probablyaturnip

CH982

Alright, that’s another failure.

When it came to creating an artificial mental structure that captured the magics of all of the spirits of the world, it surprisingly wasn’t too much worse than just imprinting a life spirit’s. Maybe twice the pain of Ben’s best result with those tests but that was still leagues below all of the corpses he’d created in his initial experimentation and the sort of migraines he’d been through plenty in some of the earlier stages of his o...

CH981

Alright, off to see if this is even hypothetically possible to do without killing my girlfriend.

<You know, with how self-destructive you can be in the name of your own progress, you really shouldn’t be so against someone else being the same.>

Yeah? Well I’ll have you know that I’m a raging hypocrite. It’s fine, I’ll run all of the tests I can think before showing her this is impossible, and once I do, then we can let the matter drop.

But to...

CH980 Thera's Perspective

“Hey, how many more kids could your parents have before it started feeling weird?”

“Strange question,” Aso laughed as the two of them walked through town together. “Got an unexpected sibling on the way?”

“Ugh, my mother has made it pretty clear that she’s planning on more if things go well since there’s now a way to manage my charm issue, which wasn’t a big deal when I thought it might be one or two but I’m beginning to worry that she’s thinking double digi...

CH979

Standing in an open field, to Ben’s mana sense, it felt more like he was in the heart of some magical storm. The entire area was lit up with all affinities of the power and at a density that felt almost too thick to peer through, with the only reason he could being that one's mana sense wasn’t tied to the presence of eyes. His own vision was technically clear but trying to experience both at the same time made it feel like it should have been obscured for the vast volume of power around h...

November Poll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so I don’t usually do this but honestly, we’re so close to it that I’d say $1 patrons, if you don’t recognize two of this names at the top of this just wait for the next chapter before you cast your votes to have context for every option below (or if you don’t care too much then vote for whichever of the ones your recognize and fancy). Normally, I wouldn’t post options that everyone wouldn’t have seen yet but since it’s a single chapter away and the poll will still be op...

Side Story: Foast and Abel

Author’s note

Sometimes patreon still makes it so hard to see who won a vote because it shows percentage of votes rather than numbers but I was able to confirm this side story won by a single point

Sitting in his office, sorting through some paperwork while he still had the time, Nether only perked up as the knock he was waiting for came to his door, his patient having arrived a few minutes late as he so often was.

As the high priest of Raen’ock, a god with...

CH978

“Good news, I got some more levels,” Ben told his god that night.

“Which ones?”

“Which do you think?”

“Ugh, Ben, please stop being so good at this before someone gets it into their head that you’re too dangerous to be allowed to exist.”

“I think some gods up here already believe that.”

“Sure, but I more meant when they start thinking it to the point that anyone is going to be tempted to act on it.”

“And if they do, then what? The...

CH977

Flying through the air under his own power, Ben rushed himself down dirt roads and past the eyes of curious succubi along the way, micromanaging his journey as he went.

Even though he could, he’d only used his magic to let himself fly a few times and the experience of it still felt strange, less like something he was doing than it felt like something being done to him, even if it still managed to be exhilarating in its own way, with the only drawback being just how many looks it would...

CH976

<UNENDING EXTRACTION ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<DEEP MATERIAL SENSE LEVEL INCREASED>

<VITALITY ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<VITALITY RECOVERY RATE ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<MANA ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<MANA RECOVERY RATE ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<STRENGTH ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<STAMINA ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<SOUL REGENERATION ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

...

CH975

After a quick run to the woods, finding the man Ben had nearly ripped in half with his power and getting Thera to heal him before trapping him in his ring, the two went back to enjoy the festivities that remained, eating food and watching the happy couple. Greed presented the hairpiece, leaving his now wife overjoyed, and they both spoke a bit to the crowd, thanking everyone for coming and leaving them to mingle in the end, with all Ben wanted to do was rest.

“You gonna survive?” Th...

CH974

As with every mind Ben entered, when he looked in the thoughts of the one leading Greed and Gennet’s wedding, what he found was a life laid before him.

