’d been using it most on, letting it out to attract the insects of Anailia to her as a cloud came up before being driven away by a change of application, applying the targeted effect to a fear spell instead and get to watch as they dispersed.

<SPIRITUAL DARK MAGIC LEVEL INCREASED>

A quick enough level after her last one to make a grin spread across her face. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it sure felt like confirmation that her idea had worked, the modes of thought held by the spirits of the world giving her an advantage in raising her magics and, if she was as lucky as she hoped, would apply to going beyond that as well, with Ben seeming to be in agreement.

“Hmm, even if the gods are feeling iffy about me modifying anyone else’s mind, it might be worthwhile to mention the prospect to Jake at least to see if he’d be interested. Uliel too. I do really want to see what a third-tier archmage looks like, after all.”

“I don’t get the impression he’s going to trust you with his mind again after the last time you taught him.”

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“Pretty ungrateful of him, I made the guy so much smarter than he used to be.”

Shaking her head, Thera got back to it, ignoring her final affinitied option to instead look at her non-affinitied.

Arguably the main reason she’d wanted to rebuild her mind using all of the great spirits instead of just the ones that applied to her, while it was obviously different from any sort of innate and natural affinitied power a person might hold, there was crossover between the two that she hoped she might benefit from as she began, materializing water and letting it flow through the air under her command, pulling the heat from it to make it freeze and sublimating it just as easy, forcing it to blend into the air before pulling it out into one liquid blob again and asked the water spirits around to try and pull it from her grasp, playing with them for a bit but ultimately being successful in keeping it to herself in the end.

Non-affinitied magic feels smoother too, she nodded to herself, happy with the result, even if the attempt didn’t immediately come with a level like dark had. Everything feels better really, which just leaves one more.