CH82

Thera sat to the side and watched Ben work. For a day and a half, only stopping to eat and forgoing sleep he had been fiddling with the arm of the statue, driving himself to the brink of mana exhaustion and only stopping long enough to recover it before going back to work.

He had explained his idea to her when he had it, if he could remove the enchantments on the statue’s arm he could apply his own, and Thera could attempt to use it as a makeshift staff. The issue was that the enchantments in no way wanted to come off the statue. He would deplete his mana reserves in the span of a minute or two, then have to wait for around ten for it to come back.

She had offered to try doing it herself, well aware that one of the only things her magic was good for was stripping enchantments from magic tools despite how much she may not want the particular talent. It probably wouldn’t even be that hard for her, but with her vast and uncontrolled power there was a concern that doing so might accidentally remove the enchants from the entire statue, which happened to be the only thing keeping them both alive at the moment. If that happened there would be no fixing it, the statues were right outside, waiting for them to get out and be destroyed.

That meant they needed to use Ben’s more delicate touch, she just wished he would rest properly at least.

“I’ll take a nap when all of the enchantments are off. I wonder if all divine enchantments are this stubborn or if your god’s just a perfectionist?” Even after leveling up his enchantment he still struggled to remove them, the progress was painfully slow.

“Wouldn’t you do the same?”

“God yes, in a heartbeat.” He could only imagine some of the things he would be able to do if he could bind his enchantments to a material that powerfully. He could only sigh as he took in what knowledge he could. Unravelling the ones Anailia made had at least given him a chance to examine them in a way that merely looking couldn’t match. That combined with the various improvements to his status during the trial would make doing the entire thing worth it in the end.

Well mostly. He thought to himself, a bit of anger over seeing his brother like that slipping back into him. Not to mention that all of it would be meaningless if the growth and knowledge he gained was lost if he died there.

He shook the thought from his head and put his focus on the task at hand. He would be completing this as efficiently as possible, and then getting out of there. Falk’s forge was calling to him and he wouldn’t let a few dumb statues get in the way.

“Damn it, this is a bit inconvenient.” He muttered as he worked, but in the close confines they were currently in Thera couldn’t help but hear him.

“What’s the matter?”

“A minor problem it looks like we’ll have to work around. I can’t break off the arm.” After far too many hours of work, he’d managed to strip the enchantments from the statue’s arm and taken a well-deserved nap, but when he woke up another problem appeared. One he couldn’t think of a solution for.

His goal had been to turn the arm into a reasonable makeshift staff the best he could, which meant breaking it off from the rest of it for Thera to wield. Lacking any tools to make that happen he used a technique he was quite well-practiced at by this point, using the destructive properties of enchantment to weaken the material at the shoulder and break it off.

The problem was that whatever sort of stone it was, it was capable of holding the magic of a god. Even if he considered the fact that there were some truly masterful techniques used to make it possible, almost all of which he could barely comprehend, that didn’t change the fact that the material seemed purposely chosen to stand up to it. No matter how many enchantments he added to it the enchantments themselves would collapse under their own magical weight before the stone would experience any harm. Even trying to use his crafting to weaken the material or find any microfractures that could exist within it didn’t yield any results. That left only one option.

“You’re going to have to use it while it’s still attached to the statue.”

“What? That’s ridiculous, will that even work?”

“There isn’t any inherent reason it couldn’t, it’s not like a staff actually has to be swung around when using magic, it’s just a channel to direct mana. The bigger issue is that if we leave it attached with all of your mana, some of it might flow backwards into the statue itself. I’m not sure if it would be enough to break the enchantments your god has on it, but it will definitely be able to destroy the barrier magic I attached to it.”

“So if I start a spell the barrier comes down?” Her voice was filled with worry. “Ben if I try to do the same thing I did to the first three I need at least a minute and they’re right out there, we won’t have enough time.”

“I’ll do my best to deal with it, I’m just going to have to do something we’re absolutely never telling Falk about.”

“What?” She couldn’t imagine Ben keeping something from her uncle for any reason, he was way too open about pretty much everything.

“I’m going to have to enchant it in a way that will take some of the burden off you.” Falk had always been clear with him that he shouldn’t make items in a way that could affect the development of a person’s skills, but that was the only thing he could currently think of to bring down the time for a spell’s activation.

She let out a breath, having expected much worse. “I’m pretty sure in this case he’ll understand you know.”

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“It eats at my pride! By doing this I’m pretty much admitting that I can’t make you something proper to use, it’s so embarrassing.”

“You’re my uncle’s student. When we get out of here, explain to him properly so he can guide you for next time.” She told him sternly, not able to believe they had to have this talk while her goddess’s murder statues were standing outside. She doubted her uncle’s resistance to letting her use tools that would delay her ability to level up her skill would apply in a situation where she was about to die.

“Ah, I know you’re right. I just wish I could think of a better way, I don’t want to get used to doing this in emergencies.” He moped. “Okay, come and give me a hand.”