Chapter 254

After a long conversation with the girls that basically amounted to confirming that whatever cultural issue that kept Yuzu from talking to him wouldn’t extend to him reading her mind, as well as spending an hour all but begging Uliel to allow the young soul mage to help him, they all parted ways for the night, Thera still expressing her disbelief by the time they got back to the embassy.“Are you really telling me you were kidnapped after me and uncle left you alone for a single evening? Ben, you’re an apostle. Get your god to figure out whatever sort of curse you’re under that makes your life like this,” She told him, not able to work up any real strong emotion after processing everything.

“Hey, this is super not my fault,” He said. “It’s not like I expected to be kidnapped by the crab mafia, this is entirely on Greed.”

“Who you’re still helping,” She pointed out.

“I mean, even if this all stemmed from him not keeping it in his pants, I don’t want him to die over it.”

“Alright, well I’ll go talk to my dad for you in the morning. Sleep well Ben, try not to be assassinated in the night or whatever other nonsense might happen.”

With that, she went to her room and he went to his, letting him focus on what he needed to as one final thought flew through his head.

It seemed that current events managed to be just shocking enough to pull her from whatever was bothering her, giving him at least one positive to go off of. He still wanted to know what might have been said during their girl’s night, but he had much bigger problems as he called out to his god for what felt like the millionth time.

“Hey Myriad, even if I’m safe now, I’ve still got a bit of an emergency to deal with here! I could really use some conversation!”

In return he got silence, leaving him to curse. He desperately wanted to run what he was planning through with his favourite cube, but with no answer he didn’t want to just go to sleep. He couldn’t trust that he would actually arrive in his realm, and that would mean his entire night was wasted when he could have been planning instead.

He’d been to his god's realm so often that he knew exactly what it felt like to arrive there, the experience of his mind ending up somewhere else entirely was subtle, but it was there. Whether he could treat it as a path to be followed was an entirely different question, but with nothing else to do he decided to give it a go.

Laying down, he started to meditate with all ten of his minds, putting his all into it in a way he never had before as his thoughts cleared and he let himself fall into the feeling of being taken somewhere else.

He didn’t know how long it had been, time lost all meaning to him as he simply followed the thread. He didn’t even hope for a payoff, that feeling would have been a distraction. With the exception of that one goal, his minds were completely clear.

With the notifications exploding in his head his concentration broke and he opened his eyes, seeing the realm of his god before him and heard some chattering at his back.

He turned around to the voices, finding their backs to him and in deep discussion. He wasn’t super clear on what they were saying though, he was too surprised by what he saw. Myriad floating as he always did, but with the addition of Helori on top of him, using his god as a chair.

“Ahem,” He said to alert them of his presence. “If this is some sort of sex thing I can come back in a bit, but I really need to talk to, well both of you actually.”

As he spoke they both whipped to face him. Well, Helori did, without a face, it was hard to tell with Myriad, but he at least rotated which seemed as good an indicator as any.

“Ben, what- how?” Myriad asked, too many questions forming in his head at once to express them all properly as Helori got up.

“It most certainly isn't. Honestly Myriad, if you’re going to bring your apostle up here you should warn me first.”

“I didn’t. He made it here on his own.”

It was incredible that despite his apostle’s constant antics he was still capable of being surprised by just what the boy would do, but he couldn’t help but be shocked by this. While not impossible, it was rare to an extreme that wasn’t worth considering. Myriad was fairly sure that he’d heard of ten other gods that got to experience something like this, with most of them happening before the fall of their old worlds.

On the other side of things, Helori switched from annoyed to excited on a dime, rushing to Ben and immediately getting in his face with questions.

“How did you do it? Projecting your mind into a different level of reality isn’t some trivial thing.”

“Um, I just kind of followed the feeling I guess. Myriad hasn’t been answering my prayers so I was getting desperate.”

“Followed the feeling? Myriad, how often do you bring your apostle up here?” She demanded as curiosity filled her all the more.

“Most nights so long as there’s no issue. Why? Is that what let him do this?”

“Most nights? So he’s been brought here hundreds of times?” She asked in disbelief, getting a nod in return. “No wonder he was able to know the way here! Combine knowing the path with how tightly he’s bound to you thanks to having both your blessing and your apostle title, were you trying to strengthen the link as much as you could?”

“It just sort of happened. It’s not like I have many other believers. Might as well give them some of my time.”

“I’d say that’s a lot more than some. He’s probably met up with you in person more than almost any other god has with their believers. Really, to think that there could be this side effect…”

She trailed off, starting to mumble to herself as Myriad focused in on Ben. “So what was so important that you had to try coming here yourself?”

