CH100

Thanks to his teacher’s help Ben was at least sure he’d be able to understand the spell he was placing, now all it came down to was actually enchanting with it. He grabbed the first sword and sat down, inspecting it as he got prepared. It was one of Falk’s works rather than his own, and like everything his teacher made it was perfect as far as Ben could tell.

The sword was of a simple design, not meant to be beautiful in any way, instead made to focus on its main task, killing. Ben couldn’t help but think that whatever clumsy enchantment he would end up making could only make the sword worse, at least considering the fact that if he chose to, Falk could just apply it himself, and significantly more skillfully than he could, but he pushed the thought away as he focused on the edge of the blade he would be constructing the enchantment upon.

Thanks to the ring Falk made him, he was able to use both hands to construct the enchantment, as well as taking advantage of his second mind to speed up its construction. Enchanting with a magic ate up his mana at a far faster rate than it would otherwise, but it was still nowhere near as bad as trying to properly activate a spell was for him.

When he thought he was done he moved onto the next one, then the next one, and by the time he was finished he had ten enchanted swords sitting beside him and noticed his teacher there, inspecting his work.

“There’s plenty of room for improvement,” Falk started, bringing Ben’s feelings crashing down before lifting him back up again. “But considering you managed it in your first attempt and each enchantment seems better than the last I would call it a success. I’ll have to tidy up the enchantments on the first five myself, but we should be able to sell the second five as is. Excellent work boy.”

Ben found himself smiling and let himself lean back against the wall as he let his mana regenerate. “Thanks Falk, so what were you thinking now?”

His teacher hesitated, a sign Ben had grown pretty sure to mean he hadn’t thought that far ahead for his training when he looked back to the swords Ben just finished enchanting. “Change of plans boy. Remove all of the enchantments from these and do them again, after that but repeat with the earth affinity spell ‘harden’, and then do it again but instead of a spell take the sharpening effect of dismantling and add it.”

Even though his teacher clearly just decided it on the spot Ben didn’t argue. Since he just learned the technique he wanted all the practice he could get.

As hours of the day passed, Falk’s challenges grew more and more demanding. Soon he was being made to enchant multiple effects at once, intertwining the enchantments and trying to push the mana consumption to its lower limit, at least for what he was capable of.

His teacher provided him with advice here and there but for the most part just let Ben work, silently watching from the side as enchantments were constructed and destroyed again and again.

In a lot of ways making a complex enchantment gave Ben the same feeling as when he would make a drawing or painting, while there was wiggle room for how he arranged things as he went, each step built upon the last, meaning that if the previous work wasn’t accounted for then the finished product could be a mess. While corrections could always be made after the fact, he would much rather get things right the first time, and with that mindset put all of his focus into his work.

Just as he was about to remove all of the enchantments he’d made and start again he felt Falk shake his shoulder to get his attention.

“Alright boy, I think that’s enough for the day.”

“Hmm? You sure? I think I could do a fair bit more.”

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“It’s late and you just got back to town, no reason to work until the early hours of the morning. Besides, I can already say with confidence your work is good. Shockingly so really, Far above what I would expect of your current skills level, regardless of being blessed,” The boy’s work had always been good as far as Falk was concerned, but seeing his current work was like seeing a massive jump in overall quality, at least for his enchantments.