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 own mind’s growth. Not something that couldn’t be handled and likely even something that could be removed nearly entirely so long as a light or life mage was on hand and considering who his ultimate test subject was going to be, he was going to make certain that both Lux and the blessing spirit Grace were on standby for whatever might go wrong.

  No, the failures came when trying to move beyond that. While regular spirits thought in a way that was completely different from mortals, being beings born without the confines that was a brain to think through, their great spirits existed leagues above them. Every time Ben tried something to imprint a mind like that, it killed the demon instantly, some before they even had a chance for Ben to hear if they’d get any sort of notification for it. In that testing, he’d been able to refine his regular method of mind modification some more to make it even safer if Thera was willing to stick to the regular spirits of the world but when it came to beyond that, it seemed like a dead end.

  “Alright,” he told Abrus at his side as the great spirit dropped the newest corpse. “I have one last thing to test and if it doesn’t work I’m calling it impossible. The difference between how a great spirit and how a mortal thinks might just be too vast.”

  “Very well, I’ll be right back.”

  Off to get what would hopefully be the last of their samples, it wasn’t long before he returned with a new demon in hand, Ben briefly watching as it struggled before he went into its mind and began his final test.

  With the idea being simple. A great spirit’s mind was built upon the foundation of the regular spirits that would combine to make them up, so what if Ben tried the same? Imprinting a foundational mind in the form of a single earth spirit mind since that would be the minimal starting strain he could produce in an attempt to make it work, he then built upon it further, adding the structure of the very great spirit trapping it on too and felt it click.

  The damage was substantial, but it didn’t die, bringing a frown to Ben’s face with the knowledge that such progress was possible and meant that his testing wasn’t yet done. It lived, now they just needed to see what sort of quality of life there might have been for it.

  “Abrus, can you get anyone nearby to heal it?”

  “I can,” the great one nodded, summoning a swarm of light, life, and blessing spirits in the area to come nearby to begin treating it while Ben examined its thoughts and its pain, finding both manageable.

  Despite the scale, the base personality hasn’t been overwritten, which is the ideal, and the pain is mostly gone. Let’s see, what’s left feels like soul pain, which means the strain of this has most-likely gone there as well, which is also treatable, which just leaves a few more tests from there before I talk to Thera about the results. Does healing after the first mental modification reduce the damage even more after the second one is done and will this work after applying the mental structure of the collective great spirits or is there a path from this where it can be made to work with just a bit more practice on my part?

  Questions he found himself more and more curious about as his work went on yet at the same time didn’t want to explore. The more he did it, the more he felt like he was getting close enough to a result which would mean seeing if his beloved girlfriend’s brain would be able to hold up to what he’d found in the same way a demon’s would.

  “Ugggghh.”

  “Ben, what is it this time?” Myriad asked when his apostle showed up face down within his realm, looking entirely drained and got a question instead of an answer.

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  “Myriad, would you do some unethical experiments on someone you love if they asked you to?”

  “How come there’s never any nice, ethical experiments going on with you, huh?” His god wanted to know back. “Why do you always have to go out and break some ethical boundary that I might not have even considered before?”

  “And what exactly is the experiment?” Helori asked, with Nare there as well and looking just as curious when Ben forced himself to roll over.

  “Thera wants to try and get alien thought structure, but for the great spirits of the world and while I was sure attempting to do such a thing would destroy her brain, I’m now instead just worried she’s going to have a different result from all of the demons I’ve tested on because I can now comfortably do it without killing them. Still leaves a shit ton of pain though, which I also wouldn’t want to subject her to.”

  “Interesting,” the goddess muttered. “An effort to try and help her raise her magic then I take it? The mental structures of the most magically inclined species on the planet would certainly do a fair bit more for her than you, no offense.”

  “None taken, you’re right. The only thing they do for me is make me a bit better at my magics and have added to my alien sense.”

  “Both of which could be called plenty,” Nare pointed out. “When you're at a level where refining your magics means shaving off fractions of a point of mana and as strange as your new sense is, it’s not like it's not handy.”

  “And all of that’s fair,” Ben sighed. “I just don’t want to do something irreversible. You know, significant brain damage, death, that sort of thing. Maybe I should go find Eneth’s apostle and do some light testing on him first, just so I have a reference that isn’t a demon… except I don’t want to succeed and make that asshole more powerful either. Skoe then? I don’t particularly care if he lives or dies beyond the fact that he’s part of Sachel’s party so if it works, he might get a bit of a boost for some of his skills even if he isn't a mage and if it doesn’t then that’s just life.”

  “No. No ‘that’s just lifing’ when it comes to potentially killing a person,” his god was very clear to say.

  “It could just be brain damage, that’s not really the end of the world.”

  “Ben, so help me, don’t make me warn Sachel about what you’re considering here.”

  “Relax, I was only lightly considering it. I probably wasn’t going to do it in the end.”

  “That ‘probably’ is doing too much heavy lifting. Don’t go including innocent bystanders just to give yourself some peace of mind.”

  “So-”

  “No guilty bystanders either.”

  “Boo, but fine. I won’t test on anyone else, ultimately this is Thera’s choice. I’ll explain the results and I’ll tell her what I will and won’t do, nothing more than that.”

  “Good, so just sit there and suffer in your worries for a bit until you get the chance to bring it up.”

  “... You know, Myriad, I’ve already got one god in a nightmare plane trapped in my head. I really don’t mind adding a second.”

  “I’m positively shivering,” the cube told him sarcastically. “Maybe I’d empathize more if you weren’t so open to the idea of using other people as lab rats."

  “Only the ones I don’t like.”

  “That doesn’t make it better!”

  “And I haven’t done it yet, have I?”

  “Do the forbidden gods not count?”

  “If the gods of the world aren’t going to count themselves as people then in this one particular case, no.”

  “Ugh, you’re the worst. This right here? This is why you’re the world’s first god of evil. Maybe even the universe’s first for all I know. That’s a pretty grand concept to rule over.”

  “Ha, yeah, you’re right, I do have my charms. Besides that though, an obvious question comes up from it. Is this something you’d want me doing to more people?”

  “So you can try it on some others before attempting it on your partner?” Nare guessed.

  “That, along with the money-making potential,” Ben shrugged. “Well, attribute, skill, or blessing acquisition potential if we’re being specific. If the gods want me going across the world again, then once more, I’m getting paid.”

  “I doubt it,” Helori told him. “Unless the results are spectacular, there’s not going to be too much push, although it’s possible there might be a handful of requests. This doesn’t seem like it will be on the scale of your soul modifying or your new teaching ability. Something that would help raise a person’s magics but likely still needing a fair bit of work put in. Still, we’ll observe how your girlfriend manages and then potentially we might arrange a few more test cases to see how it goes.”

  “Or or or, you could arrange the test cases first to give me some peace of mind.”

  “No.”

  “Damn it, fine.”

  In that case, he’d just have to hope it would prove valuable enough and from there, once again try to take the gods for all they were worth.