Alone in the shop, Ben tapped his foot.
He had a new idea for how he might get an awakening, this one something with a chance of pushing his material manipulation past its limits, with the hopes that that magic would take in his enchanting if it did, but it was something he’d need to ask for both Abrus’s and Ogilt’s help on if he was going to test it safely and with how earlier it was in the morning, he couldn’t just run off when he had an apprentice to teach.
An apprentice who was ten minutes later than normal, filling him with no end of worry when he’d noticed. He knew there was nothing in Stonewall that would pose a danger to her; anyone dumb enough to try would immediately face his wrath, but after what happened to her village, he couldn’t deny that it had left its mark on him as well. Delair was his student, one he’d known since his early days on the world, and he’d gotten to both watch her grow up and help her learn in that time. If anything did happen to her, he didn’t know what he’d do.
A thought that would surely have provoked no end of teasing from Thera, but it was true. She was his apprentice, and he cared for her. Just like Falk had gotten into more than one fight to either protect him or exact revenge on his behalf, Ben could feel in himself the same instinct to do the same.
It was only as another moment passed, leaving him about to reach out his soul to track her down, that the door opened, sounds pouring in from outside before it was sneakily closed behind her, the look on Delair’s face making it clear there was something on her mind.
“Um, morning, Ben,” she said as she greeted him, seeing him already waiting there for her. “Soooo, I know you probably have plans, but do you think we could change things for the day?”
“Hmm? I don’t mind. Why? Is there something you want help with?”
“Uh, yeah, you could say that. Okay, the thing is, everyone knows that you’re really powerful and smart, right?”
“In town at least, yeah. Why?”
“Okay, well, there’s a few people that want to learn from you, if you could give them the day to try and get the zeroth level of some skills…”
Ben crinkled his brow, briefly flashing out his soul as he did. “Is that all of the dryad and demi kids outside, plus Kalley?”
“No fair, no peeking!” she told him, his little look messing up how she’d wanted to ask her favour. “And I grabbed Sachel and Toltho to help look after them too, so it’s fine.”
“But the skills you’re talking about aren’t crafting related, I take it.”
“... No, they all wanted to learn some combat skills, and I thought you’d be able to help them quicker than anyone else,” she mumbled towards the end, her thoughts clear even without reading her mind. Ben could transfer a depth of knowledge to people in a way no one else could. It was how she’d managed to get both material user and destruction so easily despite their status as non-affinitied magics, and since she knew that he possessed knowledge on such a wide range of topics thanks to his status as a mind reader, she expected that he could help them do the same, with her only concern in asking being how it would waste his time. Even if she hadn’t previously understood how important he was, that had changed when he became a third-tier. Every second he had was valuable, and while that didn’t usually matter too much since he’d be training her in the shop or his warehouse, she was now asking to pull him away from it for a day, leaving him to shake his head as he walked over to ruffle her hair.
“You don’t need to get so shy about asking, kiddo,” Ben told her. “I get it, of course I’ll help.”
“Really!”
“Really really.”
After all, he understood where they were coming from. Both groups of children had lost their homes, even if they themselves wouldn’t be allowed to fight in the third wave, that didn’t mean that developing combat skills wouldn’t help them feel safer and more comfortable about what happened, and with Toltho and Sachel out there as well, it wasn’t like the kids didn’t have permission to do it. She was right in that it wasn’t the best use of his time, but even if he was only somewhat acquainted with them all as either their apostle or someone who’d previously helped repair their homes and had now given them new ones, he cared about them all the same. So long as they lived in his town, he wanted them feeling safe.
“Alright, kiddos, gather ‘round while Uncle Ben thinks about what would be best to teach you all,” he said, with a younger dryad girl immediately raising her hand.
“What’s an uncle?”
“Excellent question. Usually, it’s the male equivalent of an aunt, but in this case, you can think of it as a familiar and friendly older guy. As for what matters, though… okay, we can go over one by one what you all want to learn, or you can let me pick for you. Sachel and Toltho, is there anything you don’t want me teaching?”
“No fire magic,” Sachel told him, with Toltho nodding in agreement despite the frown it brought to a few of the children’s faces.
“Any other affinity is fine, though,” the demidemon added. “And as for non-affinity… well, if you could bring it up to us first, we can decide from there. Other than that, any weapon art you’re familiar with is fine.”
“Alright then, in that case, here’s what I’m thinking,” Ben told the gathered group. “If you have an affinity you don’t currently have the magic for, other than fire, I’ll teach you it.I’ll teach you all the non-affinitied magic destruction as well, unless there’s another one you want to learn, and I’ll teach you both unarmed combat, as well as a weapon skill that you’ll either decide for yourself or I’ll decide for you, sound good?”
“Yes!” went out among the children, all of them excited at the prospect of being able to learn so much, while Sachel looked at him with concerned eyes.
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“Um, Ben? Not to dampen the mood or anything, but can you really teach that many options?”
She didn’t know for sure how many magic or weapon skills Ben had, but at the very least, she knew he didn’t have every magic and weapon skill, but he just nodded.
“Not to toot my own horn, but I’m a genius. Don’t worry. There are unfortunately a couple non-affinitied magics I won’t be able to teach, but they aren’t ones the kids would want anyway. Everything else I can handle.”
Bestowal remained out of his grasp, but among the crowd there, the only person who would have wanted access to that skill other than himself was his student, and there were some other obscure non-affinitied branches that could only be gained in similarly unlikely ways as well. Besides them, though, everything was within his realm of knowledge, even if he hadn’t bothered getting the skills for himself, and he looked at the souls of all the kids around him, taking in the affinities they held.
