Chapter 51

The next few days passed in a blur. Ben focused on figuring out what else he should test for his enchantment, as well as taking Falk's recommendations as his teacher rushed to finish a proper cloak for Thera. Apparently he was being sent off to her homeland and since she had no real responsibilities as an adventurer she was able to pack up and leave without worry, having been asked to go with him by Falk to look after him in the foreign nation. Not that she had any problem with it, after being cooped up for so long it felt nice to be able to leave on a trip and get the chance to visit her parents. Ben didn’t know how long he would be gone, though Falk said to expect it to take a month or two, so he left the place he was renting and asked Sonya to store his few possessions while he was away to save some money. All that was left were goodbyes before heading off.

“It’s going to be alright, sure I may be gone for a couple of months but you have nothing to worry about,” Ben spoke calmly, though he couldn’t hide the sadness in his voice.

“Hey now, I’m going to miss you too, but you know you can’t come with me. It would be too difficult. Sonya’s here for you at least. I know you two don’t really talk, but she’ll take good care of you.”

“I promise I’ll spend all sorts of time with you when I’m back so try not to be too lonely, okay buddy?”

“Ben stop talking to your plant and let’s go already,” Thera said to him as she watched his overly dramatic exchange with his houseplant Fredrick.

“I’m just trying to calm him down. He’s already feeling lonely. Has been ever since I told him I was leaving.”

Thera let out a long sigh. With Ben having lived with her for a few weeks at this point she was used to the sight of the young man talking with it to practice his connect skill, but it still didn’t paint a very emotional picture. Thankfully as he prepared for another extended goodbye with it Sonya stepped in.

“I promise I’ll take good care of Fredrick for you Ben. Now in the meantime do you have everything? One of you packed the painting right?”

“I have it,” Thera said. In the time they had waited for Falk to return, Ben lived up to his promise to paint a couple portraits of them together, and one was being sent off as a gift to her parents.

“Alright, excellent. Your mother's going to be so jealous that your first painting was with me, I can’t imagine how many she’ll try to commission from Ben.”

Thera slipped her head into her hands. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Both of you be good,” Falk spoke up. “Thera, send my regards to your folks, and boy don’t let her parents rope you into anything crazy. Remember what I told you.”

“How will I know if it’s crazy or not?” He wasn’t exactly super familiar with succubus customs.

His teacher gave it a moment's thought before giving up. “Good point. Thera don’t let him be roped into anything crazy.”

“I’ll try my best.”

With their goodbyes done they headed to a wagon on its way out to Vanasil, the closest city to Stonewall with a gate.

Sonya turned to Falk as they watched the wagon go off, with her niece and Ben inside. “So he never ended up asking? Colour me shocked.”

“Ha, the boy was probably too busy to give it any thought. It’s a shame though, I can’t wait to see what his reaction will be when he comes back and asks.”

She looked down at the armband she was currently wearing with appreciation. “Still, a plain copper armband should be lower common right? Could an enchantment really bring it up to lower uncommon?”

“Absolutely for a good enough one, but that’s nothing,” Falk said while he received a questioning look. “Mythril already puts items into the lower uncommon range, so for Thera’s it would make sense if her band was there too, but spending ten straight hours making the enchantment was enough to get it squarely in the upper uncommon range.”

Falk grinned at Sonya's visible shock. He always thought taking an apprentice would be boring, but it looked like there was a lot more excitement to it than he would have guessed.

“Wow, there’s a lot more than I expected!” Ben said when they arrived in the city. It had been a long ride, taking almost a week to get there, but it had been peaceful and now that he was inside the city he had a sudden and intense desire to explore.

“It’s a typical gate city, nothing to be too excited about,” Thera responded with mild indifference.

“Well the only places I’ve been to are a communal church and Stonewall, I would say this is pretty fantastic. It’s not like there's a rush, let’s take a look around.”

He immediately pulled Thera along as he started to wander around. There was a much greater selection of races around than at the town he was currently calling home, which meant more varieties in architecture and more foods to try, not to mention the constant crowd that filled the streets as people went to travel to or from distant lands. He was grabbing a snack from a street vendor before he knew it and started poking his head into various shops around, especially any that catered to his interests as Thera was dragged by his whims.

“That’s the fourth smith you dragged me to. Is this really necessary?”

“I’m just curious on how Falk's stuff stacks up. I know he’s the best in Stonewall, but I didn’t think he would still be so much better than anyone in a city like this too,” He said quietly to try and avoid offending the shopkeeper.

“I know uncle is excellent at what he does but is there really that much of a difference?” She asked curiously as she cast her eyes around the store they were currently in. It all looked the same to her.

“Absolutely. Take a careful look at some of the blades, you can make out some minor imperfections that I’ve never seen on any of his works. Honestly I always thought Falk undercharged for his stuff but I was never positive until now. God I need to get to level nine crafting so I can actually see his items' rankings.”

“You do know that most people never get past level five in a given skill right? It could take the rest of your life to make it that far.”

Ben could only shrug. “Skills improve as long as you constantly push your limits right? I just need to keep going at it and I’ll get there.”

“You’re definitely going to burn yourself out,” Though when she thought back on the single-minded determination and focus he got when working on a project he was passionate about she had to admit to herself that maybe it wasn't so impossible. Heck, if he could keep his pace he might even make it to the third tier by the very end of his life. Plus with the benefits of a god's blessing he was probably more likely to reach his goal than an average person.

