Chapter 7

After passing through the stone gate of the town and saying his goodbyes to the merchant, the first thing Ben did was not find Falk, but instead look into the other thirteenish places that he might apprentice under. Just because Falk came recommended by a god didn't mean that he wouldn’t decide for himself at the end of the day. First things being first he spent a few hours walking around the town, trying to get acquainted with the area, while also stopping at an inn to book himself a week so he would have somewhere to sleep while deciding on whether or not to stay in this town.

Making a list of any potential places he might look into as he went, he checked out two smiths, an apothecary, three restaurants, and what looked like an art studio, but found them all lacking. It hadn’t even seemed worth his time to ask the owners if they would take any students or staff at the moment, it all just looked boring.

Even worse though was he only found those seven locations, he had no clue what the rest were that the god mentioned, nor had he found Falks. He figured that he should at least check that one out, he would just have to ask around for directions.

Since he realised he didn’t actually know what Falk's shop did other than that it could be a place to train both of his skills he barely knew what to ask for help with, but acting under the assumption that someone who could use both of those skills would be either an apothecary or a smith, he started asking the various warriors and adventurers around for directs. It wasn’t long before he was able to find out the way.

“Take your item and don’t you dare come back!” This was the first thing Ben heard as he approached the shop, followed quickly by a man being thrown out of the shop and rolling down the street.

That display was already enough to give him serious second thoughts about going in. Still nothing else looked promising at the moment so he gathered his resolve; hopefully as long as he was polite he could get out with only minor injuries.

He took a deep breath, gathered his will, and walked inside.

You’d think the first thing he would notice would be the shop's wares, but no, the first thing that caught his eye was the shopkeeper himself. At eight feet tall, covered in white fur and rippling muscles, and having a surprisingly impressive topknot on his head, there was only one word that came to mind for him.

During his walk around the city he had gotten to see all sorts of different races than at the church, some falling farther outside of his frame of reference then this man did, but that didn't change how impressive it was to see a creature that would be considered a thing of legend back on Earth. A tiny voice in the back of his mind said that Lehie would also qualify for that distinction, but he just couldn’t make himself think of her as something so impressive.

“You need something brat?” The creature, presumably Falk, asked him.

“Just wanted to take a look around, maybe see for myself what's available.”

“Suit yourself.” He said and went back to work at a forge in the back of his shop.

Ben for his part took some time to look around. It looked like he was a blacksmith, and a busy one at that. There may not have been any other customers in the store at the moment but the walls were covered with items of various styles and designs, lining the walls and filling crates on the floor. Every single item he saw was immediately catching his attention, maybe it was a function of his crafting skill, but he could tell right away that everything he was seeing stood above the other shops by a mile. When he considered that it actually seemed strange that he wasn’t constantly sold out, but maybe his rough attitude had been keeping some more faint-hearted customers away.

Aside from just being higher quality though there was something else that he couldn’t put his finger on about a few of the items, something that made them stand out compared to the others. He stared so hard it felt like he was trying to see through them, searching for what secrets they kept, but in the end there was only one way to really know.

“Hey you’re Falk right?”

“What’s it to you brat?”

“I was just recommended this store and I was just curious if I’m talking to the owner or one of his apprentices.”

“Alright I am Falk, now what do you want?”

Ben pointed out four items that had caught his eye in particular. “Something about these ones seem different from the rest to me, I was just wondering if it was in my head or if they’re unique in some way?”

While Falk seemed indifferent, if not a little rude, at first, he suddenly switched to openly hostile. “You got an appraisal skill or something brat?” stepping forward and baring his teeth at him.

Still if he had gotten on his bad side from a misunderstanding of his skills then maybe telling the truth would help.

“No appraisal skill on me, it's probably because I have crafting and enchantment I would guess.”

He seemed to relax a bit at that, but was still on guard. “In that case what do you want with a back alley store like this?”

“I was told if I wanted to become a good craftsman I would need a teacher, and you were recommended to me.”

“If you can tell just by looking at them that there's something different about those four then you should be a decently high level, why would you need a teacher at this point?”

“I’m only level one in both crafting and enchanting though?”

“Brat do you think you’ll have any luck with such a bad lie? There's no way you can tell that with just level one, not to mention having crafting instead of something like blacksmithing.”