“Ah, well two things. The far more minor one was that apparently Yuzu said my soul looks funny because of how it’s interacting with parallel thought and complex mind. Since Helori looked at my soul not too long ago I was hoping that she could tell me if there’s anything I need to worry about.”

“What?” She asked, being pulled from her thoughts at hearing her name. “No, your soul's fine. It’s a little rare, but if your skills are developing in a way that might hurt you the system will compensate to remove any strain, in the case of your mind skills, it’s keeping them from frying your brain by making them interact with your soul on a deeper level. It’s not common, but it happens from time to time.”

“Okay, cool.”

“And the other thing?” Myriad asked, trying to prepare for the worst. He doubted his apostle would try to go to his realm for a question about his soul, and unfortunately he was right.

“Okay, so while you were up here getting sat on and ignoring my many prayers for help I was kidnapped by a crab mafia. Long story short, I need help from both of you to put a spell together to get one of them a shell and keep Greed from being eaten.”

Helori’s eyes lit up as Myriad crashed to the ground, her excitement at the proposed task coming nowhere near his god’s despair at that brief description of the day’s events as Ben outlined exactly what he was thinking and they all got to work.

“Do you think you could make a laser gun?” Jake asked the next day as Ben was carefully carving some stone, trying to get it to perfectly match what he needed.

“Probably, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I’ve managed to make a couple decent guns with my enchantments, but the mana cost sucks. Well, I guess since you have such a high amount you’d be fine, but it’s not practical for a typical person. Plus you have your spells.”

“Okay, okay. In that case, could you make me a lightsaber?”

“Again, just use your spells, you’d be so much better off. Do you even have the sword wielder skill?”

“I mean, no but I’d happily learn it. Come on man I’ll pay you well, it would be so cool to have!”

“Okay, fine fine I’ll try making you one when the contest is over. Anything else?”

Jake thought for a minute before his eyes lit up. “A hoverboard. Please tell me you can make a hoverboard!”

“Dude, how many times are you going to make me tell you to just use your spells? Just stand on a sheet of metal and lift it up while you’re standing on it. To make it I’d need to not only have to figure out the best method of having it hover a couple inches off the ground, either trying to force it to suspend itself with earth magic or using something like air or space magic to do the job, but then also making it adaptable enough that it wouldn’t immediately crash if it went over anything other than a perfectly flat surface. That’s not even considering how high the mana cost would be.”

Even as he said it though he couldn’t help but start considering how he would solve the problems that came with trying to make everything Jake suggested. It was all an interesting mental experiment for him, and the other human kept giving ideas that he wouldn’t have considered himself so he didn’t mind too much.

Jake for his part was completely taken with the realization that he wouldn’t need a fancy tool to have a hoverboard when he had his magic and was thinking on what else he could ask about as he turned to look to the girls chatting to the side, half paying attention to all of the suggestions Jake was making but mostly leaving him to see which of his dreams could be made into reality.

“What about bikini armour?” He asked in all earnestness, leaving Will to look away in disgust as Ben turned to Amy and Yuzu, one of whom was holding their head in exasperation as the other smiled on, having no clue what her boyfriend was requesting.

“Just to be clear, you both love this man?”

“Unfortunately,” Amy sighed as Yuzu nodded happily.

Thera though looked mostly confused by the reactions around her and gave voice to the curiosity that was getting the better of her. “Alright, I’m just going to ask, what’s bikini armour?”

“Think underwear that can keep any part of you from being injured.”

“Is that bad?” She asked. “Honestly, it sounds pretty handy.”

“It would be if he had asked with any intention of seeing us with clothing on over it,” Amy told her, having a small internal debate about how hard she should try to convince his teachers to go on him for their next training session and leaving Thera thoroughly disgusted in the meantime.

Before anything could come of that though they were interrupted by the arrival of Greed's son, along with two of his associates. Ben had told them all what he looked like so there was no confusion, though Uliel stood silently at the side with Falk, both prepared for anything to go wrong.

“Alright, are we ready to do this or what?” The fleshy crab asked, not bothering with pleasantries and all but ignoring those around Ben. “You better not have any funny business planned.”

“Hey, I said I’d help you so I’m going to help you. We’re waiting on one more person but I spent the whole night talking to two different gods to make sure my idea would work, so for now come on, let’s see if I need to make any adjustments to what I’ve got.”

He seemed hesitant but went over to where Ben led him, standing still as the different plates of stone Ben had been shaping were placed against his body and modifications made as need be.

