Oh thank god. I don’t care what mind job is available next, I’m never going to get a level to calculate again. He thought as they got back to Stonewall, feeling relieved as he did. In the four days of travel he decided to chip away at a few skills now that he had ten minds at his disposal, but even getting Myriad, Thera, and Falk to all ask him questions at the same time as he read through a few books, it simply hadn’t been worth the effort for that one in the end.

They parked behind the shop and Ben was ready to go right in and get to work. He wanted to put his ideas into practice and he’d had plenty of time to figure them out, but Falk could see the look in his eyes and stopped him.

“I know you’re itching to get your god’s business over with, but we all need to report to the guild now that we’re back if it can wait. Rewards to be collected and Ceselee probably wants to talk too.”

“Alright sure, I guess I can wait,” He hadn’t gone into much detail about exactly what happened before, when he came back he said that Myriad wanted him to talk with Eneth’s apostle and that they had behaved so inappropriately that they would be displaying a statue of Myriad to make up for it. He didn’t want to lie to them, but he also didn’t know how to explain that he’d challenged Ather to a duel and nearly killed the man.

Wait, just to be clear I didn’t kill him, did I? It’s not like I stuck around to find out if they were able to heal him after I left.

Hey man, do you think he was planning anything other than beating me into the dirt when he first challenged me? I’m not exactly going to feel too bad for the guy after what he did and what I saw of his personality.

As they got in they were ushered to Ceselee’s office, the last of the adventurers from Stonewall to get their quest reward.

“Well, aside from the unpleasantness at the end I just want to say you all did excellent work. Falk, thanks for helping keep the idiot alive. I want you all to know that I’ve sent out a report of exactly how they acted to the heads of the guild. We are going to be treating this as an attack on one of our adventurers and there will be consequences through a variety of forms so don’t worry about that. If you want the finer details we can go over them later, but for now I’ll take your cards.”

They handed them over, Falk receiving his funds and card back first while Ceselee stared harder at the other two, an amused smile forming on her face.

“Uh, is there an issue? Ben asked, breaking the silence and pulling her eyes to him.

“None, actually it's quite the good news for the Stonewall branch I’d say. Based on what happened the system views both of you as having around forty percent of the total achievements each. I honestly assumed as much when I say what the rewards were for the others, independent of the base quest reward of course. Either way, congratulations are in order, you’re both promoted to rank three adventurers.”

As Thera cheered, her depression from the days prior all but forgotten with the good news, Ben couldn’t help but deflate. To him, that sounded like nothing but added responsibility.

“This has to be some sort of mistake.”

“No mistake,” The guild master said with a grin. “Your group told me what you did to make the one leviathan attack the rest, and after you were knocked out Thera played a vital role helping to weaken the remaining ones, not to mention what she did at the beginning before they emerged from the ocean. You’ve both proven you can handle the risks and challenges that come with being at that rank. Not that you need to worry too much about it, I don’t think there’s ever been a rank three quest in Stonewall and it’s not the sort of thing that would be anywhere close to going one on one with a leviathan, you’ll be fine. Let’s see, I don’t know what, if any of the perks of it would appeal to Thera, but why don’t you stop by when you’re free Ben and we can properly discuss what sort of information the guild can get you since you seem to like that sort of thing.”

“Ugh, fine, I guess I need to take everything I can get in that case,” So long as Thera wanted to keep up with it he wouldn’t quit, but he couldn’t help but feel he was suffering from success.

“So now that we’re alone, why don’t you tell me what really happened on your little outing boy,” Falk asked when they got to the shop. After the guild, they stopped by Sonya’s so Thera could rest before taking him back to deliver the statue, and Ben took that time to grab some of the supplies he needed. He’d thought he’d managed to get away without being questioned too hard, but from the look in his teacher's eyes and the firm hand on his shoulder he knew he wasn’t getting out of it.

He gave his rundown of exactly what happened, explaining not only what he had done, but what he was still going to do, drawing a powerful laugh from Falk by the end.

“Boy, you absolute maniac. Between this, the guild penalties, and whatever Pelenia and Abrus end up doing when they find out, I think the church of Eneth is going to be having a bad time for a while to come. You’re really out here playing the angry husband well.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly plan for things to go quite so far. I just kind of over-prepared and then they threw this opportunity right in my lap. Anyway, since you know all the dirty details now could you do me a favour and run to the local jeweller while I get started? Just buy me however much of the most expensive metals you can with this,” He asked his teacher as he deposited three-quarters of his total funds over. He was already incredibly wealthy from his patent for the brace and the money continued to pour in, he wouldn't be hurting for it any time soon.

