After a night of talking with Myriad, passing the time the best he could while further refining his idea to put into practice later, Ben got up for the day, heading to the living room first instead of the kitchen like he normally would and finding Thera awake and hard at work, even if she looked like she wanted to be anything but.

With the living room swarmed with spirits, it was obvious she’d spent a long night both giving them her mana as well as working on her spirit comprehension, even if that wasn’t the original goal that had her out there.

“Morning, how’d it go?” He asked her, watching as she yawned out an answer.

“I finally, finally got a level to my sleep resistance,” She told him, even if just how exhausted she sounded made the statement a little less than believable. “And I officially never want to try to get another.”

They both knew she was going to be worked hard during the next wave, to the point that the gods had even gone out of their way to give her the skill despite how cheap they could be, but in the months since she’d gotten it, she hadn’t managed to raise its level even once until then, leaving her to make a concentrated effort that past week to pull it off, just so she wouldn’t completely fail at the expectations she had placed on her, no matter how much she may have hated it.

Thera liked her sleep. Training to avoid it felt more like a punishment than anything else, no matter how handy it was going to be.

“Ugh, and I have stuff to do today too,” She groaned.

“Then have a nap,” Ben laughed. “I’ll wake you in an hour when breakfast is ready.”

No sooner than the words had left his mouth was it that she took him up on his offer, passing out without another sound and leaving Ben to grin, gently rubbing her head before heading to the kitchen to prepare a nice meal to start the day.

If this is how she’s looking after her first level then someone should definitely recommend that she try to get second before the next wave if she can, just not sure if I want to be the one to do it.

After breakfast was done and Ben had managed to both lure Sonya out with the smell and wake up his very tired girlfriend, his first stop for the day wasn’t to the shop like it normally would be, instead going to his empty house on the street, specifically around back where his greenhouse sat.

Within stood a single fruit tree, even if one wouldn’t think that at first glance.

The structure was filled with stems and branches, all interconnected through the root network down below to ensure that every bit of it was still one singular plant for it to show its proper effects.

Still possessed by the soul of one of the forbidden gods as well as a demon, the plant was still going strong, all the more so thanks to the powerful plant enchantments Ben had built into the enclosure and continuously improved, leading to the day’s chores as he both clipped branches and harvested a mountain of fruits, throwing them all into boxes he had around that were bound with both space and time enchantments to let them hold more and keep their contents from rotting as he looked at his ever-grown horde.

At this point, even with the potions I’m sharing with Thera, Sonya, Falk, Sachel’s party, and the stuff I’m mailing out to the dryads, I think I have enough here that I could last for a few years if this stopped producing for some reason. He happily mused. I really should try and see if there’s ever anything else I could do with these beyond just purely strengthening potions. If I could somehow configure them to focus on a singular attribute then that would be ideal but I don’t really know where I’d start with trying to figure that out. Hey Myriad, are the gods doing any experimenting with their plants at least? Show me some notes.

<They aren’t. Admittedly, there’s probably some potential for further refinement beyond what we’ve already seen since the recipe’s based off of the few times mortals have gotten their hands on the bodies of dead gods which hasn’t exactly created much leeway for testing, but as things are, these are more than good enough already. Maybe there’d be a way to focus on a single attribute or maybe they could be improved enough to gain another point to everything each month instead of just the three you’re getting but they’re functioning well as good, general potions. The volume being made in Anailia means they can be shipped out to every military organization on the planet and has even reached the scale where they’re getting sent to the adventurer’s guilds now too. Rather than making many that might better suit a person's preferred attributes, it’s easier to be able to hand out just the one type without worrying about it. Besides, it doesn’t hurt to have a few points going to attributes that aren’t your main focus. With them as they currently are, they’re basically the only reason you see any real growth to your agility after all.>

Yeah, but I don’t care about my agility.

<And yet, given that I’ve watched you have to run for your life on more than one occasion, I’m happy with whatever points you end up getting to it.>

Once that chore was done, Ben went to his true second home. Not the house he bought but would never use, but instead the shop, where Falk had already begun the day.

“Morning Falk.”

“Mornin’ boy, looks like you’ll be having a busy one again.”

“Pfff, when don’t I?”

He was still getting large volumes of materials in, ensuring he’d be in a constant state of work through the use of his homunculi, but the gods had decided to give him more as well despite the outrageous fees he kept piling on them.

