CH494

The day that followed ended up straying from his new norm just a little. Instead of spending so much of his time pumping out weapons to do his part for the world, he first went to visit Killi at the magic towers, submitting reports of his discoveries to get her help with handling before taking advantage of the fact he was there by reading even more, finally finishing the second floor.

That of course left him with the largest to go, the first which was made up of not only what could be found in the main building, but many of the surrounding ones as well, but that was an issue for another day. He’d made a fair bit of progress with his work and was happy to go home and indulge in a normal night, making dinner for everyone and talking before turning in, back to the archive.

Originally, he’d wanted a bit more of a break than a single day after spending so much time in it but it was hard to hold himself back. He felt the call of a mystery in those untouched pages and wanted to do everything he could to finish them, and given the work he’d already put in, was well on the way to making that happen. After all, he did have a few books he could complete right away, the only reason he hadn’t was because of the excitement that came with the enchanting modifier that he couldn’t keep himself from testing.

Now though he was able to finish the rest that shared the language without a second thought before he started on the remaining few, chipping away at them one by one as each book turned red to match his comprehension, even if he found himself getting little of value for most of it.

It wasn’t like there wasn’t anything interesting, he couldn’t say that after the enchanting discovery and a few other valuable bits of research. The issue was just that he’d seen plenty of it before. The world he was on was composed of so many races that after coming together had joined their knowledge of magic and spent so much time growing into what they now were, even if plenty of it was well done, it was hard to find anything truly novel compared to what he’d found in the uncountable number of books he’d already read in the magic towers library.

Much of what he was seeing in the archive was stuff that came naturally to some races as well, combined affinities. It seemed Galwaxians didn’t get them naturally so when someone figured out how to imitate options like lightning or plant it was a big deal to them, or at least that was Ben’s guess. All of which added together to make the most of what he’d actually learned ended up being a list of dead languages instead of anything as life-changing as that one particular book had been.

Of course, I just might be the wrong guy for plenty of this. Who’s to say that nobody else who actually holds some of these affinities wouldn’t be able to look at these memories and be inspired to reach even greater heights in their skills? I was able to get something great the moment I came across enchanting so it might just take the right eye to see the value. Plus I’m sure experiencing memories is probably a lot easier than reading a bunch of books for plenty of people if they want to improve their technique.

In the end, it didn’t really matter. With time flying by he put the final book away, only to be left with a problem as he stood right before the finish line. A single blue book left, one he’d skipped over in the hopes he’d find more examples of the language it was spoken in, only to come up empty with it being the one book without any other resources.

Without more, that meant he had nothing he could go off of to help him beyond the small bit of context that each of the memories provided for what was being thought, as well as the possibility that he might find related words in the various other languages he’d learned, even if that meant the task was going to be so much more challenging right from the get-go.

And the worst part is I already know about this stupid option.

It showed another combined magic, one he was deeply familiar with after being stuck in the dead god’s trial. Blessing magic, the same one that Greed possessed and was a combination of light and life. The skill the mage seemed to be using it with looked impressive by all accounts, but the fact that being able to comprehend the thoughts behind the actions was the only thing stopping him from getting that last book finished was driving him mad.

He spent tens of perceived hours going through that one book again and again, looking at every little thing along with the mage’s notes in the back, trying to see how it might compare against the other languages represented in the archive, only to still fail in the end.

He believed he could do it, it was only a matter of time, but at the very least he needed a break from the overly dull task and decided to leave the archive for the night, going up to his god’s realm to pursue a different avenue for his study.

“Oh hey, glad you’re here too, Nare. What are the odds you guys could just whip up a few dictionaries for me converting all of the languages you know into allspeak? I’d appreciate it.”

“Hit a snag I take it?” Myriad asked him, not really needing an answer when Ben’s face made it so clear.

“I hate Galwax. What a terrible way to design an item, who the hell traps a feature behind comprehension? I bet a ton of the people from his world who read it never finished all of the books either.”

“I do want to point out that you’re only assuming something is going to happen once you read them all.”

“I mean, it doesn’t feel like a bad assumption. Of course, if I’m wrong then I’m going to hate Galwax even more for wasting so much of my time. So anyway, books?”

“Alright, but before that there’s actually something we wanted to talk about. In two weeks, there’s going to be a fairly important meeting, would you and Thera be able to go?”

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“Depends on why I guess. What’s happening?”

“It’s something that happened before the first wave as well. It’s for people who aren’t particularly aligned with any one nation to decide what point they’ll be going to. Since you were just joining craftsman’s tower before there was no need to bring it up last time but since then things ended up a little hectic as I’m sure you could imagine it looks like word never reached either of you that you were invited to this one.”

“Wait, I was like, properly invited? Why?”

“You are still a member of the adventurer’s guild, all third to first ranked members are invited if they aren’t already stationed in a specific nation, along with anyone else with enough known power. It’s something your guildmaster should have mentioned by now but since it looks like she’d assumed you’d already decided where to go and hasn’t brought it up, I’m stepping in. Of course, if you don’t intend to be on the front lines again then that works far better for me personally.”

“…No, I’ll go.”

He didn’t particularly want to, but then, he was sure Thera fully intended to keep fighting so he was going to as well.

“I figured. Anyway, since Sonya is an awakened skill holder who isn’t already tied to an organization that would be aware of it you should ask her if she’d want to participate and I can pass that information along if she does, and Sachel and her party will be attending as well so if you’d be willing to help them get there?”

“Yeah, sure. Is her party rank three now?”

He knew Sachel had gotten to the second rank by virtue of getting her awakened plant magic, but he hadn’t heard about the rest rising up as well.

“They are. They did good enough work anyway so thanks to having her with them they were raised up one.”

“Then can do. Now if that was all…”