CH131

Ben woke up early and immediately read through the list of skills before heading off to Falk’s shop. He was a little discouraged having gone through it. When Myriad had said he might have access to a quarter of skills it looked like he was being optimistic. Ben did the math after reading through it all, he could only take advantage of one in six. Interestingly, while it seemed like he could learn Zandale’s four main skills, they and a variety of others would take upwards of half a year to gain, making it so he would only take the time to teach them if either the person looking to learn them had over ten skills for Zandale to learn, or paid an outrageous fortune to make it worth his time, on top of traveling with the apostle for all of his business.

Other than that, it seemed like Zandale was suited to the light, water, air and fire affinities, and as a result had multiple skills that required decent compatibility to get. What’s more, they had a few non-affinitied magics, but because of his low mana level it wasn’t something he could get, no matter how much he wanted to.

As always, my own magic remains out of my grasp. He thought sadly, and the other options weren’t much better.

There were a few mind skills he could learn since he had more than enough intelligence, but none of them stood out to him compared to the ones he already had, and he was pretty sure if he really wanted them he could gain them himself with only a little effort. As for combat skills, they frankly didn’t interest him. He already got the two that could help with his crafting and he already established he didn’t like to fight like that, so why would he waste an opportunity to learn them?

There were other ones that seemed like they might be convenient in his day-to-day life, but really it came down to not wanting to waste this opportunity on something he could do without or could get himself.

Thankfully there was one that stood out to him. A single skill that shined bright in his mind that not only could he take based on his affinities, but also desperately wanted given how the world had seemed to want to treat him so far, and as soon as Zandale got into the shop he intended to ask for it.

Until then however, Ben had a different task. As he was leaving for the day yesterday, Falk mentioned to him he wanted him to come up with the items that Wedrow had requested for his friends after getting the chance to see them fight, and that if he was confident enough he could make them himself, though Falk would have to approve of them, and he jumped at the chance.

Given the things he’d already gone through, he could only imagine how bad things must have been for Will and Steph, and since they didn’t mention anything like that in their letters he had to assume it was too hard to talk about.

Stay strong guys, your favourite craftsman is here to keep you safe.

<I’m certain they don’t have it as bad as you think,> His god chimed in.

I mean sure, they’re being properly paid for it, but they’re being trained to be a powerful fighting force. If I could just keep wandering into situations worse than what they’re being set out to do, wouldn’t this universe be too unjust and cruel?

<…>

He took his god’s silence as agreement and got to work, pulling out the items he was going to use to make a weapon for Will from his spacial bag. At first he’d thought of making a pair of brass knuckles since his friend focused on hand to hand combat, but with what he was going to use for materials, the chances of Will getting himself killed from handling them wrong was too high, which meant he’d have to go for a gauntlet instead.

Ordinarily, he wouldn’t make something like a gauntlet to be a weapon since they could be weighty and difficult to attack with, but given Will’s strength stat they should work like a charm and he began planning it out.

The first thing to do was make a sketch of all the smaller pieces he’d need. A gauntlet would need to be made up of multiple smaller plates to allow for some finger dexterity, while not so many that it would be hard to fix if anything happened. Like many things, proper balance was key.

With that done, the next task would be melting down two different metals to make sheets he could cut and work into the shapes he needed, though there was some risk on his part so he needed to take extra care. After all, he would be using two of the ones he got from Thera’s parents, some of the moribusial that could suck out the mana of a creature that touched it, and the deathstone that would absorb vitality.

He carefully broke off chunks to get the quantities he needed, while taking care to make sure no slivers made their way onto any nearby table or the ground. While moribusial was safe until he processed it, deathstone was immediately dangerous and couldn’t be touched with his bare hands. Should a large sliver of it get stuck under a person’s skin, if they possessed a low enough vitality regeneration rate, there was a very real possibility they would slowly die, or at the very least be stuck in a state of perpetual sickness.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Once that was done he got both placed in a mold in the forge and began to blast the heat, working on the next step as he waited for them to melt down.

Going into the storage room, he found an already prepared plate of steel and some premade chainmail that he intended to repurpose. Ordinarily he’d use leather to make the interior of a gauntlet like that, but Will was a lightning user, he wanted the energy of his attack to properly transfer without having to have to worry about it being weakened by something non-conductive, So he got to work making links within it so it would fit his friend’s hands, only using a bit of leather when he felt that the chainmail would be too inflexible. His friend’s comfort didn’t need to be considered at least. Since he had the skill tough skin, the metal rubbing against it couldn’t do any harm.

Once that was done he pulled out the two metals which had melted down and let the deathstone cool while he processed the moribusial to activate its mana sucking effects, holding his own hand above it as close as he could without actually touching the molten material and releasing his mana. It was all it would take to make the material align in a way that would allow its properties to shine, but he had to hold it there for a while and the heat stung his flesh.

He made a mental note to ask Sonya to heal him when he got home and dealt with it until the metal cooled enough to handle, the processing being complete.