As of only a couple days prior, on top of everything else, Ben was no longer just getting raw materials sent his way, but finished weapons and shields too, all of a lesser quality than he could make but there for a single reason. So he could enchant upon them.

With the speed of his thoughts only ever growing faster and that same speed being the limiting factor to how quickly he could enchant, as his clones were producing everything else, his main body was focusing on enchanting everything, flying through weapons to empower them the best he could for what was to come and taking advantage of the experience that meant for him, being rewarded with the notification ringing out in his head.

<MAX LEVEL OF THE RITUAL ENCHANTER JOB ACHIEVED>

Score!

He’d been expecting it soon given the time that had passed since he’d taken it combined with just how full of enchanting his days were with all of his work, with the new added load helping to push him over the edge to success as he touched his job crystal, thinking on what to pick next.

Unlike the last few times, he had no new options, which in principle meant it should have been easy to pick his next one without anything new to consider, but despite himself, he took a few moments.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

He knew which job he wanted to have during the start of the invasion, and at only two months away that meant he should have had the time to squeeze out another one in the meantime, leaving it as a question of what as he looked at his long list.

My very long list actually. Let’s see, it’s not like it would do me any harm to trim it a bit, would it? Might give me a couple new advanced options too that I could think on. What the heck, it’s not exactly the most efficient but I’d only be losing what? Twenty minutes or an hour going through a couple? Why not, I’ve wanted to complete a few of the easier jobs anyway to see if it would land me a title related to finishing them. For now, I’ll take holy craftsman.

<ACQUIRED JOB- HOLY CRAFTSMAN LEVEL 0>

<BONUSES GRANTED TO IMPROVING STRENGTH, STAMINA, AND INTELLIGENCE>

<ALL CRAFTING RELATED SKILLS WILL RECEIVE A GROWTH BONUS>

Alright, with that out of the way, let’s get this finished already.

Ultimately, it was a thought he’d barely even had time to make. Forget when he’d had his awakened skills, that was a job option he’d gained all the way back when he was still in the early stages of his crafting skill. Compared to where he was currently at, the experience he required was practically nothing compared to what a single thing he’d create would generate for him, let only what he’d gain while his homunculi were still at work.

It was over as soon as he’d started, letting Ben pick his next job.

Cursed item maker.

<ACQUIRED JOB- CURSED ITEM MAKER LEVEL 0>

<BONUSES GRANTED TO IMPROVING STRENGTH, STAMINA, MANA, AND MANA RECOVERY>

<ALL CRAFTING AND CURSE RELATED SKILLS WILL RECEIVE A GROWTH BONUS>

Again it was one that didn’t need much in the way of experience, at least compared to what he knew he could put out, but what it did require was a little more specialized. He couldn’t just make anything and expect it to be good enough. By any reasonable definition, it needed to be what the name implied, a cursed item.

Not that that was going to take Ben very long either. In the same moment he took the job he was already removing one of his bracelets to enchant on, placing both a petrifying effect to act on the person foolish enough to wear it as well as a mental compulsion to act on those within its range, making them want to take it for themselves.

If he allowed it to go out into the wild, anywhere it ended up was sure to be left looking like a gorgon's lair, with statues of all sorts of people standing around, having gotten the bracelet, only to have it stolen from them thanks to being too cursed to defend their prize, but before such a terrible future could come to pass he’d broken the enchantment on it once again with the sound of his job being completed thanks to the power and skill he’d demonstrated for it.

Which left the final of the fast ones he was looking at taking, with the last one to satisfy his curiosity more than anything else. A job that he could safely assume that he’d be the first person in the world to take, meaning he had no way to know what would come of it as he thought out the one he’d wanted.

Give me actualizer.

<ACQUIRED JOB- ACTUALIZER LV0>

<BONUSES GRANTED TO IMPROVING VITALITY, VITALITY RECOVERY RATE, AND INTELLIGENCE>

<ACTUALIZATION AND ANY RELATED SKILLS WILL RECEIVE A GROWTH BONUS>

…Why did it just give me vitality bonuses?

If anything, given the fact that the skill seemed to solely have a mental cost he’d expected pure intelligence bonuses like he’d receive for any mind job. What he’d gotten felt far more bizarre and made him resolve to remember to check his card in a bit to ensure he hadn’t been secretly spending his life force this whole time without realizing it before he looked around to confirm his teacher was focused on his own tasks before Ben sat down and closed his eyes, bringing his mind up to his god’s realm.

