CH1138

As the meeting went on, eventually, those who had room within their souls chose what blessed skills they wanted, and everyone made their choices about the attributes they desired, letting him note just how different their priorities could be to his own.

While some had been content to take his original offer of an even spread, there had been some standouts. Abel and Killi both just wanted to raise their affinities; the first holding more interest in the destructive power that would yield, while the second simply viewed it as more interesting academically, given her role as the head of the world’s grandest magic library.

The divine chef on the other hand chose to raise only her light and life affinities to their maximum, given how they affected her work, while the rest focused on her resistances, viewing herself as a non-combatant and, as such, wanted to increase the power that could go towards her work while otherwise keeping herself safe. Ultimately, though, raising their already high affinities ended up being a trend among them. No matter how high anyone’s affinity might have already been, they still focused on raising it even more if their third tier ability was directly linked to it, caring more about strength in that regard than the chance to learn a broader range of skills than he himself would have wanted to if given the same opportunity.

Once done, though, things progressed from there. A few were going to at least make the attempt to learn a general magic skill, and that was once more his responsibility to teach so, reaching into their minds, he gave them all the same knowledge of the same spell he’d used to train Kalley and guided them as they cast, feeling for who among them it had properly clicked.

As skills rang out in their heads, Ben received a valuable bit of data as he found that, while more challenging, he could give anyone there a general magic skill so long as they had no more than two of the affinitied magics, making it possible to actually give most there that skill. While both the king of growth and the zone of empowerment holder on the aquatic side, along with Killi on the terrestrial all had three, there were other magics he could help teach them at least as he went through the normal and combined affinities to help them decide where to go from there.

Valaria was an interesting outlier among them, holding water and dark, but also charm, placing her as more like two and a fraction, but given that said fraction fell under dark magic anyway, even she had no problems acquiring that total magic option.

With those results just meaning that I’m not going to be able to teach Thera a general magic skill then, huh? A shame.

He was still putting off modifying her soul, simply because, even if he was going to do it when they got back home, every little bit they waited meant the attribute bonuses she’d get from it would grow too, and when he was constantly training his mana, there would be at least a little benefit to the wait.

Plus, it means I get to give my soul a little bit of a rest, he sighed, feeling an ache in it from just how much he’d been overfilling it. But as for the matter of a magic skill… I thought about it before, but I really could try to figure out how to make one to see if that can bypass the learning issue. It’s not exactly a priority, but it can at least be somewhere on the to-do list.

… I might have way too many skills to figure out how to make on my to-do list. Let’s at least get my enchanting inclination done with first. It seems like I was getting closer, at least.

With the pain he’d just put his soul through, cutting off more pieces of himself to work wasn’t a priority in that moment and, while the soul mages focused on easing the strain of the modification on themselves and the others, Ben continued with his own work of making what he could with their skills.

The bracelets he’d made the day prior would be useful, and creating small factories for them to store away in his rings meant that he’d be able to produce more for the wider world despite the limits of his skills, but they couldn’t be all he made and, given that, he needed to make use of his other resource. While everything else went on around him, Ben pulled Rook from his ring.

He actualized around the man to make it appear that Ben had just pulled out a box and controlled the other’s mind to keep him unreactive so as to not be noticed by anyone else, letting Ben work in peace as he began his new round of experiments.

With the first test involving Rook, but not using him as Ben instead used Tress’s magic and remade the prison for the immortal, increasing the time effect within.

<You are seriously so freaking spiteful.>

Of course I am; he’s tried to murder me multiple times.

<Just how much did the time effect go up be?

Ugh, less than I’d hoped. The demon that Tress had been was too specialized in prophecy, to the point that their second-tier time magic was called prophetic time magic. The other aspects didn’t grow as much, so even when it reached the third tier, as things stand, I could only get it to fifty times the speed of normal reality.

<You’re going to make this man live a year in solitary confinement and the dark for every week in reality.>

What can I say? People really need to stop trying to murder me. I take it poorly.

<Psychopath.>

You already went and stuck me with that title once. Don’t say it like you’re trying to give it to me a second time.

<If there’s anyone who would deserve to get that title twice, it’s you.>

Listen, if you’re that against it, then once the war is over and I’ve extracted all of the use I can from him, I’ll just get rid of him.

<Mmh, I’m sure. And the fact that you don’t think you’re surviving the end of the war?>

Before I go to get murdered by Oaun, I’ll make it so his prison can’t open and then ask Ogilt to drop it on some barren rock somewhere out in space. Assuming my enchantments decay in a few thousand years, he can enjoy his freedom then.

