The morning came and Ben went to the shop for the first time in what felt like ages. He threw open the doors and breathed it all in.
“Oh man, it’s good to be back!”
“You’re being dramatic,” Thera said beside him. Apparently, Falk stopped by the house yesterday and asked her to join for the first day at least for some training his teacher had in mind for him.
“Not even a little! Do you have any idea of how many things I want to make now that my levels gone up so much? God I wish I could take multiple jobs at once, leveling priest so I can improve my connect is fine and all, but I want more bonuses to my enchanting too,” The issue was that he needed both to improve to see how well they would work together as he leveled them up, he couldn’t just pick one or the other.
On the more positive side, it seemed that his enchanting was getting bonuses from his prior crafting skills, but he wanted more and would need to try and speed through the priest job to get them.
At least his past achievements were helping him gain experience. It seemed he got some each time someone converted as a result of his actions, and it looked like praying while wearing the church gave even more experience than just praying regularly since he was essentially acting as the head priest of the church, but it would still be at least a year if he couldn’t think of a few other ways to increase his job level faster.
There was always the option of completing another quest, but his two choices still weren’t great. Myriad had already said he wasn’t getting too many more converts so the idea of getting him 100 was unlikely, and he couldn’t think of what sort of achievement he could reasonably complete, but he’d get his god to give him some examples later that he could look into.
Still, it was an issue for later. For the time being, he wanted to get back into the groove of things at the forge.
“So what do you have for me Falk! Any orders you think I can handle?”
“For now the both of you take a seat, we’ll be working on some different skills of yours today.”
Hearing this Ben couldn’t help but deflate a little. There went his enthusiasm to get back at the forge. Still, Falk was his teacher and he would trust his judgement, so he quickly grabbed a seat in the front of the shop with Thera.
His teacher walked over to them and handed Ben fifteen metal blocks, each about the size of his fist.
“Alright boy, you need to start looking at how that connect skill of yours acts with your enchanting a bit more deeply. For now, try to enchant with all of Thera’s skills and I’ll look at the results after.”
“Um, sure, but I only know five of them and I can’t really tell what skill it is unless I feel them actively using it.”
“Ah, I thought maybe you’d opened up enough to show him your card.” His teacher said, turning to Thera. “Guess it’s no matter, I can always see if Sonya’s willing to share with you later.”
“Is showing me yours not an option?” Ben asked him, but Falk only laughed.
“I like to keep my skills close to the chest, and I can’t see any future where you knowin’ what I got doesn’t make you even more of a pain in the ass. Guess we'll just have to do something else and I’ll get you to practice at home if Sonya’s up for it.”
“Wait, I don’t really mind,” Thera cut in, to Ben's surprise.
“You sure? I kind of got the impression you didn’t have any interest in sharing it.”
“Maybe when I first met you, but as long as we’re adventuring together it couldn’t hurt. Besides, with how you tell me every little change to your status I can’t exactly keep mine secret considering you already know all of the interesting bits of it.”
Without any fuss she pulled out her card and handed it to Ben, letting him go over it. There were a few things he was curious about, her title as spirit child and whatever effects it might have on her as a whole, the fact that her earth affinity went above 100, something he didn’t realise was possible, as well as one last thing.
“You have a knowledge skill?” Ben asked, surprised. He couldn’t help it, they were a class of skill that was supposed to be rather hard to get, dependent on the skill holder having enough understanding of a topic while it all somehow clicked into place in not just their head but also their soul. The chances of getting them through practice were supposed to be rather slim, instead usually being unlocked with a job change, but Ben didn’t see anything that could be related to it on her card.
Some people could spend their whole lives dedicated to learning, but still not have the luck to gain it, but if they did the results could be invaluable. To be able to effortlessly use and remember the knowledge attached to the skill, as well as how easy it could be to level up once it was acquired made it quite valuable to have indeed.
Thera for her part seemed indifferent to it though. “I used to occasionally read some of the medical books Sonya keeps around the house when I was bored and happened to acquire it. It doesn’t exactly do anything for me given that if I ever touch someone the results could end up worse than if I did nothing.”
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When she was done she could see Ben giving her a funny look through her hood and he raised two fingers. “Well first,” He told her, bring one down. “Since you can touch me and we hunt together, I would be pretty into the idea of one of us knowing how to patch us up in an emergency, especially if we're going to go further out to do some overnight hunts. Second,” He said, bringing the other finger down while still looking at her funny. “It’s medical knowledge.”
“And?” She asked, not seeing where he was going with this.
“You’re trying to learn life magic.”
Thera immediately understood what he was trying to say and was grateful to have her face hidden. She was trying to learn a branch of magic almost completely dedicated to healing, at least at its lower levels. Of course having a knowledge skill related to it would be helpful. She had always considered it such a waste to have managed to unlock it that she never even gave it any thought, it was more like a cruel joke to have considering she was just as likely to hurt someone if she put it to use that she hadn’t even considered how handy it would be towards her current goal.
