Chapter 62

Another week passed without any major changes. Ben was still making resistance braces each morning and going to the craftsmen's guild to read in the afternoons, though his book selection now included how to enchant with magic as well, while Thera trained with her father, Glob, and Karly. Really there was only one noticeable difference.“I can’t believe you’re wearing that.” Karly said as Ben brought out a meal for everyone.

“What are you talking about? I’ve been wearing it all week?” Ben told her, loving her reaction to his chef hat/kiss the cook apron combo.

“It is a little odd Ben,” Thera told him with a questioning voice. “What’s it say anyway? That’s your world’s writing right?”

“It is but don’t worry about it. Think of this as the customary cooking garb of my planet.”

Karly rolled her eyes but didn’t bother correcting him since she would rather eat what was being served. The day after Ben discovered that he could enchant with other people's skills he grew concerned he wasn’t doing anything to train his crafting skill at the moment. Given that his current job was craftsmen it didn’t feel right to neglect it like that, especially when he was progressing so quickly through it. With everything he’d done, from learning to keep staves from breaking by using his crafting, to creating the braces, to learning he could enchant with other people's skills, he had flown through it far faster than he had expected, with only a few months putting him at level 80. It seemed the system rewarded discovery, or maybe it was just that what he had been discovering was rather complex. He did see a pretty massive jump in his level each time he spent an entire night to improve on Theras armband.

Nonetheless he wanted to make something that was a little more tangible, and when he discussed his concerns with the queen she suggested working under the castle cook while he was here. Apparently Thera had spoken about their time cooking together and the cook had level 7 in the skill, making them an excellent resource to take advantage of while he had the chance. Not to mention it meant he could learn some more succubus recipes.

He would normally take off his cooking gear while still in the kitchen, but the maid who would usually serve was off ill for the day, so he decided to bring it out while it was fresh before sitting down to eat himself.

They filled the meal with the usual small talk, each of them discussing their plans for the day, though there was never much different. At least there usually wasn’t, though it seemed the queen felt it was time to change that.

“Thera, your training seems to have stalled.” She said offhand, and the mood of the room immediately dropped as Thera became more distant.

“My level improved not too long ago you know mother. You can’t expect me to raise it again so soon.”

“You possess basically unlimited mana. If you could improve your control some more there's no reason you couldn't already have awoken your skills to the second tier. Maybe it's time to admit you don’t have the skill to be a mage.”

She ground her teeth and did all she could to keep the anger and frustration from her voice. “I fail to see what that has to do with anything. I’m working at it on my own, whether I succeed or fail is nobody's concern but mine.”

Pelenia let out a small huff. “Hardly. You have Falk and Ben making you staves constantly, and taking Ben out hunting with you when his time could be better spent on training his own skills is a waste.”

“Hold on,” Ben interjected. “Falks insisted that I get used to gathering my own supplies to save money. He says being able to procure your own materials is imperative to any beginning craftsman.”

“That may be true for most,” The queen rebuked. “But then most beginners wouldn’t have such a profitable patent to their name. Look at how much you’ve made and tell me your time wouldn’t be better spent buying materials and refining your skills?”

He had no response for that. Ben had already been unsure of how to handle his newfound wealth after the first day of work, as the days passed and he made more bands he’d accumulated more money than he knew what to do with. Investing that money into himself and his training wasn’t a bad idea at all.

“Don’t try and talk Ben into quitting working with me, besides, Falk’s fine with making me staves so what's the issue?”

“True, he is and likely will continue to be, but that doesn't change the fact that it’s a drain on his resources. A drain we’ve been helping curb.”

“What?” She asked in shock.

“Thera please, do you really think we’d let our friend put so much time and effort into supplying you without properly compensating him? Of course, since there’s barely been any progress over the past of couple years we’re going to have to ask him to stop. It’s been a waste of his time.”

