Chapter 673

Chapter 673

Ben was practically skipping off to Anailia as the day started, his joy unable to be contained.

Seventy percent. His attributes had all grown by seventy percent by the time he’d woken up. It was a result far better than he’d been hoping for given all he’d already put his pieces of bone through to extract anything useful from them and it left the results twenty percent better than the ones he’d fed Sonya in the past. It was an increase in strength beyond even his first time awakening a skill and it felt like it. Of course, the potion had to technically be weaker than the one he’d given her all that time ago given he was also getting the benefits of his ambrosia skill but there was still a whole new level of power coursing through him that left him feeling on top of the world.

It was a fact further reflected just by trying to get to Anailia. Even without trying he was moving faster and if he wasn’t careful, his few times skipping would send him high up in the air far beyond the height an athlete from Earth would have been able to jump, not that any of that should have been unexpected.

He still knew that on average, a person's untrained attributes would typically hover between one hundred and one hundred and fifty depending on a few different factors, but using those numbers as a guide, he was obviously far beyond them for anything he had.

His strength was now over ten times greater than what any normal person could expect and his intelligence over a hundred. Even his agility was beyond what any average person could hope for unless they dedicated years of focus on training it. He felt power that reached beyond any normal limit.

Oh yeah, definitely letting this go to my head.

He carried on like that until he left Pelenia’s home and slipped through to the front gate, finding three people standing with the guards in wait.

“Hello there,” He greeted brightly. “I’m Ben, the one who put in the request. Can I assume you’re a party of three?”

“You can,” A succubus nodded. “We were told this was going to be a decent way to earn money but we weren’t given any more information than that so we were hoping to get more of an explanation before we agreed.”

“Yeah, fair, no worries. The long and short of it is that I currently have a job I’m not super compatible with that I want to get through so I was looking for adventurers who would be able to help merge my job pool with a few folks with jobs I actually am great at getting experience in. I don’t believe we’ll be slowing you down by doing this but it’s admittedly a possibility which is why I’m willing to pay well for the work. The key thing is that I only need five levels though so even if it’s not quick, I shouldn’t need to use you guys until the next wave.”

“I see, would you give us a minute to talk?”

“Of course, take your time.”

He moved off to the side while the three discussed it amongst themselves before ultimately agreeing, with the key motivator being money. Even if he did end up needing them for a while, he was offering enough that they wouldn’t have any concerns even if their work was impacted by him joining them, it made it worth the risk and it was soon after that he was brought into the party, officially sharing his burden with others.

“Fantastic, it’s wonderful to have you all. Now the only thing left is to go grab the other two, we’ll make this quick and then you can all go on with your day.”

Only taking the succubus who actually had the job with him, he led her through the gate to the other two waiting for him outside, one looking far more positive than the other.

“Verbum, Vasta, great to see you both!” He called out. “Ready for a couple weeks of helping me finish my job?”

“Looking forward to it,” Vasta nodded. “And this is our adventurer I take it?”

“That she is, now if you’d both just accept her invite and Verbum could stop staring at me like that we can all go on with our days.”

As he looked at his design he couldn’t see anything fundamentally wrong with it. By all accounts, he believed it should have functioned perfectly but even as he modified and adjusted what he put down, he kept getting failure after failure, not one of them giving the desired result while he tested them no matter what he did.

He knew right from the beginning that making something like that was going to be challenging but he hadn't expected it to be to that extent. Even when he poured his mana into it to activate it he felt it taking his power, it just wasn’t invoking any effect.

It was an outcome he wasn’t prepared for and as hours passed while he struggled he had to admit the truth, he was well and truly stuck.

“Well, this sucks,” He muttered, thinking he was alone again until Myriad spoke up.

“Can’t get my enchantments to work. Also, are you just unusually free today? You seem pretty available.”

“Yeah, well don’t worry about it today, I’m reserving my next bit of nonsense for tomorrow.”

“Gonna try and awaken my sacrilege again.”

“Anyway,” Ben went on, breaking the silence his god had left hanging there. “What do you think? See anything obviously wrong with this?”

Myriad finally told him, resolving to ignore whatever plans his apostle had for the next day for the sake of his own mental health.

“You’re the best.”

With nothing else to do in his god’s absence, Ben put even more of his focus on creating souls, pushing his limits as far as he thought he could go without hurting himself to create more and more for whatever trickle of experience it would give him in the end, only stopping when his thoughts were filled with the sounds of a different tired god.

Nare said after arriving, with Ben nodding in response.

“I can’t make my enchantments work and I don’t know why. It’s bothering the hell out of me, as far as I can see there’s no reason for them not to function.”

“Ah? You see the issue?”

“I’m a big boy, just tell me already.”

The answer was met with a beat of silence while those thousands of minds that heard it took it in for all it was worth.

“...Yeah, you’re right, I didn’t like that. Thanks anyway Nare, I guess that means I can get back to work then.”

If it was going to work correctly for anyone else then how it did for him didn’t matter no matter how annoying it might have been so with that small mystery solved he began making more, planning to cover as many topics as he could before donating them to the library for whatever benefits they would give.