CH782

It was as Ben got up that morning, about to go to Mora’s room to try and entertain the boy, that he froze in place, his normal routine being enough to help give him a sense for his newest skill.

All he’d done was immediately begin his soul production like he normally would as he’d gotten up, continuing it as he’d walked which had been enough to get a reaction when one passed through him. The souls he made would all linger, just for a moment, but that was the first to interact with that strange new spatial sense he’d acquired, feeling the thing he’d made at a level he never had before.

So if my new sense is tuned into souls in a way my soul sight isn’t, I guess that means whatever bit of mana I can spend with the skill is meant to be used on them, right?

It was the best idea he had at least, so creating more within the small bit of space he could feel them he began to try, doing his best to burn his mana with the skill, trying to figure out the way it was supposed to work until he felt it click, and all at once, the souls surrounding him disappeared.

Another result that made him freeze. All of the souls he’d create would vanish in the end but what he’d just done had gone beyond that, forcing them to disappear instead. He didn’t think he’d destroyed them, if he had he would have expected to be able to see something to hint at such a result, leaving him to only guess that he had somehow forced them to move on faster.

“Which isn’t exactly the most immediately useful, but… I guess if I ever run into any troublesome ghosts and don’t have Thera or Falk around it could be handy and it’s not like the mana cost is outrageously high, it won’t hurt me to practice it a bit…”

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“...Which I suppose will be incredibly easy, given that this is a soul skill and all.”

Now that he’d finally awakened his soul inclination and even gained a level to it, raising the skill would be easier than any others in that category he’d trained in the past, even if it was just a background task to work on while he focused on the things that actually mattered but with that small discovery made and sorted out, successfully sating his curiosity, he finally knocked on Mora’s door, hearing the young boy reply.

“Come in, Ben.”

A bit more of a greeting that even addressed him by name, Ben couldn’t help but feel like they’d been making some progress with the child, even if some of that very progress seemed to stem from the spirit’s curiosity. The boy could see Ben’s soul after all and had obviously noticed the changes that had grown in it since the night before, as well as instantly taking note of the level he’d only just gained in his newest skill, but any sort of emotional progress was worth taking.

So ignoring the feeling of being examined, Ben instead gave the child a bright smile.

“Morning Mora, how would you feel about doing something a little different today?”

“Different?”

“Thera’s coming with me today so I was thinking of heading to the shop early after making her and Sonya some breakfast. Since that means you’d be coming to the shop as well, I figured I’d see if you’d be interested in coming there too and you could try a few different things before I start on work.”

“...Alright.”

“Perfect, and that means it looks like you get to try your hand at cooking today too then! It’ll be a blast.”

The boy seemed more neutral to it but at least went along with him as they prepared to leave a breakfast for the sleeping two to find before going off to start the day, together walking through the quiet streets of the early morning.

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Once there, introducing the boy to the forge was the same as when he’d first shown Delair, even if safety ended up as a smaller concern. With a body made of mana, it wasn’t like the heat would harm him but he didn’t let that stop him from making sure to properly instruct Mora on best practices, watching and guiding through one of his homunculi while Ben’s main body focused on his own work.

Souls were created and condemned at a far greater volume, the two levels he’d gained to the skill growing the sense that had come with it but otherwise left it largely the same in function while he got to work preparing Amy’s new weapon.

As the first ultra-rare item he’d produced, not counting the church of Myriad given how he’d exploited its creation, he was comfortable calling the tool he’d made her his first real masterpiece but there was plenty of room to improve on its design given how much he’d grown.

It was an item that allowed for the user to draw forth nine different weapons through the manipulation of the barriers that made them up, but Amy held the skill of weapon mastery, there was nothing she couldn’t use and no reason she should be so limited in her choices, so with those facts in mind he got started, recreating it from the ground up.

Before, he had made it by enchanting on disks of white mana crystal, with the way she ran her mana into those crystals dictating what would spring forth and it was largely going to be the same from there, with the main changes being that he’d upgrade the crystal to rainbow for all of the additional power that could be given to the weapons while also allowing significantly more constructs to be added to give even more options to choose from, starting with something he still regretted not being able to create the first time for her, a bow.

At the time, he hadn’t been able to produce barriers with the properties he’d need to create a bow from pure magic but now he was comfortable saying he could do that and more, creating not only the bow itself but also design it so that when it was pulled, arrows of mana would be created as well that could be fired off. They’d only last a minute after being launched but in most cases that would be more than enough to do what they needed to and he made sure to apply similar constructs to the blow gun he’d originally added too before going on from there with all of the new designs he could make.

He still remembered all of the testing they’d done together when he’d made the original and he’d seen her in combat as well, he knew how she would wield her weapons which gave him enough confidence as he designed the rest.

Flails and fans, hammers and hooks, sai and scythes, the list went on while configurations were made, weapon on weapon for any occasion as all of the ones he was aware of were created in a way that would match her specifications to grow her options to unbelievable proportions, ending with well over a hundred designs at the end, all of them made as perfectly as he could and reflected in the final grade, bringing a new upper legendary item into existence.

It was by all accounts a masterpiece, and yet, as he looked at it he couldn’t help but feel unsatisfied. Something about it was wrong, scratching at the walls of his mind as much as the chaos ever would but without knowing what, he did his best to push it away, focusing on supplying Amy’s clones from there.

On that front, he went slightly easier. The main issue with them was that they had no internal mana supply to use but that was easy enough to get past by changing the means through which the weapons were activated, altering the original structure enough that it didn’t require a flow of mana through different points but instead firm buttons. Nothing that would be easy to press accidentally but not so hard that it would be a struggle to change during a fight.

He made one for each clone by the end and didn’t change them much from the original design he’d made her otherwise, leaving her with the nine she originally had but traded out the blowgun for more bows given how much more valuable such a thing really would be in almost every circumstance. He supposed it wouldn’t have been too much more work to give her all of the new options either but given she’d be controlling so many bodies at once, eventually it would just become too much to juggle. Better to keep things straightforward-

“That’s it!” Ben yelled as he shot up, drawing a look from Mora that the clone he had working by the boy’s side rushed to reassure. The new weapon he’d made for Amy was a masterpiece by all accounts, but it was complicated, likely too much so. Sure, he could help her get used to all of those new options by having her practice them while under the effects of his knowledge skill and he likely still would but in the heat of battle it created too much room for mistakes to be made. This was his friend, he didn’t want her losing her life because she’d applied her mana slightly wrong, so then what to do instead?

He’d still give her the new one and the others he’d prepared for her clones would be fine but when it came to new, main weapons it just wasn’t good enough. He needed a better idea, with whatever he’d end with being put on hold. A knock on the door told him that either Thera or Delair had arrived which meant it was time to open the gate to the magic towers to let the other three in as well, but with all of that he kept thinking, looking for a solution that would satisfy the creativity that drove him.

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