CH1150

Both in the shop and in the Myriad’s realm above, while he got Mora and Delair started for the day, Ben impatiently waited, driving his god to work even just a little faster.

<Don’t be such a slaver driver, I’m almost done.>

My patience can only take so much. With how much I’m speeding up your perception of reality, we both know that this shouldn’t be taking so long.

<Yeah, because now, the limit isn’t how long it takes me to do something, the limit’s my soul! Cut me some slack when you’re asking me to cut myself apart to figure out how to make you something!>

No, a deal’s a deal, and I’m impatient. The other gods are taking long enough as it is. If they don’t finish in a couple more days, then I really will follow through on my threat of going up there and helping them work on it myself.

<Your standards are a curse on all of the more reasonable beings in the universe!>

Yeah, well, when you’re the most skilled being in reality, everyone else just has to deal with that. Maybe if I didn’t have to put up with the collective gods cheap attitudes for so long I’d be willing to be a bit more flexible when it comes to payment, but as it is, they just need to learn to accept that even if we beat the demons and their own ridiculous god, they’re never reclaiming their position as the top dogs of the universe.

<When you keep making things that could bankrupt the planet if you were going to be paid fairly, there’s not much choice other than being cheap. Now here, take it. It’s done, you absolute maniac.>

<ACQUIRED SKILL CONNECT INCLINATION LEVEL 0>

Oh yeah, that’s the stuff. Now to just…

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<CONNECT INCLINATION HAS RISEN TO A BLESSED SKILL>

<Can’t even take a moment to appreciate all of the hard work that went into creating that?>

Didn’t you just hear all the notifications going off in my head? That was me appreciating it, and I’ll appreciate it even more when it awakens, Ben thought with a small grimace, forced to feel it overburdening his soul at the speeds he could think at since he wasn’t able to instantly awaken it. It’s feeling a little harder than awakening enchanting inclination yesterday.

<I suppose that just means you haven’t completely mastered inclinations yet->

<CONNECT INCLINATION HAS AWAKENED TO CONNECT AFFINITY>

<ACQUIRED SKILL CONNECTER’S TOUCH>

<BLESSED SOUL EXPANSION LEVEL INCREASED>

<Nevermind.>

To be fair, from my perspective, that took ages, which means getting it to the ninth level is going to take me forever too.

<A few hours isn’t forever.>

But it sure can feel like it is sometimes, don’t you think? Also, this awakening has proven that I’m right; I’m cursed with only getting touch skills from this.

<Five data points aren’t exactly enough to say you’ve proven anything.>

Fine, I have stronger evidence pointing towards that hypothesis then, and if I’m ever proven wrong, then I’ll be over the moon. Ugh, it wouldn’t even be that bad if they weren’t unleveled skills. The fact that I can’t use their level to judge if they’re close to awakening makes it so much harder to know if I should make them blessed or not. I’m left trying to judge based off of what my authorities tell me, and even then, there’s always the chance that a big enough event might make them awaken faster than I expect there too.

<You really think you’re going to awaken your touch skills?>

I did it for artisan’s touch, didn’t I? At the very least, I know that I’m hypothetically close for evil and destructive touch, seeing as how those two skills fall completely within the realm of my authorities. Genuinely, the fact that they haven’t awakened either is kind of nuts, don’t you think? There must be some other significant differences between a touch skill and an inclination, because if they worked exactly the same way, then I’d already have both of those at the third tier as well by that point.

<Mmh, I don’t want to think about what it would mean if you somehow claimed two separate divinities over evil and destruction each.>

Well, I think it would be cool. And also means that for other skills, I could hypothetically claim three different divinities over the same powers. Enchanting, enchanting inclination, and enchanter’s touch, all at the third tier. Something like that would be interesting to see the effects of, right?

<Admittedly, yes. If you were to achieve that for something like your enchanting or your crafting instead of your current authorities, that could actually be a little interesting to see.>

I knew you had some curiosity in you. And on that note, I really do need to trade out my forbidden god sometime soon, too. Rising to soulcraft may have let me cut away a lot of the scarring I was leaving on it, but I’ve really wrung this one dry. Hmm, the one I’ve used the least is the one that Vividus has, but since she is admittedly doing good work with it, I guess I’ll just have to go back to grab a different one.

<Never mind, there’s no possible future you become a third-tier for any touch skill other than your evil or destructive ones.>

Aw, don’t say that, buddy. So long as I get to enjoy all of this lifespan I’ve worked so hard to grow, I’ll eventually be able to awaken things you never even dreamed of.

<... You know what? I don’t want to think about it. I got you your new skill, as agreed, so stop bothering me and let me get back to work.>

You got it. I’ll be back to bothering you tonight.

<CONNECT AFFINITY LEVEL INCREASED>

<Ugh.>

With his god properly teased, the parts of Ben that had been talking to him devoted themselves to training soulcraft, and through it, his connect affinity too, while at the same time, looking after the kids, judging Delair’s memories from the day prior.

“Thanks for doing such a good job making sure she didn’t hurt herself, Mora,” Ben said, ruffling the boy’s hair. “Looks like you managed to keep her in one piece.”

“Please never put me in charge of her safety like that again,” Mora said with complete sincerity. “I don’t think it’s good when mortal hearts do the things mine were doing when she was stressing me out.”

