Despite how good it felt to be home, despite how much he wanted to stay in bed for just a little longer, acting as if there was nothing for him to do, Ben got up earlier than he typically would.

Both Sonya and Thera planned to go to the clinic earlier than normal. Sonya to help out as she always did, while still making time for her practice later in the day, and Thera because she felt bad for being gone so much longer than she’d planned, even if she wasn’t a true member of the clinic specifically so she could disappear for long stretches of time if need be.

Considering all of that, he cleaned up and went to the kitchen, digging around to see what ingredients Sonya had stocked up on while they were gone and decided to make something simple. Pancakes, or at least something close enough that he was comfortable calling them that, along with a fruit syrup to go with it.

All of the ingredients out and gathered, he didn’t need to put much conscious thought into how to use them. He poured out what he thought he needed, mixed the batter he’d made till it felt right and cooked it till it had the perfect combination of a light golden crust on the outside and a delicate fluffy interior and kept them warm under a cloth as he prepped the syrup, taking the juices he thought would go nicely with it and adding a sweetener along with the zest of its rind to enhance the flavour, adding pinches of a variety of spices and tasting as he went until he was sure he had something perfect.

As if to agree with that assessment, the smell of the food pulled the still-tired women to the kitchen, where they took their seats and only came to life as they started eating, digging in with gusto after the first bite.

“Ben, you’re never allowed to leave,” Sonya told him happily, the taste of the meal still on her tongue. “I don’t think I could manage eating my old meals anymore.”

“Hey, your food’s a treat Sonya, it was great getting to dig into it yesterday too.”

“And you can be very good with your words when you want to be,” She said with a laugh. “Alright, I’m just going to clean up quick and then we’ll head off Thera.”

“Sounds good.”

They both watched her leave, the two of them now alone as Thera got up and leaned against him, clearly longing for more sleep but fighting off the urge due to her guilt for leaving the clinic for so long.

“Gonna make it?” Ben asked as he rubbed her head, getting a tired nod.

“I’ll be more awake in a bit. I’m sure the introduction to the rest of the clinic is going to be weird enough honestly.”

“I’m sure it will be fine. If there’s any issues just come hang out at the shop instead.”

“Will do,” She told him, before leaning up and giving him a kiss, the same spell as the night before on her fingertips as she applied it to his back.

“Ahem, if you’d like you could always come later in the day Thera,” Her aunt said, neither of them realizing she’d returned. “Falk doesn’t open the shop for another few hours, right? Plenty of time to enjoy some privacy.”

“Don’t need it aunty,” She said, blushing in the face of Sonya’s teasing and rushing off shortly after, letting Ben make his way to work with a bright smile on his face, even as he worried about the future.

Once he arrived, the first thing he did was lug all of the boxes they’d had in the cart inside. Stonewall was a fairly safe town and he wasn’t too concerned about theft, but he had expensive things in there that he didn’t want lost so quickly.

Once that was done though, he did as he always did when he got there, giving it a quick clean to be in a good condition for when Falk arrived and then used the hours before it opened to make whatever he wanted, in that particular case, an alternative to his cursed ring.

When he’d first made it what felt like so long ago now, his attributes had been significantly lower, to the point that it felt hard to compare. As he currently had it, it was far too weak for him, but trying to just make a new ring wouldn’t be good enough. His mana and vitality had skyrocketed, not to mention his recovery rates for both. A dinky little ring would no longer cut it.

Not only that, but with how high everything he had now was, he actually had the wiggle room to make them far more dangerous than he could have in the past. Before he was always calculating how much of each material to add to keep the drain to both his vitality and his mana as close to their recovery as possible, but as much as that had proven to work, it likely wasn’t giving him all he could get in training his attribute that way. Now if he kept the drain at a reasonable level above what he could regain, he’d still be able to wear it for hours, maybe even days at a time before taking it off to let his values regenerate.

With the decision made, Ben pulled out the moribusial and deathstone he’d gained from the trial, seeing a grim irony in the idea of using something from it in particular to help him grow through the suffering it caused him, and got to work heating both up to bend and shape into two different braces.

After making sure he didn’t use too much, he finished the death stone bracelet by adding a layer of copper to the top of it, just in case anyone ever grabbed his wrist when he wasn’t thinking, and cooled it down before putting it on, instantly feeling his life force draining. As for the moribusial bracelet, he slipped it into his pocket, planning to mostly use that one as he slept, just as he’d previously done for his cursed ring.

