Eventually, Falk kicked him out for the day and Ben went back home to prep dinner for everyone, as well as work on his personal project. He was almost done with it and knew he’d be up all night if it meant having it finished even a bit faster, but he needed something to eat first.

He pulled out some ingredients and started preparing them when Thera got home and looked over his shoulder.

“Smells good, what’s for dinner?”

“Just a simple stew. Since we had leftover roast from yesterday it shouldn’t be too long to cook,” Even with the benefits of his crafting to speed up the cooking process, he didn’t want to spend too much time to get the meat tender so taking advantage of some leftovers made for a good shortcut to having it done in an hour or so. “What’s up with you, do anything fun during the day?”

“Eh, not really. Spent most of the day working on my earth magic and telekinesis. Speaking of, I’ll need a new staff.”

“Way ahead of you. Come to the shop tomorrow, I’ve got thirty.”

“You’re the best.”

“Yeah yeah, just make sure you keep a record of what you’re doing with each one so I can see what works and what doesn’t.”

She made a face at the reminder but agreed. “I know, I will, but is it really that helpful?”

“I can only watch how you manage with them when we’re out hunting. If I can’t understand how they turn out they’ll never get any better.”

“Weren’t you going to try making a staff with my hair at some point?” She asked, running her fingers through the golden strands that had made their way past her shoulders. It had been months since he first thought of the idea in Anailia, and he’d even increased his crafting by a few levels since then, but he still shook his head.

“Unless you’re looking for a buzzcut you should grow it out a little more. I’m not sure if it will even work, but the more I have to use the better the chances are.”

He did need to start trying to figure out just how he would go about it to give such a staff the best odds of success, but it was something he could work on in his free time, on top of his ever-growing list of projects and things to learn.

They chatted some more while waiting for Sonya to get home and enjoyed their meal together. Once it was done though, the two women went to enjoy some card games until bed, and Ben focused on his passion project.

It hadn’t been easy to talk Sonya into letting him do a major renovation of her home, he’d had to make a lot of promises about completion times and paying to have any damages to be repaired if anything went wrong, as well as getting Falk to come give it a look-over when he was done, but in the end she agreed, and he was able to get to work on finally having a shower.

There was a lot that had to go into it and compensations he had to make for differences between what was available in his world to this one, to the point it felt like he was designing it from scratch despite the lesson he’d had, but after days of work he was almost done.

He’d spent a lot of long nights putting together the parts he’d be using, from making the tubing he’d need for water to travel through to making a basic filtration system for both physical filtration utilizing rocks and charcoal, and enhancing it through enchantments of both death and light magic, the first to kill anything that might be living within the water, and the second to attach a variety of different purification spells to it as a means to control other things like off odors, as well as ensure no death mana lingered within it. This all served as a way to ensure the water could be reused multiple times without having to worry about changing it out every day, though he still probably would about once a week just to be safe.

The pipes that led to the showerhead were also enchanted with both water and fire magic, with water used to both move the water within and create pressure, and the fire magic to heat the pipes the water was traveling through, warming it up as it went. The tricky part was creating two taps to control the strength of each, but after a couple days of fiddling he’d made it work.

Finally came the big part though, the one that actually made Sonya nervous about all he’d been doing, knocking down a wall. He needed all of this to be in a dedicated room to avoid causing water damage to the rest of the house, and while there was always the option of making it separate from it, he wanted to be able to walk in without having to worry about actually leaving the entire building. It all came down to having a more comfortable experience overall, even if it might seem like overkill.

Until then, he’d been working on all of the construction from the outside and late into the night, but that was all done so it was finally time. He carefully cut away sections, adding additional support where he thought it was required, but overall it hadn’t taken long at all and he put in a door. With that complete, he had to finish up the last bit of one of the outer walls and ensure the vents in the room were set up properly, but he was finally done.

“God, it’s a thing of beauty.”

“You wouldn’t understand Myriad, those of us who don’t come from aquatic races need to bathe occasionally, and we can get pretty attached to how we do it.”

“Yeah yeah, enough patronizing. I’m testing it out so don’t watch me while I bathe.”

He’d been looking forward to this for a while and dreams were about to come true. He’d even gone so far as to incorporate a very small rainbow mana crystal into its design so there’d be no chance of it running out of power if it was left on too long. He couldn’t leave it running forever, but a few hours of constant use wouldn’t be a problem.

He turned it on, getting the heat to match his preferences before getting in and fiddling with the pressure, letting the time flow by once everything was perfect.

Oh yeah, I’m in heaven. It would be easy to dismiss this as an over-exaggeration, but when a person was used to bathing a certain way every day for years and suddenly has that taken from them, it could be hard to feel properly clean. For Ben, it felt like over a year's worth of grime had drained away all at once, and the familiar sensation of warm water pouring over him was divine.

The time melted away, and he was happy to stay in there for as long as he could, just enjoying the feeling, but all too soon a knock came on the door, interrupting him from his peace.

He heaved a sigh, knowing he needed to get out soon anyway and wrapped a towel around his waist as he went to check what the knocking was about.

He opened the door for Thera who stood silent for a moment. Her eyes being solid gold spheres, no pupils to show where her focus lingered it would be hard for most to tell where she was looking, but Ben had gotten used to the subtle movements of her eyelids, and combined with a small golden flush across her face, he could tell she was a bit more aware of his lack of dress than he’d thought about.

“Ahem, maybe you should actually put something on before you open the door.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know if it was anything important so I figured the towel was fine, what’s up?”

“We’ve just been hearing the sounds of water since the early morning but nothing from you so aunty asked me to check that you’re alright. Seeing as you’re fine I’ll leave you to get dressed.”

She cast one more look at him before walking off, leaving him with a lingering feeling of embarrassment as she did.