“Morning Mora, it’s me,” Ben said as he knocked on the door, letting himself in after a moment and finding the boy sitting like he had been the day before, a few more of the books and games he’d been given having at least been touched in the past few hours.

“Good morning.”

“So, I didn’t bring it up yesterday but me and Delair are going to be joining you and Thera today, but before that, since we’ll be the only ones up for a while, is there anything you’d want to do?”

“It’s fine,” He shrugged, seeming like he was going to end there but surprising Ben as he went on. “You don’t need to keep getting up for me. I know mortals need their rest.”

“Ah well, I probably need less than most people and honestly, I’m not the biggest sleeper either.”

“Why?”

“Ha, to be honest, I’m not a fan of dreaming, even when I rest I just force my mind up to be with my god instead so spending time with you is a fine alternative. Plus, my stamina is high enough that even a few days without it won’t kill me so you don’t need to worry about it and instead let’s focus on what we’re going to do while we wait for everyone else to get up. We did some sculpting yesterday, what do you say we try some drawing today?”

He materialized a couple blank books as he said it, along with some pencils and handed a few over, watching as the spirit with him looked on in confusion while he started, explaining as he went.

“Now, obviously if you want I can talk to you about technique and what you can practice on to bring your imagination into reality for it but I’m willing to bet you’ve never drawn before, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So for now just try to doodle a bit and see how it feels, if you like it then I can show you ways to improve.”

Ben was already filling up his own book as he said it, his hands moving in a blur to bring his ideas to life and the enjoyment he got in doing it seemed to come across, with Mora flipping to a blank page to try to do it himself.

He took far more time at it, even not considering Ben’s personal skill, it wasn’t a surprise considering the boy had never done it before but by the end, after a second of hesitation he turned it around to show Ben, with the subject Mora had chosen being obvious with the outcome.

“Oh hey, so you decided to draw Fredrick, huh? It looks really good, especially for a first attempt. You might just have some talent as an artist if you want to pursue it.”

The boy shuffled awkwardly as he was praised, not knowing how to take the compliment but seeming far more pleased with it than expected which made Ben stop to wonder if he’d ever received one before. Vividus didn’t seem like the type to hand them out willy-nilly which was just another thing that had likely led to the boy’s closed-off state.

But before Ben could say anything else, Mora spoke first, trying to hide his own good mood with a question.

“So why does your plant have a name?”

“Fredrick? Because I love him,” Ben laughed lightly before giving a bit of a stronger answer. “When I first moved here, I didn’t really have anyone. Me and Thera had just met but we weren’t even really friends and I had my teacher and my god but how close I was to either of them was still a bit up in the air, but I needed something living to practice one of my skills on since it would let me sense other people’s feelings and from there I settled on a house plant. Once I started practicing with it though I grew a bit of an emotional bond and from there I couldn’t not name it.”

“Does naming something mean you’re close?”

“I think it can.”

The child retreated into thoughts as Ben said it, though not in a way that seemed negative and before long the two were drawing again as morning slowly came.

It was once everyone was awake and fed they went to the shop again, Ben doing what work he could while waiting for Delair to arrive, with that mainly entailing wearing his coat and overfilling his soul for the mass production of new ones in a way that completely caught Mora off guard.

He’d only seen Ben do it at the significantly slower rate he would at home until then but the change of location had turned a trickle into a flood, with the volumes coming in and out of existence being enough to catch anyone who could see it off guard, even if the boy’s focus eventually turned somewhere deeper.

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“That can’t feel good,” Mora said, seeing all of the mana he was pulling through himself while Ben in turn gave a small chuckle.

“You’re right, this absolutely sucks.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

“Because unfortunately, sometimes in life I’ve gotta do things that suck. Making souls creates massive amounts of experience for my job and taking in mana lets me make massive amounts of souls. Tie in a little cheat I’d figured out and I can use all of that experience to help make other people who can’t earn as much get stronger.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Partly because the gods of this world are mostly jerks who decided to take advantage of me and partly because I like this planet just enough to want to help. Sometimes, doing what I can means putting up with a bit of nonsense.”