“What? Ben, shouldn’t you be working?” Myriad asked when he saw him, getting waved off as he did.

“Taking a small break, you always say I should try to do that a bit more, right?”

“Hmm, yes, of course. I’m just surprised you’re doing it willingly. But why did you come up here for it then?”

“To satisfy my curiosity a bit I suppose. Finished my current job and decided to take actualizer for fun so I popped up here to finish it.”

“...There’s something deeply troubling about the fact you took a job on a whim for a bit of fun and plan on finishing it immediately.”

Ben just shrugged. “What can I say, I was curious and seeing as how I’m already at the ninth level of the skill, it’s not like I should even take that long. Plus, now that I’ve taken it I’ve gotten to see that it’s giving me vitality bonuses so this will be a good way to make sure it’s not killing me.”

“Bizzare, but I suppose I approve of testing to make sure you’re not about to accidentally end your own existence. In that case, make me something tasty while I work.”

“You got it.”

With nothing left but to finish his current job, Ben began actualizing in his god’s realm, creating a variety of dishes for Myriad to enjoy as he went through his tasks before eventually moving on to bigger things, recreating various buildings he’d been to in the most complete detail he could.

From his home on Earth to his current one, the church he’d first stayed in when he’d arrived on that new world and the mansion-palace that Pelenia and Abrus enjoyed, it kept him busy enough that Ben didn’t notice his god growing awfully still when he created Falk’s shop, weapons and all, but after a bit of time passed and he got the notification he needed telling him he’d completed that job too he destroyed each building to keep from cluttering the realm before he headed back down to take something harder.

Not seeing any change in his vitality, Ben instead looked at what to take next.

If he’d wanted to, Ben could have kept going. While he still planned on keeping most of his mind jobs for the eventual goal of helping to carry his friends through a few of their harder options, he could have taken mathematician since he had no plans of putting himself through the nightmare that would be doing math enough to cover for six people’s worth of experience. That was a recipe for misery.

In the same way, he could have easily finished each of the path jobs that had been sitting at the top of his list for ages and even some of the advanced paths that would come after. It would certainly get him closer to any sort of hypothetical title, but given how uncertain it was that something like that would even exist and how little he cared about them as options when he still had so many more interesting ones around, he resolved himself to put it off as a later thing, something he could chip away at in between some grander jobs.

After all, despite his hope about any potential rewards that might end up existing if he completed enough jobs, he had other hopes too. Hope that taking something bigger might give him something interesting when none of those smaller options he’d just sped through had granted him either skills or levels, all it came down to was which of the two he was thinking of to go with.

Either connect master or another enchanter job. The first would be aimed at a skill he certainly wanted to develop more than he was currently managing, that much was certain, but at the same time, it was keeping up with his other core skills even without that and was likely to take longer than he really wanted, probably even stretching into the second wave where using it on the invading demons would leave him with the risk of getting his soul injured again.

And sure, I’d be able to get experience from killing demons instead but I'm not certain about how it would compare to the experience I would get from using my skill normally. Better to just take another enchanter job.

“I’ll take summoned enchanter.”

<ACQUIRED JOB- SUMMONED ENCHANTER LEVEL 0>

<MAJOR BONUSES GRANTED TO IMPROVING MANA, MANA RECOVERY, AND INTELLIGENCE>

<ENCHANTING SKILLS WILL RECEIVE A MAJOR GROWTH BONUS>

<ALL OTHER SKILLS WILL RECEIVE A GROWTH BONUS>

<AIM LEVEL INCREASED>

<PIERCING RESISTANCE LEVEL INCREASED>

Hmm, not terrible but not ideal.

Taking all of those jobs had only resulted in a single new one in the form of high actualizer which was a bit of a shame, and while getting those two levels wasn’t bad, it did feel a little underwhelming. Ideally, he’d been hoping for another level to his enchanting but even without that he thought he might get another new skill or two no matter how insignificant they might have ended up being.

Oh well, at least I got the job bonuses from finishing all that and the new ones so I’ll count that as a small win and just aim to get the most out of them I can with the time I still have. Besides, summoned enchanter is going to be getting some immediate work.

After all, there were still a few hours of work in the day that would be filled with enchanting goodness before he moved on to his much grander project, one he felt certain would be earning him both a legendary item and a swath of new experience to go with it.