CH756

“Nati, Xilly, hey!” Ben called out as he arrived, ignoring the blatant discomfort of the two while he smiled at them both broadly. “It’s been a while.”

“It has, Ben,” Nati told him charitably, not making direct eye contact while Xilly kept her silence. “My grandfather said you wanted us so we could have another lesson?”

“Well, I was in the area and figured it would be good to get out of the way, but I see you both haven’t been slacking. Both of you got to the eighth level of connect since I’d last seen you, huh? Good work.”

“Ah, we only managed it recently.”

“Well, today I’m making sure you both get to the ninth so make this easy for me and try not to struggle, it will be over before you know it.”

Not giving either a chance to say more, he reached out and pulled both into his minds while taking over their bodies, making it so they’d walk with him as he carried out his main purpose of getting there instead of letting the two collapse to the ground. They still needed to be in his range after all so he didn’t want the connection breaking and doing that was easier than dragging them along.

With how fast I can think now though combined with the way my minds have grown since I’d last seen them I’ll probably get them their ninth level before I’m done here. Oh, what the heck, if they get it before I leave the city I’ll keep going to try and bring them closer to awakening it. Having a couple of other awakened enchanters on the planet get access to all of the other awakened skills in the world would only be a good thing.

Their fate sealed by the casual thought, he began practicing with them and dealt with the unfortunately strong reactions from them seeing the change in his own skills since they’d last met, while in the real world he let himself inside of the building the two women had been waiting in front of, going back to the research institute that had been set up to study the various magic materials he’d both created and discovered.

Rench, Nare’s oracle, was already waiting for him as he walked in, eyeing Nati for only a moment until Nare presumably filled her in on what was happening, letting her focus her attention back on him.

“Welcome back, apostle of Myriad. Have you been well?”

“For the most part. It’s nice to see you again too, Rench, I hope you guys have something good for me.”

“Perhaps less than you’re hoping. We’re doing our best but please bear in mind how recent these materials still all are, not like the natural ones that were discovered and studied by the gods and people on a hundred worlds beforehand.”

“Okay, I’ll keep my expectations in check so for now just lead me to your books, I’ll take whatever progress I can get.”

“Of course, this way.”

He was brought to an area he’d been once before, with a few new shelves with it compared to the last time for him to pull out the records with his magic, letting pages and pages of documents flutter past his eyes to read all there was and finding that Rench had been honest, there was little new of note. Some details that would let him lower the materialization cost for a few of the non-affinitied ones and the affinities ones too if he was working through people with the right attributes for it but by and large, what there mostly was ended up being further areas to try and test to gleam whatever hidden effects a few of those substances still held.

“Hmm, a bit disappointing,” He muttered while the oracle with him nodded.

“We’re doing our best but the more obscure the effect the harder it will be to find, combined with the inherent difficulty that sample size might be posing for us as well.”

In most cases they essentially only had a grain of each material to work with, valuable beyond measure by their nature but harder to study for the fact, especially since it was possible that some of their effects just might not have been able to present themselves at such a small scale, at least not in a way that would be noticeable for the people researching it all.

It made him wonder if he should try to create bigger volumes to work with as well but there were safety concerns tied into that idea. More of any of those new substances may have meant a bigger magical effect to observe but that could also have meant a more dangerous one for any researcher to be exposed to. As things stood, the volume that existed might have kept things slow but it would also contribute a bit of safety as well.

Mmh, it’s not like there’s a rush to learn beyond my own curiosity but my curiosity matters a lot to me. Maybe I’ll make slightly bigger volumes to test for some of them. It’s something to work with at least.

Not the result he’d hoped for when he went out there, with that done and notifications ringing out in his two student’s heads telling him they gained their levels, he once more left that city, going for his next task of the day at the magic towers.

