Chapter 280: A month without Ben

Thera felt her face stretch into a deeper frown as the notifications filled her mind, but she reminded herself to breathe and ignore it as she fiddled with her necklace. She’d known for ages that training her dark magic had the chance to raise the level of her charm as well. Even if she didn’t like it, she wasn’t going to stop her training. It was the only escape she had from her thoughts as she sat above the carnage below her, staring at the unending herds of beasts that were killing each other in the name of her practice.With every day Ben didn’t leave the trial she found herself in a worse state. She’d known that some could take around a month to complete but those were on the far rarer end of the spectrum. The fact that he wasn’t out yet ate at her more and more, stroking her worry if she ever let herself think about it. After all, just because he was still alive didn’t mean he could escape.

Instead, she went to focusing on her life magic now that those three had leveled up, feeling the boost to her overall control as she did. There were plenty of animals at a clear disadvantage in the battle royal going on beneath her, and as long as it wasn’t one that could be eaten in a single bite she could work her mana in a number of ways, healing the wounds she saw being created as quickly as she could, raising their strength and speed at the long term cost of their bodies, and even making their attacks more dangerous if it had something she could help stimulate the production of like a natural poison.

Even then though, there were some creatures that were simply too powerful, even with any assistance to the weaker ones, such as the alseer below her that was in the middle of slaughtering everything else.

Just seeing it made her angry, bringing back memories of Roan and the first time she’d almost had to watch Ben die. The one being driven to madness by her dark magic seemed far more powerful than the one in her memory, but it also proved to be the perfect creature to take her frustrations out on as she tried to decide just what to do to it.

Ultimately, she decided to strike it at its greatest strength, the dozens of eyes on its face. She directed her life mana to them one after another, bending her spell to fit her will as she conducted an imperfect healing response again and again.

Unlike any time she’d usually heal something where the wound would typically return to its state before any damage had occurred, at least so long as it was something she knew how to fix, this was meant to be flawed. Any damage was repaired poorly and layers of new cells built up over what was already there, and slowly but surely the beast began to understand what was happening as it was left blinded and panicked as the other creatures around took the chance for their revenge.

She thought. Now that there was no concern that she might miss out on the chance to raise her life magic with her earth magic she wielded it liberally, raising spikes from the earth to impale the remaining creatures before going back to the gate to get a new job.

AVAILABLE JOBS

Queen of manaMusicianProfessional DancerBardDarkness mage -charm specializedHealerTelekinetic mageDark mageAdventurerHigh spirit mage

As much as she wanted to try to awaken her skills, she wasn’t sure if taking high spirit mage would help, at least not immediately. When she’d taken its precursor she’d instantly leveled up all of her affinitied magics, but given that she’d just leveled most of them that very day before completing her job, the chances of that happening again seemed small. It would be much better to take something else in the meantime that she could finish reasonably quickly while still training her magics and then hope that if she took it as her next job after it would be able to raise them, or at least make it easier for her to cross the boundary that was a ninth level skill to a zeroth level awakened skill.

“I’ll take telekinetic mage”

Name: Thera Oress

Race: Succubus/Spirit Hybrid

Titles: Spirit Child

Jobs: Telekinetic mage (lv0)

Previous Jobs: Beginner Dancer, Dancer, Apprentice mage, Earth mage, True mage, High earth mage, Spirit mage, Life mage, High life mage

Attributes:

Vitality: 1075Vitality recovery rate: 12/hrMana: 262,009Mana recovery rate: 60/minStrength: 129Agility: 375Stamina: 310Intelligence: 322

Affinities:

Light: 4Life: 22Fire: 11Water: 14Air: 12Earth: 103Death: 3Dark: 43Space: 2Time: 1

Resistances:

Light: 5Life: 9Fire: 11Water: 16Air: 12Earth: 35Death: 13Dark: 42Space: 7Time: 8

Blessed skills:

Earth magic lv9Charm magic lv3

Passive skills:

World speak+Coordination lv3Medical knowledge lv4Bind

Active skills:

Calculate lv1Dance lv4String instrument lv3Woodwind instrument lv2Cleaning lv1Staff wielder lv0Meditation lv2Speed reading lv3Life magic lv9Telekinesis lv4Dark magic lv4Spirit empowering lv3Cooking lv0

Blessings:

Anailia's Blessing

Trials:

Trial of Anailia and Tolona

With that done she went to leave, returning to the embassy she’d been staying at to get whatever bit of sleep she could, but only after taking a detour to walk by the trial. Her father was still there, standing guard to keep her from trying anything even if she knew that there was no point now. While there had been a slim hope she could have met up with him before, at this point she knew it would be pointless. Either he was either progressing through the trial or he’d found somewhere to hide within it, she couldn’t know more than that.

Seeing no change to it like any time she’d walk by, she ignored her father and went to head back to her room, finding two people waiting for her as she did. Once again Steph and Will were there, looking much better than the last time, even if she was only feeling worse.