<Meaning he’ll potentially be trapped in there for hundreds of thousands of years.>

Have I ever properly conveyed just how much I hate it when people try to murder me? Unless you have any other complaints about how I deal with someone that the gods allowed to keep acting without dealing with themselves, I’ve got other work to focus on.

After all, when it came to one of Rook’s skills at least, it was an absolute boon. While there was potential for applying immortality to items as a way of strengthening some life-affinitied effects, the real treasure was absolute defense, the name being just as strong as it had implied. Ben had plenty of experience using his own defensive skills on items; he would even go so far as to say it was simple, but the upgrade to it at the third tier was unfathomable.

Things he enchanted on with it simply wouldn’t break, instantly upgrading the items he could make. Not just considering the effects that would have on armours or shields, a sword made of soft wood would beat one crafted from the finest steel. It was an immediate and blatant upgrade that left him salivating.

Looks like I actually can’t abandon Rook on some dead rock; I need to make this asshole work for me forever. Weapons that don’t need to be sharped, items that won’t chip or break when they’re dropped. No dents, no dings, no damage. Sure, everything would need to have some mana in it to activate these effects, but with the skill I have when it comes to making enchantments, I could power it with a speck of mythril. A little white mana crystal at worst. Oh my god, this is going to be good.

He was no closer to making a mythic item, but at that point, it didn’t matter. He felt a brand-new world of creation open up to him, and he was all ready to explore it as his mind went wild with ideas and designs. A few new factories to pump out defensive items were a must, but he’d need to make more personalized armours for the people he cared about too. Hell, even Thera’s staff, despite breaking far less often and didn’t even need as much use anymore, thanks to the mana control that reaching the third tier had left her with, could likely be made unbreakable, able to withstand a spell that used a million mana without issue. Instantly, it felt like there was so much to make; all he wanted to do was experiment more, being interrupted far too soon.

“That should be about the most we can do for anyone, I think,” Elvat said, having reduced the strain that soul modification had left on the group to the fullest extent he, Yuzu, and Thera could. “We’ve reached a point where anything else is going to come down to waiting another day or so for you all to finish healing by yourselves.”

“That’s more than enough,” Killi told him, finding the bit of remaining pain to be ignorable in the face of the new magics she could wield, her time as the head of the library meaning that, unlike the others, she hadn’t needed Ben’s help to learn the less common combined affinities as she explored both her new blessing magic and her fungal magic, with more options within her status as of yet untouched. “And, unless anyone else has any other matters to address, as good of an end point as any.”

It was clear she was pleased, viewing things to have gone better than she could have hoped, especially with how they started, and with no one else having anything to say, some started filtering out, leaving Ben to speak up to one as he did.

“Foast, I still need to test things with you, so don’t run away.”

“Not to worry, I just need a moment to talk with Killi, and then you can do whatever you desire.”

“Perfect. In that case, Yuzu, you mind sticking around too? Realistically, Foast isn’t going to need any help, but just to be on the safe side, having two soul mages on standby couldn’t hurt.”

“I can, yeah,” she agreed without much thought, fully entranced by her new general magic as she pulled water from the air and made it dance around her fingertips, excited to show off the new power to her two lovers for all it would help her match them.

“Even better. Valaria, I think Myriad already discussed what I’m going to need you for after, so that just leaves Falk. Are you really heading off so soon?”

“I don’t get many breaks, boy,” his teacher chuckled, managing to sound tired as he did at the thought of returning to work so soon. “I get to retire when the war’s over, not a second before that.”

“Man, you better at least be getting paid well.”

“Ha, I might not be as rich as you, but my retirement’s gonna be nothin’ to scoff at. Gonna make sure me and Sonya have a real nice time when this is all over.”

“Along with your precious student and niece, right?”

“Pfff, you’re rich enough to buy a country; go do that instead of trying to invade our personal time,” he scoffed, grinning a bit despite himself. “And Thera, don’t let that idiot drag you into too much trouble while I’m not around, you hear?”

“Don’t worry, Uncle. We can probably manage.”

“Mmh, I suppose you two do good enough for yourselves as it is. Alright, in that case, I need to get back to it. I’ll make sure I stop by in a couple weeks.”

“You’d better,” Ben told him as he waved his teacher off. “Don’t want this to be the last time I see you before the world ends.”