When they heard Inux’s voice, the maliae could contain themselves no longer. Ben stepped out of the way to be kept from being thrown as Seerly, the oracle who had once been in charge of caring for Inux, got there first, hugging the ancient man and crying as others soon joined, the entire town overflowing with emotions they struggled to contain while Inux did his best to comfort them all, taking care as he didn’t yet know the limits of his new body while everyone gathered, wanting to exchange words with their lost protector.
And for an entire hour, Ben allowed it. He could imagine how emotional it would be to get back someone they thought they’d lost, but given there was still more he needed to do, he couldn’t let it go on forever. They would have all the time they could have wanted to talk after, but there were things Ben needed to finish, leaving him to materialize a microphone to call out around him and get their attention.
“Everyone, I know you’re happy to have Inux back, but you all need to take a break for now and let me see how his body is working. He’ll be free and back here in a bit, so until then, disperse and do whatever chores and tasks you’re all currently putting off.”
It was plain that none of them actually wanted to listen to him, but with a few gentle words and promises to spare them all some time, Inux eventually got them to part, leaving only himself, Ben and his companions, and members of the church, who were far less willing to be removed.
Well, whatever, this is manageable, Ben told himself before focusing on the talos before him. “Alright, how’s it feel to be back among the living?”
“Like a dream. After how our last talk went, I wasn’t expecting to wake up among my people though.”
“I needed to come here anyway, and even if you didn’t want me to, I did put off telling them what happened to you for the last three years. Figured if I was going to make an attempt, I should at least let them know.”
“Only three years… to make me a body like this in that time, you’ve been busy.”
“Ha, you could say that, yeah. It’s been eventful. So, like I just said, we’re going to be testing your body out a bit, but first, there’s one band-aid we kind of need to rip off. Just so it doesn’t come as a complete surprise to you later, the invasion has started and we’re pretty close to the third wave.”
Inux’s eyes widened in surprise and he looked around, coming off confused as he did.
“It seems to be going well then, unless the rest of the world has gone to hell.”
“There’s places that are struggling to be sure, but compared to what you’re remembering from your old world, things have gone significantly better,” Ben told him. “Due to… let’s leave it at complicated reasons, the first wave lasted for about a day, and while the second proceeded normally, there were a lot of different benefits that left us better equipped than you probably expected. I get updates from the gods; every day there’s probably a different town or village that’s devastated or wiped off the map, but overall, we’re actually in a pretty decent place right now.”
“Incredible. So many lost worlds, but to have one that’s actually winning-”
“Winning’s a stretch,” Ben told him. “As good as things are, I’m more inclined to say we just aren’t losing yet, but honestly, I’ll let your people fill you in on the rest later. Right now, the concern is how your new body feels.”
“It’s incredible. I haven’t felt this good in the last few hundred years.”
“Glad to hear that, but right now, you’re basically just resting. You told me before, you regret that the demons decided to invade in a time you were too weak to do anything. If you’re planning on fighting, then we need to be sure that I made you a body that can handle it, which means first, you need to run.”
Seeing Ben was serious, Inux got up and stretched his new limbs before rushing around the yard, all under Ben’s watchful eyes and soul. The talos seemed more than satisfied when he stopped after a few laps, laughing as he did.
“I haven’t been able to move like that in the last few centuries either.”
“Then onto the next test,” Ben told him. Now that he wasn’t worried about being faced with the news that Inux’s soul was nothing more than a power source, he examined it casually, with all of the skills it held, finding just what made the talos so powerful. Not just their mythic bodies, the man was a master of weapons, a contender for dozens of different such skills that had to have been honed in the ages since he was first made, along with a number of awakened augmentations as well. He’d been designed to be a warrior, but with both the power of what had been his original body and the capacity to learn and grow through his soul, he’d been able to become something exceptional, needing only to see how much of that long unused skill remained.
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Holding out his hand, Ben materialized a dozen weapons of exceptional quality before everyone's eyes, the maliae from their church gasping at the display of power, while Inux hid his surprise better, instead looking at him curiously.
“You were unawakened when we first met. Forgive me for the rudeness of asking, but just how much have you grown since then, to be able to materialize such fine weapons like it’s nothing?”
“I reached the third tier not long ago,” Ben grinned. “Like I said before, it’s been a crazy few years.”
