CH600

“So, what did you need me for today?” Thera asked as Ben and his clones were swarming her, moving her arms and legs and eyeing measurements as they did.

“Getting you outfitted. Now that the rest of the day’s work is done, you’re my main project for the time being.”

“Okay, why though?”

“Better safe than sorry,” He shrugged. “I don’t exactly want you needing something while we’re at the invasion points and not having it, hence getting as much of that sorted out now while we can. That means duplicate armours and staves and a couple other things.”

She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “What couple other things?”

“Don’t worry about it,” He told her as amongst the flurry of activity going on around them, one of the homunculi very clearly dropped a pile of mind circlets into a spatial bag. “What matters right now is getting a few copies of your armour made up in case anything goes wrong, as well as a pile of staves. I don’t exactly anticipate you breaking your current one but this is one of those better to have it and not need it situations. I’m thinking ten of each to be on the safe side.”

“That feels like overkill.”

“Probably but that’s why it’s called the safe side. I can imagine a world where things get bad enough you somehow manage to break a couple staves in that time, but ten? Absolutely not. Anyway, you’ve been using both for a while now, anything I could improve for anything you use?”

“No, it’s all comfortable so just more of the same will be fine.”

“Okay cool, that makes things easy.”

With nothing to change, his many bodies began to move, taking advantage of the new workspace he’d bought as they split themselves up between the tasks, with Thera not looking at the staff or armour groups, but instead the third, not doing any smithing but instead focusing on alchemy.

“So what are they up to then?”

“Just an experiment, one second,” He told her as the first vial of mystery liquid was complete, downing it and judging its results. “Hmm, doesn’t taste terrible which is a plus and I don’t seem poisoned which is another, although I’m supposedly poison-proof enough that I’m not really the best person to use as a standard for that. As for its effects…”

He materialized as much rainbow mana crystal as he could, bringing his total pool to its bottom before counting how long it would take to refill and finding it took only a little over five minutes, a bit less than half his normal rate, telling him the potion he’d modified was performing better than expected, all that was left was making sure it would be safe for Thera’s consumption.

“Here, drink this but keep an eye on yourself for a while afterwards. I’m not expecting any serious side effects but it never hurts when trying something new.”

She did as he asked, downing it without any immediate reaction and leaving Ben to focus on what to worry about next once he was confident he hadn’t just poisoned her.

“So with that done, the other way to make sure your mana regen gets another boost would be some light-enchanted equipment but at the same time you’ll be passing through a hospital every time you move from one point to another, there’s definitely going to be light mages there so we could just get them to buff your rates instead. Okay, that sounds like a plan. Other than that, I don’t exactly know the quality of food we’re going to have to deal with so I’ll prepare some time-enchanted boxes to hold some fresh meals and other than that…”

“And other than that, maybe work on something for yourself?” Thera told him, nodding to his jacket. “I know you like it Ben, but it doesn’t exactly hold up well.”

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“Against all of the assholes with awakened skills that have tried to kill me, it would work fine otherwise!”

“Well, seeing as how you have no say in who’s going to try and kill you, maybe it’s something you could work on a bit?”