CH668

“Oh, no freaking way,” Ben said as he ran over, examining the small shrub for all it was worth. “Since the seed was materialized as is this has to technically be a homunculus! Oh man, I didn’t even think of this! Fontesh, you are brilliant, you know that? This is going to work so well! It might even work exceptionally well! If there isn’t already a soul in it, I wonder how it’s going to react with a god shoved into it? I mean, there’s technically also a demon’s soul in the crystal too but that’s still only two souls compared to the three there would have been if this was a normal plant. Man, I’m instantly wanting to see how this is going to turn out.”

The idea meant that traveling there at all had been pointless since he could have just materialized the seeds himself back home but he didn’t care. He hadn’t had the idea, getting it was a boon that showed the continued value of having others no matter how his mind would grow. No matter how much he could think, there would always be someone to point out something he missed or think something he didn’t.

He felt himself grinning as he imagined the potential, eager to see what would come from his experiments but held off on running away long enough to say his goodbyes, as well as ask a question he couldn’t leave without voicing.

“So, are you guys actually going to be okay out here? Things are getting dangerous. It’s none of my business but shouldn’t you guys move to a bigger town or city where you have strength in numbers?”

“Well, be fine,” Hentath told him. “We look after ourselves, and well, thanks to a certain someone a few of us have more than enough strength to look out for ourselves.”

“Okay, suit yourself. If you ever have an emergency you can’t handle then I guess do your best to get Jagal’s attention and if she passes it on to me, well, I’ll do whatever I can. Oh, and I guess I should hand these off to you too, compliments of the church of Myriad.”

Pulling out enough of his mana bracelets for every dryad in the village and making a box to hold them, he handed them over to Hentath who looked at them curiously as Ben gave a brief explanation, telling her both their function along with the fact that they should only be used in emergencies if they could help it to keep the effects from hurting their growth rates.

By the end, the explanation left her too stunned to properly respond but the gift at least earned him a small smile from the older woman as she walked off, leaving them only with Delair and Fontesh, the first none too happy to see him leave so soon.

“But you just got here.”

“Sorry kiddo but things are crazy busy and only going to get worse. I’ll try to visit again when I can, so be safe until then and keep working hard, okay?”

“Alright.”

“Good.”

He ruffled her hair one last time before they left. With everything he had to do, it was sure to be a long night meaning they couldn’t spare too much more time as they traveled back to Stonewall to see if any of his ideas would bear fruit.

Getting back home, Ben didn’t let Sachel get any peace despite her return after being away for so long. After all, he had all of the seeds he’d need but that still left growing them.

The rest of her party went off after realizing how late Ben intended to keep her and Thera went home to sleep in her bed for the first time in weeks, leaving the two alone to work through the night as Ben dragged her to the town’s training grounds to grow all he needed to without destroying Sonya’s yard.

“So, how much of everything do you need me to help grow?”

“As much as possible for you. I need you to grow everything to a size that I’d be able to fit a ring around them snuggly.”

She pulled a face as he said that. “Some of these are grasses, Ben.”

“Then you’ve got your work cut out for you. Even if it’s just the roots it’s fine, I just need something and I know your magic can push plants beyond their normal limits, just think of it as practice.”

“Mmh, okay, I’ll go as quick as I can but this is still a lot, it’s going to take hours and I’m going to need breaks for my mana in between.”

“No, you won’t,” He told her, pushing a couple points into her soul to enforce the point.

“…Right, forgot about that. Okay, let’s get started then.”

She took his first seed and planted it in the ground, running her mana through it and making it sprout and grow, ending with its typical form of a yellow, lily-like flower in only a few seconds while looking at him expectantly.

“Looks good but I’m going to be honest, it’s not just the grasses I want you pushing yourself with.”

“Yeah, I was able to pick that up. Give me just a few more moments then.”

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Promoting its growth even more, what had been a single, solitary flower developed further into something more akin to a bush, exactly what Ben had been hoping for by the time she stopped as he took off one of his bracelets and reshaped it, both to fit around the thick stem as well as hold the crystal in his pocket, with the change he’d come to expect taking place.

It immediately had an effect, both adding a subtle, scaled look to it all while at the same time making the entire plant swell slightly more, an expected result given how he’d already seen it change from previous experience but still satisfying to see it work as he harvested it, pulling a knife to cut just above the ring before slipping out the crystal, with the changes the skill had forced on the plant holding true after being cut off, letting him slip it into one of his rings before nodding to Sachel, letting her move onto the next one from there to repeat the process again and again as the hours passed by, late into the night as they moved from one plant to the next.

It wasn’t until a few hours from sunrise that they were almost finished, leaving only one final one to do with Ben bringing the seed for it into being himself, spending his mana to get the chance to see how it would turn out.

He couldn’t deny his curiosity on the matter, seeing how shoving a soul into a thing without one would affect it couldn’t help but fill him with wonder and excitement but in the end, it was far less interesting than he’d hoped. The effect seemed more powerful than it otherwise would have been but there was no additional change, the deity having no extra control over it despite the lack of competition within, still confined by the limitations of the body that held it.