Even utilizing his clones, the work had taken far longer than he’d hoped, just from how many people there were to talk to and distribute potions among along with the fact that he kept them around for another half hour after for Thera to observe only making thing longer and keeping them from thinning out the crowd as quickly as they otherwise could have.

It was the sort of thing that would have gone significantly smoother if he’d planned ahead better instead of letting it be such a last-minute thing but those was the perils of trying to get it done as fast as possible, what mattered was that despite the hours of work it was finally finished, leaving the two alone by the end.

“So you need to do that all over again tomorrow?” Thera asked while she stretched. “What results are you even expecting to see?”

“I’ll take anything I can get and it won’t be as bad at least. All I’ll be doing is collecting results, it should be easy.”

“And then?”

“And then I make all of the potions that I and everyone I care about could need by the next wave and hand my results off to the gods, continuing to not be rewarded for my excellent work because so many of them are jerks. Seriously, at what point am I going to feel a bit of appreciation? I try so hard for this stupid, doomed planet.”

“Considering you live here, maybe improving everyone's chances is its own reward?”

“Not even a little. Just wait, one day some god will look at all I’ve done and admit to themselves they really should give me a blessing out of basic principle.”

“Well, you’re free to hope but with today finished at least, what now? Since you eased up my work, want to head home or are you going to stay here and keep up with that?”

That in question being his materialization, with Ben constantly creating new mana bracelets through the power he was taking into himself and storing them in his ring each time while he made more, the same thing he’d been doing the entire day on top of anything else. He needed to be prepared for whenever the gods got back to him about whether they’d give in to what really was a relatively small request in comparison to everything he’d accomplished and assuming they gave him the okay then he’d begin distribution.

Of course, if they denied him then he had no clue what he’d do. On the one hand, he couldn’t just not help spread his latest creation throughout the world but on the other, he couldn’t simply not call their bluff either. If he let them get away with not compensating him even once then he’d have to deal with them trying to avoid paying him forever after, even when he already felt like he was giving them an excellent bargain.

…Mmh, if they try not to pay me then on to the typical strategy I guess. I can try and get Pelenia and Greed to spread the word about what cheap asses they are for me. In fact, I could get some of the other summons' help too. Imagine hearing from a soul mage that the gods aren’t willing to reward mortals for their work, that would be a blow.

It wasn’t an immediate issue but given that he’d already let Myriad talk him down so far he really couldn’t let what he wanted be reduced further but that wasn’t currently a problem. It would turn out however it was going to but with his main task of the day done, there was still plenty for him to do.

Considering the strength of both his current job as well as soul mage, he really needed to try to take advantage of each to awaken what skills he could. Even if he essentially wasn’t getting bonuses anymore to either his attributes or his lifespan when it came to second-tier awakenings, they were still always worth it, especially with three inclination skills now to his name.

With all of them at the ninth level, he knew it had to be possible and two of them were even helpful to the skills he specifically wanted to get to the third tier as well, with the only issue being that those were the ones he didn’t have a firm idea on how he might manage it.

He didn’t know what could possibly push soul inclination over the edge and while he could think of a couple ideas that might work for evil inclination, it wasn’t anything he could test out immediately, with both facts making his teeth clench.

<BITE ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

And there’s a level I don’t need. God, with the bonuses on that, I might level up just from eating my food. What would I even do if that awakens? Okay, doesn’t matter. I may have no idea for how I’d awaken the other inclinations but even if it’s not what I want, I might be able to do it with destruction so why don’t we try that since I have Thera around?

“Wanna try helping me awaken a skill?”

“...Yeah, sure, why not?”

It seemed she wasn’t even going to bother commenting on it by that point, simply accepting that if he thought he could then he likely had a reason and walked back to the shop after locking up Ben’s work area for the day, watching as he stripped off his jacket to leave behind.

“So why aren’t you taking that with you recently?” She asked him. “I’m so used to seeing you wear it any time you’re awake, what’s with the change of pace?”

“Ah, well… It’s too useful to me,” He admitted. “It makes things too easy ever since I modified it, I don’t want to get used to using it as a crutch.”

“Ha, I thought you loved easy,” She teased. “Did you actually manage to fix everything that went wrong in your head?”

“Hey, I’d just look like a real fool if I became useless without it. A tool that good, it needs to be enjoyed on special occasions, that’s all.”

He still hadn’t brought up his concerns about the future with her, his vision of what was to come for the world and the part he felt more and more sure he’d have no choice to play in it. He didn’t know how he was supposed to explain his fears that if he wasn’t willing to risk his life for the world then there’d be no way they could win, with other issues attached to it.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Just the thought of saying it felt conceited. Why should he among anyone have the power to handle it? Sure, he had one useful skill for dealing with deities but that was it, that didn’t mean it should become his problem when there were still plenty of stronger people on the planet, along with all of the world's gods. Surely someone else would figure things out and all of the growth he’d gained along the way would instead become nothing more than a nice little bonus for him to enjoy on the world thereafter, with his current struggle to gain it becoming nothing more than a funny memory of when he’d become so self-absorbed that he’d thought he was the only chance the world had.

Yeah, and maybe the demons will close the invasion points tomorrow or maybe some other race will manage to kill them all off in the next few days; wouldn’t that all just be swell? He thought sarcastically. At least for now, I’m still making this my problem. Which means I really do need to bring this up with Thera, but…

But not then. He couldn’t just not mention his concerns to her, he was pretty sure she was already picking up on at least a bit of it, but actually bringing it up would make it all feel too real. He just wanted to hold off while he could for a little longer, even if he wasn’t able to fool himself into thinking he was pursuing strength for strength’s sake.