Thera couldn’t look her mother in the eye while everyone else was sitting awkwardly trapped in their family squabble. She got up and was about to leave the table when her mother threw her a lifeline.

“Of course, if you could prove that you’ve improved enough to make it worth everyone's time and effort, I have no issue with you continuing on as you are.”

She let out an angry, defeated sigh before facing her mother. “What do you want?”

“It’s simple really.” The queen said with a smile. “I want you to conquer the trial of Anailia.”

It looked like her father was going to say something to that, but Pelenia raised a hand to silence him, though Thera had her own objections.

“Why in the infinite hells would I do that? People die in there every year, are you trying to get me killed?”

“People also die adventuring constantly and you end up without a weapon far too often as you do that. The risk feels rather comparable I would say.”

“Okay, but I’m also not close enough with any other succubi or incubi to fulfill the conditions, and you know it can’t be done alone. Are you just giving me an impossible task to do?”

“The conditions say nothing of race. Any species can participate in any trial, though some are going to be significantly less equipped to succeed than others. Given that I’m sure there's at least one person in this room you could partner with.” She said, throwing a look Bens way.

“You literally just gave me trouble for having him hunt with me!”

“Yes, and if you’d developed any bonds with other adventurers I’d say to party with one of them, but as it stands your options are limited. Of course I don’t expect him to do it for free. He already seems to have no problem with his level of wealth, so I have an alternative suggestion for our young apostle. I’ll get you ten converts if you’re willing to help my daughter.”

“Sounds like a deal to me.” He told her enthusiastically, trying to ignore the awkward atmosphere that filled the room.

Myriad had been on him to find new followers for months now, and here he was just straight up being offered ten of them on a silver platter. He wanted to ask about the change of heart but it wasn’t immediately important. He would have agreed to help Thera out anyway, this was just a bonus.

Thera didn’t seem pleased to see how everything went herself, but it looked like she’d given in. “Fine. If that’s how it’s going to be it looks like we’ll do it. When do you want us to start then?”

“How about a week from now? I’ll put Ben's work on hold for the time being so you both can focus on your upcoming trial. Now that that's sorted, let's finish eating.”

The queen resumed her meal but Thera got up and started walking away. “I’m not hungry.”

She left the room and Ben was about to follow her when Karly spoke up and caught his attention.

“Completing the trial is the qualification right? We’ll do it too.”

“What do you mean we?” Glob said indignantly. “I’m not dying for your political ambitions.”

“I personally don’t think you and Glob are close enough for it to be a good choice, however as our country's heroes I won’t stop you.” Pelenia said, completely ignoring Glob's objections.

“Um, sorry but what do you mean by qualification?” Ben asked. He wanted to check on Thera, but he didn’t want to pass on information for whatever dangerous trial he had just agreed to.

Pelenia explained for him. “You’ve been told we’re an elected monarchy, correct? The condition to become a candidate is to complete Anailias' trial. Everyone who does has the right to lead our people.”

He decided he could get any other information from Thera and went to follow here.

When he got to her room and knocked on the door he didn’t hear a response, but not one to let something like that deter him he let himself in to find her face down in bed.

“... Want to talk about it?” He asked. There wasn’t much need to try and figure out what was wrong since he was there for the whole uncomfortable exchange, and he took a seat beside her before he got an answer.

She pulled her head out from a pillow and looked at him, asking something that took him by surprise. “Would you have agreed to help if mom didn’t offer you a reward?”

“What? Yeah of course. I wasn’t going to turn it down since it was offered but I wouldn’t want you to go alone on some dangerous trial anyway.”

“Okay good.” She seemed to lose some of the tension within her as she got his answer and went back into her pillow.

He sat with her in silence for a bit, expecting something more, but when she didn’t volunteer to speak he questioned her instead. “So want to tell me a bit more about what this trial involves? And what were the conditions that we needed?”

