Chapter 28

  Eve froze. She tried to type but her fingers wouldn’t move. Ben stared at her with a wide-eyed expression. Both stood still, both held their breaths. Then finally Eve managed to type.

  “W-what? I don’t understand,” she texted.

  Ben forced himself to look away. An image was forming in his mind. It was an image of what Eve looked like beneath the wolf mask. All he could see was Sarah’s face. The experience was jarring. HIs brain could barely comprehend it. Sarah and Eve being the same person was unfathomable.

  “Sorry, you just…reminded me of someone when I heard your voice just now,” Ben said.

  Eve bit into her bottom lip and fidgeted with her skirt. She began to type rapidly.

  “I don’t like how my voice sounds in-game, it is different from my real voice. Also, I am not really comfortable talking about real life. Even if my name was Sarah, I wouldn’t feel comfortable telling you. I hope that is ok,” Eve texted.

  Ben returned his gaze to Eve. That did make sense. Eve wasn’t a real person. Eve was an avatar. Ben knew that. The person behind the avatar could be anyone. That was the nature of a videogame.

  Escapism. No matter how real the world of Eternity was, it was just a videogame after all. Many people used it to escape their real lives, to become someone different. Ben did that in the past. He knew that psychology intimately.

  “She just doesn’t want to talk about her personal life,” Ben thought.

  In that context, Eve’s reaction was perfectly reasonable. As for her voice, she was right as well. Her character voice could sound like anyone. The avatar voices were filtered through the in-game microphone system.

  His voice sounded similar to his real life, but it had distinct differences. His game voice was notably deeper. It was as if the system was telling him that his actual voice wasn’t “perfect” enough. Ben figured that something like that happened to Eve upon her character creation.

  In fact, the more Ben thought about it, the more it made sense in his mind.

  Sarah was a goddess in his mind. She held an otherworldly beauty that was impossible to ignore. Sarah was perfectly proportioned, even for her short stature. Her face was so gorgeous that Ben would find himself literally stunned on several occasions. If Sarah wanted, she could have been a model. Not a social media model, a model that huge corporations paid ridiculous sums of money to put on the front covers of magazines.

  Sarah held a type of beauty that people used to start wars over.

  Given this, it was no surprise that a person had a resemblance to the Sarah that he knew. If someone were designing a person to be as beautiful as possible, it made sense in Ben’s mind that they would design their character to look similar to someone like Sarah. The voice went along with that. Ben imagined that Sarah’s voice was what angels sounded like, even if, when directed at him, it was often cold and detached.

  Sarah’s voice, spoken with Eve’s sweet, vulnerable, and meek demeanor was jarring. Which helped Ben separate the two.

  Eve was nothing like Sarah. Eve was sweet, playful, meek and timid. Eve cried so easily. He couldn’t imagine Sarah doing the same. Finally, there was another key difference between them.

  Eve was submissive and obedient. That wasn’t something that Ben would dare to say out loud, especially in the modern day and age, but it was an undeniable fact about Eve’s character. Sarah was never like that. She could never be. That thought reformed the walls in his mind that separated the two, no matter how similar they might have looked and sounded.

  Ben smiled.

  “I’m sorry about bringing up the real world. I can see that is crossing a boundary and I want you to know that I respect that,” Ben said.

  Eve visibly calmed as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

  “Thank you,” she typed.

  Ben nodded and walked over to Eve until he was standing in front of her. He looked down at her with a reassuring smile.

  “You’re welcome. And thanks for letting me know where your boundaries are. I need that. I can be…weird sometimes. You’ve seen a little bit of that already. If I ever do anything to make you feel uncomfortable, I hope you’ll let me know so I can correct myself,” Ben said.

  Eve bowed her head and nodded without looking at him. She looked overwhelmed by the intimacy of the conversation. Ben decided to move on to spare the girl any more embarrassment.

  “Anyway, we shouldn’t waste anymore time. I’m going to pick my second upgrade. It looks promising,” Ben said.

  Eve just nodded again. Ben acknowledged the awkward atmosphere and turned his attention towards his skill-tree. He finally made his selection.

  [Congratulations on unlocking the Holy Warrior Skill tree]

  [Skill Unlocked: Divine Body level 1]

  [Effect: Each of your non-faith attributes increase to half of your faith score]

  Eve suddenly snapped her attention to Ben when she noticed his notifications. That was coupled with the bright white glow that engulfed Ben’s body. Eve was forced to look away. Looking at Ben was like staring into the sun.

  Ben looked down at his hands. His body was bathed in light. He felt an overwhelming surge of power. The change was fundamentally different from the change that happened to his cherubs. He felt reality shifting around him. His body was transforming. No, that couldn’t accurately describe the change. It was like his very soul was being empowered.

