Chapter 132: CH132

They discussed the details a bit longer before Falk got to work and Ben was able to direct his focus to Zandale.

“Sorry about that, didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

“Not at all, as someone who only has the third level in blacksmithing, that was all incredibly impressive. But with that done, have you found a skill that has grabbed your attention?”

When Ben had been going through the book of skills, it had Zandale’s level in each too and Ben was sure his smithing had been lower but assumed it must have just not been updated recently. With so many skills to keep track of, nobody could be blamed if one or two slipped through the cracks. Besides, he had more important things to think about as a smile unconsciously formed across his face.

“I did, but you remember saying that if I had any other skills you didn’t I’d be able to learn more?”

“You have another skill?”

“Two others actually. Hidden mind and complex mind,” Technically he had four, but he wasn’t sure an apostle would be happy to have the chance to learn sacrilege, and he was pretty sure you needed a demon organ transplant to get partial demonic body so he left those two out, no need to risk scaring Zandale off because of them.

Hearing this, the tentacled creature took out his card, from where Ben couldn’t say, and started scrolling through the information on it, checking to verify that he didn’t have those skills.

“Oh my,” He said in astonishment. “I think it’s been around three years since I found someone with that many skills I didn’t already possess, but it looks like coming has been very profitable indeed. In that case, have you found three skills you’d like to acquire?”

“About that, there’s only one I really want,” There were very few skills that would be of more value to hold and train personally compared to just enchanting with them as far as he was concerned, but there was a different option he hoped to explore. “Would it be possible to get you to train two other people in a skill each?”

“Of course, I’ve done such scenarios before and have no issue with it.”

“Excellent, in that case, Falk! Did you hear all that?”

His teacher had been near enough to know what they were talking about and Ben gave him a wide grin. Even if he didn’t want to take him as a student initially, Ben felt he owed the man a great deal. He patiently taught him the best he could, helped him develop his ideas, and provided stability to his life when he was first making his own way in the world. Giving him the chance to learn a new skill was the least he could do.

Falk for his part seemed initially shocked, even slightly bashful from the offer, but turned his student down. “That’s mighty kind of you boy, it really is, but don’t worry about me. While we were waiting for you to wake up, Zandale already taught me a skill in exchange for some smithing and enchanting lessons.”

He was a little disappointed but didn’t let it get to him. There were other people in his life he cared about that he could help with this, and there would be other ways to show Falk his thanks.

He gave Zandale access to the connect skill so the other apostle’s time wouldn’t be wasted and ran off to grab the two other people he thought would be able to take proper advantage of a gift like this, stopping by the clinic first to tell Sonya she needed to take a break to go to Falk’s shop, and going back home where he knew Thera was studying dark magic in her efforts to gain it, dragging her along without explaining anything, much preferring to make it a surprise.

Once everyone was gathered he explained exactly why they were there. “Alright guys, christmas came early this year and you two lucky ladies get to benefit.”

“What’s christmas?” Sonya asked, not understanding what he was saying at all, nor why she’d been asked to come.

“A fantastic question! It’s a holiday from my homeland that involves giving gifts to the people you care about, with the gift you’ll be receiving is the chance to learn a new skill each from my fellow apostle, Zandale the skill master!” He said, directing his hands to the lovely tentacled figure in the back of the shop.

“Wait, you know the skill master!” Thera yelled out, while Sonya had a different concern.

“Ben, you can’t waste that much money on us!”

“Huh? What do you mean money?”

Zandale answered for him. “I sell my services as a skill teacher at a high price for those who don’t have skills to trade. A person can’t live on knowledge alone after all.”

“Fair enough, but you guys don’t have to worry about that. I have three skills they don’t and only one I want to learn so flip through this book and find something for yourselves.”

Thera happily took it and started flipping through the pages after thanking him, but Sonya was more hesitant. “Ben this is too generous, you really should at least take two skills for yourself, I don’t need one.”

