CH819

While his clones were hard at work, his real body was devoting its attention to his student as she trained, watching her technique and pointing out areas she could improve while at the same time giving her lessons in her head, helping her absorb more information on the subject of crafting and magic then anyone would expect of a child her age and feeling his chest tighten a bit as they did.

Knowledge was power and a healthy foundation would make for a far easier time when it came to her leveling her skills, but what he was giving her already went far beyond giving her just a healthy foundation. With how much he’d be able to help her learn by the time the third wave came around, he was certain that even if anything happened to him, so long as the world went on, she’d have no issue improving without him there to guide her.

Although I should also ask Falk to take over her training if anything happens to me. I’m his cute little apprentice, there’s no way he’d turn me down.

“Ben, are you alright?” She asked him, picking up on something he was giving away in either his face or mind while he just smiled at her and ruffled her hair.

“I’m doing fine kiddo and you’re doing excellent, showing you’re really absorbing everything I’m teaching. I’m proud of you.” 

She blushed and laughed when he said it, loving the praise while he went on.

“Now, why don’t we take a break to work on your enchanting a bit? You ready?”

“Ready!”

“Great, come on and I’ll give a look at how you’re doing with the three systems.”

Of everything he was passing on to his student, his personal system was what he considered the most valuable but unlike with Thera and Jake, he cared far more about ensuring that she had the basics down to the best of her ability from the start and he watched from the side as she went through them, one by one while he guided where he could, making suggestions as her magic was placed down for her to work on or retry, watching her eyebrows bunch up in concentration as she did her best to live up to her own expectations, even if he could feel some disappointment in her thoughts.

Plant magic was making it into her lessons since that was the main thing she had to enchant with but she was going to be limited in options for what she could do with the magic which didn’t have many alternatives. She would in theory be able to use some spells of the three affinities that made that magic up but it wouldn’t be anywhere near as easy as it would for people who held those magics in the natural form, even if it would be just as hard for them to manage any plant spells unless they had something like the spell unification skill to make it easier for them.

But as far as I know, there’s no skill like spell separation or something to give her an easier time breaking up the magic she has so she’s stuck with what she’s got, unless of course she learns some non-affinitied options which wouldn’t be a terrible idea, even if that’s going to be hard for her, but… Ah, what the hell, I’m already teaching her plenty of spells and skills outside of her affinity since getting her connect eventually is a goal, it wouldn’t hurt to focus a bit more on non-affinitied options so she could try to get one or two herself, just in case something goes wrong and I can’t get her what I actually want her having.

The lessons in her mind subtly shifted as a result, going over what he knew of the world’s non-affinitied options and seeing which ones caught her interest the most before he began going over how one might hypothetically acquire them if they so desired and how they might be used in enchanting, feeling her consider them herself as the day went on.

Whether she chose to attempt them herself or not was ultimately up to her, even if he couldn’t deny some curiosity on his part as well. He’d really only attempted to gain a single non-affinitied magic himself and even then, that had been more of a coincidence than anything else when he’d acquired soul production through an attempt to apply his material manipulation. When it came to enchanting, material user, and destruction though, the first he’d been lucky enough to arrive on the world with and the others had been bonus skills from his awakenings, he’d never had to put in the effort of trying to gain a normal magic himself.

So I’ll be very interested in seeing how you manage.

---

The rest of the day went smoothly enough as work and lessons progressed, slowly getting to the time he expected either Thera or Sonya to pop through one of his gates, only for someone else to come through first as his own teacher made his appearance, freezing the instant he saw Ben.

“Hey Falk, it’s been weeks since I’ve seen you, where’ve you been?”

“Busy; not important. What in all the hells happened here?”

“Huh, oh yeah, I guess I should tell you. I started officially training Delair so she’s going to be around but we won’t get in your hair, don’t worry.”

“You’ll barely notice me,” She added, getting a confused look from the yeti while he shook his head.

“Boy, I don’t care who you wanna take in, I’m talking about all of the nonsense on your soul.”

“Oh, that? Long story short, I turned myself into a demigod.”

“Really?” Delair asked while his teacher was left at a loss. “How? Can I become one too?”

“It’s a long story and maybe. We’ll talk to your mom about it later.”

“Gods above, you really have, haven’t you?” His teacher muttered. “A title saying as much and… Integrated divine body? You get that the same way you got your other body skill?”

“Mostly, yeah.”

“Okay, I was more talkin’ about the number of jobs you’ve taken but… You’re a contender for your enchanting,” The yeti noticed as he went over all of the changes his student had gone through, getting a smile for the comment.

“A couple days ago we challenged the non-affinitied tower. That was my reward.”

“Show me.”

“Sure, you’ve got it.”

He wanted to show off to his teacher anyway, wanted him to see how far he’d come and he got to work, going slow to let Delair watch what he was doing as he created his delicate strands of mana on a bracelet he’d materialized before watching his teacher look it over, a look of concentration on his face.

“Well?”

“Your divine enchanting is livin’ up to its name,” The yeti told him. “It’s official, you’re a better enchanter than me.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Barely but I’d say so, give it a look.”

Falk broke the enchantments Ben had placed, replacing them with his own to let Ben look them over, examining the subtle differences and being left with no choice but to agree. It was slim but on a purely technical level, his work had surpassed his teacher’s.

A result that left him in stunned silence, frozen in a way where he couldn’t react. Falk himself had told Ben this was likely to happen long ago, his teacher having seen the potential of his skill before he himself had but getting there didn’t actually feel real. He wasn’t a third-tier enchanter but he was as good as one.

It was Falk who broke him from his thoughts, his calloused hand reaching out to ruffle his apprentice’s hair.

“You’ve been working hard boy, be proud.”

“...Yeah, yeah, I am,” He said, a soft laugh coming out as he said it. “Not to upset your apprentice beat you out?”

“Bah, what’s there to be upset about? Since I’m the one who went and trained you, I’ll be taking plenty of credit,” He laughed back. “‘Sides, I’ve seen the effort you put in boy, you deserve whatever payout you get. I just hope I get the chance to see you go even farther.”

“Yeah, no need to worry on that front, Falk. That was always the plan.”