“I wasn’t that bad,” Delair tried to defend herself, leaving Mora to give her a look that made her shrink back.

“I had to help you get out of a tree you got stuck in.”

“I mean, lots of people climb trees…”

“Kind of embarrassing for a dryad to get stuck in one though, don’t you think?” Ben tried to tease to lighten the mood, with Mora far from done.

“Then I had to stop you from knocking a different tree down on anyone else.”

“It was flimsier than I expected,” she tried again, both Ben and Mora knowing in their hearts she’d done it just to see if she could.

“Then you jumped off a roof and told me to catch you while you were falling!”

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry, I’ll be better!” Delair yelled, not wanting Ben to hear just how irresponsible she’d already been with the power she’d asked for, too late given that he’d already seen her memories. “I appreciate you keeping me safe, Mora.”

“And?”

“And I won’t jump off any roofs again without giving you proper notice first.”

Mora turned to Ben, the boy giving his guardian the most exasperated look he’d ever seen on a child’s face before Ben turned to Delair, trying to sound firm.

“Delair, just because I gave you this strength doesn’t mean I can’t take it away,” he lied, completely powerless to take it away. “Yesterday and the day before were about learning the limits of your new attributes and practicing controlling them. So long as you’ve done that, there shouldn’t be any more careless mistakes when it comes to how to use them, right?”

“Right,” she nodded with a pout.

“Good. In that case, we can get started on your practice for today. Yesterday, you worked on getting used to how your attributes changed in your day-to-day life, so today, we’re going to be focused on getting you used to how they changed with your work. Since you’ll be working with tools, you need to be doing it with extra care, but if you do slip up, I’ll be watching the entire time.”

His soul was stretched out around them to have total observation over the area and a significant portion of his mind was devoted to making sure nothing went wrong, ready to use his magic to stop any knives from cutting flesh or hammers from breaking bone before Delair herself could ever realize there was a problem, while the rest of his clones worked on other tasks. With the next wave drawing closer, there were preparations to make after all, with none more important to him than keeping those he cared about safe.

So, with that thought firmly in his mind, he worked through the rest of his clones to make what he considered to be the most important thing he could. Armour.

Specifically for Thera, though he knew he’d be making others later, and with the sorts of materials he never could have before. He’d made her such things in the past, and she still had and used what he created, but with all of the growth he’d gone through, he could devote himself to making her something even better as he got to work, a dozen clones pulling the same glowing metal from the forge as the stopstone he’d been producing in his god’s church was put to work.

The only material in the world that seemed entirely magic proof, it all had to be worked by hand and Ben loved every minute of it as he hammered it all down into a foil, too thin to even support its own weight and perfect for his goals.

Once as thin as he needed, though, he wasted no time quenching it before getting to work, taking that foil and every so carefully cutting it, making the pieces that would go into what would eventually become Thera’s scalemail.

Though scalemail was more of an approximation of what it would be. The technique was going to be similar enough, but the individual scales were each going to be small enough to allow for a level of flexibility in the end product that genuine scalemail rarely had, letting him make it into something she would be more familiar with in the form of a cloak. Something she could comfortably use to cover the whole of her body if she needed to, even if that would have its own tradeoffs.

It would be heavy; a metal cloak could be nothing but, but her attributes were high enough that she would barely notice. A bigger issue was that such a design would allow for bunt-force injuries to get through easier than plate armour would, but it allowed for more flexibility as a trade off, and he would at least be able to manage some of that potential damage to the enchantments he would apply after it was done.

Enchanting was going to be the last thing he needed to worry about, though, when just how much he was going to have to do entirely by hand was going to draw out the day. As each cloned body finished a scale, they casually flicked them into a bucket at the side where another clone got to work, following through the next step they’d need.

The single clone handling that duty would grab a scale and roughly sand both sides of it over a second bucket, wanting to make sure he didn’t lose a single grain of that precious material, before dropping them into a third, letting the next clone fill his task.

Taking those scratched scales, that created something for materials he could work with magically to bind to, sandwiching even thinner layers of orichalcum between any two and another later on one of their sides, while on the back, a mythril coating was applied instead, finished off with a single grain of rainbow mana crystal, set within a moribusial thread to extract the power from it for the enchantments that were going to eventually come.

Enchantments were last, however, with two other parts to manage first so, when each scale had been properly made, it was moved to the hands of the next clone for final shaping.

While not technically hard, given they were made of layers that either couldn’t be worked by mana or could only be worked by mana, it required a careful balance of force and power to make sure he got it right as each scale was bent into its final form for when he would begin assembly, handing them off to the final clone to do exactly that. Piece by piece the cloak took form, and while his true body focused on the kids and their crafts, the ones he worked through got to see his creation take shape as the day ended and the last scale was put in place.

Upper legendary, huh? He sighed as he examined his work. Of course it is. Can’t believe I couldn’t even use the power of true love to snag my awakening. Ugh, doesn’t matter. This is good work, and it will keep Thera safe. And who knows? When I apply all of the enchantments on it tomorrow, considering what I’m going to use, maybe that will be the thing to push it over the edge.

<CONNECT AFFINITY LEVEL INCREASED>

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