Chapter 139

Chapter 139

He ran out to the front and waited for Falk to finish up with a customer before showing off his final product. His teacher took both from him and gave them a good look over, carefully inspecting the quality of his enchantment and commenting on what worked well and what areas he could probably improve on with a bit more practice, before telling Ben what he really wanted to know.

“Unfortunately, the spear’s only upper-uncommon,” He said. But Ben wasn’t worried. Since he didn’t say they both were, that meant some good news was coming.

“And the shield?”

“Lower-rare. Congrats boy,” Falk told him with a smile.

Through his own efforts, without having to rely on any fancy materials, he’d managed to break into rare. It was clear he still had a ways to go, this was his first success and he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it consistently, but as he improved he’d be able to get there more and more, and as long as he kept increasing the number of enchantments he had access to and his understanding of those enchantments, he would only get better.

The grin plastered across his face wouldn’t go away, but the day was still young and there was plenty of time to work still. “So since that’s done, anything else on the agenda for me, or should I just focus on replacing some stock?”

“Mmh, our storage room is still a mess so for now organize it a bit more, but try to keep in mind whatever you think you might be able to use before the day is up, I’ve got an order coming in soon and we’ll need the space.”

“You got it.”L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.

He went to the back and gave it a look over, trying not to get stressed by just how much was in there as he did. It was completely stuffed, and it was his fault.

Wedrow had come a few weeks back to pick up the orders he put in for Steph and Will. Unfortunately, his friends couldn’t come as well, he would have loved to see how they’d react to the gauntlets and cloak he’d made, but they apparently had a strict training regiment they couldn’t get out of for the next little while, instead having Wedrow carry some letters for them.

As nice as those were to get, they weren’t the only things he received from the flying worm, as he opened up his spacial storage and took out all of the various monster parts Ben had disassembled and had him take care of during their time together. With everything that happened, he’d completely forgotten about it all, and the storage room had been filled up recently enough that things were pretty tight in there.

His pile had grown rather large, but the storage room was looking far more manageable at least and he explained some of his plans to his teacher.

“I figured we could get rid of a bunch of the leathers by making spacial bags, and with the way Thera’s been going through staves recently it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for me to make a bunch in advance, the rest is all just to replenish some of the stuff we’ve sold in the last week.”

Since Thera had gained her mothers backing from completing the trial, as well as gaining all the magic skills she was capable of, she’d been burning through staves recently by practicing her skills in the training grounds when she wasn’t busy studying to use more complex spells in the future. Even with how much Ben had improved in making them it was getting hard to keep up, but Pelenia paid well so it was worth it all.

“Alright, but this is a few days of work at least. You still got your little project at home, don’t you? Can’t be staying here all night.”

“I’ll leave on time, don’t worry. I just figured I’d get as much done as I could and leave the rest in my area for tomorrow.”

“Alright, then if you’re all set I’ll leave you to it.”

Falk left to go back to his own work, leaving Ben to get started. He decided on doing the staves first. Since they would become Theras as soon as they were complete, that meant they could charge her mom immediately and wouldn’t have to worry about waiting for a sale.

His overall technique hadn’t changed too much for producing them, nor did it need to. With Theras growth in her magic, her control had improved considerably, making it so even if he hadn't improved himself they would still last longer than otherwise. Still, his skills had increased significantly since he’d first started doing this for her and it showed. He was still making them to resist her magic, but now the staff was enchanted to resist earth, life, and dark instead of only earth as it had been previously, and the number of layers that went into it was up to twenty, creating a smoother gradient for letting out her spells.

He was also keeping detailed notes on what materials worked and what didn’t, referring to them every now and then to try and figure out superior ways of producing a staff. Some metals seemed to work better in general, but occasionally inferior ones would show shocking improvements should the right bones or horns or claws be added to it when everything was being produced. He was sure that sooner or later he’d be able to find a perfect combination, something that would stand above all the others and elevate the sum of its parts, but there was still plenty more fiddling to do to get there.

Luckily it was fast work at this point for him. He’d made far more staves than anything else to keep Thera supplied, and as a sixth-level craftsman he was already quick with his work, using his mana to make his materials bend to his will faster than they would otherwise.

It helped that his way of producing them could yield multiple staves at the same time by stretching out the metal as he went, and by the time the day was over Ben had thirty new staves ready for her to destroy.