“It's true though.” Ben told him, showing him his status card.

“...Crafting and enchanting as blessed skills huh? I guess that might do it. But what's with these magics and resistances?” he quietly spoke to himself while looking at his card before looking back up at him. “And why would you show me such a pathetic status when you're asking to become somebody's apprentice Brat? It usually isn't recommended someone become an enchanter without a blessed magic skill to use for items, and from the looks of it I doubt you would be able to use magic to begin with.”

“I have been told that it's probably not possible for me to use magic, but consider me showing this a point of my sincerity. I wouldn’t hide anything from the person I would have as my teacher!” He knew after looking around that Myriad had been right, this was definitely the store that Ben had to be working at if he wanted the best results he could get. All that was left was convincing his would-be teacher.

“Find somewhere else, I don’t take apprentices, and even if I did, you’d never make it as one.”

“Don’t decide that before you give me a chance, I swear I’ll live up to whatever standards you set if you give me a shot.”

“Brat you don’t even know what you’re getting yourself into. Aside from just making things, craftsmen need to be able to gather their own materials when they start if they aren’t working for a kingdom or have some sort of patron. Gods know I couldn’t supply you with everything you’d need while you start your training. That means hunting for it yourself. Look at you, your stats are average at best with no magic or combat. Give up.”

“I won’t.” He said, staring him in the eye and standing his ground. “All I’m asking for is one opportunity to prove myself. Just one.”

Falk matched his stare before sighing and massaging his brow. “Tell you what kid, go get yourself killed hunting an Amarok wolf. If you can do it by yourself without hiring any adventurers then I’ll take you on, but if you can’t even manage that then give up.”

Ben broke into a smile and quickly grabbed Falk's hand, giving it a shake. “Works for me Falk. Just wait, in a few days you’re going to have the best student you could hope for.” With that he ran off, eager to figure out what he would need to do to get it done.

“Dumb brat doesn't even know what what an Amarok is. Well if he has any brains he’ll quit when he finds out.”

After running off Ben went to find something to eat before returning to his inn to turn in for the night. Deciding that Myriad had indeed proven to have some worth he gave a quick prayer of gratitude before drifting off to sleep.

“I know I was the one to recommend Falk and said to convince him, but please give up here.”

Before he knew it he was in the god's realm again staring at a much smaller Myriad, maybe around the size of a small TV, as he tried to change Ben's mind.

“So can you just appear whenever you want? Seems pretty handy.” Ben said, ignoring the god's plea.

“Ben he gave you a task you could never reasonably be expected to accomplish.”

“Well yeah, obviously.”

“Wait you knew? Then why did you agree?”

“He clearly didn’t want to take me in, and if I kept pushing I probably would have gotten something even harder assigned, if he didn’t just kick me out of the store. Honestly I was lucky he offered a task at all.”

“But it doesn’t matter if you die!”

“If I really think I’ll die then I won’t do it, but that's not what matters. What matters is if Falk is a man of his word.”

Myriad let out a long sigh. Did he even have anything like lungs? Before he continued. “He should be. You saw that little altercation at his store before you walked in right? He still gave that man his item before kicking him out. He’s rough but he should be a man of character.”

“Wait, were you watching me all day?”

“Yeah I got to see you spend hours checking out all the places I already told you weren’t worth your time.”

Ben gave him an uncaring shrug. “Trust but verify. Well not much trust yet but if you keep up the good work we’ll get there. Actually where were the other places you said weren’t worth my time, I only found seven?”

“You’re not going to waste time checking those out too are you?”

“If things don’t work out with Falk I may as well.”

Another long sigh. “A few others were enchanters that work independently of other stores so you could bring items from a regular smith to them in order to enchant. Then the adventures guild has someone you could work under for conducting minor repairs on either armor and weapons, although that wouldn’t give you too much experience as a craftsman. There's also a private stonemason in town that would probably be more useful than those folks at the adventurers guild. He has a high skill level too, but he’s too specialized. You may be able to grow to level four in crafting under him, but after that you would just need to find a new teacher again or do some serious self study.”

“Well maybe he would be worth looking into later then. For now what do you know about Amarok wolves?”

“I can tell you they're notorious newbie adventurer killers. If you go to the guild you could probably find more out, but they’ll definitely try to stop you.”

“Well just let me figure that out.”