CH106

After Ben finished talking to his god and letting Thera know about the exchange, he got a bit more information on the calculate skill. When Thera had said it was used to keep track of one’s mana he thought he had initially misunderstood it when he’d first read about it in one of the church books, but it seemed like he had it right the first time. It was simply a skill that improved a person’s ability to do mental math quickly. Most people had it at one or two levels so they could keep track of how much mana they were using in battle or daily life by comparing a known quantity it took to power a spell against their mana pool and regeneration rate.

Given his own rather short supply of mana and the fact that he kept running out despite a lack of magic skills to take it up, he figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try gaining the skill himself, especially since it came down to doing mental math until it was unlocked.

He tried exactly that during his watch in the night, only stopping when it was Thera’s turn to take over while he got some rest and studied Myriad’s blueprints in his divine realm.

When the sun rose and he got up they got to the main task of the day. Having already collected some of the branches yesterday they kept their eyes out for more, but it wasn’t the main goal of the day. They wanted the chance to hunt. In Thera’s case she wanted to attempt to work on her earth magic, and in Bens he had new tools to test, having spent his spare time during the last week seeing what he could do with his improved skills.

Ben set up his tools and traps throughout the area before going with his main strategy for hunting, climbing the tallest tree he could find for safety. Once both himself and Thera were up there they attempted something riskier than they normally would, only doing it because they felt confident in their current level of growth. They had Thera take off her cloak to see if it would draw anything in.

It was something they had spent long hours discussing throughout the days leading up to their first hunt since they came back. It wasn’t like the woods were dense with monsters after all. It was significantly more dangerous the further one went, but it was also more than possible to not find anything while out there. They’d been working around this by trying to lure creatures with the smell of cooking meat to begin with, but that took a fair bit of time and patience, they wanted to get quicker results.

Of course, that didn’t mean they were going to throw away their safety completely. The range of Thera charm would be affected by a few different things, from how much was between her and her target, as well as the target’s darkness resistance, but as long as creatures wandered to the edge of it they were confident they would slowly be drawn in, unable to resist its effects.

The main thing then became being vigilant. As long as they got her cloaked again when monsters came within sight, hopefully they would go towards one of the traps Ben had set up that were enchanted with the higher level of charm Ben got from using Sonyas, even if the mana would be significantly weaker since he had to pour his own into power it compared to what naturally radiated from Thera.

It took twenty minutes of waiting, but eventually Thera spotted movement rushing towards them and quickly threw her cloak back on hoping they would keep coming, and even without the constant stimulus of her magic their curiosity and hunger remained and two creatures came through the woods. Ben was pretty sure they were cultrofels, large panther-like creatures that were covered in sharp, porcupine-like quills.

Still feeling the lingering effects of the charm they started wandering the area, and each of them started moving towards different traps Ben had set up.

The author’s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

The first of the beast walked towards a common pit trap, the kind he’d used in his hunts dozens of times by this point, but now the spikes were enchanted with both charm and drain, hopefully to get the monster more willing to throw itself upon it without needing to go to the trouble of hiding them in some way.

Unfortunately, there was no luck on that count. While it did walk up to the pit it didn’t throw itself in it, the draw of the charm apparently not enough to overcome its survival instinct.

As for the second one, it made its way towards one of the charm bombs Ben had made and left around. He had produced these ones to be simpler than the ones he’d made for the trial, not worrying about using overly expensive materials for it as he did, but he was confident they would work as long as a creature bit into one. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out quite so conveniently.