CH1115

Deep in the untamed lands, Ben and Thera stood with the ten demis they’d brought with them, their presence necessary for the experiments he was going to get Thera to run as they got comfortable while Ben put spell after spell into his girlfriend’s head.

“These are all just variations of the same one,” she told him as she processed the subtle differences in them all. “Are you trying to see which is going to have the best range or something?”

“Or something,” Ben grinned. “I’m going to need a few different variants of the spell, and I’m going to need to be sure that none of them will track the demis when we’re specifically looking for demons.”

“Got it.”

It was why they’d gone into the untamed lands with them in the first place, they needed access to both groups if they were going to test such things and, as they’d made their way there, Ben had been stretching out his soul to search for and land by a relatively close group, letting the test commence as he went into Thera’s head to observe the results, largely getting what he’d wanted.

Using the spell he’d taken from the library’s basement, Ben had used his own knowledge to modify it and, of the dozens of arrangements he’d produced, only two had pointed her to the demis as well as the demons, striking them from the total pool but meant he had plenty more to work with as he next connected to Thera, using her soul magic to enchant upon a compass using the same spell she’d just cast and watched as the needle turned to point to the closest demons.

God, I wish I didn’t need the third-tiers in my range to make things like this, he sighed to himself. Please, please, can I just awaken my enchanting already? I’ve gotta be the most blessed guy on the planet. At this point, not making it to the third tier for the skills I’m working on is just embarrassing.

No amount of praying was going to help though, but, using a more limited way of spreading a bit of soul magic, even without being able to copy the enchantments of it he had waiting on his rings, he could at least ensure that his newly created demon compasses would be able to spread as he quickly materialized and enchanted on a new tool to act as a factory for that specific design, giving the planet an easier way to track demons, significantly more powerful for basing the structure off the third-tier skill, rather than the first-tier it had been designed to be cast with.

But that hadn’t been his reason for going out, merely an interesting tangent, and with it done, he slipped the new factory into his ring to take to the rest in Nare’s lands later, letting them move on to the next spells and saw Thera’s face twist in confusion when he gave them to her.

“Should I be worried about wherever you’re going with this?”

“Technically, only the demons need to be worried because if I can make this work, then the war is going to get a bit more fucked up; it’ll be great,” Ben told her before turning to address the demis they’d brought. “As for what we’re testing next, it’s going to be a few charm spells. I’ve been as careful as I could be with designing them, but we do need to confirm that none of you will be affected by any of the variants of them.”

Every variant spell being tested was based off of the original one that Anailia had specifically taught Thera, the targeted charm she’d been using in her hunts to pull in demons and nothing more, and with all of the demis agreeing to its use, they got started.

Feeling the minds of the demis and the distant demons, Ben kept track of how they were all affected, with his care showing results as Thera rapidly moved through each spell variant. Of them, only one had a slight effect on the demis, which was quickly removed with Thera’s non-affinitied magic, and as a result meant it was removed from the pool, but with that done it let them move onto his next tests.

Having been in their minds, Ben found that even if he took them over completely, he could still feel how each spell was affecting the demons and used that knowledge to keep them under his thrall as the next and largest round of testing began. He’d seen the effects of the life affinitied tracking spell and he’d seen the effects of the species-specific charm, with all that remained being the matter of combining them.

The life spell was a masterpiece, its range something that would be a matter of miles in the hands of someone near the end of the first tier, but for a third-tier it was unfathomably more powerful, while the charm spells were useful for pulling demons but, in the hands of anyone other than Thera and the mana pool she possessed, were far more limited in range. By combining them, though, Ben was attempting to fix that. Apply the range while pulling distant members of the species limitlessly, with absolute confidence it would work.

But, while he knew it would succeed in the end, he still needed each arrangement tested to be sure that none of the new, combined spells might affect the demis, and with dozens of variants of the two originally tested, that meant there was hundreds of new ones to go through, leaving Ben to feed Thera an arrangement and her to cast it as hours wore on until it was done, everyone tired by the time they’d finished.

“Please tell me that’s all,” Thera asked, wanting nothing more than to go home and lie down after finishing such a tremendously boring task, and felt pure relief when Ben nodded.

“Yeah, we’re done here, so we’ll head back soon.”

“Thank the gods. So you found the best spell then?”

“Hmm? I mean, yeah, but best isn’t really what I was going for. I needed variety.”

Demons as a species were annoyingly adaptable, but having a few hundred variants of a spell made for a decent safety net to lower the odds of that race evolving their way out of being pulled to their death, and he’d need all of those variants for the next part of his plan, but that was going to have to wait. He had other things he’d need to do before he could get to that point so, with the testing done, that only left cleanup remaining.

In the hours they’d spent, more and more demons had come into Ben’s range, pulled by the force of Thera’s magic, and with them all being suppressed by his mind and power, he quickly killed all of the ones with skills that would make experimenting on them in the future difficult before walking the remaining hundreds forward, turning to his girlfriend with one more request on his lips.

“Would you be willing to petrify these for me? It would be nice to keep some test subjects on hand.”

“Alright, but then we’re going home.”

“Yeah, then I’m good to go.”

Every spatial item he had packed full of demons; it saved Ben the trouble of having to find more for later tests and let him lay down comfortably as he ended the day, finishing it with one final bit of success. As he slowly picked away at his soul, he succeeded in producing a soul inclination, and wasted no time in giving it to Thera beside him, along with everyone else in town he could reach.

“Mmm, finally something handy,” Thera muttered, the notification stopping her from drifting off.

“Not only hurtful but also incredibly incorrect. I’ve given you plenty of helpful skills.”

“Okay, the knowledge skills ended up being useful, but that’s it.”

“I helped you gain and awaken connect.”

“The attribute bonuses were useful, not the skill itself.”

“Wow, just attacking everything me and my god have built up with that statement. Then the other skills-”

“I’m not a craftsman, even if they might provide some bonuses to a couple things on my status, I’m not going to be doing anything to grow them. Soul inclination, on the other hand, is going to see endless use. The difference between that and everything else is actually incomparable. So, what next then?”

“Mmh, a part of me was thinking of trying to do one more I currently have, get that defense inclination blueprint, but honestly, I want to start making things for myself. Enchanting inclination it is.”

A skill he’d have a far harder time making, given he didn’t originally possess it and, as such, had nothing to reference when making it, he knew that it would take him longer to succeed at than anything else he’d created until that point, but at the same time, he had his knowledge, and he had experience from all of his practice. The skill he’d been building up wouldn’t let him down, and as he got better at it, he’d get faster as well. He was still new to making skills, and he was forced to use the limited resource that was his soul as a starting material until he finalized the design to let him materialize it instead. Once he had more skill blueprints he’d personally designed under his belt though, he expected it to get easier; he only needed to reach that point.

“Alright, I guess that means I’ll be fixing you up in the morning then,” Thera yawned. “Just try not to spend the entire night torturing yourself, okay?”

“Ha, sure, you got it.”

She was too tired to have room to doubt and instead went to sleep, leaving Ben to his work and his new project, with his goal firmly in mind. Make all of the inclinations for himself he could to get the next third-tier awakening he so desired. Ben got to work, going through the night as he aimed for his new goal.