Hey, I forgot to ask you earlier but what does it mean for a skill to transition? Ben thought to his god after talking about his status with Thera reminded him of it. It admittedly seemed to be a major change given the fact that it had altered his eye colour, even if he didn’t end up sprouting any scales.

<And I’d so successfully managed to block that from my mind too.> Myriad complained. <You want to know the worst part of this? I had actually expected you to do this eventually, just with a different skill! The way you gain and use mind skills, you seemed all but destined to have one transition, but no, you had to go and do it with your demon skill! I hope you’re happy!>

That’s going to depend on what it does for me, now doesn’t it? Now come on, tell me already and then you can complain in my head about it for the rest of the day while I’m working.

<I’m going to be too busy then so you’ll have to deal with my complaining tonight. Either way, you could think of it as just a different way a skill can change. If you think of leveling a skill up or awakening one as moving up to greater heights, then this is an event where something changed your skill on a fundamental level before that, moving it to the side instead.>

Interesting, interesting, so what does that mean for me then?

<Aside from the fact that it’s changed in a way that will let it level up now? I don’t know much for sure. Since it’s always been a skill linked to your body and we’ve already seen it affect it with the whole eye colour change I’d say there’s a lot to be worried about, though there are a couple benefits, even if I want you to never ever level it up because infinite hells that might be very bad.>

I’m sorry, all I heard was the word benefits followed by a lot of words not telling me what they are.

<No matter how much I love you Ben, I want you to know I hate you. The benefits have to do with the skills it absorbed. Aside from the fact that by becoming a part of it they’re both a bit better than they’d be otherwise, the biggest one is for how they will change when leveling up if you ever do. While this might not be the biggest deal for your limit break skill since it was level zero, it’s going to be huge for the aspects you got from your healing enhancement. At the second level before the merge, it would raise your healing speed by roughly fifteen percent. By becoming a part of this new skill, you can expect your healing speed to go up by that much every level.>

What?

That was huge. So huge he almost wanted to try and level it. By just the second level of integrated demonic body, he’d have the same healing speed as someone at the eighth level of healing enhancement. More even when he considered that both partial demonic body and limit breaker had minor healing aspects to them, and that the aspects of all the skills that made it up received a minor boost. If he was to just guess that he was around a seventeen percent increase, then if he reached the second level he’d actually be just above what a ninth-level healing enhancement would get him.

<I don’t care how handy it is, don’t level it.>

Relax, I won’t intentionally. Even I don’t want to grow any more demon bits. I’m rather attached to being human. Real thankful that bit on my card hasn’t changed at all. While I have you, anything about king of sacrilege I should know about? Seeing as it made some gods think I’m better off dead and all?

<Just that it seems to reject gods you have a connection to slightly more than others, but not to much of a noticeable extent. If I learn more and it’s not outright dangerous to tell you I’ll let you know, but for the time being get to work.>

With that his god went silent as the crowd around him was complete, Thera standing at his side as he addressed the crowd as a whole.

“Alright everyone, lots to do today as we try and teach you a bit about the world but the first thing I want to try and work on is the living conditions. First thing first, is there a reason you all live in tents? Do you do it so you can follow animals to hunt or is there another reason?”

The people looked amongst themselves confused. They lived in tents because they always lived in tents, there was no other reason for it as far as they knew, nor was there another option.

It was only Toltho who spoke up, explaining it as he understood from his former god. “We live like this so we can run from the strange ones easier. If we can pack everything up then it’s easier to run without too many traces.”

Of course that’s why.

No matter how used to it they were, they were still deep in the untamed lands. Sturdy walls could be the difference between life and death if anything came into their camp, so that was a priority that Thera would be covering until they could handle it themselves.

“Alright, you got this?”

“Yeah, I have a bit of experience with walls while you were gone, I just might need you to fix the staff after.”

“Will do.”

