Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

“So, how did taking your new jobs go?” Myriad asked, with Ben shrugging in return.

“Complicated. I mean, good probably, but I got some weird results.”

“Pff, not surprising,” Helori said, shaking her head. “Did you end up taking outsider then?”

It was a question that she, Myriad, and Nare were all curious about. At that point, none of them were going to try to stop him but whatever results it was going to yield were expected to be outright bizarre, with the three of them all still feeling a bit relieved as he shook his head.

“Not this time, I don’t think next time either. We’ll see how I feel after that.”

“I admire the restraint,” The goddess told him. “But it probably won’t be too bad no matter what tier of job it is. A result similar to when you took alien mind is beyond slim and it’s not like taking it can turn you into a monster.”

“Yeah, well, the system always finds some way to surprise me, and on that note, taking slayer gave me two new titles.”

“Titles?” Nare asked, perking up while Ben nodded. “An unexpected harvest but considering the system is designed to grow, I suppose it doesn’t seem like an impossible one. What are they?”

“Demon slayer and world slayer, both of which make sense I suppose. I’m probably the only guy that’s killed a few planets around and considering the number of demons that had to have been on each one, well, the one I was trapped on before seemed pretty packed. Considering they can live on land and sea, I wouldn’t be surprised if my death count was above a hundred billion, leaving the only question being why I got those titles now instead of when I did it originally.”

The crafting god thought for a moment, looking at what he knew of the system he’d designed and the situation at hand before giving anything of an answer.

“If I had to make an educated guess, I can only assume the job you took somehow forced the system to reassess you for it.”

“Meaning?”

“You unlocked it after you got a few different slayer titles, right? If I’m correct then taking it led the system to re-exam your life for any places where similar titles might apply and it ended up finding two. Given that, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if you’d have an easier time getting that class of title in the future as well.”

“Okay, and I don’t suppose any of you know offhand what titles like that actually do for me, do you?”

It was a clear no which was largely what he’d been expecting, leaving it as something to bother Verbum about if he ever had time and cared to remember. The few he’d gained in the past he hadn’t cared enough to use the record holder to check when they seemed like a straightforward way of saying that he’d managed to kill something significant enough to warrant a title but now the result of that job had stroked his curiosity.

Of course, with how hard it can be to get him to pull information from the system it might not be worth the time, but… Mmh, if I ever have a free day again I guess I’ll look.

“So what else did you get?” Helori asked, more than curious on the results that would come from taking some unknown jobs while Ben himself still wasn’t sure how pleased with them he actually was.

“Well, I took inclination master which gave no attribute bonuses but massive skill bonuses which is nice I guess, but the skill it ended up helping me gain was defense inclination.”

He heard his god laugh and shot the cube a dirty look.

“Not funny. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to get something like that. Hell, I was more prepared to get nothing! And like, okay, getting this new skill is better than getting no new skill, but come on, I was so sure that if nothing else I’d have ended up with something like mind inclination. How does getting one for defense even make sense?” ʀаΝŎꞖÈS

“Ha, there’s no sense to be made,” The cube continued to chuckle. “All it means was that the talent was forming in your soul and considering that you do in fact have quite a few defensive skills, I’m not exactly as surprised as you seem to be. Besides, it’s a good thing. Considering how many of those skills you have stuck at the ninth level, maybe this will finally be enough to help you break a few of those barriers.”

“Man, I can at least hope I guess. Anyway, that just leaves my last one. I took judge. It was second tier like the rest of them and it gave me a new skill I haven’t heard of called condemnation. Don’t suppose any of you have heard about it?”

All signaled no in one way or another while Ben sighed.

“Yeah, that’s what I was expecting, which means I might have another new one.”

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“I wonder if it’s possible for you to get an inclination skill for all of these skills you seem to be the first to get,” Helori mused. “Destined inclination I suppose, which in itself would fall under its own category. Now that would be something interesting, a skill that raises itself through its own existence and helps raise and gain others with it. Awakening something like that would probably give even more interesting results too.”

“Doubt it. I don’t want to sound like I had my hopes up or anything but I was really expecting either my evil inclination or my destruction inclination to give me a bonus skill when they awakened. Like, I know it’s supposed to only be a ten percent chance for any that aren’t my blessed ones but come on, a class of skill that supposedly helps me gain other skills that match its category? It really seemed like it should have helped me break my losing streak on that front. As it is, I haven’t even gained any new evil or destructive skills as far as I can tell.”

