What did Ben need to have on him in the event he succeeded in his prison break? Usually, any items he created were meant to help shore up his various weaknesses but as he looked at himself with a critical eye he couldn’t help but ask just how many of those he still had.

He’d just beaten his lack of mana in a huge way with the tens of millions stored in his coat; that meant he practically had no need to worry about how he’d attack. Even if breaking down the barrier was going to take every drop he was going to shove into his soul, he’d still have tens of millions more to grab from to do it all over again. It was something he was even doing as he sat there, overfilling his soul by hundreds of thousands of points at a time, dealing with the pain it caused to keep training his soul production for the massive experience it was giving his job.

No, with one exception, he didn’t need to worry about how he’d be fighting, leaving only two other things he cared about solving. His defense and his speed.

The first of which was partially solved too. For what little convenience he had in his cell, Ben hadn’t been stripped. His jacket was still on him, a high legendary item with all of the defenses he’d been able to cram on it when he’d had both a workshop and his full skill library to do it with.

The issue that left was for all of his other bits, or at least just his legs and head. As inconvenient as it would have been if he’d lost a hand while escaping, he’d manage and he didn’t want to lose what finger dexterity he had given some of what he might’ve had to do.

No, what mattered was ensuring that nothing shot a hole through his face or took him out at the legs, leaving him to focus in those directions as he began materializing and making all he could.

“Hmm? What is it now?” Tenth asked, seeing the work Ben was putting in but not knowing that droves of what was coming into existence were pure magic materials as Ben shaped them with his power.

“Preparing for my big prison break, I just need the right tools for the right job before I finally give it a try.”

“I see.”

The galwaxian asked no more, having given up on trying to talk Ben out of whatever hope he’d felt and instead let the man work with what he had.

With the first being a helmet, though an untraditional one given it looked more like a choker than anything else and fit snugly around his neck until he activated the enchantments on it, creating a layer of mana loosely around his head.

It was far from comfortable but that wasn’t the main complaint he had for it as he looked down at his hands and the sparse rings on his fingers. He had his magic ones, with the main being both high levels of archmagic and non-affinity magic, but that was it. None of the other skills he’d carefully collected to use aspects of and enhance his work were there to use and enjoy, making him swear to himself that should he escape he’d find a way to carry the rest with him at all times for cases just such as that.

But dear god, don’t let me have a lot more cases like this, pretty please. He silently begged while he continued his work, weaving an unusual thread through the pants he was wearing, one composed of both mythril and white mana crystal to power the enchantments he intended to place as he shaped his mana into something that would act as a flexible barrier, at least to an extent.

There was really only so much he could do on that front but he was confident that nothing that would hit him would sever a limb and should he have constructed it correctly, he was significantly less likely to be knocked over or swept off his feet if his legs were struck either, with part of the enchantments purpose designed to help weaken the force of any blow.

He did a bit of testing right after making it, punching the fabric with his full strength and swinging a knife at it too, but it was something he knew he wouldn’t be able to see the full potential of until they were put to a real test, making him glance out of his prison down below at all of the monsters who’d be more that happy to try.

…Don’t think about it.

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It would be enough or it wouldn’t, he wouldn’t know for sure until he was down there and until then he’d focus on the rest, with his defense being good enough that he’d be able to focus on what was both his priority and his enemy in and of itself; running.

He hadn’t been able to tell when he’d first been dragged to that world, the angle had made it a challenge, but he hadn’t actually been placed far from the gates. A couple of hundred meters, tops, which he’d have to sprint with all he had and then some to get to the other end.

There were a million ways that could go wrong too. Not only was that a huge distance for things to attack him, that was far too many seconds where the god he’d faced could potentially react, or even other ones he didn’t know about.

But if I start worrying about what ridiculously powerful gods may or may not do then I’m never going to get out of here. I’m just going to have to hope that Oaun doesn’t notice… Wow, that’s an awful plan and I am so very dead. Nope, not thinking about it. I don’t have the resources to try and handle it so I just need to hope that things go just a teeny tiny bit in my favour, just on that one front. That’s not too much to hope, is it?

He could almost hear the sounds of Myriad scoffing at him but he didn’t have a choice but to go on. If he escaped and the demon gods did anything to him then he was done, plain and simple. Better to just ignore it when he didn’t have options and hope for the best.

Not wanting to fall into his pessimism, he moved on to creating the things that would enhance his speed beyond his limits, making bands to wrap around his limbs with complex buffs on them before turning to what had been his barrier shoes.

The first thing he did there was materialize more rainbow mana crystal to replace the batteries he’d taken earlier before removing the enchantments that had been on them to replace with something better for his situation. He had his defense covered but with the shoes themselves designed to have certain strengths when it came to what could be put on them, he split the difference, creating a barrier that would act to help with his speed as he put them on and tested them out, taking a step and activating it before being thrown forward to the wall on the other end of his cell, hitting it with a thud.

…Okay, that worked but it looks like I’m going to need to get some practice with them. I’ll worry about that later. For now, the real last thing.

He had his speed, he had his defense, and he had his attack at least for the most part, with the one exception being a single vulnerability he wanted to fix.

He didn’t know how many demons would have magic nullification but the one he’d already run into had been bad enough and he’d seen it staring into his cell a couple more times during his observation. Not only would anything capable of that sort of magic be able to get past his defenses, he’d have trouble killing it, leaving the task feeling nearly impossible if not for the single cheat he had at his disposal.

An unknown material which he hypothesized acted as an opposite and counterpart to orichalcum, a material that seemed resistant to any magical effects which until that point had remained unnamed, with that changing then and there as he overfilled his soul with a million points of mana, bringing the shape he needed forth in the end.

A single bullet of stopstone.

Or at least the start of one. Even as he pushed his soul to its limits to materialize it he still barely got any, forcing him to repeat the process, materializing two more layers on top of what he’d first created until he had a usable size.

He looked it over while managing the pain creating it had put him through. It was something he needed to make sure he got right the first time for all of the ones he was going to produce, there’d be no redoing it. A magic material which by all accounts seemed immune to magic itself, Ben could only hope he wouldn’t be put in a position to discover that magic nullification was the exception as he took the time to make five more, having healthy breaks between each one to let his soul recover from the strain he kept putting on it and ending with six identical examples.

That left how to shoot them. Usually, he’d just build the enchantments on a gun to handle that sort of thing but the very property he wanted in the bullets was what was going to keep that from working. Luckily though, there was a simple workaround.

Spending his mana, he created a six-shooter revolver, adding all of the enchantments he typically would to such a thing, not to act on the bullets he’d just laboured to create, but instead what he was placing behind each one.

Thin pellets of steel, no bigger than the bullets they’d be resting against, would be acting as the target of the enchantments he’d created. Even if he couldn’t move the stopstone with magic, he could move something else and have that propel it out in the end. It wasn’t a perfect solution, especially since he couldn’t attach the pellets to each bullet without losing the very property he’d wanted to create, but it was good enough.

And that’s all I can ever strive for, right? Good enough is fine with the resources I have.

Maybe there was more he could do, maybe he could make plan after plan and tool after tool, but he was confident with what he had. Once he practiced and got used to his shoes he’d finally make his attempt after materializing everything he could and creating souls themselves. He’d see if he could escape.

And if this was worth all of the effort.