CH659

“Okay, first things first, gotta see what the damage is,” He sighed as he got up, reaching for both his pants and the card that sat waiting in his pocket to tell him exactly how far he was from his goal.

He was already fearing the worst too, the gods had made it clear that they expected third-tier jobs to be significantly easier for them to level compared to how much they’d invested in him, if he looked at his card and saw that he’d only received a couple of levels for it then he was going to be sick.

Holding a breath, doing his best to calm himself for a second before facing the inevitable, he forced himself to activate it and look at the top before nearly collapsing in relief.

Level ninety-four currently, thank fucking god. That means I only need five levels to finish, which is… Still not good. I don’t actually think it’s possible for me to get even that in a reasonable time frame but it’s nowhere near as insurmountable as completing my entire freaking job. It’s actually at a point that I’m willing to believe it’s possible to finish in my lifetime, the only question now is how to bring that down from ‘in my lifetime’ to the next couple of months.

Okay, I’ll think about it while I work but for the time being, it’s time to make stuff.

It had been too long since he’d last felt the warmth of the forge and with nearly glee he passed through his gate, returning home after far too long away to all of the wonders it contained.

Just being there eased his spirits and let him focus on the same thing he’d been devoting himself to since his return, making himself stronger.

With the first means of doing so being a correction to a past mistake as Ben first and foremost went to his voidstone, the goal being clear as he got started on shaping and enchanting it, all for the purpose of making more spatial rings.

It was the first day of the second wave that he’d been cursing himself for cheaping out on himself by not making more, he was going to correct that mistake with all he had as he got to work on producing them, ending with another nineteen, all while he promised himself that he’d take advantage of Jake’s skills to make more of the wondrous material the next chance he got.

Now having two for each finger, there was an immediate desire to slip them on but he held himself back to first deal with another problem, one just as pressing as the prior lack of equipment but taking the same form. His enchanted rings.

He always made sure to keep his magic ones on him at all times and grabbed the others as needed but already he couldn’t help but view that as a mistake in hindsight, one that had drastically lowered his options when trying to make it out of the cell that had held him.

He needed access to his full ring library at all times, and while there was the option of copying it all to put into one of his spatial rings, he wanted something with more immediate availability for whenever the task called for it or even just his casual practice. He wanted to enjoy the benefits of every skill he’d collected at all times, with the idea of how he’d make that possible already firmly in his head.

Making a tiny bead only a millimeter across, Ben enchanted on it with his highest level of sacrilege and felt it easily hold under the magic strain thanks to his high level of skill, proving that he’d be able to bring his vision to life with ease as he began, making thousands more of those same beads before binding them all together into new rings and enchanting on them one by one.

In general, the circumference of his rings were approximately six centimeters depending on the finger and by making the band a single one wide, that meant he’d be able to get six hundred skills on it to access at all times, with less for his pinkies but plenty more for his thumbs to make up for it. In that way, he ensured he’d be able to access six thousand different skills at all times.

And even still he tried to be cautious about it. Every ring got a copy of the archmagic he got from Jake and the non-affinity magic he got from Vasta, and beyond that he made copies of each ring.

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Twenty copies of each to be specific, one set to sit inside each of his new spatial rings. Maybe it was overkill, perhaps it was even paranoid, but it ensured that unless both his hands were blown clean off, he’d still be able to enchant to his full ability.

…Just in case I somehow lose both my arms, I think I’ll make a couple anklets too. Can never be too careful.

Undeniably having crossed over to the realm of paranoia now, Ben finished and turned his attention elsewhere, namely his jacket.

The gods had made a convincing point that if he wanted to stand any chance when facing off against Oaun, he needed to keep his soul firmly in his body which meant he couldn’t access the practically infinite reserve of mana he’d created for himself when the time came.

What that meant to him was that he couldn’t spend the next year turning the powerful item into a crutch to be used, but at the same time, he couldn’t just abandon it either. Not just for the power it contained, but for the ways it would let him grow as well. With all of that mana, Ben could practice any of his magics far faster and more efficiently to powerlevel through them and it offered another benefit too.

When he’d checked his card during his mad rush through the job system, he’d found his mana to be higher than expected. A lot higher, to the point where it was far above what he thought it should’ve been, even if he hadn’t just spent the last month killing his growth rates in that skill, with the answer as to why feeling apparent.