---

The second he’d walked into the guild there were eyes on him, no doubt because of what he’d done there so recently. Staff and adventurers alike had seen him speed through the jobs of a shocking number of people, making him largely recognizable and leaving one of the employees to abandon their post to run to the back, bringing their guild master with them, with the man making his way over.

“Um, and what might I do for you today, Apostle Ben?” He asked, still looking nervous after finding out just who he’d been told to lie to in the past while Ben ignored the other’s emotional state.

“Nothing you need to worry about, I was just going to put in a request.”

“Then allow me to help. It will leave the staff more comfortable too.”

“I’m sure the guild master has plenty of better things to be doing.”

“Ahem, it’s been made clear to me that you’re a priority. To avoid any unfortunate situations again and to save my staff some stress, please just come to my office any time you want to put in a quest.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” He had a gate in the man’s office anyway so that would be more convenient overall, if that was how they wanted to do things then he wasn’t going to argue, instead getting to the point. “I want you to put out a request to gather anyone who can be found who’s taken on the non-affinitied tower.”

If he was going to be taking it on then he wanted all of the information he could get from it, same as he’d done for the dark tower, but the guildmaster’s reaction made it clear things wouldn’t be so simple.

“Ah, I’m afraid that will probably be a bit harder than you think.”

“...Why?” He asked, his eyes narrowing at the man while he imagined some god had once more decided to get in his way again, against the idea that he secure whatever information he could to make his way to the top of a new tower, and sensing Ben’s displeasure, the guild master quickly shook his head.

“The rarity of them,” He explained, trying to make sure he was polite and thorough in it. “Nobody challenges that tower. To my knowledge, the last time anyone did was over a decade ago.”

“What? Explain that, why would challengers for it be so rare?”

He knew taking on a tower wasn’t some common thing but he’d gotten a room full of challengers when he’d made the same request for those who’d taken on the dark tower, why should the non-affinitied one be so different?

To Ben’s annoyance, it seemed there was a good reason. Many of them in fact.

“The non-affinitied tower in essence represents a class of magic instead of a subsection of it, the way each affinitied tower represents a section of affinitied magic as a broader category. It makes people significantly less comfortable to take it on. For one of the other towers you might get unawakened challengers from time to time if they’re at least at a high enough level but that’s because something like an earth mage can expect to deal with problems that can be solved by earth magic in their tower, but would it hold true if they thought there was a risk they might encounter something that could only be dealt with through fire magic? That’s in essence the main concern of anyone holding a non-affinitied magic on the planet, even for the few who’ve awakened their magics. Combined with the fact that until recently there was only a single true non-affinitied mage on the planet in the form of Vasta who’s never taken it on and the general rarity of that class of magic altogether and what you have is a rather undesirable recipe.”

Ben frowned at the explanation, more out of annoyance than anything else. He’d confirm it with the gods later but what he was hearing made sense, perhaps even more so than the guild master was implying. Ben in particular knew how broad non-affinitied magics could be, he would have personally placed the potential of that power beyond even the scope of all of the affinitied magics combined but that made challenging it with anything beyond a true, second-tier skill the likes of what Thera or Vasta held a far larger risk than any of the tower. 

What if he were to take it on alone without either of them? He’d be forced to hope that whatever challenges it contained would be solvable through his material manipulation, divine enchanting, and soul source alone, leaving him doomed if it held anything that needed a skill akin to clairvoyance.

Hell, even if I had a team of five with each of us holding a different awakened non-affinitied magic, I’d still feel worried about it if we didn’t have someone with a general non-affinitied magic to round things out. Okay, this is a problem but not an insurmountable one. The guy says that he thinks it’s been over a decade but I know Jake and Vasta were planning on going sometime before the next wave, there’s a chance they’ve taken it on since I’ve seen them last and word just hasn’t spread yet, right? Okay, next stop decided, I’ll just be prepared for some bad news.

It was slim but if they had gone to take it on then he’d at least be able to learn what the first floor held with certainty and with that bit of hope he went off to find them, praying for just a bit of good news.