CH892

“Alright, bottoms up.” “Ben, while I appreciate the intent behind it, the way you’ve spoken about this leaves me with only marginally more c

“Alright, bottoms up.”

“Ben, while I appreciate the intent behind it, the way you’ve spoken about this leaves me with only marginally more confidence than the appearance of the final product would imply,” Foast said as he tried to swirl the cup of inky sludge he’d been given, only for it to be far too thick to do more than slowly budge. “Are you actually, genuinely sure this isn’t going to kill me?”

“You’ve tried the common sleeping potions and gotten no effect?”

“Correct.”

“Then you’ll be fine. Worst to worst, I’ll keep an eye on you and if something seems wrong I’ll carry your butt off to some help. Now, down the hatch.”

He materialized both a pillow and blanket as he said it, handing both to the shifter as he sat down, looking no less suspicious as he finally started to pour it back, a small shudder of disgust running through his body as the first drop touched his tongue before subtly changing some of his facial structures to replace it with something that lacked a sense of taste and even still nearly gagged for the texture of it running down his throat.

“I now believe even less that your concoction isn’t going to kill me.”

“It’s a body mass problem. Either I needed to make it super concentrated or else you were going to have to drink multiple litres of the stuff. Sorry, but there was no winning that so just tell me how you’re feeling.”

“Like I’m going to vomit.”

“Besides that.”

“A bit more tired than a moment ago,” He admitted. “So maybe it’s having some effect?”

“You literally only just drank it, give it a good half hour for it to fully kick in but in the meantime, try to have a nap. I’ll look over you to make sure you don’t die and work on getting your armour sorted because let me tell you, yours is going to be a huge pain in the ass.”

“Mmh, well, do your best,” The other said, already closing his eyes as the initial touches of the potion he downed began to take hold. “I’m looking forward to seeing what you make.”

“Ha, and I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

Foast was already asleep as he said it, his exhaustion made overwhelming by even just the start of the potion he’d drank and leaving Ben to focus on his work as he began pulling materials from both the shop’s storage and his rings while he started shaping them with his magic for all of the parts he’d need.

To match his max size it should only be, what? A few million pieces that need to be enchanted on and fit together? I should probably make it a bit bigger than I’m expecting to be on the safe side too. Okay, this is gonna take a lot of mana but I’ve got my coat, I’ll make this work.

With the first component being shaped and enchanted on being voidstone, a necessity to make the sort of armour Foast was going to need and central to how it would change its shapes. Even at the smallest of scales, the condensed space it would form would hold enchantments without breaking, making it a perfect material to store the rest of the armour when it was shrunk down to its smallest size, only needing to be enchanted properly to release different segments of it based on different activation conditions, with just how much enchanting needed to be done being enough to be a noticeable drain on his mana.

With how fast Ben could think, it was more than possible for him to instantly empty his mana pool through enchanting alone despite how light on the resource the skill was and the volume of power needed was abnormal, even by his standards. With millions of components needed to not only be enchanted but shaped as well, he was seeing both his own resources and anything he could pull from his coat being pushed to their limits.

But that was part of the job and one he was relishing in as working the voidstone was finished, letting him move on to the internal components. It was like a puzzle that needed to be put together, leaving a grin on his face as he worked and shaped the following components, blending metals and other materials to form a flexible chainmail connecting it all, using the spatial effects he’d already enchanted to store finished sections as he went to keep the room from being filled with piles of metal.

With the mail being some of the hardest to work, needing a small trick to it built in if it was going to be something a shapeshifter could take advantage of in proper, with the scale of the task meaning that even with all of the power he now held, it was still hours of work.

Hours that flew by in a flash. He was loving it, getting to sit down and push both his skills and creativity and once it was assembled he tested the stage it was at, bringing it to its smallest size first to look it over and feeling content as he did.

In what he was going to refer to as its storage form it was the size of a baseball, not the smallest he knew Foast could shrink but at a certain point there were limits even Ben’s skill couldn’t overcome, looking like a solid metal ball in that state with only a small hole at the top, big enough to stick a thumb into to give it any character.

With that hole also acting as the only way to use it. It couldn’t be expanded from the outside. In that state, Foast would need to shrink down to one of his smallest forms to put it on and let it expand around him, with the only way Ben himself could access its interior was to fill the hollow insides with metal and use his magic to stretch it out from within, expanding the hole to the point it was something he could walk in before adding more supports, pushing tables out of the way to expand it further as metal polls kept it from closing back in on itself until he was left with a small room he could enter to add some of the finishing enchantments.

He was still going to need to spend some time making sure every minor segment was pulled out for him to add his finishing touches but at that point it wouldn’t take too long, adding a thin protective barrier to the interior to protect Foast’s skin or scales or fur or whatever sort of exterior he’d shift to have, along with the few others it would need to function properly before it was time to test.

With the armour’s future owner too asleep to try it out himself, the shifter not waking once in the hours Ben had been working and with Ben having no intention of disturbing his rest either, did the small bit of testing he knew he could on himself by removing the joists to let in collapse in around his body, pressing tight against his clothing and flesh as it was made to but doing more from there as well.

Bodies generally had points. Sure, there were more streamlined structures that existed in the world he’d seen like Wedrow’s wormlike shape and he was sure that was all the more true when it came to the aquatic half of the planet but in general, living things had parts that stuck out for one reason or another and as the armour contorted around him, different sections expanded against the resistance from his body to let parts of his arms and legs out, freeing his hands and his feet.

Obviously, it wasn’t completely ideal, it did create room for injuries but at a certain point, concessions needed to be made. It had been carefully designed so that the segments of any body that would be able to slip through could only happen from inside of the armour but if Foast was completely blocked off by it then it would only get in the way. With the goal he’d been given, Ben was comfortable saying he’d done the best he could and with a bit of effort due to being static in his own shape, he stripped it off and picked it up in its storage form, giving it one final lookover.

Now to just wait and see about the opinion that matters most of all.