Let’s see, for the deathstone one, two days on and half a day off should work out okay, though I might need to occasionally have it off longer to make up for what I’m losing. Either way, not a big deal, but I should keep an eye on my card anyway. Don’t want to get too comfortable and forget it completely. What an insanely stupid way to die that would be.

As one final thing, he made three more bracelets. Nothing as inherently dangerous as the last two, all of them just simple mythril bands he could fit a rainbow mana battery into as a way to constantly work on his enchanting before his teacher arrived.

“How did I know you would be here already doing something insane?” The yeti said from beside him, shaking his head as he did. “You just avoided a certain death and now it looks like you’re trying to kill yourself in my shop.”

“Oh, hey Falk. This is just an extension of my ring, don’t worry. My attributes have gone up so much that if I don’t use something like this I won’t get the same extent out of it. Not to mention my absorption resistance leveled up and I got a new skill too that would weaken the deathstone even more. Think of it as a good thing. The bigger I need to make these, the harder I am to kill.”

“Mmh, I suppose, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re off in the head. Anyway, show me.”

“Show you what?” He asked, playing coy. He knew exactly what his teacher wanted and was happy to show it off, it was just a matter of wanting to hear him say it.

“Your enchanting boy, obviously your enchanting. You’re gone for months, dead to the world and you come back with the skill awakened, you have to have an example or two of what you’ve made on you so show it already.”

Hearing exactly what he wanted, he reached into his bag and pulled out what he’d had on him, the things he’d made sure to bring along specifically to show off. Both a soul crystal containing a demon's soul, as well as the knife he’d been using to hold it.

With a single glance, his teacher let out a long, low whistle. He knew what it was in an instant without needing to be told, his apprentice’s long-held goal come true, but even more impressive was the enchantments on it. It was plain to see that it used a similar enchanting system as the trial Ben had been stuck in, but the fact he could see that he’d combined it with the two other main systems he used showed a shocking level of mastery.

“May I?” He asked, holding out a hand.

“Just don’t activate it. It has the very minor and unexpected problem of the soul possessing you if you do, and I don’t know if there’s actually a way to use it without that being a problem.”

“Hmm, if it can possess you then it likely has something of a mind still. If you could work a mental compulsion into it, trying to tame or enslave the soul it contains then you might be able to do something with it. More than that though, seeing this on top of the brace I can say that divine enchanting is no joke. Maybe two or three more levels and you’ll be a better enchanter than me.”

“Ha, thanks, but I’ve seen your stuff Falk, I don’t think I could compare.”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t think it boy. Even ignoring the infinite amount of skills at your disposal, from a purely technical standpoint this is incredible. I may not have seen what you’ve pulled off at the zeroth level of it, but I’ve seen enough work from other enchanters to estimate how big the jump in your proficiency is going to be. You’ve got the talent. Hell, figuring out however the rings work alone, I was planning on keeping the shop closed today for some other stuff, but one of the things added to the list already is you explaining how your ring system works. Actually, that reminds me, I got a request from Iberu asking for you to submit a report on the blending enchanting system you use, as well as one on ritual magic for the mages guild to access since there's not too many detailed works on it. You should submit one for the ring system too, as well as how you’ve combined the three. I’ll be heading to craftsman's tower in a month or two for some war prep, if you have them done in time I’ll drop them off for you.”

It was a casual statement, but a reminder that Falk, Sonya, and Thera all intended to fight made his stomach drop, and his teacher could see it.

“You alright boy?”

“...It just hadn’t occurred to me that you’d all be planning to fight,” He admitted after a moment of hesitation. “Honestly, I’d been thinking it doesn’t involve me at all. Like, obviously my human friends are going to have to, but that’s their trade-off for getting a life of luxury before it all goes down and after too if we’re lucky. The only real benefit to being ignored by every place in the world is I have zero expectations on me to do anything, you know? And even if I did, I doubt there’d be anything I could do.”

He gave voice to the feelings that had been sitting in him ever since he’d heard what Sonya and Thera planned to do, feelings that were eating at him. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do, but knowing the people he cared about would be throwing themselves into danger, it didn’t feel right to do nothing.

Falk, seeming to empathize with him, placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’d been planning on talking to you about this a bit when you got back anyway, but none of us have any expectation for you to do anything boy. We all know your circumstances, nobody could fault you for not wanting to go above and beyond for the world.”

“Maybe, but since I’m currently a sucker trapped on it like everyone else, along with all of you, doing nothing at all doesn’t feel like it will cut it.”

