…I can’t sleep.

Want to sing me a lullaby or something then? Help put me at ease?

Lame.

His god said with a sigh.

It’s fine, it’s just hard to believe how much time has passed is all. Two years flew by.

Thanks, but really, don’t worry. I just need to distract myself for a while, it’s been a long few weeks.

He looked to the container he had placed beside Fredrick, the only thing ensuring Inux’s soul stayed bound to the world while he got to figure out how to rebuild his enchantments from scratch, maybe needing to make him a new body in the process. Pelenia had said they would store the talos’s body and Ben was pretty sure it wouldn’t decay, but that didn’t mean he would be able to just reattach everything if he ever became a good enough craftsman.

Still, one thing to worry about at a time.

The sun would be up soon and he could tell he wouldn’t be getting any rest, so instead he went to the shop. Even if it wouldn’t be open for customers, he could at least chip away at his training.

He had an idea for leveling his current job, but that meant first ignoring his enchanting to focus on his crafting, making a variety of shields, swords, and spears before anything else, giving him plenty to practice on when focusing on his target skill. Once he got them all he pulled out all of his skill rings and a notepad to record the results before throwing himself into his task.

Starting with a spear, he began placing enchantments on it, the exact same way he’d done when he’d made his knife, only at a higher level thanks to his skills improving while at the same time adding the space enchantment his knife lacked, making it so any injury it caused would collapse around the blade to inflict more damage. It was only as he’d finished that the spearhead cracked and turned to dust in much the same way he’d expected it would.

It was nothing too shocking, in fact he’d expected the result. Though his enchanting had improved since he’d made the knife, he was now working with higher level skills on top of trying to add more, all the while not doing the one thing that made his knife possible. He hadn’t designed the spear to handle any specific enchantments when he’d made it.

As wasteful as it was he had his reasons for it, he wanted to see just what he could accomplish on a standard item. He thought he had a pretty good sense of roughly what he could add to something without breaking it by this point, but it was good to experiment, to see if different configurations would leave him able to get away with more than he currently could.

With that in mind, he grabbed his next spear, identical to the first in every way and began applying the same enchantments, but modified the way he was doing it, basing it off of one of the items he’d seen in Anailia. Instead of placing all of the enchantments on the spearhead, he began on the handle, building them up there for the most part while having tendrils extend to the head where they would display their effects. While it wouldn’t be as powerful as it would if he placed all of them in that one area, the added stability would more than make up for it.

At least that was the idea, but as opposed to the last one where the head shattered to dust, leaving nothing but a handle, this one left the head as the handle crumbled.

Hmm, maybe that would have worked a bit better if I’d made a metal pole instead of a wooden one. Oh well, I can just fit the two leftovers together before moving on to the next option.

He still had plenty of tools to make after all, and with Falk gone for a while, he had nothing to do but practice.

One in five. He thought to himself as he swept up the dust surrounding him. There’s an edge I can get to where the tools I make will have a one in five chance of not turning to dust after I pile enchantments on them. I just need to figure out what factors are making them fail four times and figure out how to eliminate them. Myriad, I don’t suppose you saw anything that might be the issue?

But that doesn’t help me now. Urgh, okay change of pace, I’ll hit the books for the rest of the day.

All of the crates he’d bought were left at the shop since he couldn’t fill Sonya’s home with them and Falk wouldn’t be there to complain for a while, so he began to dig through them, trying to figure out what he’d need. He was fairly certain the issue was with his enchanting, though he couldn’t completely discount the possibility that all of the items he’d made had some common flaw that was the issue. Still, he’d get nowhere if he didn’t decide where to focus, and with the combination of his high enchanter job as well as his new knowledge skill, reading through the books on those topics first would prove the most useful to him, even if they didn’t help him learn anything he needed, so with that he was content to let the hours pass, at least until he heard a knock at the door.

He was going to just ignore it, the shop was closed after all and there was a sign saying so out front, but whoever it was seemed persistent and eventually he gave in, if just to tell them to go away.

That attitude completely changed as he saw Thera standing outside and gave her a big smile. “Oh hey, sorry I thought you might have been a customer. What’s up?”

“I finished at the clinic for the day and figured I’d stop by. How about you?”

“Just about to do some reading. Weren’t you looking forward to being done with it, or have they still not managed to hire any new healers?”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on going back but helping Lux for a while helped convince me to at least do it on occasion. At the very least I need to try and raise my life magic’s level anyway if I want to take advantage of it for my quest, and now that I’m at the fourth level I can be useful while they train the new hires so all in all it’s not too bad. Anyway, there was something I was hoping to ask you about if that’s okay?”

“Yeah, of course, what can I do?”

She seemed to hesitate a bit, as though she were unsure of herself but gathered her resolve. “I know it’s a bit of a waste, but do you think you could use some of your magic materials to make me a way to power the enchantments on the stove? I figured it might be nice if I started trying to cook for myself, but I still can’t really use any old enchantment without risking destroying it.”

“What is that all? Sure, just give me a minute to figure out how to put something together. You don’t need to be so hesitant you know, technically they belong to both of us so if you ever have anything you want made from them just let me know.”

It was an obviously simple solution to her problem that he’d never bothered to give any thought to. He liked cooking for her and Sonya so he hadn’t felt the need to figure out a solution, but he couldn’t deny the fact that it would be helpful for her and wouldn’t leave her dependent on others so he got to work.

It was altogether too simple to make as well, basically just a clamp made of mythril with an incredibly small white mana crystal embedded in it to ensure it got sufficient power.

Thera had sat down and quietly watched the entire process of its creation, seemingly enjoying it as he worked and he handed it to her when he was done.

“Alright, all you need to do is attach it to where we’d typically grab to run mana into it and that should power the stove. The main thing you need to remember is that you need to remove it when you’re done, leaving the stove on can be a quick way to burning the house down if you aren’t paying attention. Anyway, I was just going to do some reading but want me to come give you a hand, maybe a few pointers?”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve helped you plenty of times by this point, remember? I’m sure I’ll manage making myself lunch at least. Still, I think I’ll leave dinner to you if you don’t mind?”

“Of course,” He told her with a grin. “I’ll be home in a couple hours so don’t fill up too much.”

They said their goodbyes as she left and Ben sat back down with his book in hand. He had plenty to read and hopefully figure out just where the issue was, so he focused on that as the hours slipped by.