When Ben got home later in the day he found Thera sitting in the living room looking like she was meditating, presumably working on gaining either dark or life magic, while Sonya cooked in the kitchen.

As he came in Thera opened an eye to look at him. “How did training Sachel go?”

“I’m sure she’ll get the hang of it in no time. I’ll probably meet up with her again to work on it in the future. How about you, any luck?”

She let herself sprawl out when he asked, clearly feeling tired after a day of training. “No luck yet. I still can’t remove charm from any of my dark mana, and when I got Sonya to try to run some of her life mana through me I couldn’t even feel it to know what to look for in myself.”

“So that’s a way to learn to feel life mana too? I thought it was just a means to feel mana in general.”

“If you can already feel mana and have a compatibility with the affinity you should be able to feel some of the minor differences within the mana itself, but it’s a lot harder, especially if you have as much as me and any that goes through me is basically negligible as a result. I may just need to try and figure it out without the reference.”

“Well good luck, if there’s anything I can do let me know.”

“Will do. Also, it looks like you have a package.” She told him, gesturing to the side table where a container about as big as a shoebox sat. There was only one thing he was expecting and he felt a grin tear across his face.

“Is it what I think it is?”

“Doesn’t say, but it’s probably from mom. Open it up and let’s find out,” Thera herself couldn’t help but be a bit curious. Ben had told them it was a custom to send what they thought their daughter was worth after all. After everything they dealt with she couldn’t help but hope they paid a fair bit to make up for all the stress they caused.

Ben tore open the box and looked inside, finding a note and a bag within. Despite his excitement, he couldn’t escape his upbringing and had to read the letter first. Even if Pelenia and Abrus weren’t around, digging into the bag first would feel rude. Trying to contain himself he picked it up and read what was written.

Dear Ben,

You really put me in a pickle with this custom of yours, how am I supposed to decide what my daughter is worth and ship it to you conveniently? After a lot of discussion between my husband and I, we ultimately settled on the contents of the spacial bag you’ve received, as well as letting you know that should you both need any money for building a life together you just have to ask. I look forward to hearing where your creativity leads you.

Love, Pelenia

P.S. Abrus wanted me to caution you against breaking our daughter's heart after receiving all of this.

He did his best to push away the threat from his mind in favour of getting to the meat of it. His curiosity was piqued after all, and his attention immediately turned to the bag, opening it up and pulling out 9 further boxes, each about as big as the original package they received. They were all fairly heavy and cumbersome, and he was curious about just what they were filled with as he pulled them all out until he saw a certain word on the top of the last box he grabbed, the only one to be labeled. Deathstone.

No way, it can’t be. He thought to himself as he felt his eyes light up and his grin grow even wider as Thera watched him from the side with suspicion.

“What’s got you so excited?” She asked, and Ben started tearing open packages to confirm, only leaving the one marked deathstone unopened.

With each box he looked into his anticipation only grew as his suspicion was confirmed. “Your parents gave us samples of every magic material.”

Mythril, orichalcum, moribusial, vergatios, pondus, sindian, deathstone, white mana crystals, and rainbow mana crystals. There were nine magic materials that could be mined from the earth, each incredibly rare in its own right, and now he had access to all of them. He couldn’t begin to imagine just how he would put them to use or if he would save them for special occasions, but with the quantity he had, he could afford to be a little wasteful if he wanted as he tried to figure out just what to do with them all.

“What? All of them?” Thera asked in surprise, pulling him from his thoughts

“Looks like it, gotta say even if your dad can make all of these I’m a fan of their shipping choice, I have plenty of money after making all the bands but materials like this would still be hard to get my hands on.”

“Dad can’t actually make all of them,” Thera told him, seeming a little shocked. “Unlike the others, deathstone is tied to the death affinity and vergatios to the light, dad can’t materialize them. I can’t imagine how much they would have paid to get them, or why they would think it would be a good idea to just give them away like that…” She said, trailing off as she looked at the unreasonable quantity of wealth concentrated in her living room. “Ben when you had the whole dowry idea I didn’t think they would go overboard like this. How am I even supposed to react?”

“I’d say don’t think too much on it. I won’t touch most of the stuff till my level is high enough anyway but god do I want to start making plans.”

His fantasies were already running wild on what he could do with them. Each magic material had its own unique properties and he couldn’t wait to explore what he had only been able to read about in books until now.

He’d already gotten to play with mythril and white mana crystals, but the others would be irresistible too. Rainbow mana crystals have a higher mana storage capacity than the white ones, though it was also far harder to release it, meaning if you could put them to use you could increase the power or length a tool could be used considerably.

Pondus and sindian would grow heavier and lighter respectively as more mana ran through them, leading to various applications for weapon and tool use mostly, while moribusial was able to suck mana in a single direction when properly treated, giving it the popular use of a magic cable to direct mana.

The two Thera had mentioned her father wasn’t able to produce had even stranger effects. Deathstone would directly absorb the vitality of anyone who touched it, meaning it had to be handled with care and likely wouldn’t be unboxed any time soon. Vergatios on the other hand seemed to be used to absorb curses and other more metaphysical ailments leaving the areas it was in purified.

That one he’d already looked into to see if it could be a potential solution to Thera’s charm, but it seemed that was something her parents had explored themselves long ago and finding it couldn’t offer any results in suppressing her magic.

The final one he was happy to get, though it was a little disappointing in the end. Orichalcum was almost completely immune to physical damage, though that meant it could only be forged and shaped through magical means, an option Ben just didn’t have. It was a shame, armour made from it was of a whole other quality, but it didn’t look like it would be something he could work himself unless he could come up with a way to get around his lack of magic.

Maybe one day. He sighed to himself. It wasn’t like he couldn’t potentially have a magic tool made to work it so he could handle it himself rather than passing it off to Falk. He’d have to ask his teacher in the future if he had any suggestions.