Ten points to my mana baby! Freaking double what I was expecting!

Oh, hush you, it’s fine. It’s not like I’ll get the chance to try it from any other god anyway. Sadly, not many of them seem to bear fruit.

Your distrust really does hurt so much but fine. Now, important question for you, what’s Sachel up to?

And then when does she start returning to Stonewall?

Gonna get her help with something, tell her to meet me at the Allfaith gate instead.

Relax, it won’t be anything bad. Now, since my plans for tomorrow and maybe a few days after too are all sorted out, it’s time for me to focus on some work in the shop. I’ve still got a lot of things to test and make.

They were still staying in Anailia out of convenience for Thera at the time, letting her have somewhere relatively close to where she was working to sleep without having to give in to more nights in the hospital’s staff bedding, but with the shop only a step away he was able to get to work making one of many ideas into reality.

Slipping on his jacket after having left it there because of his promise to himself, he immediately began filling his soul for everything he intended to try and make while practicing some of his other abilities at the same time, with the core skills he intended to enchant with all being held within his own status as he sought to correct two issues.

The first was out of a desire to decrease his potential workload. He already knew that enough gods didn’t really want to rely on him if they could help it given his greed and for once he intended to satisfy their desires, even if it meant sacrificing his teacher in the process.

While Ben had many strengths but when it came to the war effort, the greatest one was the sheer volume he was able to create compared to other people. His was a level of production that could only be matched by entire teams of workers and no group on the planet could consistently pull off his quality.

Of course, it had gotten easier recently thanks to Falk creating an entire factory able to enchant weapons to increase the raw power they could put out but now that they’d passed the second wave with a third sure to come, he was expecting a lot more to be thrown his way. With what had already been done, it was nearly certain that anyone across the world could get their hands on a weapon of a previously incomparable quality but with the masses covered, the chances of the divine wanting something even better for those they viewed as having the most potential was a practical certainty.

He was sure that the third-tier skill holders and various contenders were likely getting their hands on some of the world’s few mythic items and whatever legendary ones various nations had been hoarding over the centuries but they were always going to want more, and with the number of awakened skill holders having exploded thanks to his own efforts it was practically a certainty that they’d be coming to him to make all of the legendary weapons he could produce.

Normally that would have been something he’d welcome too. He’d been focused on quantity for too long, having a year to devote himself to seeing what sort of quality he’d be able to pull off was a dream, but it would take far too much of his time. Better to outsource where he could and with that goal in mind began enchanting on a handful of circlets, blending together aspects of unnatural mind, hive mind, knowledge, unnatural inspiration, and most important of all, deep connection, weaving them together into a thick tapestry of power that threatened to break the delicate rings of metal it was all placed on but holding in the end, leaving only the issue of testing which would have to come later. With that done about as much as he could hope he moved on to another project, something that he alone in the world would be able to produce in an effort to deal with another problem, the limitations of mages across the world.

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It was something he’d noticed on the battlefield too during his brief time as part of it but mages were constantly having to choose between smaller spells that would allow them to fire off at a constant rate or big, grand spells that would do more damage but drain them in a way that they’d need to wait before casting again, with the limiting factor being the size of any of their mana pools.

A limiting factor which was all the harder to escape. Anyone could work to increase their mana through both constant practice as well as taking and finishing jobs but it still took time and they were beyond being able to spare anything for simple practice. The spells any mage would use were going to be for combat in one way or another and while that would be experience in and of itself, they were all lacking the time to really capitalize off that fact.

No, they all needed more mana and far sooner than any of them would be able to pull off to improve the world’s odds and lower casualty rates and he had a design that would hopefully make it happen.

And if I’m going to try and make it, it would be best to push myself a bit to do it, right?

Feeling the design of the item and enchantments solidified in his mind, Ben forced his will on the world as he gave structure to what he envisioned, ending with a jewel-encrusted bracelet.

Ten rainbow mana crystals fitted around it with the entire structure covered in enchantments, Ben had once more been able to apply deep connection to it while he’d worked that day, leaving the only thing left being to test to see if his idea would work.

Draining almost all of his mana, Ben slipped on the new bracelet he’d made and activated the enchantments, feeling them work as intended as what one of the crystals held, the soul within it had its mana pulled into him instead, topping Ben up exactly as he’d hoped.

It was technically a little worse than he’d expected. While he’d designed it in a way that would let anyone recharge their mana from the ten crystals before they’d need to wait for those imprisoned souls to refill as well, the total volume any one could hold was still the same as it had been before he’d awakened the skill, meaning he was still only making souls with a mana volume equal to half of his own.

It was a disappointing discovery but one that would hopefully change if he leveled the skill some more, and more importantly, would be plenty for any average mage. Now that he had over two thousand points of the stuff within his status, any mage he gave one of those bracelets to would be able to access over ten thousand points of mana, more power than any normal person would ever get to experience and was sure to make a huge difference in the way coming battles would be fought.

Which means even though my first project for the day was aimed at reducing my workload I’ve immediately undone it by creating something only I can make. Oh well, I’ll just have to pump these out as I go, although now that I look at it, it is missing a little something.

By all accounts the band was beautiful but considering he’d created something that would create a definitive shift in how the war was fought, it was missing a little something. A certain special touch that almost needed to be added if it was going to end up in the hands of nearly every mage on the planet and with the next one he created, he gave it exactly that, with a certain phrase imprinted onto the band.

Brought to you by the church of Myriad. There, let nobody question who they should be grateful to for getting this and let my god reap some faith for my work. That should show him what a good little apostle I am, now without further ado…

He knew that he’d be needing to make hundreds of thousands of them at various sizes and with that having been one of his main projects for the day he got to work materializing more, straining his soul as he made dozens at a time in a constant cycle of filling and emptying his mana pool, all while the day went on.