CH19

<You know I would prefer you not invoke my being in vain.>

And I would prefer if I hadn’t just wasted a bunch of time.

“What’s wrong?” Thera asked him, and Falk came to the back as well after hearing him yell.

“Oh hey, I didn’t realize you were still here. Nothing wrong, in fact it’s the opposite of wrong, it’s good news. Just would have rather gotten it before starting on the new staves. My enchanting went up.”

“Isn’t that great though?” She was a little vexed at his apparent unhappiness. In the few days she’d known him his level went up for two separate skills, if only she could be so lucky.

“It is! It’s fantastic. I just wish it happened before I started this is all.”

“Ha boy I get you. There isn’t a craftsman alive who doesn’t know the pain of working hard on something only to suddenly become able to do a better job at it after the fact,” Falk told him surprisingly sympathetically. “Unfortunately it comes with leveling. Your greatest gains in improvement always come after your best work. Speaking of, may I?” Gesturing at the two staves at the forge, he clearly wanted a look and Ben was happy to comply. It never hurt to have his teacher’s opinion.

As he gave one a quick appraisal Falk couldn’t help but let out a low satisfied whistle. “I gotta say boy, even if you’re still learning a lot of the craft, you’re probably the only one who could make a staff like this at your level. It’s a clever idea, though definitely unusable to anyone but Thera.”

“Wait, why?” Thera wanted to know. “Don’t get me wrong it looks fine and all, but what has you so impressed?”

“Ben, did you tell her at all how you enchanted the staff?”

“I mentioned it a bit when she tried out the prototype earlier today, though that one was bulkier and only used three layers.”

“Can you guys just tell me what you’re talking about?” She asked in some exasperation.

Ben took the lead. “I didn’t do anything too crazy, I was just able to create a five layer gradient of earth resistance enchantments. I’m pretty sure anyone could do it.”

“But there’s only a handful of people who could do it like you boy,” He saw that Thera continued to not understand, so he went on to explain. “I’m not sure how much of his skills he’s mentioned, but if he doesn’t mind,” Ben gave him a quick okay. “Alright, so one of the boys’ blessed skills is enchanting. Now regularly enchanting can only apply about 10% of any affinity or resistance for every level you have in it, but since his is blessed that means he can get 15%, or 30% total since he was level one. Now ordinarily that still wouldn’t be a ton but the boy has some really good earth resistance. Just the core of the staff alone has a resistance of 24.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Wait, that’s almost as good as my actual earth resistance?”

“Well with the level up he could make something even greater, around 36 I believe.”

“That’s insane!” Falk had been right, she really needed to try and appreciate the work that went into one of the staves she could only get a few uses out of. Gods know she wouldn’t have guessed it would take a resistance level that high just to make a staff she could use once.