“Nonsense. There are plenty of skills I just straight up can’t learn, and of the ones I can I either don’t want, am confident I could learn myself at a later date, or would make better use of by being able to copy an enchantment of it than actually having the skill myself. Rather than grabbing something I don’t need, I’d rather give this to you as a thanks for giving me a place to stay and constantly patching me up.”

“I’m still not sure…”

“Just give it a look aunty, I’m sure there’s something in here you would want,” Thera said, waving Sonya to her. “There's so many options, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could find something to help you at the town clinic as well.”

“Well, I guess it won’t hurt to give it a look. Thank you Ben.”

“Of course, hope you pick something good.”

With that done, Zandale got to the main point with Ben. “So what skill would you like? I’ll transfer it to you right away and then we can focus on training it until you acquire it.”

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“I was hoping to get defense enhancement,” He’d thought long and hard on it and was positive it was the one he wanted, but he felt Zandales mood immediately change when he asked for that one in particular.

“Are you sure? You did read the explanation on how you’d need to acquire it, didn’t you?”

“I did, and luckily for me I happen to have two life affinity mages here in case things get too bad.”

Defense enhancement was a passive skill that would increase his overall defense against damage, both physical and magic. Given some of the thorough beating he’d gotten to enjoy since coming to this world, the skill stood out to him as soon as he saw it on the page, and after reading through all the other options it would be an easy choice. His magic defense was already excellent thanks to his natural resistances, but improving them would still be great since it only weakened their effects, even if it was to a significant degree. As for physical defense, seeing as how he currently had none, any improvement would be appreciated. 

Of course, there were drawbacks to it. He would need to keep getting injured to raise its level, a situation he wanted to avoid, no matter how common it might be, but he already had a solution. He’d known for a while that eventually the quests he would get from Myriad would start letting him raise his skills up, at least a little bit, and even if they wouldn’t be easy, this was the skill he intended to raise.

His connect and crafting skills were already way above the limits for the quests currently offered, and for many of his other ones he was sure he’d be able to raise them himself, but he didn’t watch to raise this one through his own efforts. What use was a shield that got better after the beating was done? Of course, beatings were also why Zandale seemed hesitant as Ben grabbed a couple sturdy wooden bars from the back storage. The skill needed to be used to be acquired after all, and even if he’d be able to get it extremely fast thanks to the help of the skill master, it was still going to hurt.

He handed them over to Zandale and took hold of his tentacle, feeling the three skills the apostle wanted to acquire being copied over, while Ben had the defense enhancement skill placed within him, and wasting no time, Zandale began hitting.

It sucked. A lot.

He felt bruises start forming all over him with every hit and wasn’t sure if it was actually working but forced it to continue, waving off Thera and Sonya when they saw what was happening.

At the same time, he did his best to ignore the pain so he could practice his other skills to help Zandale acquire them, using hidden mind on himself to try and block the pain he was feeling from crossing over in the connection and instructing Zandale to try and put hidden mind up between his first mind and the second that formed from copying over complex mind, keeping one set of thoughts hidden while the other conversed with Bens own to train connect itself.

Even if it just looked like Ben was receiving a one-sided beating, what was happening between them was very dense mentally, at least it was for a while before a certain blow got too painful.

“Ow, damn! Why did you just hit harder?”

“I didn’t, it looks like the copy of the skill ended, I’ll reapply it.”

“Give me a second first,” It was good to know there was a noticeable difference at least, but his entire body ached and turned to his two friends with life magic for some help.

Sonya rushed over, concern painted across her face, but Thera stopped her.

“Aunty, it would be better to get the skill before you help him so it doesn’t go to waste.”

“Oh you found one?” He asked, curiosity making it through the pain.

“Mana examination. It’s appropriate for people with the light or life attribute and can make their healing magics more effective.” She said, looking to Zandale who reached out and placed the skill on her before she got to work healing his battered body.

It took some time, as most healing magic tended to on him, but it did seem quicker than usual overall, and after she was done she ran off back to the clinic to take full advantage of the skills presence while she could, promising to come back when the skill effect ended as long as the clinic didn’t need her.

