A couple weeks passed, and as Ben's mood only grew as the results of all of his work starting to pay off, everyone else’s managed to degrade. He’d just finished his repairs to the last house, his ability to cut the logs into the lengths and shapes he needed greatly increased with the purchase of a saw and other tools he’d ordered from the merchant and came back to Fontesh’s home to find the girls looking defeated as they sat around the table, while Skoe was fast asleep in his shed, finally getting a break from the constant work Ben had assigned him.

“What’s got everyone so down?” He asked, trying to hide the spring in his step that came with finally being done his overwhelming level of work. They, on the other hand, saw no end in sight.

“It just doesn’t make sense!” Sachel cried. “We’ve been killing about twenty a night and we wait for hours more to see if we can draw more out without luck!”

“So they’re coming from somewhere else,” Thera said. “We hunt in the evening, more must be arriving in the early hours of the morning when we’re gone.”

“The issue is how we find them then,” Ralia sighed. “Even if we keep killing the ones in the forest, it doesn’t matter if we don’t get the ones at the source.”

“I’m sure you guys will manage,” He told them, trying to sound positive before asking for a favour. “But since there’s plenty of day left I could use some help. Sachel, think you could point me towards any rocky outcrops I can take advantage of?”

“Didn’t we get you enough that first night?”

“This is for something different. Thera, could I also bother you to help bring it back with your earth magic?”

“Sure, maybe the change of pace would help us think of something anyway.”

Despite seeming so defeated, Sachel led them out of the village and through the woods, slowly making their way, muttering ideas to each other as Ben left them to it. He couldn’t interfere with them too much so instead he reflected on his thoughts, thinking about how he’d make the statue. He’d at least gotten some proper tools from the merchant when she’d come back, among a couple other things he wasn’t sure if he would end up using or not, but he was confident it wouldn’t be too hard to make a statue that would satisfy the village and their goddess.

As he was thinking that though, the village managed to satisfy him instead.

Defense enhancement. I absolutely want a level to defense enhancement

Thrilled was putting it mildly. All of the work he’d put towards helping the village had just paid off in a big way, making him slightly harder to kill. It was a bit of a shame to put the reward to something on the zeroth level instead of waiting until it was at the second, but if how long it had taken him to learn it from Zandale was any indication, then he didn’t have an aptitude for the skill, completing quests was going to be the best way to get it anywhere. The sooner he got to the point that things couldn’t punch or chew through his delicate flesh, the better.

Since the girls seemed discouraged he decided to wait to tell Thera later, not wanting to brag about it as he called out to his god in his mind.

Hey Myriad, quest complete. What else do you have for me?

Yeah, the usual ones. Don’t suppose there’s any I could immediately take advantage of?

Myriad had originally planned on keeping that option a secret and simply waiting for Ben to eventually pass, giving it to his next apostle after the stunt he’d pulled making the church, but the boy had done nothing but good work for him since, gaining him both faith and believers and making him more appealing to the world as a whole. While it wasn’t always the smoothest, he decided to extend the trust, especially since it wasn’t an easy quest to fill for a god like him anyway.

Ben let out a long, low whistle hearing just how much he could get from it.

Damn, what do I need to do to complete that?

Okay, we’ll leave that on the back-burner unless it looks doable. What about the other one?

For ten job levels? I’ll take it. Just don’t expect me to start until the job after my next.

I’m almost done this one and I’ve got a plan to finish the next one quickly, just you watch.

Considering the speed he already seemed to go through his jobs, Myriad wasn’t sure how he’d get it done any quicker, especially when his apostle had grown better at not letting thoughts reach his conscious mind, but he looked forward to just what Ben had in store for him.

“Alright, will this be good Ben?” Sachel asked, pulling him from his talk with his god to ask about the rocks she’d brought him to.

It had taken a while, but they’d gotten to a hill with a solid stone face, exactly what he’d hoped for.

“Perfect,” He told her. “Don’t suppose either of you earth mages are confident you could cut away a boulder about the size of the shed for me without cracking it, could you?”

He was met with shaking heads, though he wasn’t surprised. Sachel likely didn’t have the mana for that sort of thing while Thera didn’t have the control to avoid breaking it. It wasn’t a big deal, it just meant that like everything else he’d done in town it was going to take a while, so he pulled out his tools and got to work.

Using a proper hammer and chisel he’d ordered from the merchant, instead of the hastily thrown together stone ones he’d produced, he etched a line to guide where he wanted to work before adding an enchantment to the chisel to aid it in splitting the stone where he hit it, applying deeper cuts then it ever would have otherwise. Even still it wasn’t quick work, nor was it deep enough, he still needed to break it away.

Luckily he had an idea for a trick he could use, something he remembered from an old documentary he’d watched long ago. He found a variety of thick tree branches and cut them into wedges before hammering them into the cracks he’d made in the stone with his tools and enchanting. After that, it came down to using the resources he had on hand. Namely Sachel.

“Hey, would you mind using your water magic to make those branches absorb as much water as they can?”

“Hm? Yeah, that should be easy enough, why though?”

“Just watch, it will be great.”

She did as he asked and pulled water from the air, soaking each branch and the best she could for reasons she didn’t understand until a loud crack reverberated through the forest.

“What was that?” Ralia yelled, immediately on guard as Ben tried to calm her.

“Relax, Sachel just split the stone. Good work by the way.”

“Uh, thanks, but how did I do that?”

“Water expands the wood and forces the cracks that already exist to run deeper. Just need to do it to the other sides and we’re golden.”

He got to work placing more wedges as Sachel soaked them, until finally they had a block of stone in the middle of the woods, too big to do anything with if it weren’t for Thera’s magic.

She carefully lifted it into the air, moving it through the woods as she went and stopping for plenty of breaks as need be to keep it from slipping from her magical grasp until they made it back to the village.

The dryads by this point had grown used to Thera’s overwhelming displays of power as she brought back wood for construction, but this time someone stood in their way as they went through the village, the elder and head of the village, Hentath.