Seeing the gods that night, the first thing Ben noticed was how obviously different they all looked in his eyes after one of his many awakenings. Not just seeing them like a normal mortal or witnessing them under his sacrilege, he could now see the core of their beings, their souls amongst everything else.

Okay, this might take a bit to get used to till I figure out how to suppress the effect.

There was a clear difference to be observed between what any of them held when compared against a standard mortal’s. They were even different from the holders of any third-tier skill he’d managed to see, showing him that the change that came with a proper ascendance to godhood went deeper than he could have guessed. Neither Helori’s nor Nare’s bore any resemblance to each other which left him wanting to examine them both in detail, but neither compared to his actual god before him.

A composite being made up of the collective souls of his race, when Ben looked at his god, what he saw was a nearly solid, shifting mass of essence, leaving him with no idea where it began or ended.

It was almost like looking at Ralia’s soul a billion times over, only beyond it in ways he couldn’t explain. He felt divinity coming from every part of it, meaning the entire structure was affected by the original gods that had merged into it as well, leaving him practically wanting to dissect what he was seeing for any hint there might be as to its function.

“Uh, Ben?” Myriad asked. “I’m a little uncomfortable with how you’re staring at me right now.”

“Oh, don’t mind it, I was just wondering how you work.”

“I like hearing that even less.”

“It’s fine. Anyway friends, update time! I completed ten jobs, awakened four skills while gaining and leveling a bunch more, was very briefly driven insane by the system, am now a quadruple contender instead of just some lame boring triple one, and also have a question for you all.”

“Wait, what was that about being driven insane by the system?”

“Not important, I got better. Anyway, on the topic of skills and such, has anyone ever managed to get past the third tier?”

“I think your goals are becoming a little too grand,” Helori told him with a thin smile. “But no, the very idea is nonsense and as much as you don’t pay attention to these sorts of things, if someone had managed to get that level of power then you’d know about it. A being like that would stand above every other god on the planet. Hell, they wouldn’t even be a god at that point. Of the various mortals who have managed to achieve a third-tier skill, only two have managed to pull off getting a single level to it beyond that and one of them was a soul mage.”

“Why?” Nare asked him. “I’m sorry Ben but if that’s the strategy you’ve come to for somehow dealing with the demon god then it would be best to give up now. I won’t go so far as to say it’s impossible despite how I feel on the idea but even if there is a sliver of potential to reach that point, it’s not the sort of thing you’d manage before the next year. Honestly, if anyone had a chance of doing it then I’d bet on your lover. The ability to grow tied with a lifespan that could hypothetically stretch out thousands of years is a potent combination. If she lives long enough then she’d be my only bet on who could have any hope to manage such a thing, even if I’d still put the odds against her.”

“Okay, and that’s interesting but I wasn’t asking because I’m going to try to get there. If I’m going to be spending the next year doing my best to just awaken two skills then there’s no way I’m somehow going even further beyond that.”

“Okay, then why?”

“Just curious,” He evaded. “But anyway, now that I have you guys and all, there’s something I want to talk about.”

“Like how the system apparently drove you insane?” His god tried once more, being bushed off again.

“Myriad, that was so five hours ago, I need you to focus here. What are the odds I could get a meeting with the gods? Or at least the core players who show up when they want to have a nice, civilized discussion with me?”

“...Why?”

“Because I finally know how I want to be rewarded for saving this whole stupid world a few months ago and want to get the discussion over with sooner than later.”Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

It looked like he’d forced a headache on all of them with those words but they at least remained composed while Myriad turned to the other two.

“I’m sorry, but could I ask you to go try and see who’s available while I try and pull just how unreasonable this is going to be from my apostle?”

“Hey, I’m never anything less than reasonable!”

Well, maybe not this time but what matters is they’re going to believe I’m being super generous first.

None of them wasted their breath responding to him as they instead left the realm to the two, with Myriad staring into him.

“Well?”

“I promise, you’re going to be shocked about how reasonable the reward I want sounds when I ask for it.”