He wasn’t sure if he was going to get an answer from her, but after a moment she sat up beside him. “All I really know about it is that two people need to work together to take the trial and that the goal is to make it to the heart of it and collect a flower. The condition is for the two taking it to be fairly close, but if you ask me it's silly that even needs to be said. What idiots would do a dangerous trial from a god if they don't even like each other?”

He felt a moment’s worry that his classmate and one of the few humans on this world were going to get herself killed, but he needed to be worrying about himself instead. He was sure they could handle themselves.

“That's a bit vague isn’t it? Like what are we going to have to do in there? Surely if people die facing it we aren’t just walking through the woods?”

Thera could only shrug. “When you willingly enter the trial you form a covenant with Anailia that keeps you from speaking of the details. It wouldn’t be much of a challenge if you knew what you were facing and could plan ahead.”

“Fair enough.” So they wouldn’t know that they were walking into. Admittedly the thought made Ben a little nervous. He would have liked to have spent the next week collecting as much information as he could, but now it looked like he’d have to just try and prepare for everything to one degree or another. Not ideal by any stretch, but maybe he could work on some new traps. Now that the amount of skills he had access to had just drastically increased he had a few ideas he wanted to put to the test.

As he was fantasizing about what he would try to put together in the next few days he felt Theras eyes looking at him from the side.

“What’s up?” He knew the morning had gotten to her and she wasn’t in the best state at the moment, and now that they’d agreed to such a potentially dangerous task he wanted to help ease her mind before they went off. Still she managed to catch him off guard.

“Are you going to quit hunting after this?”

“What?”

“It’s just that mom’s right about you not needing to anymore. You have money and access to resources now.”

Ben wasn’t so socially inept that he couldn’t see what her concern was. Thera had been alienated and had to hunt alone back in Stonewall, and he was probably her longest companion at this point. What her mom had said did bear some considering, he certainly didn’t need to anymore, but when it came down to it he enjoyed it as a way to spend time with his friend outside of work.

“I have fun hunting with you so don’t worry about it. As long as we keep going for things that won’t immediately get me killed or until you get to a point that you need to find more powerful party members than me I’m happy to stay with you.”

“Okay good.” She averted her gaze but wore a smile on her face.

Since he had been given the rest of the week off Ben spent the day doing something he should have made time for the previous week, remaking the enchantment on Theras armband. He needed to learn how the increase of his connect skill would affect the amount of resistance it could produce, but that was an issue for later. Once he had finished it he promptly fell to sleep and found himself in Myriad's divine realm, with his god already waiting.

Myriad looked… he wasn’t sure how to put it. Brighter maybe? But not like when he was glowing with excitement. It was more like his presence had become more defined. He was a little harder to look at, but Ben didn’t let it bother him.

“So what’s up Myriad? I thought you would be ecstatic to have worshippers offered to you on a silver platter.”

“Ben you just agreed to an incredibly dangerous task for something Pelenia would have done anyway.”

“Um, explain please?”

His god sighed. “Ben, you've spent the last couple weeks proving the value of your invention, especially just how valuable it could be to any race that has passive magics, or any that want to profit off of them. Given that, it was already in their best interest to have a few enchanters convert to me. With the total succubus population in the millions offering only ten people to convert is probably just what she immediately had on hand who were willing. You got ripped off.”

When he thought about what Myriad was saying he couldn’t disagree with any of it. “Fuck. Okay yeah I messed that up, but I would have agreed without any sort of bribe so it is what it is.”

“That’s another thing. People die all the time doing trials and you’re still my apostle. If anything happens to you I’ll need to find another one. Couldn’t you make your safety a bit more of a priority?”

“Wait, that's a good point. You’re a god, tell me about whatever we’ll have to face during this.” He thought he'd found a clever workaround to the lack of information, but he was quickly shot down.

“No can do. If every god helped their believers beat a trial just to get their rewards it would be anarchy and defeat the entire point of it. You need to complete this through your own effort.”

