Delair was looking sad that day, standing with her mother given what was to come. The two were going to join him to watch as he enchanted a couple of gates but from there they’d be dropped off back at their home village, left to deal with their own preparations for the coming war.

Now that Fontesh had an awakened skill it was doubtless that Hentath and the village as a whole would have some work for her to help with, even with the sheer number of awakened skill holders that village was going to have after getting Ben’s help.

There was nothing to be done about that though so all Ben could do was try to entertain Delair as they all waited in front of the shop, with the two they were expecting appearing with a hole in space.

“Been a while, strangers,” Ben said happily as Steph and Will made their appearance. “No Wedrow this time?”

“He had other work,” Steph explained as she went to hug both him and Thera. “Or at least he says, but I think he just wasn’t a fan of having mana shoved into him like that last time. But anyway, who else do we have here?”

“My little apprentice and her mom, Delair and Fontesh. Delair and Fontesh, this is Steph and Will. hope you don’t mind but I already volunteered you to help get them home. One of the gates we’ll be enchanting is already close to their village and I’ve come bearing payment.”

“Sure, I don’t mind. What did you make this time then?”

He handed over two rings when she asked, with Will eyeing his.

“I do like you buddy, but I’m not sure I’m ready to tie the knot yet. Maybe make me a couple more dinners first.”

“You’ll change your mind after you try them on,” Ben laughed, enjoying the sight of them putting them on and their eyes immediately widening once their minds filled with options as both of them pulled out things to look at before putting them back.

“Man, how did you…?”

“What can I say, I’m just good,” He laughed, with Steph having her own thoughts.

“Legendary?”

“Middle of it,” He told her with a shrug, not having expected her to ask with the question prompting both Delair and Fontesh to look at the rings he’d made them in surprise, with him not having bothered to mention that small fact to either of them.

Fontesh immediately looked like she was going to try to return it but Ben was already holding up a hand to stop her.

“Don’t worry about the ranking, I gave them to you guys so use them. But maybe don’t spread their rankings around, that’s a pretty good way to get robbed if word gets out of your village.”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with accepting a fortune.”

“What fortune?” He asked as he materialized a chunk of white mana crystal and tossed it to her. “I materialized the parts I needed and enchanted the rest. Not a single cent went into making them.”

“You know that has nothing to do with their value.”

“As the only one who can make them and without any on the market, I’m the guy who currently sets their value. It just so happens I’ve set the value to zero.”

It still looked like she was uncomfortable knowing that she’d been casually given something that nations would want to bid over but Ben had already moved on and was focusing back on his friends, telling Steph what areas they were going to hit first and where the village they’d need to stop into was to drop the two off, with their plans fully outlined from there as they began, opening a few different gates to get to their first stop.

“Alright, we’ll be taking this one a little slower than I actually need to so Delair, watch carefully. Thera, you remember how we did this last time?”

“Yeah, I’ll move you two around the arch.”

“Cool, and now most important of all, where oh where is my payment?”

<You’ll find someone for every gate you’ll be enchanting inside the network.> His god told him. <Easier to let you get them all at once rather than how things turned out last time.>Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Works for me, then let's get started.”

With her mana sense, Delair watched him work as he took his time on the task.

For him it was taking his time at least, by that point he was sure he could reduce his previous record of a few minutes down even lower but out of consideration for her he was looking at taking twenty minutes for it. An eternity for him but still a fraction of what the world had been used to until then as her brow wrinkled in concentration.

“I don’t understand any of this,” She eventually said in defeat, getting a small chuckle from Ben.

“That’s because I’m using a technique that’s only possible to pull off in a complete form if you have both an awakened enchanting as well as some massive mental augmentations, but it’s all built off principles I’ve already shown you. Look here, you can see how the weave and ring methods are being combined to create something greater which are both things you’ll be practicing by yourself now that you’ve gotten a bit of experience with them and even if you can’t currently pull off the blending method, that’s built into it as well. Everything’s just going to come down to time and practice but if you work hard enough then I’ll make sure you can do this as well one day.”