“Okay, let’s ignore the fact that I’m an idiot and focus on your own training.” She said, all the while thinking that on top of any training and advice she got from her aunt, she would now also have to get her hands on any books on life magic and first aid she could manage, as well as reread some of the ones that were at the house.
“Right,” Falk told them. “For now I want to test a couple things. Can you enchant with a skill that the original skill holder isn’t actively using, can you enchant with all types of skills, can you control what level of the skill you use, and what is the maximum level you can enchant with? No time like the present so get to it.”
Ben already knew from past experience that he could enchant to approximately the third level of a skill, but given how his connect and enchanting had leveled up, as well as having Falk here to look things over it was worth trying again, as well as taking the time to try out his teacher’s other ideas.
He took Thera’s hand and connected with her and tried to focus on ignoring her thoughts and emotions, directing his attention to everything else he could feel. He already had practice with using another person's skills like this back in Anailia, and he knew for sure he could at least feel charm, as well as a person's active skills when they consciously brought them forth, but it was clear now he didn’t dig deep enough.
Now that he knew just what Thera had available he started with trying to find her passive skills, assuming that since they were always active they would be easier to find, and he felt charm shining like a beacon, wanting to fill the entire room but only being disrupted by her cloak. He enchanted that first to get it out of the way as the most obvious one, and then put the block to the side, focusing on the next.
The one to make the most sense after that would be bind. Since it was a skill that seemed to forge a permanent link between the two, he was able to feel her copy of the skill with his own. While there didn’t seem to be much point in enchanting with the skill when he already had access to it, it would still be good to know if he could, and he was able to manage it without issue when he tried.
It was from here that Ben began to have issues. Thera had three more passive skills he needed to try to enchant with; world speak+, coordination, and medical knowledge. Each skill was simple enough and at a low enough level he was sure he’d be able to do something with them, but there was no way to distinguish them from each other, even though he was sure he could detect the three of them. He was pretty sure he could feel world speak+ at least, as a skill that all people in the world seemed to have, but that was just because he was comparing it to what he felt within himself, and even then he wasn’t sure. He enchanted with all of them anyway, but the fact he wouldn’t be able to tell which was which was a bother to him.
It got even worse when it was time to try enchanting with her active skills. When he’d tried to use other people's skills initially, he’d had them activate the ones they were willing to share with him, but it looked like he couldn’t feel them at all if that wasn’t the case. At least at first.
He got Thera to put some energy into her earth magic, not with the intent to do anything with it, just enough for him to grab onto, and after enchanting another block with it followed it back down, trying to find the rest of her skills. He managed to succeed, but the entire process was draining and he was left with the same issues with her passive skills, but on a much larger scale.
Thera had nine active skills, and of them he could only pick out her earth magic by virtue of it being the one he used to find the rest. From there he had to try and enchant the others without being able to differentiate between any of the skills he was using, just trying to mentally keep track of each one he’d already done, a task harder than it sounded given how indistinct everything felt. He put the full power of his focus and complex mind to work, but pitied any of Myriad's future believers who tried to do this without the benefits of either his extra skills or the knowledge of just what they were trying to enchant with.
Of course, it seemed unlikely anyone would attempt that anyway. Given that the people of the world seemed to view one's status as something to keep close to the chest, he could only think that using one's skills without the other party's consent could only end poorly.
Still he was done that bit at least and called Falk over to look at his work.
“What do you think?”
His teacher wrote a note on each cube and turned to Thera. “How do my notes compare to your status?”
Thera was looking each over and Ben was able to see each one was marked with a name and level, except for bind and world speak+ of course, and from what Ben could see it all seemed to match what was on Thera’s status.
“He got everything perfectly,” She told her uncle.
“Interesting, but from the looks of it your highest skill matches up to the levels of the two he’s using. We’d need to see how he can handle a skill at a higher level to see its effects,” His teacher thought for a moment before holding out his hand and giving Ben another cube. “Here, I got level six death magic, give it a go and let's see what you can do.”
It was always interesting for Ben to learn a bit more about the skills his teacher possessed, but for now he filed away what he just learned and focused on the task at hand. Falk was running a bit of mana through the skill for him to make things easier and he repeated what he’d done with Thera, grabbing onto the skill and placing it onto the block.
Once he was done his teacher took it and looked it over. “Looks like you only got to the fourth level with this too, meaning it’s probably your cap for the time being. Of course, if you level up one skill or the other again you should try to figure out how that changes things, but this will do for now. It’s a shame you won’t be able to test this on more skills to see if there's any variance, a total of fifteen mostly common ones isn’t too much to know if there aren’t any other rules for it, but it’s good enough for now. Anyway, let's move you onto the next step.”
His teacher walked away to grab even more metal cubes and Ben couldn’t help but wonder just how many he’d made in anticipation of all this. He got up to stretch, it was going to be a busy day.