At a scheduled time in the morning the next day, Ogilt opened a portal between Stonewall and their prison out in the woods. It was both to let Thera renew her spells on the demons to keep them from getting too unruly and to let Ben do a variety of tasks, from examining their minds and cards for changes to bringing a mini gate through to make checking easier for him, on top of providing two materializers, one creating food and one water, so the space spirit could teleport both into the test subjects stomachs to keep them alive longer for results to be collected, ending with another tool brought to keep the demons from getting too unruly while they were gone.
He’d spent the night creating mind control circlets, improving the designs from the last time he’d constructed such an enchantment to keep them all contained and in line in the event enough time passed for Thera’s spells to wear off. Better to keep them docile and easy to work with for however long he’d be having them.
A significant part of him knew that everything he was doing was unethical no matter what the reason he held for it, but they were demons. They weren’t some enemy that just happened to be fighting on another side of a war that could have been understood and befriended if experiences had only been a little different, they literally lacked the capacity for such things, only caring about getting stronger and fulfilling their base desires, ensuring that anything they didn’t outright kill was kept squarely below them. The fact that they should have been killed the instant they’d been found and that his tests had the chance to improve the odds for the world and its people as a whole let him justify it to himself and his lack of empathy towards the creatures meant it was never going to be a concern, with the only thing weighing remotely on his mind being the question of how the human race as a whole might have judged him for his actions.
But they can’t so it doesn’t matter. He told himself as he finished and left, parting with Thera as she went to work for the day while he went to begin rolling the ball for a task of his own. Maybe this is wrong, I’m objectively subjecting an enemy to torture and inhumane experimentation but seeing as how peace can’t be an option I need to focus on improving the odds for the side I care about winning, it’s that simple.
He fully believed it too, but he couldn’t deny the small part of himself that was for once grateful to be fully cut off from his homeworld, not wanting to give any mind to what the people he’d long lost might think of the man he’d slowly become.
It was as he moved through gates and got to the magic towers that he was able to clear the thought from his many minds to instead focus on what he was there for as he made his way to their local branch of the adventurer’s guild.
The plan was to put in a request for all of the people he’d need, offering to pay an excellent price to each one, and since he wanted it done fast it made far more sense to head out to a bigger guild on a gate network than to try and arrange it through Stonewall’s local branch and as he got there he let himself in and went to the front desk, same as when he’d gone looking for information on the dark tower, with his card already in hand and rank displayed for the waiting receptionist.
“Hello there, I’m looking to make a request,” Ben told them brightly, not giving them time to react to his rank in any way that could cause him problems. “I am looking for people who hold the adventurer’s job with at least two spots open in their party but preferably more if possible. To be clear, I’m not looking for a single party, I’m looking for up to seventy but failing that, as many as you can find me. In addition, for every party that doesn’t already have either an apprentice mage or a true mage in it, I’ll be looking for one of those two as well. Finally, I’ll also be looking for as many people currently under the mind user job as you can get your hands on for me. I’d be hoping to get them all in seven days but I’ll come in a day or two beforehand to get an idea of who you were able to get for me and the party compositions for the adventurers.”
He said seventy despite not having that many jobs both to prepare for the fact that many of them would be partway through their adventurer jobs meaning he’d have an incomplete experience pool to work off of, as well as in anticipation of any advanced varieties he might end up with since he had no way to actually know how that would work out. There were some within his list he was sure would give him additional options such as high actualizer yielding its master job after along with whatever options would spring up after that, with a sacrilege aligned one feeling practically guaranteed at the very least, but then there was the host of ones he’d never found reference to in any book he’d read to that point that all sat as complete mysteries to him.
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There was also the issue of his three currently available master jobs. While those would normally always give advanced branches with the main exception he could think of being master adventurer, he had no clue if title master or master of destiny would give him another option and connect master didn’t seem to be a normal master job since he’d only unlocked it after having taken mind master. He had no reason to believe it would give him the expected variants no matter how badly he wanted it to.
Still, it was better to have too much than too little and in the event he got more people than he needed he would still pay them for their time. It was the least he had to do to ensure a good showing and to the receptionist’s credit, they didn’t bat an eye at either his rank or his quest submission, only waiting to ask additional questions.
“I understand, I can take it that you’d like to have this request sent to all of the gate guilds then?”
“And any that are close enough on any gate that a person could reasonably get here in that timeframe. I don’t care how expensive it is, I’ll pay for it and I’ll pay anyone who fits those qualifications double the expected day rate for a rank two quest.”
That got a bit of a reaction, although slight. The vast majority of adventurers didn’t even make it to rank three, let alone rank two which a person needed an awakened skill to reach and here Ben was, offering double. For many, that meant weeks to months of pay for the work, leaving only the matter of just what exactly that work would entail.
“And the reason you’re looking for these specific members and party compositions?” The receptionist asked, with Ben giving a half answer.
“I’m looking for a party or parties to join while trying to put together a composition that would be useful overall to my particular skill set,” He explained, not wanting to go into the details of how he planned to speed through all of his jobs by using them for fear that the potential crowd might grow too big if that got out. “I still intend to pay in full, even if they don’t meet my qualifications after I see them. All I care about is getting the group together to look at which should only take me a day, maybe two tops.”
Unless I have another option or two that’s secretly for the third tier but in that case I’ll just pay more to have them meet me again later after absolutely putting my soul through hell. On the plus side, with the number of souls I can now make combined with the max amount of mana I can force into myself having grown too, I should be able to finish it in a week, easy.
…Two or three weeks. No matter how much I do it, I’m not getting used to it and the weeks I’ve already put in have sucked. I’m so freaking looking forward to being done and getting a break until however long it’s going to take me to get new options to work through.
The answer he gave however got him regarded with some level of suspicion, with the guild’s receptionist speaking up.
“If that’s the case then I’d advise you to set a level limit as well for what you’re willing to accept. I can understand how difficult it would be for someone of your rank to find matching companions but getting some at the sixth or seventh levels of the particular skills you’re looking for should be of no issue. You certainly don’t want to pull someone who’s only an apprentice mage no matter what composition you’re looking for.”
“Call it desperation,” He explained, materializing before their eyes. “If a mage isn’t good enough then I can help them improve so I don’t care about the level, I just need that composition more than anything else. Then if there’s any concerns from the guild they are of course welcome to watch me talk to them all but I’m certain they’ll find no issues. My bigger concern is that you guys might try to hire me on after.”
The part about training a mage had been entirely a lie to help smooth things over but materializing had done its job, actually shocking them enough that they accepted his explanation for what it was after getting the additional benefit that was the knowledge the guild would be able to observe everything as it went down, letting him deposit the cost for both sending out the request so far and wide as well as part of the price he was offering to pay the adventurers that would come to ensure he could both afford the outrageous sum he was offering and verify that even if something happened to him, the ones who came would still get something, ending things there and letting him move on with his day as he left back to the streets, wondering what to do next.
Hmm, with that done I really should be back off to the shop to make sure I’m actually able to have this stupid job done by then which means I should update my equipment to be on the safe side for this coming quest too. After all, if I’m not bringing my jacket with me then I really do need to replace it.