“Anyway,” He said, breaking his thoughts before he could spiral. “Let’s go to the woods so we can reduce my odds of blowing up the town.”

“...You really do say the most worrying things, you know that?”

“Yeah, it’s come up once or twice but anyway, shall we?”

He offered his arm which she took and they both headed for the door, only stopping when they saw a note on it addressed to the two of them from Falk, with Ben pulling it and giving it a quick read before handing it over.

“Wonder what that’s about?” Thera muttered when she was done, with Ben shrugging.

“Not sure but he wouldn’t ask for no reason. I guess we’ll just need to be free.”

The note told them he was looking to bring the two along for some business in a week’s time but that was mostly it, only telling them beyond that that it might take a couple of days so they should prepare to be away for that long. It pricked at his curiosity and had the potential to get in the way of his various work but this was coming as a request from his teacher. He’d make the time.

With that last little surprise out of the way, the two finally left to use what hours they had left of the day to see if Ben really would be able to push another one of his skills beyond its limits.

Deep in the woods, as far away as they thought they needed to be to ensure no stray group of adventurers might get too close, Ben did his best to think of exactly what he’d need to do to push for the awakening he’d hoped for, relying on Thera’s magic to try and keep it relatively safe.

“Okay, so however what I’m about to try turns out, you are probably going to want to apply some healing spells to us afterwards. I’m not exactly sure if radiation poisoning is a thing people in this reality have to deal with but I don’t want to be the one who discovers it.”

“No clue what you’re talking about but you already have me worried.”

“It will maybe be fine, now don’t mind me materializing all I can to make this even a little safer.”

With the first thing he brought into being with his power being a diamond, not that anyone would be able to tell by looking at it. The size was so small it was more akin to a speck of dust that he was focusing in on with his material sense more than his eyes.

It was basically nothing but around that he materialized a small ball of lead, not even as big as a baseball but with walls an inch thick in the hopes that would do the job of helping ease the consequences of what he was trying to manage, all while running into the same problem of not knowing for sure if it would work like he was hoping for since he was making a comparison to his original reality when doing it.

Still, it was the best he could hope for and he could still barely feel the small speck of crystal through it with his sense skill, letting him direct Thera on what he needed her to do after.

“Can you place a barrier tightly around this? Something light wouldn’t be able to pass through but won’t stop mana?”

Translucent barriers were always going to be susceptible to light attacks, making him want to account for that too, and seeing as how neither of them would be inside of it they didn’t need to worry about seeing. Even after putting it up, it wasn’t interfering with Ben’s ability to sense what was within, letting him make his attempt for whatever it was worth as he reached out with his magic and tried to use it to destroy the stuff it held.

Not just breaking the diamond down to some finer dust, not collapsing it into its base molecules of carbon or even into individual atoms, Ben was trying to take what he knew of reality through the grey to break each atom that constituted that fleck into the subatomic particles that made it up and then further beyond, destroying it in a far realer sense than anything he’d done before, with the risk of equally disastrous results if he succeeded.

He knew that in theory, doing that was going to release energy, with the only thing he was worried about being how much, but he’d taken the precautions he could to make the attempt and spent his power on what he knew was there, feeling the fleck disappear while the notification he was hoping for went off in his head.

<DESTRUCTION INCLINATION HAS AWAKENED TO DESTRUCTION AFFINITY>

<MATERIAL SENSE LEVEL INCREASED>

“Huh, wasn’t expecting the level on top of it but I’ll take it,” He muttered before focusing back on Thera. “And how was that for you, did you notice anything?”

“No, should I?”

“Honestly not sure.”

Even after only using such a small speck in his test, he’d still thought it would be enough to balloon the lead around it but with Thera holding it tight with her power, it might have kept the energy compressed in a way it normally wouldn’t have been.

The obvious way to check would be to hold his hand by it to see if he could feel any warmth coming from the metal but even if he wasn’t too worried about getting a lethal dose of radiation, he still didn’t view it as being worth the risk, leaving only disposal to still be taken care of.

“So before you use any precautionary healing spells, would you mind dropping this thing as close to the center of the planet as you can manage?”

“I really want to know just what you think you might have done to want that sort of overkill.”

“What can I say, I’m just a cautious boy. Anyway, thanks for your help Thera, I got my awakening, just like I wanted.”

“I couldn’t even tell,” She shook her head while disposing of the lead ball. “You really don’t get bonuses for this anymore, do you?”

“If I’m really lucky then that may have knocked my intelligence up by a point,” He shrugged. “It's fine, I now have destruction affinity giving bonuses to my material manipulation which is much more valuable and probably a couple other skills too. Even if they aren’t the ones I’m focused on, it’s not going to hurt.”

“Not what you’re focused on?” She laughed. “What, not aiming to become a contender for a fifth skill? At this point, it wouldn’t be shocking if you become a mind god first with what you already have.”

“Ha, I guess I wouldn’t say no to that.”

It wasn’t the aim but he wouldn’t turn it down if he stumbled into it. In the end, it was all more power for him to claim for himself.

Who knows, maybe if things work out and I live in the end, trying to do that can be my next goal after everything is done.