With her aunt gone, Ben turned to Thera. “How about you, have you managed to find one that’s caught your eye?”

“I think so.”

Unlike Ben, Thera had plenty of options she could pick from. While Zandale didn’t have any earth-linked skills since they weren’t suited for that affinity, there were plenty of skills for mages in general, and most importantly, there were non-affinited magics she could use to get closer to completing her quest, the only question was which she wanted.

Of the many non-affinited magics, Zandale had five, likely because the rarer options were significantly harder to learn, meaning she would be choosing between enchanting, strengthening, empathy, telekinesis, and corpse song. It was a shame some of the more interesting ones she’d heard of weren’t available, but there were still good options within those.

Right off the bat though she knew she wouldn’t be taking enchanting or strengthening magic. She wanted to take something that would be useful to her so enchanting was a no-go. It was probably the most common non-affinited magic there was, with every town having one or two users of the skill, but even if Thera tried she knew that she wouldn't have the control or patience for it, especially when she had both Ben and her uncle who were both extremely skilled in it. It would be a waste to get a skill she’d never level up. 

As for strengthening, there was a healthy amount of fear attached to the idea of her using it. It was a skill that involved running her mana through either herself or others to increase the amount of power that they could exert. The issue was, the items she constantly ran her mana through would explode, and she didn’t want to take the risk of that happening either to herself or anyone else. She supposed it could be used as a weapon to use on monsters, but in the event any were able to handle it she didn’t want to imagine a creature having the sort of strength that could be created by the mana she could provide, the idea was more than a little horrifying.

That just left three options, empathy, telekinesis, and corpse song. Empathy was only marginally worth considering because it was the active version of the skill instead of the passive that some races possessed, but there were still reasons to hesitate. As a skill that let the user feel the emotions of those around them, it didn’t have much use to her personally, especially at lower levels. It was similar to the early levels of Ben's connect skill in that way, though it didn’t require physical contact to work, which was one of the larger reasons to hesitate. As it grew, it would potentially allow her to do things like focus in on a single target, or feel multiple targets from far away to form a mental map with, which could be exceptionally useful with their hunts, but in the beginning it would be uncontrollable, and combined with her mana that could be a nightmare. The thought of using it and immediately feeling the emotions of every resident of Stonewall was more than a bit worrying and cemented it as her last choice.

Telekinesis was much better, letting her do what she already was doing with her magic, but not being limited to manipulating the earth alone. Of course it had its drawbacks, a person with earth magic and telekinesis wouldn’t be able to shape things at a remotely similar level, at least for an average user, but given her lack of control, precisely shaping the earth she manipulated into different shapes was rarely her goal. The other issue was the significantly increased mana cost, but it was another moot point for her. As someone with a mana quantity above two hundred thousand, a spell's mana consumption was ignorable to her, not something she ever bothered considering before casting her attacks. Aside from that, having both telekinesis and her earth magic presented some interesting ideas should she choose to learn it.

Lastly, there was corpse song, a magic that tempted her by virtue of just how odd it was to see it as an option. It was probably one of the rarest non-affinited magics, beating out many other options that weren’t available to Zandale like barrier magic, magic nullification, and scrying, with it coming to the world from only one race, as opposed to the other options that had been discovered independently on multiple worlds, and never gaining much popularity. Despite that, it was rather interesting in its own right. From what she understood, it was an ability that let the user essentially view the life and experiences of any dead body, with clarity increasing as the skill level went up. What surprised people most when they learned about it though was that it was neither death nor time affinitied, instead being powered by unflavoured mana. As an option it was interesting, and she could see how it could help in her hunting if she could read a dead beast’s recent memories to find other targets, but it was most appealing as a curiosity.

Still, she wouldn’t get a chance like this again and needed to focus on what would be best for her, not just to complete her quest, but also in the long term as well, and it was with that mindset she made her choice.

“I’ll learn telekinesis.”

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