“Damn. So no advice at all?”

“Nothing you couldn’t learn from anyone else in Anailia. Pack some camping supplies and food cause you’ll be in there for a while.”

"Great…" An unspecified but long period of time. Should he be preparing for days or months? He'd have to ask the queen for a list of entrance and exit dates for anyone who succeeded, surely there must be a list of that somewhere. From there he'd need to pick up camping gear and buy some food that could last well. He felt a headache forming with everything he'd need to do but at least his new spacial bag would get a good workout.

Myriad could feel his thoughts piling up and decided to at least give him some positive news. "On the plus side, it looks like the queen already got those converts for me."

"Oh that's great, good for you Myriad," Ben said offhand, clearly not getting the implication.

"And good for you. It was your achievement that made this possible. You've completed the quest."

This succeeded in grabbing Ben's attention. "What? Really? I mean that's awesome but I didn't do anything?"

"Getting me believers doesn't necessarily mean trying to convert people on an individual basis. Anyone that follows me because of your achievements qualifies as well, and with the number of embassies you've made braces for seeing your work too I can expect my number of believers to steadily grow as they encourage some of their own enchanters to take me on. You've done excellent work Ben. You've earned your new job levels."

Hearing this he was ecstatic. His supposedly impossible goal had only taken a little over a year, and he got a nice bump in job levels towards the end of his current one when the levels would be hardest to get. Unfortunately it still wasn't enough for him to realistically get a new job before he was to face the trial, but it would be soon.

Things only got more exciting as Myriad continued. "This means you're available for a new quest as well."

"Sweet, what have you got for me?"

"Unfortunately you still only have one option, but if you keep up the good work that will soon change. I need a place of worship. The first church of Myriad on this world where my believers can make a pilgrimage to express their faith."

"That surprisingly doesn't seem too bad. What's included in making it then?"

"Pretty much what you'd expect. It needs to be a place people can enter and give their faith with a figure of me either inside of the building or outside of it. It doesn't have to be too extravagant at first, you can always expand and upgrade it later. Since it looks like you went to sleep with a cup of water beside you, pour it into a water skin when you wake up, I've filled it with some of my divine essence. Once you have my church built, splash it with that water to mark it as my land."

"Weird but okay. Does that actually do anything or is it symbolic?"

"It makes it so that as my believers give me faith the building itself will be strengthened so that in times of emergency they can go there for protection. Of course I understand this can take a lot of time and money to make, which would normally be collected from my believers, but seeing as how you currently have more wealth than you know how to spend, maybe you could finance it yourself. Just to get it completed as quickly as possible so we can get you your next quest of course."

Ben ignored Myriad's naked greed and immediately activated his skill hidden mind. He didn't know how well it would work against a god but he felt an idea form in the back of his thoughts and he wanted to do his best not to think about it while his god was right here in front of him.

"Absolutely I'll start as soon as I wake up. In fact, can you wake me up immediately?"

Myriad could tell Ben was trying to keep something from him but he couldn't tell what. It wasn't due to the effects of hidden mind though. Perhaps if he significantly increased his level he could, but as it stood the idea hadn't fully crystallized in his mind. If Ben wasn't sure what he was thinking then how could Myriad be? Still he could feel his apostles' intense excitement and decided that whatever it was was fine. His believers were allowed their secrets after all, especially if they were doing something for his sake.

"Well hold on there for a moment Ben, I'm glad to see you so ready to fulfill your role, but at least let me tell you your reward. When you complete this I'll be able to give you another 8 levels of job growth. Hopefully by the time you finish this I'll be able to offer you a quest with a more interesting reward, but if it's not the following one it's the next one."

"No no, raising my job level is great so don't worry about it. Now if you wouldn't mind waking me up?"

"It's still going to basically be nighttime, but if you're sure then fine. Keep up the good work Ben."

As he felt himself slowly come back to consciousness a barrage of notifications went off in his head.