CH330

“Huh, looks like I was right. Alright guys, you can stop now,” Ben told the two gods who were speaking in his head, spewing a stream of information about the plants in the world as he finished up a book on the same topic. Specifically, he’d been learning about plants in so far as how they related to his crafting and alchemy, wanting to see if that would level up both of his knowledge skills and finding it did.

<Finally.> Helori sighed in relief as Myriad was quick to agree with the feeling.

<Don’t expect this too often Ben, we both have so many better things to do than spending hours whispering into your ear.>

“It was just to speed things along, don’t worry. I’ll try and improve my speed reading some more anyway, but first, I’ve got to focus on today.”

He had big plans after all. After plenty of time devoting himself to working on the god bone weapons with Falk and tending to his new, ethically dubious garden, the weekend had finally arrived, meaning he had a promise with Thera to fulfill, and with that in mind he left his room to get started on it.

Sonya had already left for the clinic for the day and he knew Thera planned to sleep in a bit with how early she’d been going to help, followed by plenty of time spent hunting with Aso after, so he was going to use it to push his culinary skills to their maximum potential.

She said she wanted the best day of her life, let’s see if I can make that happen.

Breakfast was a priority, but his main focus was things that would be enjoyed later as he began on the last thing they’d be eating that day, dessert. He wanted to have a variety of flavours, but even with as good as he was, there were limits to how much he could make, so to get around that he decided on cupcakes. After making the initial batter, it was easy enough to separate out portions to add different flavourings to, as well as all of the fillings and frostings and creams that would go with them, ending up with so many combinations that he thought would work in the end that after they were complete no two were the same, even though he had over two dozen.

“Hmm, maybe I made too many actually? Well, it will be good to let Sonya have some and who says there can’t be dessert after breakfast too? Let’s see, Thera seems to have a sweet tooth anyway but a sweet breakfast followed by a cupcake might be a little too much. We have some meat and veggies that should go well with a light syrup so let’s go with those to start.”

Plan in mind, he began exactly that as he heard Thera beginning to move around, the smell of his cupcakes making its way to her and her stomach rousing her to get up and see just what was waiting in the kitchen.

“Mmh, morning,” She said as she walked up behind him, placing her head on his shoulder, her eyes closed in a futile resistance against her hunger to stay asleep.

“Morning. Give me just a minute and I’ll have breakfast out.”

“Sounds good, it smells fantastic.”

“It will be.”

She grabbed her seat while he left the food to cook, grabbing something from the cold box to make drinks. Frederick was yielding berries year-round now, and while he enjoyed snacking on them as he worked, most went to the freezer if he ever needed them, in this case being boiled and mashed in a pot with some water and sweetener before straining to make a simple juice.

Once done, he plated everything and laid it out for them, both digging in as the last bit of sleep left Thera.

“Alright, this is definitely a good start, but you’ve got a long way to go before I’m over my title,” She teased. In the weeks since she’d gained it, she found herself caring less and less, but she still liked the idea of Ben going all out for her enough that she wasn’t going to drop it, and he was happy to anyway given how their first date turned out.

“Well, I’ve got one or two things that should entertain you, namely a new game. Come on.”

“Ben, as much as I enjoy passing the time playing games with you, beating you has lost some of its magic.”

“Ah, but you’ve never beaten me like this.”

Walking into the living room, the first thing she noticed was the square sheet of diamond sitting on the table, same as the many others Ben had bought from her father, only smaller.

In a way, it was horrifying having something like that laying around. While her dad could make it far easier than any magic material, he typically didn’t for the sole fact that there was no real demand. What he made each day would be so much more useful and valuable that it would be a waste of his time and mana, though he would take an order for it if it came up.

Because of that, though prices of the many magic materials had been dropping for years, the prices of precious gems had remained relatively stable. An equal quantity of mythril would still cost significantly more, but given the versatility of it, it made sense. A diamond sheet had value for being a diamond sheet, that was it.

Ben took a seat, picking it up and placing one of his white mana batteries into it, seeing a light enchantment activate across it as it did while two small bars appeared on either side, as well as a thin line across the middle and zeros in each corner.

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

“Okay, you’ve got me curious, what’s this?”

“A video game. Although that’s not technically right since nothing like video exists here. An illusion game then? A light game? Hmm, I’m going to need to figure out a name for this when I file my patent.”

He’d created it more as a side effect of studying the summoning spell than anything else. Since he wanted to try and treat his magic more like engineering than the art and science it typically was, he’d looked for a structured approach to achieving that, which led him to this. Instead of his usual way of doing it, this was more a rigid set of the activation and cancelation condition spells that all existed around a few of his rings of magic, each going off when certain conditions were met to replicate the simple game of pong.

“It’ll start when we both run some mana through it. Grab your half on both sides to move the paddle left or right depending on which side you run your mana through and once a ball appears try not to let it pass by you.”

It was far more interesting than she’d expected when he’d said he’d made a new game and her eyes were gleaming as she got her hands on it, ready to play.

As it began, he kept one mind focused on the sacrificial enchantments on it, feeling pleased to see they were breaking so much slower than he expected. With what he had on there, he’d originally thought he might need to rebuild them every ten minutes, but it seemed that the control she’d gained from awakening two of her magics had left her far better off than he would have guessed. It seemed like it would be able to go hours without any upkeep if she and Sonya ever wanted to play it when he wasn’t around, news he couldn’t be happier with as he put all of himself into the game.

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