CH17

Once again the hard end of a staff was shoved into Ben’s delicate jaw.

“If you keep waking me like this I’m going to bruise,” He told Thera as he cracked open his eyes.

“Then find somewhere better to sleep than the shop floor. Uncle, are you really okay letting him do this?”

Falk gave a shrug. “The boy cleans up well enough before he goes to sleep that I don’t have to do much in the morning so it’s fine. How many staves did you manage to make then?”

“Just four, but I feel pretty good about the last two.”

“Alright, you two avoid the deep woods while you’re testing them, don’t want a repeat of yesterday.”

“We’ll be careful uncle.”

“Actually before we leave I got a new skill I want to test out if you guys would give me a hand.”

That caught both of their attentions. While getting new skills was common enough it was still an exciting event.

“Now how did you manage to get a new skill working away all night? It’s not something like sleep resistance is it?”

“No, it was a gift skill from my god.”

“I didn’t expect you to be the pious type,” Thera chimed in.

“I’m definitely not, I just give a prayer or two a day to keep on his good side,” Also admittedly a few while he was limping and bleeding, but he wasn’t in the mood to bring that up again.

“Well then he must be fond of you brat, what’s the skill?”

“It’s called connect. If I can take one of your hands it should let me link up with you and feel your emotions.”

“I’ll pass,” Thera had seemed interested up until she learned how it was used, but Falk for his part held out his hand.

“Alright brat let’s give it a go. Always exciting to see a skill I haven’t heard of before.”

Ben grabbed his teacher’s large hand and ran mana through his body, activating the skill. Immediately he was hit with two feelings, excitement and nervousness, and instantly knew they were coming from his teacher. They came at him so hard that it was a little overwhelming and apparently Falk felt the same way, breaking off the connection and taking a step back.

“Damn it lad you didn’t mention it was a two-way connection. Go eat something from the back if you’re that hungry.”

“Oh sweet thanks,” Ben ran and grabbed a quick bar of jerky to chew on before coming back. “So I was never told you would be able to feel my emotions too, or that hunger would count as an emotion, but still that was a neater experience than I thought it would be. I can’t really see much use for it at the moment but I’ll train it up a bit to see how it grows.”

“It would be rude to neglect a skill your god saw fit to give you, just so long as you don’t ignore your work here, do what you want. Though I don’t think I’ll be helping you with that a second time. Felt too weird.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.