Chapter 60

Chapter 60

At the end of his second week in the nation, Ben just finished reading and re-reading a passage he found in the guild archives after a long morning of enchanting and found himself running back to Thera's home at full speed. He had just been skimming through any book that caught his interest, making notes on what to read more carefully later and what pages had information that he found to be more useful or worth researching further when he came across a concept he had never heard of before. It was just a short chapter in a dusty tomb that looked like it hadn’t been touched in years, but it was more exciting than anything else he’d learned at that point and he wanted to immediately grab his friend to test it out.

When he got back he ran into a servant and stopped them to see where he could find her, before being directed to the yard on the other side of the house where he was working to enchant the braces. Racing without a care he left the building, turned a corner, and was almost immediately flattened by a flying rock. The only thing saving him was a nearly invisible forcefield springing up in front of him.

“Gotta be more aware of your surroundings sweetheart!” Abrus yelled out. “Wouldn’t want to hurt your friend.”

“It’s good training for me at least,” Glob said. “Maybe he should stick around to help as target practice.”

It wasn’t clear if she heard her father or Globolgork, she was already rushing towards him at full speed. “Ben I’m so sorry, are you alright?”

Thankfully he was fine. It seemed in the time he was in the guild reading, Thera had been practicing her magic with her father and Glob as Karly and a person he had come to learn was Glob’s barrier magic instructor sat to the side. The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.

Thera was taking this opportunity to get as much practice in as she could. Her parents had a number of craftsmen producing about a dozen staves a day, basically giving Thera free reign to break as many as she needed to, and it appeared in that practice Ben was almost a casualty. Lucky for him Glob was there and aware of their surroundings. Despite coming off as an ass he did properly block Thera's spell before it could reach him.

He couldn’t help but feel a little jealous that she was using the work of other craftsmen, worse still that she was able to get about four or five shots from each staff. He knew her earth magic had gone up since she last used one of his, which meant her control had gone up too and his own products would probably last longer, but until he saw it with his own eyes he would feel a competitive flame flickering within him. Not only that, but with his crafting and enchanting having gone up as well he was sure he would be able to make something much better, especially once he started on implementing the new enchanting trick he’d just read they may not even need to make another for weeks as long as they were careful.

“I’m fine, but that’s not important. Give me your staff.”

She could feel the excitement coming off of him and she handed it over without any resistance.

“I’ve already used that one three times, are you sure you don’t want a newer one?”

“No, this is actually perfect. Think you only have one or two shots left in it?”

“I’ve been getting four shots from the staves made by this smith, so it should only be one left.”

Perfect. He grabbed on and ran his mana through it, feeling where microfractures had formed throughout the rod, weakening it in a very real way. He spent a few moments applying his enchantment before handing it back.

“Alright, mind shooting it until it breaks?”

She looked at it and shrugged before firing an earth bullet. When the staff was still whole in her hand she looked at it in surprise but fired a second shot. Still unbroken and she went for a third, only for it to shatter in her hand.

“How did you do that?” She asked in excitement.

Thera’s staff turned to dust in her hand, Ben’s crafting and enchanting not able to keep up with whatever spell she was about to attempt.

“What was that last one?” He had to know.

“I just tried to swallow him into the earth,” She casually told him. “I thought given how it turned out when we did an earthwave it would work out.”

Scary. Being buried alive seemed like a bit much for a sparring match, but he kept that to himself, instead focusing on the technical aspect of why it failed. “We could only pull off an earthwave that time because we had one of Falk's unused staves. Honestly with how much damage this staff had already received, I think it held up great.”

“It was great,” She said while beaming. “We should fight like this more often, think of how well our hunts would go.”

“Nope, this should stay our trump card in case of emergencies. If I’m always easing the burden on your staves there will be no reason to work on your control. Plus then I’d have to always be with you, you don’t want to be dependent on me, do you?”

She deflated at his argument. “Huuh, no. It’s just so much easier this way.”

“Anything worth doing is worth working for sweetheart,” Abrus said as he walked up to them. “Though that was rather impressive.”

“It’s hard to take that ‘work hard’ attitude of yours seriously dad when you can use earth magic as easily as breathing.”

“Hey now, I work hard on other stuff. I am currently trying to learn non-attribute magic from Globolgorks teacher.”

“Currently is a bit of an understatement,” The incubus in charge of Globs training said. “A long decade of practice with no payoff isn’t a short period of time for most mortal races.”

“A decade! Even if non-attribute magics are hard to get, shouldn’t it still be pretty easy with the amount of mana you have?” Ben asked.

“Maybe for other races, but I’m so tightly bound to my element that I’m not even sure it’s possible to use spells without it. Still, it's fun to try,” Abrus said with cheer. “You never know what skill could pay off in a unique way.”

“Ignoring that though,” Said Karly after watching the battle herself. “How did you help her do that? Did you learn a buff skill or something?” She hadn’t been participating in the training herself this time because her magics wouldn’t help the other two with the sort of practice they needed, but she'd watched long enough that she was sure Thera couldn’t pull something like that off alone.

“Using a few of my skills in tandem lets me feel Thera's mana pass through the staff so I can strengthen any weakening sections of it, and I was trying to rebuild the enchantments as fast as they were being destroyed. I’m sure we could do better once I get a bit more practice with the technique, but it’s already shown it could work, which is all I wanted from today.”

“I would say that’s enough for now anyway,” Abrus chimed in. “You’ve all had plenty of practice, let's stop for a meal.”

Everyone else seemed ready to go but Ben stopped them. “Before that, Thera could I have a hand? There’s a couple things I want to test.”