  The experience was beyond his imagination. Without his muscles getting bigger, he felt stronger, faster, more limber, more nimble. He felt changes in his mind. His perception widened. He could hear better, see further. The air on his skin felt more sensitive. Each of his senses were enhanced.

  In the world of Eternity, attributes had many effects. Increasing strength didn’t just make a person hit harder, it allowed them to jump higher, block more damage. Same for attributes like Intelligence and Wisdom. The name of the attributes couldn’t do justice to the complex effects the attribute had on players.

  Ben could feel every part of his being expanding. If he wasn’t so excited, he might have been disturbed. The game was affecting his brain, improving it, as much as his body. With the max-pain setting, the experience was visceral and disturbingly real. If Ben wasn’t a regressor, he might have panicked. However, Ben knew that Eternity was more than a game. He didn’t understand the full relationship between the game of Eternity, and the apocalypse, but he knew that Eternity was more than what it appeared.

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  While his body transformed, another notification appeared in front of him.

  [Inefficient attribute allocation detected. Would you like to give up your Wisdom and Intelligence focuses in order to enhance your faith attribute?]

  Ben was amazed by the option. He had never seen that kind of notification before. He only had to consider the option for a second.

  “Yes,” he said.

  [Choice confirmed. Your Intelligence and Wisdom proficiency have been downgraded to Novice proficiency]

  [Your Faith proficiency has increased from Intermediate to Advanced]

  Ben felt a second surge of power that was even more overwhelming than the first. Eve stumbled backwards and fell on her butt.

  “What is happening?” She thought.

  The area around Ben was shaking. His body burned so bright that Eve imagined that if it were night time, he would turn the sky to day.

  She felt a pressure from him that was similar to the gravity warping effect of his cherubs, except it was much more powerful. It was as if space was contorting around him. It reminded her of when the Archangel Michael appeared.

  Then it stopped.

  Eve could finally look at Ben without her eyes hurting. She was astonished by what she saw.

  He looked the same. If she hadn’t witnessed his transformation a second ago, she wouldn’t have thought he had changed at all. That is until Ben pulled up his attribute sheet. It was something he rarely did so the action stood out to Eve. Her eyes widened in surprise.

  [Name: Benaiah]

  [Level 10]

  [Class: Caller of Angels]

  [Rank: God-Tier]

  [Rarity: Hidden/Exclusive]

  [Attributes]

  [Strength 51]

  [Dexterity 51]

  [Agility 51]

  [Constitution 51]

  [Intelligence 51]

  [Wisdom 51]

  [Faith 101]

  “Woah,” Ben said.

  Ben stared at his stat sheet in amazement. Eve rose to her feet and slowly approached Ben.

  She was just as amazed. She looked at her own stat in comparison to his.

  [Name: Eve]

  [Level 10]

  [Class: Soul Warden]

  [Rank: God-Tier]

  [Rarity: Hidden/Exclusive]

  [Attributes]

  [Strength 19]

  [Dexterity 19]

  [Agility 19]

  [Constitution 19]

  [Intelligence 33]

  [Wisdom 33]

  [Faith 51]

  “You really are broken. I’ve put all my points into faith, and your non-focus attributes are as high as my faith score,” Eve texted.

  Eve shared her character sheet with Ben again to emphasize her point. Seeing the two stat sheets really put in perspective the difference between Ben and everyone else.

  Very few would have the opportunity to raise their attribute proficiency. Not even the majority of the beta players would have that opportunity this early in the game. Ben and Eve had taken the one early attribute crystal from the hidden area of the Dire Bear cave, within their zone. That meant that no one else in their zone could get it.

  Ben didn’t imagine that the Beta players in other zones would be ready to face that boss. The risk was too high this early in the game.

  Even if they managed to defeat the boss, most would miss the hidden passage that Eve found.

  In addition, most people didn’t distribute their stats like Eve because that was generally a noob trap. A tank that only put his points in Endurance would lack the Strength to wear heavy armor and deal enough damage to hold aggro.

  A wizard that put all their points in intelligence would lack the endurance to take hits, and would cast their spells slowly without agility. They would also regenerate mana slowly without wisdom.

  A druid that put all their points into Wisdom would lack a large mana pool without intelligence, and would have the same problem with squishiness as a min/maxed wizard.

  Even a Strength-focused Barbarian that didn’t care about their health due to their Rage ability, would still want Agility and Dexterity to land strikes consistently.

  Eve was a rare exception. She had a god-tier class that started with higher mental stats, so she didn’t need to put any points into Intelligence and Wisdom. That gave her higher mana and mana regen. In addition, her key class ability, Soul Link, made it so she didn’t need to put any points into Endurance. As a support class, she didn’t wear heavy armor, so she didn’t need strength. Her Soul Link and additional Mental Focus attributes made up for her weaknesses, which allowed her to Min/Max into Faith, which increased the duration and potency of her healing and support spells. Her heals would heal more, her buffs would last longer.