As she took a second to think on how he devoted himself to his work to the point of blindness to everything else he grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the store, and into the next one to capture his attention.

“Oh look, an enchanters shop, I gotta see this.”

They entered the shop as Ben pulled Thera along and immediately started to look at the various items and tools around, trying to work out what they could do and if he would need to buy any to play with. There wasn’t a huge need to get anything now of course, Anailia would presumably have its own fair share of shops to explore while he was there, but he wouldn’t want to miss anything fun, when the shopkeeper approached.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” Enquired a black-shelled biped, not what he would classify as a hominid type like him or Thera, but he didn’t have a proper reference to compare them to.

“Just hoping you could point us to something fun.”

The shopkeeper looked at his smiling face and the cloaked Thera before making his suggestion. “Well I do have some anti-life magic rings in the back I sure you both could-”

“Nope. No no thank you, we're good. Come on Ben,” Thera said, interrupting the shopkeeper and dragging him out the door.

“Hey what’s the matter Thera? I was curious about what he had.”

Thera took a deep breath and reminded herself that Ben was still reasonably new to the world so he wasn’t going to be aware of every item most people would consider common. “Ben, I’m fine to help you train your skill on occasion and while I don’t mind it too much if you drag me around somewhere, you have to keep in mind how that may look to others at times.”

“Huh? What do you mean? And what does that have to do with-”

“He was offering us birth control,” She said, cutting him off to get this embarrassing conversation done as soon as possible. “They’re enchanted with a life magic curse to prevent… well you get the idea,” She was extremely glad to have the hood at the moment to hide her expression. This was not a conversation she was expecting to have to have today, but at least Ben for his part seemed equally embarrassed, a red flush rising to his cheeks.

“Ah, my bad, sorry,” He told her and let go of her hand.

“It’s fine, that shouldn’t have been the first thing to come to the shopkeeper's mind either, but some races are just a little less concerned about these things. Anyway, do you think we can move on to the gate now?”

“Sure let's go.”

A giant metallic arch, about twenty meters across, stood planted in the ground as groups of people slowly trickled in and out of it to get to their destination. Ben could only stare in wonder. How had it been constructed? How long did it take to enchant a beast like that with the proper spells? He would love to get the chance to look at the designs for it and would have to ask Falk if the blueprints were publicly available or if they were some closely guarded secret, if it were possible then he was getting his hands on them.

“Okay enough gawking, let's go through already,” Thera said as she dragged him past the arch to what lay beyond.

Ben was hit with a strange sense of familiarity for a moment before he could figure out why. Aside from numerous people walking around and a ring of what must have been over a hundred gates all leading to different locations, they were in an empty blue-grey void, with no distinction between where the ground ended and the sky began. It looked just like the divine realm of his god.

“What is this place?” He asked aloud in wonder, not really expecting an answer but getting one anyway.

“Unnerving, isn’t it? I’m told the gods made this area for all the gates to link to instead of having one central location on the planet to keep any one group from being able to take control of the gates center point. Try not to think too much about it, it will only freak you out.”

He felt like mentioning that he spent a couple nights of the week in a place just like this with his god would have only raised more questions, so instead he let Thera lead them to their destination.

“Let’s see, I think it’s on the right,” She muttered before dragging him along.

As they walked Ben took the time to look at the gates they passed, seeing the top of each one was labeled with the name of whatever country or city was beyond it, as well as being able to peek through to whatever was on the other side. He caught glimpses of strange architectures, species he didn’t have names for, and landscapes he’d never have imagined considering how his current home appeared. He wanted to keep stepping out into different areas and look at what was around, but they were already on their way to one new city, he’d just have to find another time to explore. Of course that didn’t stop him from peppering Thera with questions as they went.

“Hey why are there guards outside of some of the gates?”

“A few different reasons, some nations don’t want just anyone coming in or out, or there’s places like the warfields and the untamed lands where you don’t want someone walking in by mistake. Why, which did we pass… Oh,” She turned her head back to look at the last guarded gate and saw exactly what it was. “The life valley huh? That's there to make sure nothing gets out.”

“What's wrong with the life valley?”

“It’s a place where creatures with a high life affinity make their homes, including some with life affinity passive effects.”

“Isn’t that a good thing? I would love to be able to just walk into a land and start healing from injuries.”

“Yeah that sounds good in theory, until you consider that the high concentration of life affinity mana makes everything grow out of control. How would you like to spend a day there and have mold spores instantly blossom across your flesh, or whatever bacteria is present in you start to rapidly multiply and start consuming your body for resources while your body is healing itself at an accelerated rate to make up for it, so you have to either boost your food intake or waste away. Not to mention the way that anything that survives while constantly bathed in the life attribute tends to adapt to changes rapidly and in strange ways. If it wasn’t for the death mountains surrounding it there would probably be quite the issue if any of the monsters of the land got out.”

Ben felt a small shutter come over him. “Well that was some horrifying mental images, thanks for that.”

“I just want you to be aware of how dangerous some of these gates can be. You already look prepared to jump through a few.”

He gave her a cheeky grin and they continued on, moving by gates and eventually finding themselves in front of the one they were looking for.

They took a step and were in Thera's homeland, Anailia.