After spending the rest of the night talking with Quilith while figuring out what most of the known magic materials were initially made of, Ben’s typical schedule for the coming day was changed completely by the implication of what he’d found.

He knew that the universe he was in had ninety naturally occurring elements with a few hypothetical more that could have briefly existed in the hearts of stars or formed during their deaths, meaning there were potentially that many possible magic materials out there to be discovered if he could only create them.

It was exciting, engaging, and more than a bit dread-inducing. Even if he succeeded in creating them, they’d have to all be thoroughly tested to confirm their effects, lest he accidentally create some sort of super-deathstone that was going to absorb the vitality of all life around it. That meant he’d need to set up an entirely new research institution to study them all unless he wanted to be spending years of his life going through them one by one.

Just thinking about that killed some of the magic of it for him but he did his best to ignore the crushing feeling of his workload increasing. This was too important to ignore so after thinking of the best way to do it safely, he and Thera went to her family after breakfast, his girlfriend too curious about such a potentially major discovery to not want to see where it would lead with him.

After going through the mini-gate to her old room, they needed to find the key to making sure Ben didn’t accidentally kill himself, finding Abrus training with Karly and Glob outside.

The two haggard summoned looked grateful that at least one of the three great spirits beating them down had decided to take a break thanks to their presence as he walked over, giving a cheerful wave.

“Thera, Ben, what brings the two of you here today? Looking to buy a bit more?”

“Not quite. I’m looking to kill a lot of birds with one stone so I kind of need your help Abrus, do you have some time? I can almost guarantee it’s going to help make Anailia significantly richer.”

“Why don’t you give me the details first and then we can discuss it.”

“Okay, so you know how only nine kinds of magic materials exist?”

“Better than anyone, yes.”

“I’m going to try and change that, but seeing as how I don’t know what any new ones I manage to create will do I kind of want you around to make sure I don’t accidentally kill myself or anyone else. On the positive side, I’m assuming that once they exist, you’ll be able to make most of them yourself so it’s a win all around.”

The great spirit gave off an air of shock upon hearing that, not knowing how to react other than to look around before focusing back on Ben.

“Alright, well if you’re going to try something like that I suppose we’d best move to a different location.”

With the explanation given, Abrus grabbed the two of them and flew them through the gate, taking them deep into the untamed lands until he found a clearing, far from other people.

“This should probably be safe enough,” The spirit said with a nod before focusing on Ben who was laying on the ground.

“Just give me a second to catch my breath,” He told them, grabbing his heart and waiting for it to calm down. “I thought Thera got her need for speed from her mom’s side since Sonya enjoys it too, but I guess it’s an entire family sort of thing, huh?”

“I think you might just be unusually bad with this sort of thing,” She teased him, only for Ben to strongly deny it.

“No, think of every person you’ve ever transported anywhere. Other than your aunt and Ceselee, the rest of us end up feeling pretty mortal by the end of it.”

“You’ll get used to it one day.”

“I can only hope.”

It was only after a few more seconds of collecting himself that he got up, prepared to do what he had come there for. Abrus waved Thera to stand back while he stood before Ben’s outstretched hand, right where he intended to materialize whatever matter he could.

The idea was that the second it appeared, Abrus would grab whatever was made instantly, pulling it away and collecting it so it would do no harm to Ben while being fully prepared to toss it into space should it prove to be too dangerous.

Which means all there is left is to finally give it a go.

With that frame of mind, Ben concentrated on his first element, pouring his mana into a space that was no bigger than a grain of sand as something came into being, only to get an immediate negative from the great spirit. Ben had failed, not creating anything new but instead just having wasted too much mana on something that already existed.

He didn’t let that stop him though and he tried again and again, running over to Thera each time to quickly refill his mana pool to see if he’d get any success. After all, he knew that to a point, failure was expected for him. There were two known magic materials in the world that came from affinitied mana, deathstone and vergatios, meaning there could easily be more too, and it was only by the fifth attempt that he finally had a success.

In an instant, whatever Ben had created was ripped away by the great spirit as Abrus did something unexpected, he tossed it into his mouth.

“Uh, taste good?”

“It’s not a matter of taste,” He said excitedly. “You did it Ben. Infinite hells, the fact that this was possible and I didn’t even know, to call myself the great earth spirit when there’s still so much more depth to be found in the world…”

“So do you think you’d be able to take over then now that you’ve seen me do it once?” He asked, a small part of him hoping he could dump this part of the new project on the great spirit too when he seemed so enthused. “All you need to do is try and apply more mana to the atomic structure you’re trying to create. Easy-peasy.”

The earth spirit fell deep in thought before answering, putting his all in thinking it over.

“I wouldn’t be able to,” He finally said. “I don’t know how to explain it to you, but when I’m materializing I don’t think in the same way you do. I frankly can’t understand how you’re doing it to get this outcome. You said that you’ve applied extra mana when making carbon to get white mana crystal, but if I try the same, I’ll just get more carbon.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“A fundamental difference in worldview then, huh? Damn it. Okay, give me a second and we’ll move on to the next one.”

“Ben, are you okay?” Thera asked him in concern as he walked over to take more of her mana. “You seem strangely unenthusiastic.”

This seemed like the sort of thing he’d normally go crazy for, not something he’d be disappointed he couldn’t dump on someone else. The fact that he was reacting like that spoke of some deeper issue, but he did his best to brush it away.

“It’s exciting, it really is, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I have a lot to do. Adding to my plate with everything else is a bit much.”