“Ha, then I suppose I’ll look forward to hearing about them. For now, though…”
Trailing off, Inux chose the first weapons among them, taking a pair of axes in his hands before following a series of movements with them he hadn’t been able to do in well over a century, putting them to the side once he was done to move onto the next from there, and continuing on until every weapon had been wielded.
“You can keep those, by the way,” Ben told him. “I’ll apply some enchantments to them later to give them a bit more oomph too, but for now, your thoughts.”
“Ha, my thoughts are on how I could possibly thank you?” Inux told him. “Not just giving me back my life, you’ve given be a body I can use again after so long-”
“A few hundred years?”
“Ah, I suppose my breakdown has been a long process.” Inux laughed. “To give me back the strength and dexterity I’ve lost-”
“But not all of it, right?” Ben asked, able to see the truth. “You say you haven’t felt so good in a couple centuries, but you were already breaking down by then, weren’t you? This body still isn’t good enough compared to what you lost.”
“Ben, don’t waste your time worrying about anything so silly. This is a body that can fight-”
“It’s a body you could get killed in if it doesn’t move the way it’s supposed to when you’re trying to use it, no matter how well I made it,” Ben told him. “We’re going into the third wave, that’s the battle you’d be using it for, and it’s obvious enough that it’s not matching your skill level.”
“That’s nothing. I’ll adapt.”
“It’s not flesh, Inux. You aren’t going to be able to grow used to it. The limits of this body are your limits now, too. You’ll be able to live in it, sure, and you’ll be able to fight in it, but you’ll never be able to show your full strength, and if anything happens to you or anyone you were trying to protect because the product I made you wasn’t good enough, then that’s on me.”
“With a body this well made, if I fail to save someone, then they’d have been destined to die if I wasn’t around to use it anyway, and if I die using it, then so be it. Fighting is my choice, Ben. Living to do it is the gift you’ve given me. I would never blame you for what the future holds, no matter what.”
“I know, but… I’m unsatisfied. I’m the one giving you an inferior product.”
“What is this body’s ranking, anyway?”
“Upper legendary.”
“You’d greatly insult those in your field the world over if they heard you say such an item was inferior.”
“I’m not other craftsmen. Like I said, a lot has happened since you’ve been gone. I'm now either the best or second best at what I do in the entire world. A masterpiece for someone else could be unsellable by my current standards, but as much as I don’t want to admit it, there’s nothing else I can do. Maybe right before the next wave, if I’ve made some giant breakthrough by then, then I’ll come back and make you a newer, better body, but honestly, we’re really past the point of that. I’m not going to be able to make you anything substantially better, and that all simply comes down to the fact that, in the time I had to do it, I wasn’t good enough.”
Inux looked like he wanted to argue more, even the various priests that had stayed with him seemed like they wanted to try to reassure him after he’d given them Inux back, but it was Thera who spoke next, tugging his arm to get his attention and sounding awkward as she did.
“Um, Ben, is it really such a big deal that he can’t show the full extent of his power?”
“As far as I’m concerned, yes, and frankly for a lot of reasons. There’s not just the danger of failing to do something you think you should, or attempting to push your body beyond its limits, especially when it’s artificially constructed. I didn’t know this before we started, but Inux is a contender for a dozen different weapon skills. If his body hadn’t been breaking down for who knows how long, then he might have even been able to make a decent push for godhood eventually as well.”
“Are you being genuine?” Inux asked in a surprise that was shared with the rest of the maliae around him. The talos had been aware he had a soul, but since coming to that world, he’d never been made aware of just how high some of his skills were, only knowing that the number of skill notifications he’d received had been few, and he’d thought nothing of it. He was a machine built by a long-dead crafting god. While he’d felt like he’d improved in his various battles over the ages in his old world, he hadn’t realized how that experience had translated under the system of his new one.
“Yes, but with the body I made you, you won’t be able to. Hell, it’s possible that your old body was even the thing holding you and presumably the other talos back too. A machine can’t be pushed beyond its limits in the way you’d need to surpass that tier, which means that if you were ever going to, you’d need a body that was actually substantially better than the one your original god made you-”
“Or a body that could grow, right?” Thera asked, seeing Ben nod.
“Yeah, that would do it.”
“Okay, so I think I get this,” Thera told him. “And I’m sorry for asking this if the answer is obvious, but in that case, why don’t we just make him one?”
“One what?”
“A body that can grow?”
Seeing the clear look in his girlfriend’s eyes, it took Ben a moment to completely understand what she was getting at, but the instant he did, his face was in his hands as he tried not to groan.
