Chapter 60

At the end of his second week in the nation, Ben just finished reading and re-reading a passage he found in the guild archives after a long morning of enchanting and found himself running back to Thera's home at full speed. He had just been skimming through any book that caught his interest, making notes on what to read more carefully later and what pages had information that he found to be more useful or worth researching further when he came across a concept he had never heard of before. It was just a short chapter in a dusty tomb that looked like it hadn’t been touched in years, but it was more exciting than anything else he’d learned at that point and he wanted to immediately grab his friend to test it out.When he got back he ran into a servant and stopped them to see where he could find her, before being directed to the yard on the other side of the house where he was working to enchant the braces. Racing without a care he left the building, turned a corner, and was almost immediately flattened by a flying rock. The only thing saving him was a nearly invisible forcefield springing up in front of him.

“Gotta be more aware of your surroundings sweetheart!” Abrus yelled out. “Wouldn’t want to hurt your friend.”

“It’s good training for me at least,” Glob said. “Maybe he should stick around to help as target practice.”

It wasn’t clear if she heard her father or Globolgork, she was already rushing towards him at full speed. “Ben I’m so sorry, are you alright?”

Thankfully he was fine. It seemed in the time he was in the guild reading, Thera had been practicing her magic with her father and Glob as Karly and a person he had come to learn was Glob’s barrier magic instructor sat to the side.

Thera was taking this opportunity to get as much practice in as she could. Her parents had a number of craftsmen producing about a dozen staves a day, basically giving Thera free reign to break as many as she needed to, and it appeared in that practice Ben was almost a casualty. Lucky for him Glob was there and aware of their surroundings. Despite coming off as an ass he did properly block Thera's spell before it could reach him.

He couldn’t help but feel a little jealous that she was using the work of other craftsmen, worse still that she was able to get about four or five shots from each staff. He knew her earth magic had gone up since she last used one of his, which meant her control had gone up too and his own products would probably last longer, but until he saw it with his own eyes he would feel a competitive flame flickering within him. Not only that, but with his crafting and enchanting having gone up as well he was sure he would be able to make something much better, especially once he started on implementing the new enchanting trick he’d just read they may not even need to make another for weeks as long as they were careful.

“I’m fine, but that’s not important. Give me your staff.”

She could feel the excitement coming off of him and she handed it over without any resistance.

“I’ve already used that one three times, are you sure you don’t want a newer one?”

“No, this is actually perfect. Think you only have one or two shots left in it?”

“I’ve been getting four shots from the staves made by this smith, so it should only be one left.”

He grabbed on and ran his mana through it, feeling where microfractures had formed throughout the rod, weakening it in a very real way. He spent a few moments applying his enchantment before handing it back.

“Alright, mind shooting it until it breaks?”

She looked at it and shrugged before firing an earth bullet. When the staff was still whole in her hand she looked at it in surprise but fired a second shot. Still unbroken and she went for a third, only for it to shatter in her hand.

“How did you do that?” She asked in excitement.

“Sacrificial enchantments. I found out about them in the guild. They’re set up to take some of the brute of any mana passing through them and break. It wasn’t as effective as I hoped, but still getting one extra shot is fantastic, especially if I’m around to set it up again each time. We could seriously get a lot more lifespan out of your staves!”

“Interesting,” Abrus said after watching the display. “Why have we never heard of these before?”

Ben had wondered the same thing at first, but after thinking it over on the way there he thought he could understand why. “I would think it’s probably because they aren’t thought of as very useful. There aren’t many cases where enough mana could accumulate to destroy an item or enchantment unless it’s intentional, and you would need to have an enchanter on standby to fix it each time. Usually there are just better ways you could make things instead, so this technique went unnoticed and expired into the public domain, just waiting for me to get my hands on it. You guys go back to practicing, I’ll take some time to apply this to the rest of the staves you have available.”

He sat down and watched them practice as he worked. They only had six staves left so it should have been a quick process but he wanted to examine them as he went. Ben had originally wondered why they simply didn't have some higher quality staves made, but it looked like it came down to the fact that it wouldn’t look good for the leaders of a nation to monopolize their countries high-quality items given that they would just take a bit longer to be destroyed, nor would it be good to deplete the nation's stock of rare materials that went into making high-quality goods. By buying large amounts of lower quality staves they were able to make sure less valuable materials were used, as well as ensuring a steady source of work for the people making them, at least as long as Thera was in town to use them up.

What resulted were staves of an adequate quality, but even if they weren’t as good as his teachers that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything he could get from them. Each one was a work of art in its own way, being forged by smiths or woodworkers into something ornate and fit for the daughter of a queen. It was only a shame that all the hard work to make something so beautiful was immediately destroyed after a few uses. In that regard at least he was sure he had the right idea. If Thera wanted an artistic staff he could make her one once she had good enough control of her magic.