  Despite min/maxing, all of Ben’s stats were as high as her highest stat. Ben was truly a monster.

  “Eve,” Ben said.

  Ben’s voice snapped Eve out of her daze. She looked up at him with a stunned expression. She had to fight off the urge to be afraid of him and remind herself that he was a man of God that wouldn’t hurt her.

  “Yes?” She typed.

  “I told you I would be done with the sparring session after the last fight. I take my word seriously. I want to test out my new strength in one more fight with my angels, but only if you are ok with that. If not, that’s ok. We will just move on to the Orc Dungeon. I’m sure you know now that the Orc Dungeon won’t be any issue for us,” Ben said.

  Eve was taken aback by Ben’s words.

  “He’s asking my permission?” She thought.

  It was a strange feeling. She certainly didn’t feel like she had the right to be restricting Ben in such a way, even if he did give her his word. They had only just met the prior day. He had no real obligation to her. Eve hesitated.

  “Are you sure?” She texted.

  Ben nodded resolutely.

  “I try to be a man of my word,” Ben said.

  To emphasize his point. Ben began to walk past Eve towards the Orc Dungeon.

  “If you promise to be careful, then it is ok with me,” Eve texted.

  Ben read Eve’s message and stopped. He turned to Eve and gave her a warm smile.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Eve suppressed a blush and nodded silently while averting her gaze bashfully.

  Ben shook his head in exasperation.

  “No way they are the same person,” Ben thought.

  Ben shifted his gaze away from Eve to focus on his cherubs. He felt a thrill of excitement. He dismissed the Dagger Master and Cherub Warrior so only the Halberd Master remained. Eve looked at Ben curiously.

  “Eve, please dismiss your Soul Link,” Ben said.

  Eve hesitated for only a moment before complying. The fact that Ben dismissed two of the cherubs made Eve feel better. At least the sparring session would be over quickly.

  The soul link dissipated. Eve frowned. It felt unsettling to no longer be connected to Ben. She could still heal him from a distance, but she felt…emptier.

  Ben felt it too but he dismissed the feeling. He had something to prove to himself. As soon as the Soul Link dropped, Ben channeled a spell in one hand and summoned three more cherubs.

  He conjured two more Cherub Halberd Masters and one Cherub White Mage. Eve’s eyes widened in shock when she saw the new summons. The three Halberd Masters moved forward to surround Ben in a triangle formation. They bared their weapons towards him. Eve gasped.

  “Ben,” she texted.

  Eve stopped when she noticed the Cherub White Mage rising high into the air to overlook the battle. The realization hit her. He was going to use the White Mage to support himself while he fought the three Halberd Masters.

  That realization was more upsetting than she expected. Eve hesitated before typing her next message.

  “You don’t have to…I can help support you during the fight too,” Eve texted.

  Ben saw Eve’s message and raised a brow. He glanced at her and noticed her strange behavior. Eve bit into her bottom lip and continued to type.

  “I just hit level 10. I have the same buff spells as the angel. Haste, Frenzy, Holy Weapon. Since I put all my points into faith, I think my buffs and heals will be even stronger than your angel, from what I’ve seen so far. I can support you just as well, if not better,” Eve said.

  Ben read the message and had to stop himself from laughing. He looked at her with a knowing smile. Eve averted her gaze bashfully. That familiar, yet simple thought came to mind for Ben.

  “She’s jealous. Cute,” he thought.

  Ben shifted his gaze towards the Cherub White mage.

  “The support isn’t for me,” Ben said.

  Eve was taken aback by that declaration. She frowned in confusion.

  “What?” She typed.

  As if to answer her question, the Cherub White mage cast a series of spells. It’s normal repertoire.

  [Minor Haste]

  [Minor Holy Weapon]

  [Minor Frenzy]

  Eve’s eyes widened in shock when she saw the Cherub Halberd Master in front of Ben glow with the light of the buff spells it received. Ben’s grin widened. He twirled his halberd expertly. Eve immediately noticed the difference in Ben’s movements. He was faster, much faster.

  When he twirled his halberd, a gust of wind kicked up at his feet. Eve’s skirt fluttered in the breeze that he generated.

  Eve took a few steps back. She could feel that the battle that was about to happen was going to be on a completely different level. Ben finished his warm-up with his weapon bared and ready. Even though he was utterly defeated multiple times just moments ago, he stood before the three Cherub Halberd Masters with cool confidence.

  Even though Ben felt as confident as ever in his own skill, he closed his eyes and whispered a silent prayer.

  “Heavenly Father, please guide my hand,” he said.

  When Ben opened his eyes, he stared forward with a look of intense focus. His cherubs didn’t hesitate when he gave his next order.

  “Now, come at me.”