CH275

“Holy crap!” Ben yelled out as he caught sight of a certain area of the trial’s enchantments briefly activate. “There’s no freaking way, that should be impossible!”

“What?” Greed yelled in a panic as he sat in Ben’s hand, eating the only source of food available to him. “Don’t tell me we’re in trouble again?”

“Oh, no sorry, I just saw something I really wasn’t expecting. That food the trial provides? If I’m right, it looks like it makes it straight from mana.”

“And that’s so shocking you need to scream?” The crab asked with a groan. “Legs, I know you like your research, but come on.”

“Greed, if you could see the enchantments and studied magic a bit more you’d understand just how insane this is. The trial materialized it from non-affinitied mana!”

Ben was no stranger to seeing something materialized at this point, it was how Thera’s father had made the nation of Anailia so wealthy. Along with doing it from the earth affinity, Ben knew for sure it was possible to do for the water affinity and was positive it could be done for air magic as well, though there was simply no need to and it would be hard to determine if a person succeeded since air was all around them at all times. As well, fire and light affinities both seemed able to turn mana into energy, though at a lower mana cost and without any way of being certain that was what was going on.

This was different thought. He’d never heard of non-affinitied magic being able to do such a thing, nor had he heard about anyone setting up an enchantment that would be able to automatically alter the structure of mana like that. He couldn’t help himself as he rushed over to get a better look.

“Alright, alright, I get you’re excited but what’s the big deal?” Greed asked, willing to take any sort of entertainment after all of the time he spent doing nothing but healing Ben and waiting for him to get to the point where they would enter the next section. “Is it really so amazing?”

“It absolutely is. Greed, part of the mana cost of materialization depends on how well a person understands the properties of what they’re materializing. For any awakened earth mage that has the skill, they’ll typically just make a lump of iron since it’s a pure material, and they’ll have their affinity to bring down the cost as well. For this, assface had to somehow encode knowledge into the structure of the enchantment itself, while using a magic that as far as I know is never put to this sort of task, or if it is manages to be such a fringe case that it’s not even talked about, as well as making something as nightmarishly complicated as food!”

“Think you might be overestimating food a little, especially the crap you’re being served,” Greed said with a laugh. “It’s just some poisoned bread.”

“Just because it’s poison for you doesn’t mean it’s poisoned for most people, and I cannot stress enough how much you’re underestimating food. It’s got a complex structure made of multiple elements with the way they’re arranged being the difference between biting into bread and biting into a rock. Aside from the fact that if I could put this on an item then nobody would ever starve from a bad harvest again, the level of complexity might let this trial do insane things like create life.”

“Wait, don’t tell me you think we’re going to have to deal with monsters in this fucking thing, do you?” Greed asked, his mild curiosity quickly flipping to despair.

“No, I’d say that it could probably create microbes if it can at all, but that’s still something we should worry about when we get to the life section of this. Actually, I’d say the biggest concern now by far is if there really is a non-affinitied section.”

“Do I even want to know why?”

“Greed, the jerk that made this is doing things with non-affinitied mana I didn’t even know were possible. I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert or anything on the subject, but I’m pretty damn well-read. The god that made this has to have mastered it in ways I couldn’t begin to imagine, meaning that there’s no way for me to even start to guess what a trial devoted to it might contain.”

After his discovery, Ben spent almost a full day looking over that section, memorizing the arrangements of the enchantments as he studied it in the hopes that he would be able to take the knowledge out of the trial with him as he went for whatever good it might do.

He poked and prodded it, trying to determine what parts did what and eventually learned how to stimulate it, forcing the trial to give them more food than it normally wanted to, leading to more discoveries as he went.

“Uh, hey Greed? Not sure if you know much about trials in general, do you?”

“Probably the average amount. Why?”

“That’s fine. So you know all trials have limits to how many people can take them at once?”

“You mean as part of the same group right?” The crab asked, getting a nod in return. “Yeah, it varies a bit, but the higher end is typically around five, right? At least that’s what all of the magic towers max out at.”

In the trial of Anailia it had been teams of two per entrance, no more, no less, but that could vary as they went. Some had lower limits of what was allowed, but most only had upper limits, restricting just how many people could work together to complete a task.

“Yeah, well as I was looking at this, I think the trial marks how many living things enter it to determine how many rations to hand out when it gives them,” Ben started, feeling uneasy as he did. “We’re marked as two, but I think I figured out the upper limit for this one.”

“Out with it legs, you’re freaking me out here.”

“Twenty-seven. The god that made this trial made it so up to twenty-seven people could take it at once.”

The silence hung between them as it was said. Neither of them had heard of a trial on the world allowing anything close to that number of people in at once and they didn’t like the implications of it one bit.

“…So what does that mean for us then?” Greed asked, feeling worn out just hearing it.

“Ultimately, not much. It doesn’t help us and it doesn’t put us in a worse position either, at least not worse than we already are. It’s just the implications of it that are a little troubling. Gods typically set the maximum as what they expect mortals to struggle with completing. I’ve heard gods give slightly better rewards if less manage it but… Well, if the expectation for getting through this is a team of twenty-seven, I don’t really like the implications.”

“Fuck legs, got any good news for us while you’re at it? With the way you keep pouring over the walls, I could sure use some.”

“…I’m not sure if it’s good news, but I’m working on a bit of a theory. An alternative we could use to finishing the trial if we really want to.”

“Wait, really!”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Yeah, the only small issue is that it might kill us.”

“You really know how to get a guy’s hopes up, you know that?” The crab complained. “So out with it then. What’s your idea?”

“So I don’t know how well-known this is, but you know how items have rankings?”

“I’d say that’s pretty common knowledge, yeah.”