Once that was done he watched Thera and Glob sparing, with Thera on the offense and Glob acting completely defensively. As Thera threw Earth bullets at him it was clear that Glob had the advantage in skill and technique, presumably from being summoned with a higher form of a skill, Thera was still able to put up a fight from the raw power she displayed. The only thing that held the fight back from being impressive was how she needed to run back to him each time to trade out staves or get a new enchantment placed on it. Still it helped their small battle stretch on for far longer than it otherwise could have.

The next time she came to him though Ben asked her a question. “Why are you still only using Earth bullet?”

“It’s not ideal but in a fight I want to be able to use as many spells as I can. I tried using earthen spear and manipulating my bullets course but in both cases I was only able to fire two shots because of the increased mana expenditure. My earth bullet is plenty powerful so as long as I can be comfortable firing them off and watch my aim it should be safer.”

“Okay but this is practice, not a real fight, and it’s not like you're alone. Come on, let’s try something.”

He got up and grabbed her hand, connecting with her. “Use whatever spells you want, I’ll try and keep your staff functional as long as possible and we’ll see how it goes.”

He didn’t hide his mind from her so she could tell exactly what he wanted to do through the connection. With a small look and a nod she started her spell. Ben could see Abrus perking up off to the side, he had heard how things went the last time he tried to lift some of the burden from her staff, but Glob had no idea and was acting cocky.

“You're going to fight me with a craftsman clinging to you? Low-worlders really are a bunch of weirdos.”

She ignored his taunts and provocations though and cast her spell. Ben felt the mana pass through the staff and worked to strengthen any weakened areas of it, while at the same time applying and reapplying sacrificial enchantments as they broke. He was slower than he wanted to be but knew it was still his first day using them. He would improve.

Glob quieted down when he saw Thera use a different attack for the first time that day. two dense earthen spears, each as long as a person, were pulled to the ground and fired at him.

He immediately threw up a barrier but only one crashed into it, destroying the spear in the process, the other one changed directions in the air and started to circle him at a distance, ready to try and impale him at a moment's notice should he let his guard down, but he never did.

He switched from creating the barriers as needed to having a round one completely surrounding him. It was probably significantly more mana intense, but he had seen the way Thera's spells destroyed her staves and was willing to try and outlast her.

Thera wasn’t willing to wait and went on the attack, all at once hammering one spot on his barrier with the last spear with as much force as she could muster. It almost looked like it would break through, but they didn’t have the luck.

“Ha, suck on that!” Glob yelled at them, confident in his victory, before the earth shook and brought him to the ground.

Thera’s staff turned to dust in her hand, Ben’s crafting and enchanting not able to keep up with whatever spell she was about to attempt.

“What was that last one?” He had to know.

“I just tried to swallow him into the earth,” She casually told him. “I thought given how it turned out when we did an earthwave it would work out.”

Being buried alive seemed like a bit much for a sparring match, but he kept that to himself, instead focusing on the technical aspect of why it failed. “We could only pull off an earthwave that time because we had one of Falk's unused staves. Honestly with how much damage this staff had already received, I think it held up great.”

“It was great,” She said while beaming. “We should fight like this more often, think of how well our hunts would go.”

“Nope, this should stay our trump card in case of emergencies. If I’m always easing the burden on your staves there will be no reason to work on your control. Plus then I’d have to always be with you, you don’t want to be dependent on me, do you?”

She deflated at his argument. “Huuh, no. It’s just so much easier this way.”

“Anything worth doing is worth working for sweetheart,” Abrus said as he walked up to them. “Though that was rather impressive.”

“It’s hard to take that ‘work hard’ attitude of yours seriously dad when you can use earth magic as easily as breathing.”

“Hey now, I work hard on other stuff. I am currently trying to learn non-attribute magic from Globolgorks teacher.”

“Currently is a bit of an understatement,” The incubus in charge of Globs training said. “A long decade of practice with no payoff isn’t a short period of time for most mortal races.”

“A decade! Even if non-attribute magics are hard to get, shouldn’t it still be pretty easy with the amount of mana you have?” Ben asked.

“Maybe for other races, but I’m so tightly bound to my element that I’m not even sure it’s possible to use spells without it. Still, it's fun to try,” Abrus said with cheer. “You never know what skill could pay off in a unique way.”

“Ignoring that though,” Said Karly after watching the battle herself. “How did you help her do that? Did you learn a buff skill or something?” She hadn’t been participating in the training herself this time because her magics wouldn’t help the other two with the sort of practice they needed, but she'd watched long enough that she was sure Thera couldn’t pull something like that off alone.

“Using a few of my skills in tandem lets me feel Thera's mana pass through the staff so I can strengthen any weakening sections of it, and I was trying to rebuild the enchantments as fast as they were being destroyed. I’m sure we could do better once I get a bit more practice with the technique, but it’s already shown it could work, which is all I wanted from today.”

“I would say that’s enough for now anyway,” Abrus chimed in. “You’ve all had plenty of practice, let's stop for a meal.”

Everyone else seemed ready to go but Ben stopped them. “Before that, Thera could I have a hand? There’s a couple things I want to test.”