“Then come with us,” His teacher simply said. “At least for the first wave, my role isn’t as hands-on as you might think. There’s this experimental weapon, well, it’s a bit hard to explain if you don’t see it and I’ve only worked on the parts they requested and ordered from me so I don’t have the finer details either, but I’m going mostly to help make sure it runs right, with Sonya and Thera there, they’ll maybe be acting as guards. Well, maybe Thera will handle some long-range attacks as well, but either way, we’ll be in the thick of things, but not quite in as much danger as anyone else, and I know Iberu would be thrilled if you were willing to join up to help too. The more folks around with awakened crafting-type skills, the better the odds of it working without a hitch.”

Was that what he wanted? To throw himself to the edge of the battlefield with the rest of the people he cared about? If he was to be completely honest, the answer was no. For as many near-death experiences as he’d suffered through, he didn’t think of himself as a person who would go seeking them out, and yet the alternative was worse. The idea of the people he cared about fighting far from him when it could mean days or weeks passing not knowing if they were alive or dead, he wouldn’t be able to stand it.

“Alright, I’ll go help out. You said you’re leaving for it in a monthish?”

“Aye, but that’s just some prep. I’ll be back soon after, the main time I’ll be down is for the last month before the portals open up so we’ll head out then.”

“Okay, sounds good.”

Falk could tell even as Ben agreed that his apprentice still felt conflicted, so he decided to distract him with the best news he had. The original reason he’d planned on keeping the shop closed for the day was waiting as he went to pull out an unmarked crate from the back, thinking how surprised the boy would be to learn what it contained and opened it up, revealing the bones within.

In the end though, it was he who was shocked when he watched Ben’s eyes light up before he’d been told what they were, as the boy spoke up.

“God bones. That reminds me Falk, what’s it mean to be a contender?”

His teacher didn’t know how to react about either part of what his apprentice had just said. If he’d had to make an assumption, it would be that the boy’s god had told him about them ahead of time and that his niece had mentioned him being called that in Allfaith, but it didn’t lessen the shock.

“I suppose Thera told you I was one, but that’s my business boy. Maybe I’ll let you know in the future.”

“Um, Thera did mention it, but only after Anailia called me one. I was told to ask you about it.”

“What? That’s impossible, even for you boy. Show me your card.”

Ben handed it over, not having any real inhibition about showing it to his teacher. He’d planned on updating Falk about some of the changes to his status anyway and he watched the emotions shift across the yeti’s face as he went through just how many there were before his eyes widened with realization.

“So you’re the one who killed the forbidden gods then.”

“It’s a bit of a long story but yeah.”

Falk groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose as he did. He thought that there might come a day when he needed to have a real talk with Ben about the skills he possessed, but he didn’t expect it to be so soon.

“Alright, catch me up while we work later. As for what it means to be a contender… It means you’re someone with a ninth-level awakened skill, a contender for reaching the third tier. It comes with some benefits, though given you’re a contender to gain a third-tier sacrilege skill I wouldn’t recommend taking any of them. Even if there’d only be a few people in the world who would know about it I could see it easily putting a target on your back. If you ever manage it with a proper skill then we can go into details about how it might help you.”

He was happy to take all of that at face value, if alone for the fact that he’d gotten to learn another detail of his teacher’s status.

“So you have a ninth-level awakened skill?”

“Aye, and that’s all you’re getting from me. Now wipe that grin off your face and let’s get to work. When these bones were sent to me I was told that your god would pass on what sort of weapons they would be used for. We’ve got plenty of time to finish them but I want to get started.”

“Wait, we don’t just get to play with them?”

“Of course not, are you insane? There’s two skeletons here and I was told we both get to use a small piece to experiment with that we can do what we want with if we don’t accidentally destroy them, but otherwise everything is being made with specific people in mind.”

He couldn’t help but deflate a little at that, even if he was sure it would still be plenty fun to work with it all, but there was still one idea he wanted to test, a single one that he was sure the gods wouldn’t be too mad about and had the potential to be exceptionally useful too.

“Okay, give me a minute first. Hey Myriad, you around?”

I am, this is great, but I have an idea I want to test. From everything you’ve told me it shouldn’t damage the bones as a whole but you’ll probably need to check with the other gods for me. Also if it works I want a third.

You know how you told me how the flesh and blood of the creatures could be used for potions to permanently strengthen someone? I think I can make something similar with the bones without any loss for what would be used for weapons.

Not telling. If you or the other gods want to know, I need agreement first.

If I explain how, I lose my ability to bargain. Besides, a third is nothing when you consider that there’s three other skeletons that could be used for this too and it might not actually work. Consider this a payment for the fact that you’ll all be able to use this in the future the next time a god dies.

You’re the best Myriad.