She didn’t look like she trusted that answer but decided to let it slide until later, letting Ben take what he needed as he moved on to his next attempt, once again getting another success with three more coming soon after, leading to a notification ringing out in his head.

“Okay, I probably should have expected this. We’ll have a one-minute break while I change my job.”

When he touched his job crystal and felt the options fill his head, there was only one new one. Alien mind, certainly gained as a result of what had happened to him after receiving the so-called rewards of completing the archive, but it wasn’t one he expected to take any time soon.

His first instinct was to take master of all like he’d originally planned but stopped just short of it. He still had plenty of elements left to test and that was a hard job to finish, even if it was sure to give him experience, he was certain that there was a different choice that he’d be able to complete on that very day as he carried out his tests and made his choice then and there.

“I’ll take material creator.”

What was he doing if not creating new materials? Ones that may have never before existed in the universe, certainly not existing in the history of that world or the past worlds that had been lost to the demons. He was certain it would give him excellent experience and without waiting a second longer he got back to work.

While some things were easier to to test, others were harder for a few reasons, one of which being the gaseous elements that fell outside of Abrus’s domain of power. The fact that all of the gasses that existed weren’t of a magical nature would seem to imply some other rule to be followed beyond just purity, which Ben assumed had to do with the total mass of the substance getting lumped together.

It seemed that the grains he was materializing were enough, but if one went down to a small enough scale, an atom of carbon was still an atom of carbon, no matter what other atom it was attached to. The fact that it demanded purity made him think a consistent volume was necessary, so he solved that problem in a different way.

When he materialized the gasses, he did so by creating them at the same time he created a container to hold them, forcing them to exist under a far higher level of pressure than would be found on the world as he made his new attempts, with Abrus collecting them too, even if he couldn’t analyze them himself.

Ben kept on pushing through with options till he was finished with the ten pure gasses that could be found in nature, continuing on with his progress till there was only a single element left to test.

To his boredom though, it ended on a low note, not becoming anything new or exciting and leaving a total of thirty-nine elements that possessed a non-affinitied counterpart, meaning there were fifty-one that he’d have to figure out how to test for non-affinitied options. Worse than that though was what he didn’t get, a notification telling him he’d completed his job.

He’d gained a positively insane level of experience for it, ending at level seventy, but that still meant he had the hardest bit left to gain as he tried to think of how he could finish it then and there, rather than having to spend however many days or weeks it would take to get through it while using far too much time for practice.

He felt the very idea weighing on him as he asked himself what he could possibly do.

I suppose I could try to make some of the less stable elements that may or may not be able to exist and then see if I can create magic counterparts for any of them too, but who’s to say how much I’d need to do for that to work? The job’s material creator, if I really want to be sure to finish it, I should probably get a little more hypothetical…

Oh, I’m not going to like this.

As soon as he had the idea, he was sure it would be enough, even if the outcome was going to be rough. There were a few options he could think of to try and make, but only one that really stood out. The matter of his original universe. Thanks to his knowledge skill he remembered everything he’d ever learned about how it was set up and the grey had taught him even more during some of his lessons as they compared known structures across the multiverse. There was only really a single problem with making it. It wasn’t something that could properly exist within the laws of physics he currently existed in. As soon as he made any, it was going to explode.

He really didn’t want to, but he knew that finishing his current job was important and heaved a long sigh before speaking up.

“Abrus, I’m about to do something crazy so can you please do me a favour and make me a full suit of armour to slip into?”

After Ben explained just what he was doing while trying to downplay the potential danger, the great spirit fulfilled his request, creating not just an armour, but one made of orichalcum for Ben to enchant as heavily as he could, placing every bit of defensive magic he was able to onto it to keep him well.

He wasn’t too worried, the goal was to essentially make just a few atoms of it, but he was doing his best to go above and beyond with it to convince the two with him that he would be safe and with both of them standing back he gave his attempt.

What he was aiming for was the simplest choice of all. His original reality’s version of hydrogen. It was as simple as it got and he put all of his minds to looking at all of it, from its characteristics and physical structure to every property he knew of, spending all of his mana and feeling nothing happen.

Well, that was a little underwhelming.

He wasn’t sure what went wrong. As far as he could see, there was no reason it shouldn’t have worked, leaving him with only one guess he could test out. That the issue was a lack of mana.

He knew magic materials had a higher mana cost than the more typical matter of the universe, perhaps the cost grew even higher for things that simply shouldn’t exist within it?

To his luck, that would be easy enough to test for sure. With the one failure, Ben walked over to Thera, getting her to overfill his soul with her mana as he ignored the sense of pain and moved away before trying again.

This time he felt a change unlike the first as thousands of points of mana were burned. He wasn’t just making something, he was seeing space itself warp under his power as those few hydrogen atoms came into being, far too late for Ben to realize that something was going wrong.

The universe itself was warping under the strain of their creation and the second they stopped existing, when they exploded into pure energy yet at a volume that should have been ignorable after properly preparing, the universe pushed back with a force of its own.

With a boom, Ben felt himself being thrown back, leaving the vast clearing and smacking into a tree, his armour dented into him despite the innate properties of what made it up and turning the outstretched hand he’d materialized through into a mess, with both his fingers and arm completely broken.

A small part of him tried to consider himself lucky that he still had fingers at all after whatever that had been but that was drowned out by a far larger feeling going within him as he muttered to himself through the pain.

“God, I really need a vacation.”