“Sure, with this much they’ll probably run out of stuff honestly, but if they don’t I’ll get what’s left with my own funds and we’ll consider it an investment for when it pays off,” He was just as angry about what happened to Thera after all, if he could help twist the coming knife even a little more than he would, and with that he went off with Ben’s now emptied spacial bag, ready to fill it up.

“Make sure you get a receipt for everything!” He called out before getting straight to work, throwing metals into the forge to heat up as he lined up all of his minds to make sure it would come out perfect.

He first cut a block of rainbow mana crystal to use. Of the shoebox full he’d first received, he still had over three-quarters left thanks to treating it like a battery, and of that he took a full two-thirds. So much of the material could have powered over a hundred items so long as he constructed his enchantments competently, but this was far more important. He carefully cut channels into it so he’d be able to extract the full might of its power when he got to the next step.

That step being the moribusial, carefully shaping it around the crystal so that the mana would be expelled from its base, while the top had a small tower of the metal blended with mythril, ensuring that it would pump in more that could be released. This would make up the most important part of the statue, but that would merely be what was held within, he needed to create the shell that would be in his god’s form first to contain it.

For that, he got to work using two of the magic materials he hadn’t had the chance to play with yet; sindian and pondus, the first of which would become lighter the more mana was pumped into it, and the second would make it heavier.

With both heated he began pounding the pondus, flattening it until it was a square meter in size. This was to be a statue of his god after all, it needed to be big. It was unfortunate that most of his supply of the metal was going into the base, but it was a fact he could deal with.

The sindian went towards the other five sides, though he kept from adding the top until he was done. There was a lot of space to fill in after all, and as he found himself questioning if Falk had come back yet he found his bag to the side, his teacher watching from a distance.

As he opened it up he saw the receipt and felt himself swoon. It looked like he had plenty of money left over in the end, but they’d cleared out the shop they got it from and a few others along the way. Even more important than any of that, it looked like he’d stopped by his home and gathered his own hidden supply of magic materials to go into the final statue, meaning it was going to be far more expensive than Ben had initially imagined.

“You’re the best.”

“I’m taking it out of the money you gave me so it’s fine. Get to work now, I want to see this monstrosity unfold.”

He would never dream of spending so much on something like jewelry normally, but the shop didn’t carry large amounts of precious metals like gold, silver, and platinum, not to mention the regular jewels within, so he put his dismantling to work, removing any gems from the first two metals and leaving them to melt down in multiple crucibles while the platinum was tossed with the gems.

As he waited for that he went back to what he had so far, adding iron along sections of the sides to strengthen some areas, while leaving other spots free of any to help create crumple zones, followed by a smaller metal rim at the center of the base and stretching all the way up it for where the rainbow mana crystal would eventually reside. There was an enchantment that needed to be placed there first, but that would be for the end.

It was then that he began pouring the molten metal, gems, and leftover magic materials in, letting it fill up the space while taking care to not let it affect his designs, though he couldn’t help but find it lacking. He’d dreamed of completely filling it, but a town like this wouldn’t have so much available at one time and his teacher only had so much in his private stash, so instead he had to make due and went to the storage, picking out the more expensive materials they did have and getting Falk's permission to use them before incorporating them into the design.

By the end when all the metals had cooled and he had it completely filled up he added a barrier enchantment to the interior of the statue, one that didn’t have an activation condition, but a cancelation condition instead. It was one of the less frequently used enchanter spells from what he could see, but it was perfect for his needs, its only job being to keep the mana crystal from flooding the pondus until it was ready, namely when a different enchantment broke. For the time being he had to create a dummy enchantment to tie it to, the real one not being possible until they were on-site, but with that he added the top to it, sealing it and he was done.

“That just leaves me with building a good ladder,” He said, mostly to himself as he finished, only for a notification he’d longed for to explode across his mind.

He’d finally made it to level nine crafting, and with it came the limited analysis ability of being able to see the ranking of different items, with the statue immediately taking up his sight as he did.

Statue of the god Myriad

Item Grade Lower rare

Oh freaking sweet! I honestly wasn’t expecting to get it so high considering that at the end I was just fitting stuff in there, but looks like this means I can add a healthy boost to its final price on top of the material cost! Hell yes!

It was only as he turned to tell Falk his fantastic news that he caught sight of the rest of the shop, his mind exploding with items on the sales floor being marked as upper rare without a single enchantment on them, with the handful his teacher had added simple ones to making it into ultra-rare. The shock of it numbed him from his own achievement as he looked where his teacher kept the works he sent out to his clients, the words above the most recently finished project shining out to him like a beacon

Unnamed sword from the smith Falk

Item Grade Lower legendary

“Hey Falk, quick question here, what the fuck?”