CH343

<MEDITATION LEVEL INCREASED>

<Can’t believe in the two months since your minds split you managed three levels of meditation.> Myriad sighed in Ben’s head as he worked. <Forget a year, you wouldn’t shock me if you awakened the skill before any fighting starts. Or at least get to the ninth level.>

Maybe it wouldn’t be shocking since I’ve usually got around fifteen minds devoted to it, but as long as it doesn’t happen before I manage it with connect I’ll be happy. I cannot stress how annoying that would be If I manage to awaken the skill I’m using specifically to avoid leveling other skills before I manage it with the one I’m trying so damn hard for.

<Eh, fate’s a fickle thing, who knows how it will turn out?>

Yeah yeah, so does it at least grow in any cool ways when it does awaken?

<Don’t know, haven’t found any records of someone doing it before. Of course, the sort of person who awakens meditation is exactly the sort of person who wouldn’t go bragging about it.>

Fair enough, then ignoring that, what do you think of this so far? Do you think it’s something an unawakened enchanter could manage to replicate? Ben asked as he laid the finishing touches on the item he’d been working on, laying back and pinching the bridge of his nose to try and deal with the ever-present headache that had come with his minds splitting.

<You just used the ring and weave systems while basically only using light and enchanting spells for it so I’d say it’s doable, even if the item it went on is going to need some specialized production.>

That’s fine, it just needs to be at least reasonably possible for others to make, otherwise there’s no point in even putting in a patent. He thought back as he sat back up, lifting the item to admire it in detail.

It was fairly heavy by virtue of exactly what it was, dozens and dozens of thin layers of crystal sheets, each of them having dense layers of enchantments on them that were connected through thin moribusial threads to link up the various spell effects placed on each one. The edges of each sheet were carefully blended together to make it a solid object without disturbing the magic bound within, with the only thing left to do being playtesting.

Ben attached the entire block to the underside of a bigger quartz slab that had already been designed with different enchantments, as well as marked areas for running one’s mana through, and watched as it lit up, the game he’d made seeming to function perfectly as he tested it.

It was an extension of replicating pong for Thera to try all of those months ago that he’d kept working on, making more and more games as he went with each one needing different levels of complexity. There were other simple ones that could be made by adding the enchantment to a sheet of crystal like snake or brickbreaker or different endless runners, but the more complex he wanted to go the more problems there were to sort out until he didn’t have the space on a single crystal. He’d dealt with the scaling issue at first by layering and connecting quartz sheets to keep any one from becoming too big to fit everything, but eventually that stopped working too, otherwise the stack would grow unreasonably tall and unwieldy.

From there, there was only one thing he could do. Optimize everything. His goal was to make it in a way that a standard unawakened enchanter could, meaning no building them in a way that required multiple minds like blending enchantments and no large varieties of them either since the number of connect holders was still small. It was an incredibly interesting, stimulating problem for him that made it all the harder to keep from putting every mind in his head to it, but in the end he could say he was satisfied as he’d successfully made a 2D platformer.

“Man I am so freaking good at what I do,” He muttered to himself as he played through the levels, his headache forgotten with his sheer joy. “And this is just for when I’m trying to do something I could reasonably make money off of. What could I manage when I actually put my all into it? Something to think on for if I ever take summoned enchanter, the name would at least hint I’d get good experience from making things from my old world, right?”

<Maybe, but for the time being, since that’s done go to sleep. You don’t even need to go to the shop right now and you need proper rest that’s not in my realm.>

“What are you talking about Myriad? I slept without going to your realm not too long ago.”

<No, you did it months ago! And that wasn’t even sleeping, you passed out from pain! Don’t act like this isn’t affecting you, you annoying jerk of an apostle because everyone can see the bags under your eyes and it might even help with your headache a bit.>

“Hey, it’s fading on its own.”

<Yeah, slowly, but you’re ignoring the part where you need proper rest. Don’t make me talk to Anailia about telling Thera to make sure you sleep, cause I’m getting to that point!>

“Fine fine, you win. I can’t right now and you know it, but I promise to tonight, okay?”

<Mmh, fine, but if you don’t I actually will be ensuring your girlfriend finds out, not that she can’t see how tired you look anyway.>

After making breakfast for Thera and Sonya, Thera walked up to him, placing her hands on his cheeks as she ran a variety of spells through him and looked at him with concern.

“You didn’t sleep last night.”

“Ah, yeah I got a little too invested finishing my last project, but it’s done and I already promised Myriad I’d sleep tonight too so no need to worry.”

“Alright, and the headache?”

“Still there but getting better. I’ll live.”

She bit her lip as she looked at him, deep in thought and far from comfortable that he was still feeling the after-effects from leveling parallel thought.

“Maybe we should visit Vividus,” She eventually told him. “We could bring my dad to make sure she doesn’t try anything funny while she has a look at you so it would probably be fine.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Don’t worry too much,” He told her as he leaned in to kiss her goodbye. “If it hasn’t gone away in a couple more weeks then we can start off with visiting Lux instead. I was already told it’s likely just my body needing time to adjust to the massive change and in the grand scheme of things it hasn’t been that long.”

“Mmh, I don’t know…”

“Even if I’m not one hundred percent, it has been getting better so there is progress. Instead of worrying about that, swing by the shop when you’re done later. I’m going to need to test something but there’s a non-zero chance it tries to kill me.”

He’d meant it mostly as a joke, no matter how accurate the statement was, but it left Thera burying her head in his chest. “How can you be so unbelievably stressful?”

“Part of my appeal. I won’t do any of the dangerous bits till you get there and honestly I might not even be able to get to that point by the time you’re done, I still have a lot of work on it to do.”

“Fine, fine, just don’t go getting yourself killed while I’m not around to patch you up.”

After unintentionally yet successfully adding a new point of stress to Thera’s day, they both parted ways, each off to their various tasks.

Ben’s first stop was popping by the adventurer’s guild, meeting Ceselee and handing over all of the information he needed to for the patent of his latest game, but from there it was back to the shop where he was invested in finishing up a month-long project.