“I’d make the argument that soul resilience might fall under the category of a destructive skill,” His god pointed out. “It literally protects you from having your soul damaged. And as for more… I mean, it’s not like you’ve actively been practicing to gain any skills in those categories. Considering you’ve had them both for such a short time, if you’re not going to put effort into gaining any skills that match them it shouldn’t be a shock you aren’t just randomly developing more no matter how high you’re raising them, which I’d like to point out has been sickeningly so.”

“Mmh, I guess…”

“And how sure are you that your new one didn’t appear at all because of either of those?” Helori asked him. “Is there anything you figured out about it before coming up here?”

“Eh, kind of? It’s kind of weird to try and describe but I’m strangely aware of nearly a half-foot of space all around me, but not really in a useful way. I can’t judge the stuff that’s in it, I just know that reality is there. It feels sort of like how a space spirit perceives the world but on a massively downgraded scale. I don’t know what I'm supposed to do with that sense either, but… I get the impression it’s a skill that’s going to cost mana to use.”

It at least came with enough instinctual knowledge to be able to tell that, with the skill bound to his soul practically begging to burn the stuff and was an answer that perked Helori up all the more, speaking to her aspect that was a goddess of magic as well as knowledge.

“Do you think you’ve gained some new non-affinitied magic then?” She asked in obvious interest. “You do seem to have a habit of gaining strange ones.”

He gave the question some serious thought. It would be interesting if he had, a new magic was something he’d never turn down, but ultimately he shook his head.

“I don’t think so, at least not right now but I’m not really going to be able to say for sure until I either figure it out or else look at my job options again and see something like ‘condemnation mage’ sitting at the bottom of my list. Although that does have a pretty good ring to it now that I’ve said it.”

“Well, if you figure it out let us know but for now, I have other news for you,” Nare told him as he changed the subject, feeling they’d gotten all they could from what little information they had. “Preliminary results are in.”

“Really?” He asked in naked excitement, not needing to ask for what. He’d tested merging the souls he could create with some of Nare’s people and it seemed that the results had arrived. “How do they look?”

“See for yourself.”

The god created a list of names and attributes and let them hang in the air for Ben to read and go over, letting him compare what each person had held immediately after having their soul modified against what they were at before he’d arrived, with the changes he was seeing being enough to tell him that modifying a person's soul to force more power on it wasn’t going to ruin their growth rates no matter what configure he used to do it and it was only a moment longer for him to do the math to calculate how the growth he was seeing there compared to the growth he’d seen in their memories, finding it to match. Altering a soul didn’t affect how a person would raise their attributes, meaning it was a quick and easy path to power for any in the world who was willing to go through the pain attached to being altered on such a deep level.

“Oh god damn, now that’s what I’d call significant.”

“It’s not all good news, based on my observations I’d say that my people are recovering about half as fast as you’d expected but despite that, they’re all more than pleased with the results so there’s no complaints.”

“Half as fast? Okay, that sort of makes sense. Even if they’re being pacified, demons are natural soul magic users. It’s not a shock that they might be passively speeding up their own recovery rates somehow, even while restrained. Still, I’d call this an absolute win.”

“The question remains then, what do you want to do with this now?” Nare asked him. “We could spread the word and get you to start modifying any willing individual immediately, or we could wait a bit for you to grow more. We do have time after all, it wouldn’t hurt to wait for you to raise your values for a few more months before starting.”

“Let’s do that,” Ben nodded. “Giving people five percent of my attributes would be good right now as it is but if I can reach the third tier for both skills then the difference I could help anyone grow by is going to be insane.”

“Pfff, insane might be understating it,” Helori laughed. “If you really manage to pull that off then anyone you help will be getting, what? A thousand points of mana, and three thousand points to their intelligence to just name your highest options? You really do need to get those awakenings you’re after, the world might just manage to win in the end.”

“Another reason to do my best I guess, but while we’re on the topic, let’s talk payment. Do you think it’s too soon to start negotiating with the other gods?”

“If you intend to wait a bit then I’d hold off personally. Why, what are you looking for this time?”

“Something they won’t be able to argue,” He said with a bright grin. “If other people are going to be growing off of my attributes then it only makes sense to get them to raise my attributes, right? With the higher I am equaling the stronger I can make their believers, I think that will make a pretty compelling argument to get even the most stuck up among them to pay me well.”

The thought had him practically salivating as he imagined what growth he might be able to trade for his work but that would be something to look at for the future. For the time being, he just needed to claim as much of that as he could for himself in whatever time he had until he’d put to practice the results of all of his tests.

And if that’s the case, I really should go and check on how my demons are doing tomorrow.

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