“Something about how you phrased that bothers me but I’m not sure what.”

“It’s probably just paranoia from built-up stress, I’d ignore any gut feelings you currently have about me or my motives.”

“Mmh, the fact that you keep playing coy only makes it worse but fine. Now tell me how the system drove you insane and anything else I need to know about your giant job run already!”

“Fine, fine, it's nothing crazy. Alien thought structure awakened which gave me some issues but I managed to forcefully transition it into a better version of the skill, which showed me that if an awakened skill transitioned it stays counted as an awakened skill at least which is interesting enough. Still can’t level it either which is probably for the best but it might still be able to grow depending on how I connect with people. Not positive, it’s going to take some testing. Beyond that, I successfully awakened my intelligence enhancement which is cool but not as crazy as the other two where I managed to awaken both soul production into soul source and actualization into esoteric actualization by using the skill in the gate network.”

“Wait, that’s possible?”

“Looks like it. Puts more strain on me than doing it up here though, which reminds me, later I need to test how it’s changed up here.”

“Fine, but hold off until after your little meeting. And how did things turn out for the others?”

“What, have you not heard from Sachel yet?”

“Unlike someone I can name, she actually enjoys getting proper rest from time to time.”

“Dang, someone really should talk to her about the values of efficiency. Either way, it was about what you’d expect. Everyone gained a whole lot of levels to their awakened skills, your oracle in particular managed to pull it off with her plant magic at least which is good for her and Will managed to finally get a level to all of his blessed skills, but that’s it on that front. Oh, and Jake ran out of magic jobs with the last round of awakenings so he was left taking a throwaway one. Not that he seemed unhappy, it looks like it was one he was interested in but could never justify with his other choices so it's not a huge loss and seeing how busy he’s going to be hunting demons, he should still finish it pretty quickly.”

“And Thera then? How did she make out?”

“Finished homunculus creator, chimera maker, non-affinity mage and the new one she got from completing it, construct mage, along with professional dancer and ended up taking healer for the time being since it’s going to be something easy for her to level. Hell, she’s probably already finished it since she was going to the hospital to work again after. Besides that, she managed to level every tier one skill she had below the ninth level but no awakenings and no levels to her already awakened ones. A bit of a shame but oh well, this will get her a lot closer the next time.”

He understood why she’d made some of the choices she did at least, taking jobs she was less skilled in to get them out of the way faster. Admittedly, he’d wanted to raise a bit of an eyebrow at the time when she’d taken professional dancer instead of the master spirit mage job she still had available but understood the reasoning that had been going through her head when she had. Based on all of the other spirit-related jobs she’d taken, that one was sure to be far easier for her and with all of her other jobs giving only the expected mage bonuses, she’d wanted to at least get something to help with attributes she wasn’t as skilled in.

Really, he wished she’d taken more too but she’d been more than willing to sit out a few times when the parties needed to be remade to give others access and he couldn’t exactly deny why she’d done it either. She was already tremendously powerful, rather than get a few more bonuses to her already outrageous mana, it made more sense to let others who had less than her grow a bit where they could.

“Mmh, and seeing as how your goal is to get more power, I can only assume that whatever reward you’re going to push for is related,” Myriad muttered. “Though I don’t even want to imagine what it’s going to be, and no matter what you do, a lot of people up here are going to try and push back against it. Oh, empty skies, I don’t want to think about how you’re going to push the issue.”

“Myriad, just what do you think of me? Everything is going to be fine. Tell you what, I’m going to give you a quick spoiler, just ‘cause I like you. But first, what are the odds I had any eyes on me to see my mass awakening?”

“Mmh, possible but slim. There’s more than a few who don’t trust your explanation for how you got back but at the same time, the last wave literally just ended. We’re all busy up here still. Why?”

“Oh, I was just going to show them what a reasonable guy I can be with my requests. Instead of asking all of you to help me push my skills to the third tier or shower me with blessings, which I totally deserve by the way, I’m instead going to show a bit of compassion to the divine up here by only asking them to help me finish my current job.”