“I don’t think nonsense is supposed to damage your soul.”

“There are plenty of benefits to be had with damaging my soul occasionally too though-”

“Like that,” Ben laughed. “That plus my soul expansion make for a pretty killer combo.”

“Is that why you’re taking in even more now?”

“If my soul is more resilient then that means I can handle more without damaging it,” He shrugged as Thera finally cut into the conversation.

“Mora, don’t learn this from him if you can help it, he’s far too willing to be self-destructive for things like this.”

“Hey now, I’m pretty sure I need a certain level of resilience if I ever want to awaken my soul expansion and since I need to overfill myself anyway, I think this all works out pretty well. The secret to raising skills is to have as many positive feedback loops in your soul as possible.”

“The only other one you have is your mind skills and it took you ages to get to a point where that wasn’t at a risk of destroying your brain.”

“And now, as a handy bonus, I don’t actually need a brain anymore. You can’t get more win-win than that.”

Thera shook her head at the same time the door opened, with Delair letting herself in, beaming and eager to start the day.

“Morning!”

“Morning Delair, you still got your circlet?”

“I do!”

“Gods above Ben, why are you making her use one of those?” Thera asked, looking at the girl in sympathy as she put it on.

“Efficiency of course, and on a far nicer scale than what I’m going to be putting any healers through today. Speaking of, our task for the day! Delair, we’re having a bit of an outing so most of what will be happening is lessons in your head but I’ll get you to do some enchanting at the same time.”

“Okay, then where are we going?”

“Joining Thera and Mora at the hospital,” He explained, grateful to get the chance to bring it up naturally since Mora himself hadn’t asked about it. “I happen to know a lot about healing magic so, much in the same way I’m training you, I’ll be forcing all of the information I can into the heads of every light and life mage there. I’ve actually helped people gain levels in the past by doing that so hopefully I’ll manage the same result again, though I personally have my fingers crossed we might even get a couple awakenings.”

It was subtle but he saw Mora perk up as he said it, either out of interest or seeing a window where he could stealthily use his own magic, Ben couldn’t say. Still, the idea had been planted and now any levels that arrived would seem natural, at least if Mora was going to try to hide his skills, with the only issue being how hard it would be to judge natural results from the young spirit’s help.

Ben was sure that he’d have potentially been able to raise a person’s magic with the efforts he was about to spend without any outside help but he didn’t know how many for sure. One or two wasn’t too much to hope for but he planned on filling every available head with an outrageous amount of knowledge, there was no reason to be sure he couldn’t do even more.

No, the real test will be if we get any awakenings. He told himself. That’s not something a bit of extra knowledge can help with. If we get even one then we know Mora really is using his magic.

The hospital’s director had already been informed of what was happening that day, as were all of the healers who were coming through, with Ben setting up a collection area for his circlets to be picked up and dropped off as people came in and out for the bit of work they were doing.

With the extra healers though came more patients, the injured being funneled there for the day to make up for any other places’ lack of staff as Ben got to work, distracting Delair from any surrounding gore while the people around him were pulled into his head, forced to sit through lesson after lesson as he transferred the knowledge he held to them, already getting his first successes in the first group of healers.

Two of them gained levels. It was possible that it was a coincidence but Ben’s senses were sharper than most, especially when it came to feeling mana and he could tell a wide spell was being cast around them.

Not one that came from Thera, she was being more restrained in her own healing in order to give the rest Ben was working with a harder time so they’d push themselves and develop their skills, that alone made the source of the spell obvious enough but he left it unmentioned as things progressed.

It was only once they got their first of four awakenings on top of countless more levels that day that Ben felt undeniably certain that Thera was right. Mora was casting his spells, just not telling anyone he was doing it, with why he felt the need to keep his help a secret left as a mystery.

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