A childhood, growing up in the area where he now worked as a priest of his god and doing childish things. Growing, maturing, making friends, and even falling in love. A childish crush that never got to blossom into anything more, the girl having left before he had the chance and left him carrying a torch for all of those years until, a...

CH973

Using the eyes of those within his range and listening to the calls of the one directing his friend on where to go, Ben began actualizing amidst everything else for what help he could give, wrapping a layer around Greed that perfectly matched his appearance so none could detect the protective shell, the calming Ben had placed on him preventing Greed from reacting too much from its sudden appearance, leaving the crab with far greater things to worry about.

“With challenges to be faced,...

CH972

For a fraction of a fraction of a second, Ben allowed himself to wallow in his shock and misery, specifically making sure not to scream despite how he was feeling on the inside.

He had already put a stop to over sixty assassination attempts, and he still had four more disasters to deal with. The bride and groom's food being poisoned, everyone else's food being poisoned a different way, a wholly different death trap added to the entire death trap that was the wedding’s challenge, and a...

CH971

For a few minutes longer, Ben and Cheele spoke. It seemed like no more guests were showing up from there, giving him a bit of leeway to think and plan his next moves that were only interrupted with the arrival of two more, Thera and Saph joining them.

“Ah, it’s you,” Cheele said, not to his half-sister but to Thera by her side. “I never did thank you enough for your help in Allfaith. Should you ever require a favour that may be, let’s say, less than ethical, get the apostle to...

CH970

Working his way through the crowd, he managed to find eight more he’d missed before, who thankfully were simple to deal with. Without bringing their plans into motion, they were all easy to talk out of trying anything the second he was in their head, letting him focus on the last few groups filtering in and let him watch as others around did the last bit of setup, placing a few seats for those who would need them, even if it looked like most of the crowd would be standing, as well as placin...

CH969

Ben hadn't looked too deeply in anyone’s head other than the ones with murder on their mind, meaning that he hadn’t learned much of what a dark elf wedding entailed but it seemed that one of Greed’s exes had at least done a bit of her own research, enough that she’d discovered the wedding involved a special meal between bride and groom that would go unshared by the rest of the guests, with her finding out both where it had been made and had used that knowledge to poison it before it h...

CH968

“Alright,” Ben told him. “Let’s start with the basic questions. Who do you think is going to try and murder you and why did you think it was a good idea to wait till now to tell me? I wasn’t going to say no, man, and this has definitely put a huge crunch on possible solutions.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m just full of wedding and parenting stress. Both for the first time, I might add. I didn’t know how to bring it up and I thought you’d take longer making my things and...

CH967

“Leg, Sparkles, sorry to keep the two of you,” Greed called out when they got closer, waving a claw. “But glad you could make it, you cleaned up real well.”

“Hey, wouldn’t miss your wedding for the world, buddy,” Ben told him before offering his hand to the others. “And Gennet, lovely to see you again. Hope Greed hasn’t given you too much trouble?”

“Not more than I can handle,” she laughed, giving her partner a teasing look and letting Ben move onto the las...

CH966

“You ready?” Thera asked, her dress on now that the day of the wedding had come, needing only to drop Mora off before the two of them got going, leaving Ben to admire her while he buttoned up his shirt.

“Almost, but don’t worry, we’ll still be there early. There’s one more thing I want to do first.”

“Better not be working when you’re cleaned up so nicely.”

“Nah, nothing like that,” he told her as he pulled a chair over to a mirror. “Take a seat, it�...

CH965

<VITALITY ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<VITALITY RECOVERY RATE ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<MANA ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<MANA RECOVERY RATE ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<STAMINA ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

<DEEP CALMING LEVEL INCREASED>

“Got it. Hey, Myriad, Helori, what do you think the odds are that if I awaken my two thought skills or calming that the three’ll merge together? It feels likely, but hon...

CH964

“Mora, I’ve decided,” Delair began once she arrived that day. “Today, we’re making a sword, the biggest one we can!”

“Why?” the soul spirit asked, not seeing the point and getting a shrug in return.

“Because it’ll be fun! Now come on, let’s get started!”

