Chapter 1146 Thera’s Perspective

Sitting down with Ben, alone together in the shop before they’d both need to part ways for the day, Thera did her best to ignore both how he was constantly materializing into a small spatial bag, looking like he only had one arm as a result of how deep within it he had it shoved, as well as ignored the growing migraine squeezing her brain.

As she put her mind against different configurations of his own, she felt her thoughts strain more and more, made far worse by the pain taking place within her soul as well but, in a time that felt like hours but could have only been a few minutes at most in the real world, she was finally able to bring it to an end as notifications rang out in her head, replacing the misery that had been filling it before.

<MENTAL EXPANSION HAS AWAKENED TO UNNATURAL MENTAL EXPANSION>

<ACQUIRED SKILL FOCUS LEVEL 0>

<ACQUIRED SKILL BLESSED SOUL EXPANSION LEVEL 0>

<SOUL CONNECTION LEVEL INCREASED>

“Oh, thank the gods that’s done,” she sighed, breaking the connection between them and freed of both her migraine and her soul pain, the first by finishing her training against Ben’s ridiculous mind, while the second came from gaining blessed soul expansion after Ben had converted her mental expansion into a blessed skill to guarantee her acquisition of a bonus skill.

“Done for now,” Ben grinned. “But you’re the one who floated the idea that I should push you to the third tier for a mind skill, too.”

“Don’t want to think about that right now. I need a break.”

“Ha, sure. Speaking of thinking, though, how do you feel?”

“Mmm… strange.”

She knew she’d get used to it; she had gotten used to every level of mental expansion on the way to that awakening, but that was different. Combined with just how much her intelligence had grown when Ben had modified her soul and her thoughts felt strangely vast. She couldn’t think more things at once like complex mind would allow, and the mental structure she’d previously held hadn’t been strengthened like with parallel thought, but it felt as though she could think about and understand things in a far broader way than she had previously. It wasn’t a crippling change, not like Ben’s mess of mind skills had caused him in the past, but she was aware of it and needed just a bit of time to adapt.

Doesn’t seem like I’m thinking with my soul either, she thought as she examined herself. If anything, it’s kind of a middle ground between a normal person and Ben? My soul is taking on some of the burden that my brain can’t accommodate? Weird.

From what she’d seen during Valaria’s awakening, that meant that by the time she reached the third tier in that skill, she would transition fully to thinking with her soul in a way that was similar to her boyfriend’s, but that would be a while off still. She didn’t need to hit that particular goal until right before the third wave; she could stand to spread out the suffering she was causing herself by insisting on that training.

“As far as I can see, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about with the change to your mind, which means there’s only one last thing to consider before we split. I made your mental expansion a blessed skill to get you the bonus skill and blessed soul expansion. Do you want me to swap it out for a different skill?”

“Yeah, my earth affinity, please.”

<UNNATURAL MENTAL EXPANSION HAS FALLEN TO A COMMON SKILL>

<EARTH AFFINITY HAS RISEN TO A BLESSED SKILL>

The change was a weight off her mind. While there was still an incredibly minor, yet lingering discomfort from having six blessed skills in her soul, it was ignorable and would go away eventually. Far more important to her was that the change had let her resolve her previous issue of choosing between a skill that would let her help the spirits or one that would increase her odds of awakening her earth magic. Now she had both, and she was far more comfortable for it.

Now if this doesn’t help me awaken before the next wave, nothing is going to, she thought, doing her best to keep the feeling to herself. There were enough weeks left that the chances weren’t zero; they just felt as close to being zero as they could be without actually being impossible.

Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t try so, wrapping her arms around Ben, she kissed him before pulling away.

“Thanks for all your help, Ben. I should be back in time to pick up Mora. You think you’ll be late?”

“Hopefully not, but I’m going to have to play it by ear a bit.”

“Alright, then don’t go getting hurt out there when I’m not going to be nearby to patch you up.”

“Ha, sure. And you don’t work yourself to exhaustion either. Another round of soul modifications coming up, giving everyone more blessed skills. Can’t have our soul mage in poor shape for it.”

Thera rolled her eyes. “You’ve really got to stop making discoveries that are going to have us flying across the entire planet.”

“So long as I don’t figure out a less mana intense way of increasing affinities, then this should be the last time, probably, maybe.”

“Mmh, we’ll see.”

She had her doubts, but with nothing else, left through his gate, going from the magic towers to the larger gate network, having a destination in mind for the day. She needed to train her earth magic, and she was a first-ranked adventurer. If she couldn’t decide what to do for herself, then instead, she could seek out a quest.

Marking her destination as the head adventurer’s guild branch at warriors’ tower, giving her a destination as she walked through that city, casting her soul magic as she did.

<MAX LEVEL OF THE SINFUL DARK MAGE JOB ACHIEVED>

And good timing for that, too. Took a bit longer than it should have, though. Even if Ben’s creating all of the experience I could need to finish this in a couple of days, I should have trained my dark magic a bit myself to speed things up. Ugh, there’s always so much to think about… Whatever, new job time.

AVAILABLE JOBS

With queen of vitality being her only new option, given that with her last soul modification, that attribute had surpassed ten thousand points, that only left the matter of what she’d take next as she eyed her options.