She never did end up visiting them as she said she would, instead throwing herself into her magic, but Steph’s bright smile didn’t seem to carry any blame as she waved to her, filled with enthusiasm.

“Hey Thera, are you busy right now?” She yelled out, making her wonder if she should just walk past and go to bed but stopped herself. Shutting herself away wouldn’t do any good and spending time with someone might help with the loneliness she couldn’t escape.

“No, what’s up?”

She was led to the home of Jake, Amy, and Yuzu, with the three of them already waiting, a table of food and drinks prepared and a festive attitude amongst them. It didn’t match how she was feeling at all, but as she took off her cloak she at least tried to hide it to keep the mood from going down as she looked to Steph.

“Um, what’s going on?”

“Celebration of life,” She said, not giving any more context as she was given a seat next to Yuzu and taking it as some sort of human party. “We’re just here to talk about Ben.”

“And what a maniac he was,” Jake said with a laugh. “That one sculpture he did in school gave me nightmares for a week.”

“Ha, he always hated how that became the first thing people thought of when they saw him,” Will said as he smiled. “He was always going on about how he’d made so many cheerful and nice things too but people only focused on the one time he made something that matched whatever theme he was assigned. God, what was it again?”

“Despair,” Steph chimed in, shaking her head as she remembered it. “I’ll never forget that, he managed to win a prize for it and get called to talk to the principal at the same time because of its content. He was annoyed about it for days.”

“Speaking of, did he actually lecture the principal when that happened?” Amy wanted to know. “I remember the rumours going around, but-”

“He totally did,” Will cut her off, holding his stomach and cackling as he remembered it. “I’m pretty sure only ten of the minutes he was in there was the principal talking to him while the next hour was Ben giving him a lesson on art history he would never forget. He really was an outrageous guy.”

“Wait, that’s what happened?” Jake asked. “I’m pretty sure he missed science class doing that then, me and a couple other guys thought he was getting torn into, not the other way around.”

“I wouldn’t be shocked if he planned that,” Steph told them. “He was absolutely the sort of person who’d rather talk about his interests than be forced to sit down in a class he didn’t care about. Honestly, it was impossible to get him to focus on anything if it couldn’t catch his interest, I’m just glad he was passing.”

The conversation went on, but as they talked more and more while Thera sat and listened, she was able to pick up on just what she wasn’t liking about it all. Each of them was talking about Ben in the past tense, and what they were really doing snapped into place.

“So this is a funeral,” She said sharply as she got up and put her cloak on to leave, not wanting to be around them a minute longer. “Have fun with that, but I’m not going to just sit here and act like Ben is dead.”

The mood of everyone else instantly sunk while Jake took the initiative to try and calm her down before she stormed off. “Hey Thera, we all want to believe Ben’s alive, but-”

“I don’t have some stupid belief he’s alive, I have a skill telling me he is! If you all want to give up on him then do it yourselves!” She yelled, not giving them time to respond as she stormed off, leaving them in silence.

It was Amy who broke it, the obvious question coming to her mind. “Does she really have a skill that would let her know if Ben died?”

“She does,” Will told her, holding his face. Neither he nor Steph had even considered that fact, but if he had died then it would have switched to its inactive mode. If she could still feel him then he was still alive, trapped in the trial.

“I mean, it’s been a month now, right?” Jake asked hesitantly. “If he’s still alive and he’s still in there, is he…”

He trailed off, not knowing what to say. None of them did. The positive mood they felt before disappeared as they all sat alone with their thoughts.

Thera curled up in her bed, her thoughts a tangled mess of emotions as she laid there feeling worse than usual. Even if she knew he was alive, he wasn’t there with her, the only place she wanted him to be.

She knew she wasn’t in a good place emotionally but there was nothing she could do to change that. She hated the feeling of loss, of powerlessness. It just made her want to lash out but knew it would be pointless if she did. All she could do was try to get what little sleep she could as forced her eyes closed.

“Excuse me,” A voice said in her room, making her snap her eyes open as she heard it and quickly gathered the dark mana within her to attack whoever it was, seeing a grey standing by the window. He looked at her defensive stance, her hand outstretched and shook his head. “I’m not really here so don’t waste the energy. I believe Ben has talked about me before, my name is Quilith.”

She lowered her hand but continued to gather her dark mana in the event he was lying, trying to prepare for the worst. “What do you want?”

“I’m not sure how much you understand about how my kind interact with your reality, but I visited Ben within the trial. I am simply here to pass on a message while I can.”

“Wait, you’ve seen him! Is he okay? Is he alive?”

“He’s as okay as he can be,” The grey said hesitantly. “Having Greed with him has significantly increased his survival odds and we believe he’s passed the halfway point of the trial. Unfortunately, I don’t have long. I’m simply here to tell you that he says he hasn’t given up yet. I hope that can help give you whatever comfort you need.”

Before she could say another word he vanished, leaving her alone again with only that.

Still, just having something beyond her skill to confirm he was alive gave her hope, and for the first night in weeks let her sleep a little easier.