When he woke up Ben was almost immediately put back to work. He tested to see the limits of how small of a brace he could make to hold the enchantment, finding that one about half the length of Sonya's forearm would work, though that would probably vary depending on the material used to make it. Once that was done he removed the enchantment he’d made for Thera, then spent another night remaking it while she slept, much to her discomfort. After that it seemed with his level up they were able to lower her passive magic effects to 24 at a distance and 34 on contact, both far better than nothing, but still outside the range a majority of people could resist. Still, it showed that as long as he continued to level up he could potentially keep getting her magic effects lower, until a point that it would be more manageable, it would just take time and patience.
After all of that was done he thought he could finally get some rest for the day and went back to sleep, only for Falk to shake him awake around noon.
“AHH! Falk, not so close!” Seeing what looked like a large gorilla right in front of him as he opened his eyes wasn’t the nicest way for anyone to wake up, but the adrenaline flowing through him meant he wasn’t getting back to sleep. “What do you want?”
“I got us an emergency appointment set up,” His teacher said without elaboration. “Get dressed and come with me.”
He didn’t fight his teacher on it and got himself sorted, but when they left the house and said goodbye to Thera he wanted a couple answers. “So what’s so important that you couldn’t let me sleep?”
“Boy, you really need to think about the magnitude of your discovery here. We’re going to send an official patent with the craftsmen's guild.”
“We have one of those in town?” He was sure he had a pretty good idea of what was around at this point and he felt like he would have noticed something so relevant to his occupation.
“Not a dedicated one, it’s at the adventurers guild. In smaller towns there's usually just one building for the four main guilds, and since smaller towns are likely on the fringes with a lot of adventurers and only a few craftsmen, merchant, or mages that would need guild services, that means they typically end up as adventurers guilds first and foremost. Of course now we’ll be getting you registered as an official craftsman, but that’s not the main point of the visit.”
Before Ben could ask more about the main point though they had arrived and were welcomed by his favourite guild employee.
“Good afternoon Ben. Oh and Falk's with you, it’s been a while,” Onk said with cheer to them, a greeting his teacher returned.
“Afternoon Onk, is Ceselee available? I set up an appointment the other day.”
“Absolutely, she’s just upstairs, go on ahead.”
Falk dragged Ben along, not giving him any time to ask any of the questions floating through his mind, bringing him upstairs and walking into a room to find someone Ben recognised behind a desk. The guild master.
“You could at least knock,” She said, looking up from some papers to see who had barged in.
“Bah, you knew I was coming, it’s fine. Sides, this is important.”
“It better be if you're making me act in an official capacity for the craftsmen's guild. When you insisted on this meeting I had to review a ton of procedural documents on how I’m actually supposed to fill the role.”
“You’re not filling me with a bunch of confidence here Ceselee,” His teacher told her, but she waved off his concerns.
“It’s fine, but there’s only about a dozen registered members in the town, they’ve never needed to use the guild for more than ordering supplies and books through. Hell, you know I got the job for my qualifications as an adventurer.”
“Well I’m sure you’ll be able to help me out. I hear you met my apprentice.”
Ben gave a friendly nod, not sure what he was supposed to be doing at the moment as Ceselee gave him an appraising look.
“Indeed, the boy that faced a horde of monsters, and has apparently been hunting solo since he joined the guild.”
“It was more Thera going against all the monsters, I was just support.”
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“Support is important, unless you can honestly tell me she could have faced all of those beasts without you there.”
He stayed silent. He knew that if he wasn’t around and Thera tried to do what they had accomplished alone her staff probably would have broken, but he didn’t want to talk up his own involvement in the event. He really felt he had only provided some help.
The guild master looked at him a little longer, before turning back to Falk. “So what was so important you set up an emergency meeting Falk? If it was any of the other craftsmen in town I wouldn’t have cleared my schedule.”
“We need to get my apprentice registered. He’s discovered something big and I want to get the patent for it in his name as soon as possible.”