With that assurance, Thera walked away from the edge of the village into the woods, getting to work as she did. In an act that was far from quick but still managed to capture the attention of all those who watched as she first put her telekinesis to work, knocking down swaths of giant trees and stacking them in piles as she did so it could be used later, either as firewood or for any practice Ben needed them to do before turning to the now empty stretch of land.

She used her magic to flatten it out, compressing the dirt so it was level while she raised sections of it, making very simple homes. There was nothing fancy to them, each was composed of a simple central room with two smaller rooms off to the side and all of them lacked both doors and roofs, but they were sturdy and would keep anything dangerous out while helping keep the warmth of a fire inside. She was feeling rather smug about it too. It was a brilliant example of how far she’d come as an earth mage and turned to look to the crowd to see if there was anything else they’d need after enough structures were made for each family unit, only to see them all bowing to her with only one word on their lips as Ben tried to keep himself from laughing.

“Goddess.”

“Goddess.”

“Goddess.”

Each of them muttering it again and again, none of them ever witnessing such a level of power and feeling the uncontrolled urge to pray that their gods had forced into them over the generations, much to her horror.

“NO NO NO NO NO! ALL OF YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW I AM NOT A GODDESS!” She yelled at them as she heard it, already on edge from the title she’d gained the day before and not wanting to risk a new one as Ben laughed to the side.

“I mean, it could be pretty handy though, you have to admit a title like that probably comes with some massive benefits.”

“Yeah, but all I can imagine is trying to explain it to some elderly woman I’m a hundred times older than in the future! I don’t want to have to explain why I’m the goddess of the… What’s their species called?”

“Huh, not actually sure. Hey Toltho, what are your kind called?”

“We are the people.”

Neither Ben nor Thera said anything to that, both fully assuming their original gods gave them a different name but let the matter drop. I’m sure we’ll see when we get the cards anyway. Hey Myriad, did you tell Sachel yet?

<I did and she’ll be on her way. It won’t be easy getting to you though, you’re about as in the middle of nowhere as a person can be.>

Any way you could talk to the god that rules Steph’s nation to get them to loan her out to get them here? And get me and Thera back for that matter? I am an awakened craftsman and enchanter, I’ll make them one item to the best of my abilities if they will.

<I’ll ask, but they might try and up it.>

That’s fine, just try and keep it as low as you can for me.

With that quick matter thought of and done he focused on the crowd and watched them light up with the faith they gave off as they looked to Thera with reverence, much to her discomfort.

“Listen, I know this is surprising, but she’s really not a goddess so it’s better not to refer to her as one if you can. It’s just that this world is bigger than you all could possibly imagine. You thought there were five gods when there’s thousands and hundreds of races to go with them, it just so happens that she’s from one of the particularly powerful ones. You’ll be learning all about it later, or now actually. Everyone I spoke to yesterday about construction is with me while the rest are either with Thera to learn about the world as a whole or covering hunting and gathering for everyone. Toltho, you’ll be part of Thera’s lessons even if you’re typically a hunter, can I rely on you to explain to my group and the others what they missed from her later?”

He was the only one he felt true confidence in, having seen the lengths he was willing to go to and he got swift agreement from him.

“Absolutely, I shall fulfill your trust.”

“Excellent, in that case my five with me.”

As everyone went to their respective areas, Ben got to work picking up stones to shape into tools with his material user skill, already missing Greed’s buffs despite how much his mana pool had grown thanks to both the trial and sacrilege awakening, all the while having flashbacks to how similar this was to what he’d dealt with in the dryad village.

They watched him as he did, thinking he was a particularly skilled earth mage from what he was doing before he turned to address them all.

“Okay, we’re going over a lot of the basics today and you’re going to have to use some of the books that are being brought later for any more growth, but it will hopefully be enough to let you all get the zeroth level of construction and or carpentry before I leave. The goal of the day is doors, roofs, and windows for all the buildings so everyone can sleep in them tonight and I’m not going to go easy on any of you so let’s get started.”