Slowly Ben began to stir, the overwhelming migraine not giving him much of a choice in the matter as he tried to make sense of what happened, taking stock of his overcrowded mind as he did.

New jobs, new skills I don’t particularly need or want, new level-ups, Thera being unfortunately right about what would happen at the eighth level of parallel thought from the looks of it. Let’s see, one, two, five, ten, twenty… thirty? I ended up with thirty minds?

It was two more than he should have had if his thoughts were just going to split, but he didn’t have the leeway to question it. Even thinking was causing him pain, but he needed to work through what had happened the best he could before he committed to opening his eyes.

As things stood, every individual strand of thought in his head should have been functioning as an independent mind, able to hyperfocus on a single task if he needed them to, but that wasn’t what had happened. If that was the case then each one should have been significantly weaker individually than a typical human mind as a result, but instead they all felt nearly as good, as if the individual strands had started to fray, each having just a bit of leeway to divide their focus as a result. Whatever was happening in his head as his skills synergized was having unique and violent consequences, but to try and help the pain fade he forced all but three minds to meditate as he let himself relax, ignoring the world around him.

<MEDITATION LEVEL INCREASED>

… Feels like that might be happening a lot from now on. He thought to himself as he accepted reality and opened his eyes.

He hadn’t noticed at first, but he wasn’t lying on the floor of the shop like he should have been, instead being in a well-lit room on a firm bed, the sounds of various people running around and chattering could be heard, with both the noise and the light making his migraine significantly worse, even if he tried to keep the feeling from reaching his face as he spoke to the woman by his side.

“Fancy meeting you here,” He tried to joke, hoping it didn’t come off as pained as he thought it did as Thera grabbed his hand, worry etched across her expression.

She took a breath, trying to compose herself before speaking as she forced on a far calmer look that she wasn’t truly feeling.

“Ben, what happened?”

“Took a new job, it leveled up my parallel thought, went about as well as the last time my mind split from the looks of it. Really want to meet the person who said that leveling skills can’t hurt and lodge a complaint,” He tried to joke again, but the serious mood didn’t leave Thera as she sighed.

“Yeah, that pretty much matches my guess. Alright, I’m telling you this as both your healer and your girlfriend, you aren’t allowed to take mind jobs anymore.”

“Hey, don’t worry, it’s fi-”

“We find you in a puddle of blood Ben!” She yelled, cutting him off before trying to reign herself in. “Myriad found you and got Anailia to get me to help you and I get you like training your skills but this is too much. You were unconscious for over a day even with me spending the entire time healing you and Anailia’s been checking in with me and keeping me up to date about things. The fact that this is happening to you is being reported to all of the largest healing organizations on the planet, just because there needs to be a record that in extreme situations things like this are even possible because it’s just never happened before. I even leveled up my mana examination trying to understand what sort of strain your brain is currently under and even while you were asleep it looked like it was pushing beyond its limits! I don’t want you to be the first case of a person taking a job and dying from it!”

By the end she was yelling again and he listened patiently, squeezing her hand as he did. “Alright, you’re right,” He told her, fully understanding what she was saying. “I won’t take any mind-specialized jobs anymore. The problem looks like it’s from me leveling up complex mind, parallel thought, and probably mental expansion so I’ll do my best to not use those skills to their full potential anymore too.”

“Can you really avoid that?” She asked, completely in doubt. “I’ve seen how you like to work Ben and I know how much you like having your thoughts occupied.”

“True, but with that last level up I’m sitting at an altogether horrific thirty minds in my head. I’ll make sure I use no more than twenty at a time and the rest are on permanent meditation duty. Who knows, give it a year and I just might awaken the skill, becoming an amazing zen master.”

That finally managed to get a small smile out of her. “If anyone was going to it would be you, but fine. Just don’t be in such a hurry to train yourself to death, you hear me?” She asked him as she leaned in, giving him a kiss as the worry that came with him not waking up started to fade.

“Loud and clear.”

“Good. Ceselee has gone and kicked everyone who wanted to take orders from you out of town, saying you had to be hospitalized from overwork so things should be a bit quieter for you for a while at least and you’ll be staying here for the rest of the day as we keep an eye on you. A few other healers will be through to do what they can, but in the meantime is there anything I can do for you?”

“Well, if I’m going to be here a while would you mind grabbing me every book the clinic has to spare?” He asked innocently as Thera looked like she was getting ready to start lecturing him again. “I’m not gonna go too hard at it, I promise, but my speed reading also leveled up and even using twenty minds I’ll be going through books super fast. Plus for some reason I got the biology knowledge skill when I took the scholar job so gaining some levels to it will help me finish and move on to a different one nice and easy.”

“...Fine, but I want you to know you’re ridiculous.”

“You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

<BIOLOGY KNOWLEDGE LEVEL INCREASED>

“You’re an awful, stressful, bastard of an apostle, you know that?”

“Come on Myriad, no need to yell I still have a migraine.”

“Yeah, well do you know how much of a headache you are to me all of the time? How do you think I felt when I finished up with Helori and found you almost drowning in your own blood, huh? Honestly, the system interacts with you the same it does with anyone else, how do you keep finding new and horrific aspects of it? You’re the first person that’s experienced true harm by being connected to it!”

“Which I want to point out is exceptionally not my fault.”

“Ugh, I know it’s not but I still need to vent a bit. Your girlfriend is completely right by the way, no more mind jobs and avoid leveling your core mind skills.”

“Um, in that case, does connect count as a mind skill or an enchanting skill or a soul skill cause it seems to interact with all of them to an extent and I got a connect themed job through the enchanter path that I really really want to take.”

“...What’s it called?”

“Connected enchanter.”

Quietly, Myriad debated with himself before answering. “I would assume it’s probably fine since it should mainly be an enchanter job that has a focus on the connect skill specifically instead of other mind skills, but I fully expect you to discuss this with Thera first to get her input. Also, even if she agrees to it, I want you taking it with both her and preferably Sonya around too in case anything goes wrong. Even just feeling your mind from the outside Ben, what’s happening isn’t natural.”

“Didn’t you and Helori tell me before that my skills would just start interacting with my soul at a deeper level ‘cause of that though?”

“Sure, but it looks like your soul must be having trouble keeping up. Honestly, what’s going on in your head is too much right now.”

Not the most desirable of things to hear, Ben just nodded with his eyes partially shut, trying to block out the light of his god’s realm. “Alright, well I’ll do what you said and talk about it with her in a few days when I finish my job. In the meantime, when you showed me your blueprints in the past you made a huge book for me to read through, right? Would you mind just doing something like that again with whatever you know that’s educational and then I’ll just spend my time reading up here quietly?”

“I believe you still need to properly sleep as we’d agreed.”

“Hmm? What are you talking about, I was asleep for an entire day?”

“Being unconscious doesn’t count!”

“Ha, it’s fine. I honestly feel pretty well rested after all of that, minus the headache, so I just want to finish up this job as quickly as possible.”

“Ugh, fine,” The cube gave in, creating a mountain of books around Ben to read through. “Honestly, I’m going to have to talk to one of the mind gods about you. Maybe one of them could do something.”

“You’re the best.”

Their conversation done, Ben opened the first book he could grab, not caring about the topic as he started to read, enjoying the peace and quiet that was around him as he tried to keep his inner world as silent.

<BIOLOGY KNOWLEDGE LEVEL INCREASED>

<MAX LEVEL OF THE SCHOLAR JOB ACHIEVED>