“So is Greed nearby? We’re going to need him to do this.”

“One of my men will bring him when you’re actually ready to get started.”

“Fine fine, so untrusting though, jeez,” Ben muttered. “Anyway, I never got your name?”

“And it’s going to stay that way.”

“Oh come on, I’m just going to ask Greed later, cut me some slack here.”

“...It’s Cheele,” The crab said, his voice filled with annoyance that Ben ignored.

“Well Cheele, do any of these plates feel uncomfortable to you? We’re basically trying to give you a proper exoskeleton here, I don’t want to make it in a way that might cause you discomfort for the rest of your life.”

“The right claw felt a little different from the left, but that’s about all.”

“Hmm, not a bad different though? Give me a minute, I’ll look it over,” After a bit of careful examination and comparing it to Cheele’s body he sanded down the interior of the right plate before having him try it on again. “Better?”

“Yes.”

He continued to work, trying to ensure it was perfect in every way until it was done. Even if it was plain stone, it would be the model upon which Cheele’s exoskeleton would be based, and Ben wasn’t one to accept anything less than the best he could do when it came to his work.

Even more than that, it was an interesting task. He wasn’t sure if he should think of it as making a model or an armour, but trying to create someone a skeleton was so far outside the realm of what he’d been planning on doing when he’d gotten to allfaith that he couldn’t help but be excited by the task.

It would have been even better if his model was going to be put towards the spell in the end, but unfortunately that would be left to someone better suited than him. A tall, hooded man that managed to arrive just as Ben was sure there was nothing else that could be done, along with his wife.

“Abrus, Pelenia, so glad to see you both,” Ben told them happily, a feeling Pelenia responded to in kind.

“And you never cease to entertain, do you Ben? Why, the way Thera was acting when she came to ask for help, you really do draw the most entertaining sides of my daughter out.”

“I can hear your mom!”

“I know sweety, that’s part of the fun!”

“Now Ben, while I’m willing to help it really would be for the best to just dispose of them,” Abrus said as he looked to the crabs, all of them tensing as he did before Ben spoke up.

“I have an agreement with them Abrus, I told him I’d help him so I want to. Did Thera tell you what I need you to do?”

He gave a small nod as he used his magic to raise each stone plate in the air, looking them over as he did. Once satisfied that he knew all he needed to, he used his mana and made the energies within the contest ground change, drawing some of the few eyes that hadn’t left in the instant before things returned to normal, the only change being a perfect replica of the stone plates he’d created earlier, only made of ruby instead.

“You’re lucky that the mana cost of that is nowhere near what it is to make a magic material,” Abrus said with a laugh. “Since it was basically negligible for me I didn’t need to skip out on my usual work.”

Ben didn’t want to think about how many thousands or tens of thousands of mana the earth spirit had spent to still call it negligible, instead he began fitting it around Cheele’s limbs, getting Abrus to attach pieces together whenever he needed him to.

“Alright, things might start getting a little claustrophobic soon so we need Greed. Is he nearby?”

With a free claw, Cheele gave a little wave, causing one of his men to run off, coming back with a small box in tow, that once open released the small ruby crab.

“Ah, you awful bastard,” He swore. “Locking me in a box for an entire day? What are you thinking?”

“Better than you deserve father,” Cheele shot back. “Consider yourself blessed to still draw breath. That can always change after all.”

“Both of you, enough,” Ben told them. “We’re almost done here. Now Greed, try to stay still, this might hurt a bit.”

Before the smaller crab could try to change his mind and run away, Ben grabbed him and held him up to Abrus, who in turn created a small saw blade from a stone, rotating it at high enough speeds to slice off a tiny piece of his shell as the crab swore the entire time.

“Oh relax, we haven’t broken through to your inner flesh so you're fine. Now Abrus, there’s one last thing I need you to do for me if you would. Just make a small divot in the ruby Cheele is wearing for this and then we can move on to the difficult part.”

He did as Ben asked and the shell fragment was placed inside, though not touched by the spirit’s magic in any way. That was going to be next, as well as the hardest part of all.

“Alright girls, time’s now super of the essence so come on and let's do this.”

It was what he’d had to work throughout the night planning and thinking about it was causing him no end of stress. As opposed to something as simple to him as carving stone was, this was different. He was going to have Thera, Steph, and Yuzu work together to do something none of them had ever done before. Proper ritual magic.

As the apostle of a god that understood ritual magic in ways that no living race did, Ben was also far more knowledgeable on the topic than any average mage or magic scholar due to his work applying the principles of it to his enchantments, but this would be his first time participating in it in its purest form, even if he was just leading the others in what to do.