“Ben, I can’t use space magic.”

“Neither can I. There’s a handy little workaround I’ll get you in the future if you still want to be an enchanter in a couple years.”

<Are you seriously planning on hiring Zandale to teach her connect?>

Sure, why not? I owe him some skills anyway, might as well pay him to teach her while he’s here. I could get her to learn a couple mind skills while I’m at it too to help her out with things.

<I would like to remind you about everything your mind skills put you through before you managed to awaken them.>

I can already think of how to manage that safely, don’t worry. There was no real issue with mental expansion or focus so both of those are fine to teach her and the issues between complex mind and parallel thought came from the way parallel thought would split my minds when they’d already grown under the effects of complex mind. If I get her to the eighth or ninth level of parallel thought first and then get her complex mind after, she’ll have already gone through the thought-splitting aspects of it so she shouldn’t be harmed by just gaining two new minds for every level of the other skill.

<Okay, I’ll admit it sounds like you’ve thought it out at least and that all sounds like some reasonable assumptions to make, but there still is the issue of you planning on massively altering her thought structure.>

I’m not going to make her learn anything she doesn’t want to, if she doesn’t want the skills then she doesn’t need to get them. It’s just something I’ll discuss with her in the future. Oh, but I’ll probably get her to learn some thought speed skills at least, they’re just plain handy for enchanting quickly and seeing as how they aren’t passive she can decide for herself if she doesn’t want to use them.

<A monster trying to create another monster, it’s a horrifying thing.>

And I’m ignoring you now.

After finishing up that gate and answering Delair’s questions, Ben went into the network briefly to make his new skill rings, feeling a little discouraged with what he was seeing.

He gained higher levels of the magics he already had access to, that was true, but just as Myriad had warned, he wasn’t getting many that had reached his maximum potential when it came to enchanting for anything he was seeing.

Almost everyone was at the second or third awakened level at their highest, with only a few there that had gone beyond that into the upper realms of their individual talents, with that fact disappointing him to no end.

His own skill and techniques would continue to grow, but having access to higher leveled skills to enchant with thanks to the rest of the people in the world certainly made things easier on him, and by a longshot too. High-leveled abilities, be they broad or specialized, both had power and potential for him to squeeze out of them so long as he could get them on his fingers, letting him create better, stronger items when the limits of his own skills and techniques hit their walls. It was an easy way for him to get just a little bit more out of the things he’d make, but with that being something beyond his control, it seemed that soon enough he’d have no choice but to focus solely on the things he could improve by himself instead of hoping he’d be able to keep finding more.

It wasn’t like he was going to stop looking each time he went out, still planning on stretching out his soul to peek at those around him to see if they had anything interesting for him to claim, but it was a limiting factor in not only the item rankings he might manage to achieve but also for a few of his projects. Without higher leveled skills to access, doing things like finally building Inux his body was going to hit a bit of a roadblock that he’d need to get past through leveling his skills and refining his techniques.

And I’m not sure if I can even refine my enchanting technique anymore beyond the basic stuff. He thought with a sigh. I’ve already gone farther than I ever would have been able to without a bit of luck. As much as getting to that point sucked, getting the ring system was a boon and so was finding the enchanting modifier from there. Without those, I’d still just be managing with the weave and blending systems alone. Plus it doesn’t look like any of the world’s other enchanting systems have much potential to be incorporated into my work so barring a few years or decades of research I may just be out of luck. Oh well I guess, All I can do is just keep trying to shrink the amount of mana I put in my enchantments and improve the precision I place them down at. Even if that’s it, it’s what enchanters the world over do. It will have to be good enough.

Even if he was slowly losing one of his shortcuts to improvement, he still had other methods. He’d just need to keep putting in the work and gaining his levels to get there.