CH49

“Finally,” He quietly sighed and prepared to slink off for the night. He most certainly wasn’t expecting a reply to his casual thought, but one came anyway.

“That’s what I want to say,” Thera spoke, laying down still but eyes clearly open.

“Oh sorry Thera, did I keep you up?”

“No, I went to sleep fine eventually. I’ve been awake for over an hour. It’s morning Ben.”

He looked to her window and found that though the curtains were closed, there was indeed light leaking through them, gently filling the room.

“Wow, that took a lot longer than I thought it would,” He said offhandedly.

“I’ll say. At least you were lost in your own little world. I was stuck doing nothing the entire time, dealing with those two peering in on occasion and laughing.”

She sat up and Ben did his best to not pay too close attention to the pajamas she wore, something resembling a cotton nightgown, as she gestured to the doorway with her head.

He turned to look and found both Falk and Sanya grinning.

“So how did that go lad?” His teacher asked him.

“I applied the enchantment. All that’s left to do is see if it works. Should we be asking a guard again?”

“No need, I whipped something up quick before coming here, I’ll just need you to apply the enchantments,” He pulled out a stick with ten different pegs in it.

When Sonya saw it her eyes widened and she spoke out. “ Wait Falk, isn’t that-”

“Why don’t we let the boy save the reveal. Gotta see if it works first anyway,” His teacher interrupted her. “Now boy, let’s leave the house for a minute and I’ll tell you how to finish this, okay?”

“Sure, can do,” He said, not really understanding the point but obeying his teacher anyway. They went outside and walked for a minute away from the house when Falk handed the stick to him. “So what is this anyway?” Ben asked.

“A simple way to measure passive magics, the only issue is you need someone with high enough resistances to set it up. Now link your dark resistance with the bind spell, and attach each peg to the base, increasing each time. Start at four and end at forty.”

Ben followed his instructions and did as he was told, quickly applying the enchantments and then started to head back to the house and Theras room. One by one the pegs began to fall as they got closer, making him realise how it worked while at the same time crushing his spirit.

Falk however was staring at it intensely as they moved back to the waiting Thera and Sonya, eventually making it back to the room.

“Sorry to have wasted your night Thera, it looks like this was a bust,” He told them, filled with disappointment.

She was going to ask what it was supposed to do anyway since she still wasn’t in the loop, when his teacher stopped him. “Not so fast boy. Hand Thera that and let’s see what happens.”

There was no harm so he did as he was told and walked across the room to hand it to her. Of the remaining four standing pegs, one fell as he got closer, leaving only three remaining upright as Thera took the device. As she grabbed onto it two more fell, leaving only one remaining

“See, waste of time,” Ben’s thoughts turned to how good it would feel to waste some money on a street stall for some food right now when Falk grabbed him to get his attention.

“Boy, this is important. Did you only make the last peg reach 40?”

“Yeah, of course, I wouldn’t mess up on the only practical thing I can enchant,” Given that his max darkness resistance was 85, and taking into account that he’d leveled up, he could now enchant up to 51.

His teacher’s eyes light up hearing that. “Then you did it. Infinite hells boy you created a new way to block out passive magics.”

“What!” Thera yelled, looking down at her arm.

“Falk, don’t raise her hopes like that. Thera I’m sorry, that was my goal but it was a failure. It’s nothing to be excited about.”

“Nothing to be excited about yet,” His teacher clarified. “Boy, anything she touches needs just over 40 resistance. If the last peg isn’t coming down that means you’ve successfully blocked some of her magic. All that’s left to do is experiment. First we should remove the enchantments on that to do both the full range between the 26 and 30 pegs, as well as between the 36 and the 40 pegs. After that do you think you could make another?”

“I mean sure, my enchanting went up after doing the first one so hopefully I could make it a little more powerful if it really did work, though it will take hours,” Hearing his teacher’s enthusiasm brought back some of his own hope, maybe his little project wasn’t as much of a write-off as he initially thought.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“You told me you were wrapping it around the person’s mana, right? In that case I would say to do it on someone with significantly less to save time,” At that he turned to Sanya.

“Wait, you have charm as well? But I’ve seen you walk around town without a cloak?”

She gave him a brief explanation. “When you get to level six in charm magic it’s possible to suppress its effects. Unfortunately, until that point its effects only become worse so it wasn’t an option for Thera. I’ve spent a few decades myself to get to that point. I actually don’t suppress it if I’m at home though, you just can’t tell.”