Ultimately, it didn’t really matter, given that she’d likely have most, if not all of them done by the next wave, leaving her to choose between expert, a job she knew would lower her experience requirement for all others, divine kin, for the attribute bonuses it would give, or mind user, which would unlock other mind jobs for her to progress through.

…Mmh, the sooner I need less experience, the sooner I finish up all of my other jobs I guess. Okay then, I’ll take expert.

<ACQUIRED JOB- EXPERT LV0>

<BONUSES GRANTED TO JOB EXPERIENCE ACQUISITION>

Name: Thera Oress

Race: Succubus/Spirit Hybrid

Titles: Spirit Child, Madman’s lover, Spirit princess, Saintess, Destined holder of Spirit Empowering, Outsider slayer, Friend of Elementals, City Builder, First Spirit Goddess, First of the Faith, Job Holder

Jobs: Expert (lv0)

Previous Jobs: Beginner Dancer, Dancer, Apprentice mage, Earth mage, True mage, High earth mage, Spirit mage, Life mage, High life mage, Telekinetic mage, Adventurer, High telekinetic mage, High spirit mage, Master earth mage, Earth princess, Master life mage, Life princess, Saintess, Crystallization mage, Master adventurer, Queen of mana, Mana embodiment, Dark mage, High dark mage, Master dark mage, Dark princess, War mage, Annihilation mage, Homunculus creator, Chimera maker, Non-affinity mage, Construct mage, Professional dancer, Healer, Master spirit mage, Spirit embodiment, Empathy mage, High empathy mage, Barrier mage, High barrier mage, High crystallization mage, Master of all, Soul mage, Great spirit, Mana goddess, Heretic, Queen of Intelligence, Staff user, Kin, Divine heretic, Disillusioned life mage, Malicious earth mage, Idolized spirit mage, Corrupt non-affinitied mage, Sinful dark mage

Attribute:

Affinities:

Resistances:

Blessed skills:

Passive skills:

Active skills:

Blessings:

Trials:

Since the job said it was only granting bonuses to experience acquisition, rather than major, massive, or divine bonuses, she had to assume that it was a first-tier job, which at least meant it wouldn’t be long to finish.

Still, I’ve been able to grow a lot in the last little while, she thought while looking down at her soul. I can’t believe I’m actually growing connect so much when I don’t even really want the skill. I’ve awakened mental expansion which puts me on a good path to eventually becoming a god for it, and as for sacrilege…

On sacrilege, she was lagging behind where she wanted to be, even while practicing as long as she could with Ben most nights, but she could at least hope that growing her mind would help improve things on that front. If she was going to become the world’s second god of sacrilege, then she was going to have to, but when she looked at all she’d been doing to raise it against how far she’d gotten, she couldn’t deny that it felt like she lacked talent on that front, leaving her to sigh.

I wonder if Ben is inherently better at raising it because he’s an apostle? It definitely makes everything he does feel a bit more sacrilegious, all things considered… Mmh, doesn’t matter, I’ll keep working on it.

It was annoying, but that wasn’t the only place she’d grown. With her most recent round of soul modifications brought the time it would take her mana to regenerate from empty down to less than sixteen hours, a significant improvement over the nearly nineteen it had been, and that was without even considering the far more shocking change that had come to her soul. She, Delair, Fontesh, and all of the other third tiers Ben had worked on had their affinities grown, all of them by an unbelievable amount.

She’d gotten him to raise her death resistance as well, given that her earth affinity had already been higher than he could give, as well as because she still intended to follow him if he intended to fight the soul god whose monsters were ravaging the galaxy, but it was the affinities that had taken up her thoughts. Now holding them, should she devote any time to raising up a new magic?

Compared to so much else, it wasn’t really a priority, beyond the fact that it would make the spirits around her happy if she grew something that matched their affinities. At the same time, though, she was a mage, and she couldn’t deny the appeal of learning powers that had previously been unusable to her. While growing her affinities gave her the benefit of being able to learn all of the different affinitied skills, if she wasn’t going to use that change to learn new magics, then it might really have been better to grow her resistances instead.

But this makes sense if I’m thinking about the long term, she told herself. Even if I don’t immediately start learning a new magic, I’ll have it as something that I can work on in the future. If we win, then I’ve got thousands of years ahead of me. Now I can use that time to eventually become a third tier in all of my magics. Even if I make myself wait for now, it will be worth it in the long run…

I can at least learn a single one now, can’t I?

The desire was firmly planted in her heart and impossible to deny. Of course she wanted to learn a new magic, even at just the zeroth level, and she could even justify it too. In the past, she’d always struggled significantly with lower leveled magics, having far too much mana and far too little control, but now that had changed. While her mana was shockingly higher, she had the control that came with three second-tier magics and one at the third tier. Wouldn’t it make sense to see if that control really did reflect back on a first-tier power?

She had to know, and considering that she already had earth and dark magics, while growing her life to soul in essence meant she had complete power over death too, all the more so now that her affinity for it had grown by so much, that left her with six other options if she wasn’t going to consider any of the combined affinities. Six choices that were already capturing her imagination, leaving only the question of which would win in the end.