CH245

“Well, this is a bit unexpected,” Ben said as he found himself being hugged by two familiar faces, namely his old friends Steph and Will.

“When we heard this was happening we figured we might be able to find you here,” Will told him as Steph went to give Thera a hug as well, being expertly avoided despite the amulet he’d made last time hanging around her neck. “Gotta say though, I didn’t expect you to be one of the guests of honour.”

“Ha, well technically my teacher is, I’m just taking his place because he doesn’t want to deal with it.”

“And I appreciate it,” The yeti said as he ruffled his hair and walked off with a wave. “I’m going to go chat with the goblins for a bit, try not to get into any trouble while I’m not watching you.”

“When do I ever get into trouble?” He called back, seeing Thera grab her face from the nerve of him asking something like that in the corner of his eye.

“You literally got into trouble the moment we got here,” She told him dryly, drawing looks from his other two friends.

“Oh my god Ben, what happened this time?” Steph asked as he gave an awkward chuckle.

“Um, why don’t we chat while I work a bit? Speaking of, Steph I see you’re wearing the cloak I helped make, hand it over and I’ll redo the enchantments on it,” He told her as he pulled out some of his rings from his bag and gave the broadest of details of what had happened since they’d seen one and other last, doing his best not to say anything that would be too worrying as he did while they caught him up as well.

“So aside from taking the trial you suggested, which I really would have liked more warning about ‘cause it sucked, all of our time since has been devoted to our training,” Will explained. “The good news though is that we can say we’re finally fully competent using our awakened skills, just took longer than either of us would have liked to get to that point.”

“Ha, well glad to see things have been going well. I would have told you more if I could’ve, but I think I was only at the first level of sacrilege at the time, it was hard enough to tell you what I did.”

<And got another level for your trouble I might add. Why can’t you be like your friends there and live a nice peaceful life before the world ends?>

Myriad, they’re obviously hiding the more worrying bits from me the way I am from them. There’s no way their training hasn’t left them putting their lives on the line to grow stronger. That reminds me, I should make them some better items if I can. Gotta know what sort of things they usually wear when off facing whatever life-threatening disasters heroes have to go up against.

<I can’t tell if you’re just trying to cope with how incredibly poor your luck is or if you actually believe that.>

He was going to rebuke his god, but Steph called out, commenting on what he’d said. “Wait, at the time? What level are you now?”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Don’t worry about it,” He told her, brushing it off with his better news. “Instead, focus on the fact that you’re looking at someone with level eight enchanting and level nine crafting.”

“What?” Steph yelled, before taking a far quieter tone. “Ben, we’ve only been on this planet for what, two and a half years? How did you gain so many levels?”

“I’ve just made it a very productive time,” He said with a shrug. “I probably had it easier since I didn’t need to adapt to my skills at all, they were all weak enough that I could train in earnest from the moment I learned how to use them.”

Will scoffed. “Ben, if it was that easy then you’d see significantly more ninth-level skill holders. Hell, you’d see more awakened skill holders too.”