The next day, Ben woke up early for one single reason. Testing.

After a night of examining the new spell with the two gods, he was left to actually see what all of the new mana modifiers would do and he wasted no time doing exactly that, creating simple enchantments to attach them to and recording the changes the modifications made, making enough progress that he made a mental note to go visit Killi later in the day to update the books on them he’d already produced, hoping that getting more eyes on them could result in new routes to discovery and progress.

Really, he wanted to go that second. As far as discoveries went, what he’d gotten from the archive had been huge, but he forced himself to hold back. As much as he didn’t like it, he had people to teach, so as the day began and he parted with Thera, he found himself back at Nati’s residence, ready to face whatever the day was going to throw at him.

“Actually going to stay awake and do your job today?” Xilly said in place of greeting.

“And hello to all of you too. Let’s make this quick. Did either of you have any questions from what you were doing yesterday?”

“No,” Nati told him, at least coming off as a bit more polite, even if she herself didn’t seem impressed with how he’d slept through the latter half of their practice yesterday, only waking up occasionally to check on them. “Is there anything else we can be doing to try and raise it?”

“From my experience, I’d say life and death situations can help but other than that just keep practicing with each other and others. Finding a strange mind would probably help as well but where you’d get access to something like that is another question.”

He wasn’t even going to bother trying to offer his own again, even if he thought he might be able to configure his mental structure in a way to raise their level after a few attempts, leaving him with the last thing he was there to teach them on the agenda, the enchanting modifier.

While he still had over a week of practicing with them left, after he gave that last explanation, all he’d be able to do to help from there would be to judge how their enchantments looked and give them what advice he could as they worked to put the information he’d already supplied into practice, along with the potential for a few more lessons on ritual magic so long as either of the two managed to raise their connect level or else became proficient at the technique without it, though he wasn’t holding his breath. Both were complicated, not the sort of thing so easily mastered in such a short time, least of all when they’d also be trying to learn that complex mana movement at the same time.

Oh well, I can say that I’m at least doing the best I can here. We’ll see how Nare feels about the other two. Plus him.

He could feel the eyes of Nare’s high priest on him, filled with an obvious judgment and before starting anything else Ben turned to stare him down in return, waiting for him to give voice to whatever was on his mind until he finally broke.

“Were you at warrior’s tower before this?”

“I was, why?”

“Did you take part in the riots that went on there?” Zallith asked, ignoring the question.

“I did, it was fun, I’d recommend joining one at least once if you get the chance.”

Even more fun when you’re the guy leading it, though I suspect he wouldn’t like that answer.

The priest already didn’t like the answer he was given, shaking his head as he got back to his own work. “I thought so. Do you have no shame as a representative of a god?”

“None. Which is better than licking the boot so hard I choke on it. Now is that all or can we get to work already?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, instead immediately materializing two knives and quickly added enchantments to them in the typical weave configuration, one with the modifier and one without to let the two see the difference as he slid them over to his students.

“Now, this is going to be both hard and unintuitive to do but try and follow what I say and I’ll give you as many examples as I can because if you don’t manage to learn anything else I’m trying to teach you both, learn this and the items you make with it will have a good chance to go up at least one rank in quality along with either an equivalent boost in power or reduction in the mana cost to match.”

He went on with his lesson, Nati at least seeming interested despite herself given she could see how the enchantment had raised the item’s rank as he did his best to try and explain how to do such a thing in words, all the while he quietly kept up his materialization and enchanting, slowly filling his bag with circlet after circlet for what was going to come next.

“Killi, how do I deal with some problematic students?”

“If you ever learn then I’d be happy to get that answer as well,” She chuckled. “Who’ve you begun teaching?”

“One of the summoned and a… I guess she’d be a grand-demigod? A demi-demigod? Doesn’t matter, either way, I hate them but I’m being paid well.”

“Grand…? Ah, I suppose that would be Nare’s descendant. They do say the mortal children of gods can be a handful, just do your best. But I assume that isn’t the reason you came here, is it?”

“No, I have a couple. One being these.”

He opened his bag, pulling out circlets of all sizes and explaining their purpose before Killi had to ask.

“They're enchanted with knowledge and a few other helpful skills that will let anyone who wears them learn quicker and faster. Given how important it is to have powerful mages in the world right now I’d like to officially donate these to the library as the apostle of Myriad.”

“Interesting,” She muttered as she picked one up to look over. “Such an obvious application of both a knowledge skill and an awakened enchanting, but have we really never had someone who held both at one time before? I suppose that makes sense, enchanters usually just raise a magic with that skill for their work and make use of whatever else exists in their status as a bonus.”

“Well, a lot of interesting options become available if you branch out a little.”

