CH514

The next day, Ben woke up early for one single reason. Testing.

After a night of examining the new spell with the two gods, he was left to actually see what all of the new mana modifiers would do and he wasted no time doing exactly that, creating simple enchantments to attach them to and recording the changes the modifications made, making enough progress that he made a mental note to go visit Killi later in the day to update the books on them he’d already produced, hoping that getting more eyes on them could result in new routes to discovery and progress.

Really, he wanted to go that second. As far as discoveries went, what he’d gotten from the archive had been huge, but he forced himself to hold back. As much as he didn’t like it, he had people to teach, so as the day began and he parted with Thera, he found himself back at Nati’s residence, ready to face whatever the day was going to throw at him.

“Actually going to stay awake and do your job today?” Xilly said in place of greeting.

“And hello to all of you too. Let’s make this quick. Did either of you have any questions from what you were doing yesterday?”

“No,” Nati told him, at least coming off as a bit more polite, even if she herself didn’t seem impressed with how he’d slept through the latter half of their practice yesterday, only waking up occasionally to check on them. “Is there anything else we can be doing to try and raise it?”

“From my experience, I’d say life and death situations can help but other than that just keep practicing with each other and others. Finding a strange mind would probably help as well but where you’d get access to something like that is another question.”

He wasn’t even going to bother trying to offer his own again, even if he thought he might be able to configure his mental structure in a way to raise their level after a few attempts, leaving him with the last thing he was there to teach them on the agenda, the enchanting modifier.

While he still had over a week of practicing with them left, after he gave that last explanation, all he’d be able to do to help from there would be to judge how their enchantments looked and give them what advice he could as they worked to put the information he’d already supplied into practice, along with the potential for a few more lessons on ritual magic so long as either of the two managed to raise their connect level or else became proficient at the technique without it, though he wasn’t holding his breath. Both were complicated, not the sort of thing so easily mastered in such a short time, least of all when they’d also be trying to learn that complex mana movement at the same time.

Oh well, I can say that I’m at least doing the best I can here. We’ll see how Nare feels about the other two. Plus him.

He could feel the eyes of Nare’s high priest on him, filled with an obvious judgment and before starting anything else Ben turned to stare him down in return, waiting for him to give voice to whatever was on his mind until he finally broke.

“Were you at warrior’s tower before this?”

“I was, why?”

“Did you take part in the riots that went on there?” Zallith asked, ignoring the question.

“I did, it was fun, I’d recommend joining one at least once if you get the chance.”

Even more fun when you’re the guy leading it, though I suspect he wouldn’t like that answer.

The priest already didn’t like the answer he was given, shaking his head as he got back to his own work. “I thought so. Do you have no shame as a representative of a god?”

“None. Which is better than licking the boot so hard I choke on it. Now is that all or can we get to work already?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, instead immediately materializing two knives and quickly added enchantments to them in the typical weave configuration, one with the modifier and one without to let the two see the difference as he slid them over to his students.

“Now, this is going to be both hard and unintuitive to do but try and follow what I say and I’ll give you as many examples as I can because if you don’t manage to learn anything else I’m trying to teach you both, learn this and the items you make with it will have a good chance to go up at least one rank in quality along with either an equivalent boost in power or reduction in the mana cost to match.”

He went on with his lesson, Nati at least seeming interested despite herself given she could see how the enchantment had raised the item’s rank as he did his best to try and explain how to do such a thing in words, all the while he quietly kept up his materialization and enchanting, slowly filling his bag with circlet after circlet for what was going to come next.

“Killi, how do I deal with some problematic students?”

“If you ever learn then I’d be happy to get that answer as well,” She chuckled. “Who’ve you begun teaching?”

“One of the summoned and a… I guess she’d be a grand-demigod? A demi-demigod? Doesn’t matter, either way, I hate them but I’m being paid well.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Grand…? Ah, I suppose that would be Nare’s descendant. They do say the mortal children of gods can be a handful, just do your best. But I assume that isn’t the reason you came here, is it?”

“No, I have a couple. One being these.”

He opened his bag, pulling out circlets of all sizes and explaining their purpose before Killi had to ask.

“They’re enchanted with knowledge and a few other helpful skills that will let anyone who wears them learn quicker and faster. Given how important it is to have powerful mages in the world right now I’d like to officially donate these to the library as the apostle of Myriad.”

“Interesting,” She muttered as she picked one up to look over. “Such an obvious application of both a knowledge skill and an awakened enchanting, but have we really never had someone who held both at one time before? I suppose that makes sense, enchanters usually just raise a magic with that skill for their work and make use of whatever else exists in their status as a bonus.”

“Well, a lot of interesting options become available if you branch out a little.”

“I’ll bet. I’ll take them. I’m assuming you want it to be known they’re from the church of Myriad?”