With most of them having a few magic levels. At the very least, there was nobody there with a soul as unsuited for magic as his own, even if half of the dryad children wouldn’t be able to learn anything other than their plant magic. As for the demidemons, just as many had already learned what few magics they could as well, but in both cases, it didn’t matter. Not just the skills they wanted to learn, he was going to fill all of their heads with information on all of the active skills they held, giving even the ones who didn’t have choices beyond what they already possessed something to practice while the others began working on acquiring their skills.
Much like how the dryads were natural plant magic users, the demis almost entirely naturally held either a life, death, or minor soul magic thanks to their demonic heritage, but both groups had members that could train in other affinities too. Even if he’d promised not to teach them, there were even two dryads there that could have learned fire magic if they were allowed, even if their affinity for it was low, and he began filling all their minds with information while at the same time placing them all under the effects of his authorities, feeling the various levels immediately come in.
With one more apparent than the rest. Kalley was there, and under his strengthened effect, a level came to her charm, with the new extent of his soul sight making him re-evaluate the girl as a whole.
Despite her status as one of the few natural demigods, the charm she’d been born with had actually been unawakened, only at the fourth level when he’d met her, needing to grow at least two more if she’d wanted any hope of controlling it, which itself had been enough to catch his eye at the time, pointing out something interesting to him.
In the case of Eneth’s son Ather and Nare’s granddaughter Nati, both of their blessed skills had been largely related to their divine heritage. Nati technically went a bit beyond that in terms of magic, but as an awakened enchanter, having awakened magics in her skills was largely connected to the power her enchanting displayed, and her magics could have applications in her crafting too, bringing them at least somewhat under her grandfather’s domain.
Kalley though, on top of being born with a few different awakened skills in the form of high intelligence enhancement, high pattern recognition enhancement, and high spatial awareness, also had her charm as a racial trait that seemed to exist independent of her father’s properties, and as such, hadn’t let her be born with the same growth as the rest. Its level was higher than what any normal siren or succubus would be born with, sure, but the fact that it wasn’t awakened was a significant enough difference to drastically affect that child’s life.
Despite that, though, it appeared that her affinities themselves seemed to match her father’s nature as a god of pride. There wasn’t a single one she couldn’t have learned if she wanted to. None of her affinities were exceptional, all of them being in the high twenties, but the fact that she could learn everything if she chose was significant, and left him to look at the other two adults with him before he taught her in particular.
“Out of curiosity, does the whole ‘no fire magic’ thing come from Mirrian as well?”
“She specifically told us to use our best judgement,” Toltho answered. “Why? Is her affinity for it truly so exceptional?”
“No, I’d call it average; it’s a different matter. Let’s see, you might not have had a chance to become aware of this yet, but Sachel, you should understand what I mean by this. Potentially, I could help her get the magic skill.”
He was right in that Toltho didn’t know what that meant, just as he was correct in guessing that Sachel would. The oracle’s eyes widened at what he’d said, the idea clear. The young girl had the chance to learn a general magic skill; one that would grant her power over any affinity or combined affinity, and was potentially the greatest stroke of luck one could have if they wanted any hope of becoming an archmage.
“If you can do that, then you should,” Sachel told him. “If she learns any one affinity, her chances drop, right? You’ve gotta at least try.”
Technically, it would already be a bit harder for her thanks to her natural charm, but still not impossible. Thera had been able to learn dark magic despite her charm after all; it could just add a layer of complication that others wouldn’t have.
Despite that though, he was there to help her; her odds would never be better than right then and with his soul reaching out to look out for all of the children as they began practicing their spells, he focused on Kalley in particular, with the young girl making her way to Delair’s side.
“Kalley, since you can learn so much, I’m going to teach you everything I can, but I want you to attempt a very particular spell. Do you think you can do that for me?”
She looked at Delair before nodding, keeping up her silence with him that had been there since they’d first met, yet at least willing to give him enough trust to let him guide her as he began to help.
With her status as the daughter of a god of puzzles and some of the awakened skills she did have, her intelligence was already incredibly high, letting her soak in every drop of information he could grant as he taught her both the beginnings and depths of every affinity, whether they stood alone or were combined, and with them, he conveyed a spell that merged as many of the affinities as he could manage at once, needing a spell that wasn’t so complex that they couldn’t be cast at the zeroth level yet pulled from everything she had and with it, prompted her to begin to cast.
While he was in her head, guiding the entire process, he felt the mana in the girl move to her will, given shape and form before it was let out in the most complete arrangement it could be.
With it in essence being a spell that both took in and let out, pulling in everything she needed around her by taking from her surroundings, as her health and strength came from pulling from the world a few feet from her as well as Ben himself, or at least trying to despite his complete resistance to a spell that weak, essentially creating a complex personal health spell. Life and light magic may have been the core of it, but dark and death facilitated taking from the living aspects of the world and the more physical affinities merged into it to help adjust her different systems, leaving her comfortable in a way that went well beyond the norm and placed herself in peak condition. Time sped up the process, and while the range of it was being carefully managed to keep from affecting any of the other kids, space pulled everything within that range marginally closer, making something that she’d be able to use far more deeply as it leveled, with the notification going off in her head speaking of her success. The young demigod had learned magic.
It didn’t manage to take her charm when she got it through a skill transition; that was a bit too much to hope for, but it was one undeniable success that would shape her life going forward. Combined with all of the other benefits she had as a demigod, she’d have no problems growing, making the idea that she could become a proper archmage eventually more than just a pipedream.
And also means I’ve gotta hope that she and her mother don’t decide to move back with the sirens. It would be more interesting to watch this kid grow, too.
