Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

"Oh Myriad, you precious apostle is about to destroy his little soul."

<Please don't.>

"How can I resist when I just got another job level? I'm so close I can taste it Myriad. I want this so bad."

<I can already feel some of the pain you're in coming across while we talk and that's when you're trying to hide away. Why would you possibly want to be in more?>

"To finish this as fast as humanly possible, obviously. Don't get me wrong, I love being a big old world killer and all but being on a single job for too long is bad for my mental health. I need to expand out and take more until I've used up every option I have and at the low, low cost of some intense pain, I can make that soon."

<Until you damage your soul and need to take a break to let it heal.>

"That's what knowing the soul mages is for. If I wind up a little bit hurt then so be it. For now, I'm happy to push it to the limits."

Happy may have been a strong word, as he increased the volume he took in, the pain only exploded compared to what he had been going through but it was worth it to get that progress. Once he finished his current one he'd be able to cheat his way through every other job he held in a single day so long as he didn't have any more third-tier ones hidden in his list and even those would only increase the time it would take by a couple weeks at most given he'd awakened soul production and raised his total mana by so much. He was practically on the edge of clearing his list and being free of putting himself through that sort of pain forever.

Even when he'd gain new options in the future after, he'd likely be able to finish them without touching his coat for it, meaning if he could put up with just a bit of pain now then he'd be free of it all the sooner, trading it in for massive amounts of power.

Just the thought made him want to drool as he imagined all he was going to get, making any pain he was currently dealing with worth it for the long-term growth and potential while his imagination went wild, no matter how much his god may have disapproved.

<Whatever you say, but… Oh. That's… Sad? Interesting? Mmh, complicated might be the best word for this. I feel complicated about it.>

"Hmm? What's up man?"

The cube's train of thought had shifted away from his apostle's nonsense as he muttered to himself, seeming like he'd accidentally let Ben hear his thoughts more than anything else in a way that gave him no choice but to ask, ending up completely taken off guard by the answer.

"One of my believers just died."

"Oh, shit man I'm sorry, was…"

He wanted to ask if it was someone he knew, fearing it could be one of the few he considered either a friend or close acquaintance but held off on asking, not wanting to be insensitive. Ben knew his god spent more time with the people who gave him faith than was normal for his contemporaries, meaning that it was the death of someone Myriad actually knew, and probably quite well.

Myriad was able to pick up on those feelings though, answering what Ben left unsaid. <It was a jötunn by the name of Tof, you've met him before but weren't close by any stretch and I won't hold it against you for worrying. It seems he was traveling between cities by carriage and was completely taken off guard by a demon attack, didn't even have enough time to pray to me.>

"Okay, but are you okay about this? This is the first believer you've lost since your planet, right? I mean, you seem like you're handling it pretty okay, but if you need to talk…"

<I appreciate the offer but it's fine. As I said, I feel… complicated about it.>

"Complicated how?"

<The system interacted with his death in an unexpected way. After he was beyond saving, he received a prompt asking whether or not he'd like to merge into me and he chose yes.>

Choosing to have the slightest bit of tact, Ben didn't make any comments about whether his god had eaten the guy's soul, instead focusing on the finer bits of what that meant.

"So he became a part of you?"

<Yes, and I must say, it's surprisingly interesting. Despite being what I am, the totality of my experience has come from a single race until this point, getting such a foreign perspective is, well, unique to say the least. This is probably akin to how you felt upon gaining alien thought structure, with a little bit of work I could probably create that skill now to gift others, not that there's much point. Connect is my magnum opus.>

"Okay, and that's interesting and all but what exactly does that mean? How much are you now this guy? You don't seem to have changed in any immediately obvious way."

<If this much could change my base nature then I'd be a far too malleable god. Not only do I have a personality that's grown from my experience over the millennia I've existed, consider the two gods that merged into me on top of the billions of my original kind, who I am won't be altered so easily, even if a few billion new perspectives are brought in and if I was to somehow get to the point where thousands of my believers were dying each day for hundreds of years from thousands of different species then even that likely wouldn't radically alter who I am. I would adjust to it and grow with the new knowledge and experiences but I understand what I am.>

"Okay, but that's not exactly the same as my alien thought structure, I don't become the people I connect to. You now must have memories of an entire life on this planet along with the people this guy was close to, does that not feel weird at all?"

<As I've said, I feel complicated about it. That life is now my life as much as any other but it's still just one of billions. Still, I wasn't expecting the system to interact with whether I took in one of my believers. This streamlines the process a bit at least.>

"Okay, since you seem chill about it I'm not going to push but is there any big change that comes with this I should know about? Anything you should maybe tell Sachel or Valaria that they can spread to the other believers?"

<If there was, you could do some of the spreading too you know.>

"You know what I'm about. If I cared I wouldn't have worked so hard to trick those two into taking those roles."

<I still really would prefer it if you didn't describe it as tricking them, but no. The density of my soul has increased by the weight of one, it's not going to affect any of the things I'd use it for to any major extent.>

"...I feel like I just heard something interesting. What do you use your soul for?"

<God stuff.>

"That's not an answer."

<I know it's not but as a rule I try not to mention anything you're going to be a pain in the ass about. It can join the long list of topics I'll tell you about if you reach the third tier.>

"Or you could tell me now?"

<Absolutely not.>

"Oh, come on, why not? Don't tell me this is another piece of info you jerks keep from mortals."

<While we technically do it's not to the extent of others, the issue is that I know you well enough that you'd either be a pain or distasteful about it.>

"Good golly Myriad, what sort of guy do you think I am?"

<A nightmare. Now get back to work. If you're really interested then you can wait until you're a god to find out.>

"Ugh, you're the worst."

But motivating.

The sooner he became a god, the sooner the ones he knew would stop playing so coy about things, adding just a bit of extra motivation for him to strain his soul even further, wanting to finally get over his current job and one step closer to his impossible goals.