He didn’t bother hanging around once he was done, instead parting with Thera as she went to help at a hospital while he went through his newest mini gate back to the shop, slipping on his jacket to begin the long process of taking in mana to create new souls. A process that, while unpleasant, was going to be significantly quicker than it had been, either during his time working through world killer or his imprisonment.

While he didn’t know exactly how many, he knew that Elvat at least had a few levels to his job and more important than that, compared to creating souls while trapped on the demon’s world, Ben now held the skill in an awakened form. He wasn’t going to be using it in every hour of the day like he had been then but his higher level of power would more than make up for it.

Which just leaves the question of how hard I should go with this. He told himself with a sigh. I could push myself to my limits, but…

But he didn’t want to, not really. When he’d first started doing it he’d pushed himself to get back his freedom and when he had been doing it to complete his last job it had been at least partially out of desperation since he had no other way to reasonably level it. Now though? Now he was going to be spending weeks and months torturing his soul to help others grow when he’d originally planned on only needing to do it for a few days more.

“But there’s nothing I can do about that now,” He muttered. “I’ll just take things a little easier and hopefully my new skill will help.”

It didn’t feel any less painful but if soul resilience would help keep him from damaging himself in the process then that was at least something to enjoy, with the only question of where to go from there as he began to absentmindedly work.

Abandoning the planet had been put on hold, likely indefinitely, but with his easy path to power slowed, that meant he needed some new ones. Options that could help him grow in strength and skill in the time he had left.

“But what?” He asked himself. “Aside from training and practice, there’s only so much I can do. I can’t take jobs any faster than I already do so what does that leave me? Maybe if I take that inclination master job it will give me a few new inclination skills? Connect inclination and sacrilege inclination would both be so helpful right now but I’m pretty sure I’d be a lot more likely to gain something like mind inclination or crafting inclination. Still, it’s worth hoping for, especially since if I do get a connect one then it should be double dipping with my soul one. But what else?”

“I can modify my soul after I do some more testing on the subject which is… Well, I already deal with a fair bit of constant soul pain now so that’s fine once I’m sure I can pick the best results but if the amount of potential and power I can apply through modifying a soul holds true then it would probably be best to wait to do it until after I manage the awakenings I want to get for maximum potential benefits so that’s a future goal. As for other things I could modify… The chimeras we observed were undeniably successful when it came to raw power.”

The thought felt practically invasive but it was true. Regardless of how he felt about it, Vividus had done an undeniably successful job modifying the people of the world to grow their strength by leaps and bounds. Would he be willing to go through the same?

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No.

The answer was immediate. For all of the benefits there may have been to have, he didn’t think he could handle being changed so thoroughly that he wouldn’t be able to recognize his own face and he couldn’t actually trust Vividus to not do any extra experiments on him if he asked her to do some lighter modifications to his biology. Approaching her was a nogo from the start.

“Which means there really is only one other path I can take for some quick power. Man, Thera is not going to like me suggesting this.”

The towers. Really, he could take any god’s trial but the towers would be the best bang for his buck by far, even if there were limits in the ones he might challenge.

While he could hypothetically take on any of the magic towers and just ditch them after the third floor since that was the stage where he could challenge them without any restrictions on his skills while also claiming the blessing, that would mean added risk from challenging ones that neither himself nor Thera held the expected magic for, only made worse for the fact that it would also mean forgoing the skill levels he would gain for getting to the top.

The idea that such a small loss mattered at all was ridiculous and he knew it but he couldn’t deny that the thought annoyed him as well, so with some hesitation, he told himself that he’d ignore the seven remaining affinitied towers, at least for the time. He could always go back to take on those towers if it came to it but for the moment he’d focus on the ones he could potentially claim the full benefits of, the non-affinitied tower, craftsmans’ tower, and warriors’ tower.

The last of which he didn’t actually know enough about to know if it would be a viable option but the first two matched his needs perfectly. Beyond perfectly even, especially the second. He knew well from some of Nare’s early attempts to woo him into it before the first wave that conquering it could give him one of the things he wanted most, his last level of deep connection. Ŗ

Nare had made it clear they’d level the skill back when he’d been looking to get it to the second tier, if he could use it to get to the ninth level of that tier instead then he could immediately begin tests to try and forcefully awaken it, something he already had some ideas he could test once he got to that point.

It immediately placed that tower as a priority but of the two, it wouldn’t be the one he’d do first. If he was going to hope that awakening connect would pull in his enchanting then he wanted it at the highest level it could be as well to be sure that the awakening process would give the maximum amount of strength to it that it could, meaning he needed to do the non-affinitied tower first to get the ninth level of that skill as well beforehand so he could start trying to awaken connect the second that got its level instead of delaying longer.

Which means I need info on that tower and it just so happens that I have the perfect friends to bother for some help with that. Jake and Amy may have taken on that tower by now, it wouldn’t hurt to visit them and peek into their heads before giving it a go but first I need to finish up some of my soul modification experiments so I’ll go prep that once I’ve materialized a few more souls.

Just thinking about how much he’d need to do and how quickly he’d want to complete the towers meant it was going to be a full couple of weeks but that was what he’d been prepared for since coming back to the world and it was what he’d expected the moment he’d given in to helping the planet despite the way its gods would interfere in his life. He just needed to make the most of it.

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