CH951

“… What exactly is going on here?” Thera asked as she and Mora came through a gate, getting to the shop and getting to see Ben lying face down on the floor when they did, even with other Bens still hard at work around him. “Did you really get one of your clones killed and couldn’t even be bothered to clean it up?”

“This is the real one and I’m not dead,” he said, face pressed against the floor. “Just understimulated.”

“Taking the lack of chores that hard still?”

“Mmh, I don’t want any more stupid work from the stupid gods but I’m hitting different walls in different projects that I won’t be able to start getting past until I get some experimental results back from my research center or the grey which means my usually busy mind is feeling pretty empty. I’m only thinking half as much as usual.”

“That’s probably more than the rest of the world combined by this point, Ben. So what exactly is lying on the floor helping with?”

“Just something to do while I try to think of other things. As things are, for fun I’ve been trying to translate every conversation I’ve ever had and every piece of media I’ve ever consumed into every other language I know, including a bunch I was able to learn from the grey from the broader multiverse, which I believe let me find a few minor translation errors I’m going to have to talk to them about. Since that also means I’m now going over every book I’ve read at the magic towers again too, I’m further refining and categorizing ideas I’ve read there. Genuinely, I think I could condense it down significantly which I kind of already did with the books I wrote and donated a while ago but those really just had the heart of what matters for a bunch of concepts, if I was doing it broader while covering every topic the library held then I feel like I could do better while keeping it to a few shelves so maybe that will be something to send to Killi and the mages guild and to set up in the different churches of Myriad. I’ve also been inventing some new spells for funsies, even if I can’t cast any of them.”

“I feel like I need to worry most about that last bit.”

“I wouldn’t too much.”

“What are they then?”

He materialized a thick book into her hands, the title being the first thing she commented on even before opening in.

“Ben’s big book of unethical spells? Really?”

“I thought it had a good ring to it. If we’re going to see Jake tomorrow to check on my last few awakenings to finish then I’ll force him to try a few for me then.”

There had been a handful of people at their seventh levels who’d gotten his help near enough to the end of his soul modifying that he’d been willing to go back after that week so they could practice in the hopes of reaching the eighth but as far as he was concerned, that last journey was the end of it. It could take the day, but anyone who hadn’t reached the level to awaken by then could instead get the benefits when he’d do one last mass awakening just before the start of the next wave. With Thera’s focus moving to the pages she held as she flipped through the book.

“I feel like if the gods got to see it, this entire book would instantly become illegal.”

“That would be a little harsh; plenty of those spells are purely hypothetical. There’s no way to know if they’d actually work until they were tried.”

“Plasmafication?”

“Oh, you spotted a good one. In theory, there’s no reason there shouldn’t be versions of petrification for different affinities of magic, even if it seems like different ones are going to have different strengths and weaknesses. The horrors that might come with reversing them for one. Iceification is the water one for example, but I don’t think you need me to explain what might happen if it was reversed if you let them melt a bit first.”

“For the sake of keeping my lunch, I’d prefer you didn’t.”

“Ha, fair. So plasmafication is the fire affinity’s version, only the mana cost is going to be insane and the result’s a little…”

“Horrifying?”

“Cataclysmic,” Ben corrected. “Converting a body’s worth of matter directly into energy is the sort of thing that would leave a sizable crater anywhere it’s done. Think about the results of me making antimatter, only on the scale of a person.”

“Yeah, this book should definitely be illegal.”

“Well, it would take an awakened life and fire mage that holds over thirty thousand points of mana to do it, so I personally wouldn’t worry too much. Of all the possible petrification variants, it’s the least possible by far. As for the others, I won’t be able to test until tomorrow, but… wait, no, a handy person just entered my connect range, so we can try a couple things out today. Okay kids, who’s ready for a field trip?”

Before anyone answered, Ben was already opening the door with his magic before Sachel on the other side could knock on it, surprising her as he did.

“Sorry, am I interrupting?” she asked, suspecting it was so from what just happened. “Since I was walking by, I thought I’d check on how Delair’s doing, but-”

“She’s doing great and you’ve made perfect timing,” Ben told her, putting his clones away and getting up to pick up the kids. “Come on and help me out with something.”

“Um, alright. What?”

“Gonna teach you some experimental new spells.”

“Ben, I feel like this is going to traumatize the children,” Thera sighed when they got out to the training grounds, flipping through his spell book the entire way there to see what other horrors it held. “There’s something wrong with your imagination.”

“Mora’s been seeing everyone dragged into the hospital with you each day, and I had to actively stop Delair from watching Abel transform. Compared to that, everything I might do here is going to be fine. Now, as for test subjects, you up for making some cloned Bens?”

“And this feels weird too,” Thera told him, shaking her head even as she gave in. Raising some dirt up, she made a knife to take his blood before changing its nature so it would start to feed, Ben producing meat with his magic to grow them away from the eyes of the others and clothing them before he brought them out, four new homunculi ready to be used.

“Perfect,” he laughed, overall thrilled to have them before he and the new constructs focused on Sachel. “Then for now, I’m going to teach you a couple of new spells. One you’re probably going to need my help with, but we’ll make this work, so for now, can you cast iceification on this one?”

“I don’t think I like that I know this spell now,” she answered, also thinking about the logical implication of what would happen once it started to melt.

“Just once, and if you don’t like it, you’ll never have to do it again. Please, you’re the only person I can ask today.”

“How long until you could ask someone else?”

“Tomorrow, but there’s a few new plant spells in the mix too, it’s not like you’ll get nothing from it.”

“Mmh, fine.”

Even the water-life spell she was being asked to cast first would do something for her, given her current magic had grown from those two affinities along with earth. She had her focus and was interested in getting to it, casting the spell Ben wanted first to turn one of the Bens into an ice sculpture, with everyone looking at it once she did.

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“Alright,” he nodded. “In that case, let’s leave this one off to the side and see what it looks like after it melts a bit-”

“You can look at that in private,” Thera told him. “Even if you want to see it, I don’t, and we’re absolutely not letting the kids see, no matter how good they are at taking these things.”

“Aw, why not?” Delair asked with big, begging eyes, holding plenty of her own curiosity on the topic that Thera was more than fine with denying.