“A patent?” she asked with a raise of an eyebrow. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s impressive that a young guy like him could manage it, but why would that be so important?”
“He’s found a cheap and easy way to inhibit passive magics.”
She took a second to process what was said, but when she did her eyes widened. “Oh fuck. This is going to be a lot of paperwork for me, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Falk confirmed. “Have a pen ready. Boy, outline to her exactly how you went about this, don’t spare any detail, no matter how insignificant.”
Ben did as his teacher asked, explaining his entire process in as much detail as he could, including his levels in each skill he used at the time to make it possible, as well as the fact that one of the skills needed to be granted by a particular god. Once that was done Ceselee addressed another matter.
“Alright I’ll have this sent off as fast as possible, give me your card for now and I’ll register you as a member of the craftsmen’s guild. There are some fee’s but they’re small and will be removed automatically so it isn’t much to worry about as long as you have a steady stream of income, but we can worry about that later. For now what’s most important is if you want to register your name on the public documents as the creator of the technique, or if you want to remain anonymous.”
“Well what difference does it make?”
“The biggest difference is just the sheer fame. If the world is aware you’ve made this then a lot of countries are going to try and recruit you. Of course this has positives and negatives in itself. If a country recruits you then on the plus side they’ll start to offer you things like supplies, a fully funded shop, maybe even staff to work under, not to mention a large and stable source of pay. On the negative though, anything you create that you’d want to patent, they would get a large cut of all the profits for funding your work, as well you would most likely have to prioritise their work over any other. On the other hand though, if you were to stay anonymous, your life wouldn't change in any noticeable way, except of course for any money you would make through your patents, which would be deposited in your card automatically by the guild.”
“And how exactly do I make money from any of this anyway?”
“Anytime a craftsman wants to make what you’ve patented to sell, they’d have to give 10% of their profit from the sale to you. This leaves the sell price of the item itself up to the individual craftsmen of course, but nobody wants to earn less money, you can be reasonably sure you’ll be getting a good deal. There is of course the potential for people to simply give away items they’ve made, but as long as they aren’t profiting that is completely legal. As well, if a kingdom or nation were to have any commissioned from their personal craftsmen then they would still have to pay a set amount towards you for the designs.”
“This seems a lot more complicated than I expected.”
“The gods who rule over crafting are very strict on the idea that people should be properly compensated for their works, as such the head branch of the guild is quick to shut down anyone breaking the rules and profiting off of others' inventions and discoveries. Of course This protection only lasts for 100 years, so depending on your race's lifespan it may not seem like enough, but it’s important to eventually let other craftsmen get their hands on them without having to worry about losses.”
“Okay cool, and if I choose to remain anonymous can I change that at any time?”
“Maybe not any time, you’d have to set up a meeting with a proper branch head, but it’s not too difficult of a process.”
“Alright then, I’ll remain anonymous for now,” As much as he wanted to show himself off to the various countries of the world and have them wither with regret over not taking him when they had the chance, if they started to show up now to offer him deals it would honestly just sound like a pain in the ass. Not something he currently wanted, though maybe a bit farther in the future when he had a better idea of what to do in the world.
“A decent choice for now, of course if you’re going to start selling them then people will be able to figure out who the person making them is pretty quickly if they want to.”
“No need to worry about that,” His teacher interrupted. “I’ve got a solution for him so it should be fine.”
“Alright if you say so,” She said a bit dubiously. “In the meantime it would be best to research all of the limits you can figure out to the enchantment and file a detailed report. As promising as this looks, the findings are still pretty initial, and it doesn’t sound like this skill comes from a very popular god, until any researchers figure out how to properly awaken it without converting, the number of people who will be able to make use of it will be pretty small.”
“We’ll see. Anyway thanks for your time Ceselee, as I’m sure you can imagine we still have a lot to do so we’ll be heading out,” With that they left the guild and Falk turned to Ben. “Boy pack a bag and do whatever you need to get done in the next couple days. I’m gonna have to send you off for a while.”
“What, why?”
“You’re going to Anailia.”