CH96

Ben pulled open the door before Sachel even had a chance to knock.

“How did you know I was there?” She asked, more than a little surprised. She’d been excited for him to get back ever since she got the skill and had been told by Myriad that he would give her some pointers, but given her friendship with Skoe and his strained relationship with Thera she had been feeling hesitant to knock on her door.

“Myriad told me,” He said, having been woken by his god while he was in the middle of reading through the blueprints in Myriad’s divine realm. “Come on, let’s either go to your place or walk to the forest.”

“Not here?”

“Thera doesn’t like wearing her cloak at home and I’m not going to force her to for company.” Not to mention the fact that your party seems to have a history with her.

Ben wasn’t hiding the fact that Sachel was his god’s new believer from her, nor that he was going to help her a bit with the skill, but that didn’t mean he was going to force them into close quarters together. As far as he was concerned it was their party who needed to make a peace offering.

Having said that, Ben didn’t have any issue with Sachel outside of that. The few times she’d spoken to her about Myriad while she was considering converting she seemed pleasant enough, if not a little overeager at times.

“Okay then, let’s head to the woods, Ralia’s still sleeping and I’d rather not wake her.” It was still rather early in the morning. While Ben would usually be up soon anyway it was handy having his god there to help with that, and he knew Myriad wanted this to go well. If Sachel could use the skill to get the tree tamer job, and from there gain plant magic, she could be a valuable source of advertising, even if it looked like he would be able to appeal to a more crafting-focused crowd now that his skill had grown.

They walked to the edge of the woods, chatting along the way. Ben was interested in what had gone on in town for the last month and a half, to which the answer was a resounding ‘not much’, and Sachel was curious about what he’d been up to since he’d left, which Ben tried to keep vague. Between developing a valuable patent, taking Anailia’s trial, and kind of being engaged now, he wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with the fallout of any of that being made public.

When they got to the woods though they began the lesson. “Alright Sachel, since you’re an adventurer I’m going to tell you here and now the most valuable use of the skill, one you’ll be using every time you walk into the forest.”

His sudden seriousness caught her and she looked at him with bated breath, excited to learn the applications to her new ability.

“If you keep the skill active, it will almost immediately kill any bugs that land on you to try and get a bite.”

“Seriously?” She asked, disappointed he already wasn’t taking it as seriously as she’d hoped.

“Hey don’t knock it, that was probably the first way I used the skill. Of course, I didn’t have anyone to practice with at the time but doing that is what led me to discovering it can link to plants. Have you given it a try yet?”

“I have.” She nodded. “I’ve tested it with Ralia a few times, though it tends to feel a little… off I guess? I’ve also tried on our house plants but I feel like I can’t pick up much from them.”

“Plants definitely take patience when you connect to them, the communication is slow and even when the skill levels up, you’ll never be able to detect anything like regular thoughts, it’s more you’ll be able to interpret their feelings better and be able to pick up on the subtleties of their emotions. At least that’s how it is for me. Since you’re still level zero, why not try to connect with me first?”

He held out his hand to her and she took it, activating her skill. Ben was reminded of what it was like when he’d first gained it, all he could feel from her at the moment was a mixture of nervousness and excitement, not a single thought broke through. He was keeping his mind pretty steady at the moment, there wasn’t much to provoke an emotional response from him after all, but after a couple minutes of feeling Sachel probe around his head he activated hidden mind, just to see what would happen.

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“Wait, what did you just do? Was my skill canceled?”

“No, I just have a skill called hidden mind,” He said with a small chuckle. “I spent enough time with enough different people and races trying to keep my thoughts leaking out that it developed. Did it cut off everything entirely?”

“It was like I wasn’t even connected to you.”

Interesting. His hidden mind skill was currently at the same level as her connect. He hadn’t expected it would be able to cut off her skill entirely without it being a higher level. Perhaps it was a result of it interacting with one of his other skills that gave it a boost? None existed in a vacuum after all, just look at the interaction between connect and enchanting. If that was the case he’d put his bets on either focus or complex mind being the culprit, but he supposed there wasn’t really a way to know without doing some rigorous testing for something that was no more than an idle curiosity to him.