With all of them knowing it was their time to shine, they moved like he explained earlier, with Thera and Yuzu both taking one of his hands while Steph grabbed his face, leaving him wishing he had a third arm as he connected to all of them, pushing his hidden mind to keep any of the thoughts from his extra ones from causing a distraction, as well as keeping them all from each other.

As they began he carefully told each of them what to do with his thoughts, Thera being the base and the most important, blending her earth and life mana to make the foundation that the others would work on, as well as contributing large amounts of mana to the process as she did.

From there, Steph and Yuzu merged their own spells with it, elevating the base technique to greater heights than any of them had ever managed before, all for just two tasks. Altering the ruby shell that Abrus had made to match the living ruby of Greed’s shell, and then properly merging it to Cheele’s body in a way that would suit his mixed heritage without harming him.

It wasn’t quick by any stretch of the imagination, but Ben was thorough in examining each of their minds as they worked, gently correcting them if anything was wrong to ensure it went off without a hitch until it finally came to an end.

Ben didn’t just hear the notifications explode across his mind, but those of both Thera and Steph too, with the first getting levels to both her earth and life magic, and the second getting one to her high life magic, with Steph doing her best to suppress her excitement at what her thoughts were screaming was her first level to any of her blessed skills.

But as exciting as that all was, he couldn’t let himself focus on it, at least not yet. The most important part was being sure the ritual actually worked.

“Cheele, how are you feeling?” He asked as he saw the crab cautiously moving his body.

“Different. Heavier. Did it work?”

“That’s what I want to test. To do that though I’m going to need to try and scratch your shell though, do me a favour and don’t let your goons murder me while it’s happening, alright?”

“Ha, as long as this works then you don’t need to worry, you’re in my good books for life.”

“Cool, in that case, Abrus could I get you to do your little spinning saw again? Just try to make a small scratch against each different plate we made, I need to be sure all of them are properly joined.”

The great earth spirit did as he was asked, pulling a few loose stones from the ground that he flattened and spun in tandem, making nicks on each section of ruby before letting them fall to the ground again.

With that done, Ben brought Steph over and one by one applied her life magic spells, working to heal the wounds, if that was what they were of course. If the stone hadn’t become a living part of Cheele’s body it would have done nothing, but before both of their eyes each nick disappeared before the might of her magic, letting Ben breathe a little easier with each one until it was back to a pristine state.

“Well well, it looks like you now have a proper shell,” He told Cheele, trying not to let the sheer amount of relief he was feeling colour his voice. Even if the gods had been confident with the spell they’d helped plan, Ben couldn’t help but worry about just what he’d have to do if they failed.

Cheele for his part was silent, lost in the same emotions that his men were in the middle of displaying. After all of his life lacking, he finally had a true exoskeleton, and it was beautiful.

“I will never forget what you’ve done for me today,” He said finally, gratitude plain on his voice. “Should any of you ever need it, find me and I’ll repay this debt.”

“It’s the girls you really owe, without them it wouldn’t be possible. If you want to pay me back just toss a few prayers to the god Myriad from time to time and we’re good.”

“Very well. For now, do with my father what you wish, I have no need for him anymore.”

With that he walked off, his men in tow behind him, giving Ben the leeway to slump to the ground as Greed tapped his hand.

“Legs I seriously owe you one here. If you need a personal musician for the rest of your life let me know.”

“Ha, well just make sure that when I finally ask for that show you make it the best you’ve ever done.”

“Deal. Now on a bit of an awkward side note, I don’t suppose I could get a lift? Last thing I want is to get to the inn and find a different kid or ex waiting for me.”

“I’ll do it,” Will said as he scooped the crab up. “Pretty sure Ben needs a break.”

As words were exchanged everyone began going their own separate ways for the night, until all that was left with him was Falk, Thera, and her parents.

“You really know such colourful people Ben,” Pelenia told him as he tried to unwind from the stress of the last day. “Honestly, asking a favour from us to help, you better raise your skills a bit more to make it worth our while when we come to collect.”

“Will do,” He told them with a thumbs up. “Just maybe wait till after the contest? This has already felt like the busiest two weeks of my life.”

“Haha, sure. I will be sending for someone to grab you in a day or two though so be prepared for that. I’ve found a couple people with higher versions of the skills you were looking for, we’re just waiting for them to arrive.”

“Sounds good, thanks again.”

With that done, Abrus and Pelenia went back to the gate, letting Ben finally go back to his room for a well-deserved rest.