She pulled the boy with her to gather materials while Ben and Thera watched from the side, Thera raising an eyebrow while Ben just chuckled.

“Does Delair always take charge like that?”

CH963

Taking the matter-energy conversion spell he’d taught Jake and absentmindedly trying to apply it to a weapon, the force of Ben’s thoughts was more devoted to a different topic. Awakening deep connection, with the fact that so many gods he’d now linked to hadn’t done the job of getting it to the third tier could be nothing but a bad sign, leaving his progress feeling stalled.

It wasn’t like he had no ideas of course, he could still try and fit all of the spirits of the world in...

CH962 Thera's Perspective

Thera’s first instinct was to decline. Even if she’d use her charm from time to time for the convenience of it, it still wasn’t a power she exactly liked having, the years of suffering under it having left enough of a mark to make the idea of doing anything with it feel distasteful, even if she knew that was a foolish, rash reaction. There was her goddess, offering to personally teach her something, she couldn’t just listen to a gut reaction. While the way she viewed gods overall had ...

CH961 Thera's Perspective

“Not in front of my eyes, please,” Thera asked the spirits around her, the density of them becoming a distraction as she did her best to use her newfound free time, taking hunting quests in the untamed lands.

Since Ben had a gate that connected directly to a well-used guild, it made the most sense and allowed her to find the sort of work that a place like Stonewall wouldn’t offer. While her home was concerned with granting quests taking place in the immediate area, anywhere on the...

October poll!!!!

Hey all, hope you’ve been well in the past month. To build off my last note, seeing my friends was lovely, it was great to meet up with them again after so long and my hand is almost better. Think I’ve just overworked it a bit considering how much of my job and hobbies involve spending time on a computer but I’m working on arranging a meeting with my doctor to see if there’s anything I should be doing to keep this from happening again.

Equally as inconvenient as the hand thing, ...

Side Story: Demon world prisoner

Author’s note

The prisoner first appeared in ch647 and the item they’re using in ch705

In the woods, a ring of energy floated, unlike any other thing in that world or the universe beyond.

The descendant of a star race that had been forced to move to a terrestrial world by an ancient evil god, its species survival despite that one disaster had lost in the end to the next, leaving him alone, still there by virtue of his value as a trophy more than anything else.

CH960

<DEEP DESTRUCTIVE THOUGHT LEVEL INCREASED>

<DEEP EVIL THOUGHT LEVEL INCREASED>

“So, this is what these skills look like at their ninth level,” Ben mused before the mad god he had imprisoned, Haro screaming and doing everything he could to attack him yet failing as he always did, the destruction and evil infecting his mind trumping the damage Ben had already caused it. “And better yet, I’ve reached a point that these skills can actively make a target self...

CH959

<DEEP CALMING LEVEL INCREASED>

<DEEP DESTRUCTIVE THOUGHT LEVEL INCREASED>

<DEEP EVIL THOUGHT LEVEL INCREASED>

<DEEP CALMING LEVEL INCREASED>

“Goddamn, Legs, your life sounds like a nightmare.”

“I think you’re ignoring the part where you now officially have the pleasure of getting to say you’re friends with a third-tier, even if I’d appreciate you not spreading the fact that it’s me around,” he said in his defense, on...

CH958

With the new factories re-adjusted after his new levels had come, Ben prepared for the day, doing his basic set up with Mora since Thera was going to be off doing some adventurer’s work as Delair arrived, humming lightly in a way that brought Ben’s mood crashing down.

“Um, Delair? Kiddo? What exactly are you humming there?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s something I heard someone singing on the way. It’s pretty catchy, right?”

“I guess that’s one word for it,” Ben told...

CH957

“Greed? What are you doing here?” Ben asked, seeing his ruby crab friend being carried by his guard; Jeeves, as quiet and professional as ever.

“No peeking to find out,” the crab said, covering his face with his claws. “Got a couple of things I want to reveal in my own time. More importantly, were you just in there the entire time? We tried knocking and calling out and, failing that, we’ve spent the last few hours waiting and hoping you or some other worker would stop by so ...