“I’ll bet. I’ll take them. I’m assuming you want it to be known they’re from the church of Myriad?”

“If that’s no problem.”

“Ha, a small price to pay for so many items that have to be in the ultra-rare. I’ll happily put these out for rentals.”

Oh cool, I had thought I’d need to wait a bit for word to really go around but I guess the confirmation of a third-tier skill holder is good enough? Either way, I’ll take it.

He’d originally planned on dropping them off later to take full advantage of the quest reward but decided not to in the end, no matter how useful it could have been to him, for the simple reason that he was forced to admit to himself that holding off could have cost lives. Surely there would be mages who would be fighting in the next wave who used the library and surely many would have close calls where the difference in what they knew could be the difference in life or death. It was unfortunate, but when he thought about it like that he couldn’t really wait another month to hand them over, especially with how dangerous the next battle was sure to be.

“And I have one more thing while I’m here too,” He said, reaching into his bag for the last of his items he needed to hand over, a book, containing the structure of each new mana modifier he’d just found, along with tests on how they impacted certain spells and how they would interact with each other to a certain extent, with Killi’s eyes lighting up as she flipped through it.

“My my, you have been busy. But then, so have I,” She said with a smile, reaching into her desk and pulling out a thick stack of paper, handing it over to Ben and watching him speed through it all in seconds, a grin breaking out on his own face.

“So this is why you’re the embodiment of knowledge, huh”

“It’s all just theories, I can’t exactly test it myself.”

“But I can. This is incredible, thank you, Killi.”

What she’d given him was something she’d worked on in her spare time, going through the information on mana modifiers Ben had provided in the library.

One of the bigger roadblocks to his work there was seeing how modifiers would act when stacked with other modifiers, and given the sheer volume he was seeing examples of, it was a herculean task that could take years to finish, but she wasn’t the smarted person on the world for nothing. In a fit of genius, she had discovered something that had the potential to erase even more years of work to his research on top of those already lost from the studies of Galwax. She’d found a formula to predict the outcome of staking modifiers.

“Even if I’m right, it’s not perfect,” She told him, trying to temper expectations. “I’ve seen what you’re trying to understand. With this, results should become predictable up to the tenth stacked modifier but the structure of what you’re looking at might have dozens or hundreds stacked and interacting.”

“Yeah, but it’s a start. You’re incredible Killi, more and more this is actually starting to look like it might be possible.”

With every new bit he learned, every clue, he grew one step closer to finally being able to learn the mysteries of the summoning spell, which in turn brought him closer to figuring out how to remake it, and in two short days his progress had just exploded. Now more than ever it felt within his grasp.

“Ha, well it’s nice to be appreciated. It’s an interesting problem too, I’ll keep chipping away at it when I have time so stop by again when you have a chance, but for now, I should get back to work if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, thank you, Killi. And while I’m here, is Verbum free?”

“Top floor as always. If he tries to avoid answering your questions then tell him he needs to come down to talk to me.”

“Ha, thanks, but that won’t be a problem. Trust me, we're great friends.”

Letting Killi get back to her work he happily rushed up to the fifth floor, finding that very friend deep in a book as Ben lightly tapped his shoulder, getting to watch him almost jump out of his skin when he saw Ben’s cheerful smile.

“Whatever you want, go away!”

“Verbum, no yelling in the library, man. Also, I’m just here to say hi and ask for a teeny tiny little favour.”

“No, and… Wait, how did you get five new titles since I last saw you?”

“You hit the nail on the head, that’s actually what I’m here to ask you about. I was just hoping you’d look at the weird one so I can figure out what it does for me.”

“They’re all weird!”

“Okay, the really weird one. Title holder. Just let me see it through our eyes and I’ll get out of your hair and let you get back to your reading.”

“...Fine.”

It was obvious that was going to be the quickest way to get rid of Ben so he stopped putting up a fight and did as he was asked, using his akashic records skill to see all of the information the system had on that one unusual title and doing his best to narrow it down to a reasonable amount before he began to mentally scroll through it, moving faster than he himself could read to get Ben out of his hair just slightly quicker, with the holder of that particular title doing his best to keep his face neutral with what he was seeing.

The title had two main effects, both of which were fantastic, even if one was going to doom him to more strange titles in the future. By having it, not only were the effects of all of his other titles increased, meaning a bit of a boost to his growth rates and skills, but he’d also have an easier time gaining titles.

He wasn’t exactly clear how much easier, but that part didn’t matter. Having it at all was a boon, one he was going to happily take advantage of, even as a new question popped into his head.

If I got this title for having twenty others, does that mean if I get enough new ones I’ll get another title that will strengthen those effects further? God, I can’t imagine how many more I’m going to need to make that happen but we’ll just have to wait and see.