After Ben was done and the two left the very flustered priest as he and the ones under him dealt with handing the small mountain of statues that now flooded his church, they finally started making their way to the city’s coliseum, passing through the busy streets till they reached their destination and made their way within.

It was a big place, but not so big that it ruined the view, even with them in the middle of things, but Ben still made use of his magic to create binoculars for the both of them once things started.

“You know, I didn’t say it before but this is supposed to be a break from work for you,” Thera pointed out.

“Huh? I am on a break though.”

“You just materialized nearly a thousand things.”

“Materializing is easy, it barely counts.”

“Those are fighting words against every mage on the planet.”

“Ha, sorry,  but you know what I mean. Besides, even if I’m having fun and am happy to be doing this with you, two weeks was way more than I was ever going to need for a break. I already feel like I’m back in top condition. Maybe even beyond top condition, I don’t know the last time I’ve felt so good.”

“You probably just don’t know what top condition is even supposed to feel like for you with the way you’re usually working yourself,” She sighed. “But fine, I’ll trust your judgment but if I find out you’re lying then you’ll never hear the end of it from me.”

“Yes ma’am, no worries on that front.”

He really was feeling good, surprisingly so even. If not for the fact that he felt a need to do his little part for the world he lived on while he could, their vacation would have been enough to convince him to take the occasional day off in the future and plan some more small vacations too.

But as things stand, every day I’m not working is a thousand people who aren’t getting my weapons which makes this a lot harder to justify.

He shook the thought from his head as the contest below started, not wanting to let it bother him. The gods he knew had been firm. He was a resource, they couldn’t risk having him break under the strain he was putting himself under. If that meant he had to take more time off than he needed to then so be it.

It was with that frame of mind that he began watching the matches down below, viewing each with interest.

While the preliminaries had taken place some number of days ago, the two of them were there for the main event, watching as the lowest bracket making up the first sixteen matches began as people were slowly eliminated.

Less so than the fights themselves though, Ben found his eyes being drawn to the contestants’ weapons. The competition wasn’t focused on one style of combat so they were able to see a mix of fighting styles going head to head, from the unarmed taking on swords to spears against axes and more from there, with each fighter bringing their own weapon of choice.

Which kind of seems unbalanced, doesn’t it? Ben wondered to himself as someone wielding an ax went up against a fighter using a mace. Like, you’d want them using comparable weapons, wouldn’t you? Most of these are even enchanted! At what point does this just become the person with the best tool winning? Of course, when none of the weapons are even that good I guess it doesn’t really matter that much in the end.

It was a thought that not only would many of the fighters disagree with, but any smiths or craftsmen in the audience as well. Anyone who’d come with a weapon was using one that ranged from the high end of uncommon to the middle end of rare in its ranking, by any reasonable account, they would be considered excellent works to anyone other than himself, one of the two people on the planet that could regularly produce items that the gods and system would consider to be worthy of legend.

That was the problem though. Ben could do so much better that nothing any of them had was able to excite him. Sure, it was interesting to see them in use at least, it wasn’t often he got to see the weapons he’d make and sell put towards any combat, but that was the extent of his feelings, right up until one of the contestants in the fight he was watching lost an arm.

That was enough to call the match to an end then and there, with the injured party in no condition to go on as healers ran forth, with Thera watching them work before muttering.

“They aren’t even trying to reattach it, none of them must have the skill level. Ben, I’ll be right back.”

With those words, the stone seat she was resting on pulled away from the stands and flew her forward as those around looked on in surprise.

The second she landed in the coliseum though, she was immediately cornered on all sides by guards, clearly having broken some rule by going down there like that until she explained herself, presumably letting them know she could do more than just leave the man as an amputee, after which she was let through to do her work, only needing a few moments to reattach the limb as the warrior looked at it, first in surprise before turning to her to give his heartfelt thanks.

From there, she tried to go back but was stopped again, this time more politely as some words were exchanged before she went back to Ben.

“Everything good?” He asked her when she landed by his side.

“Yeah, looks like we just got better seats, come on.”

She took his hand and led him down the coliseum steps, down towards the front where the other healers were waiting.

“I guess they wanted to make sure I stick around,” She told him happily as she enjoyed the much closer view of the stage. “I got the offer immediately.”

“I’d do the same if I were them. The fact that any fighter could lose a limb is pretty messed up when you consider that in only a couple months we’re going to want as many as we can have.”

“They are supposed to stop before it comes to that but accidents happen,” Thera shrugged. “And a lot of the contestants probably look at this as a good way to improve their skill a bit when they desperately need it. Everyone on the planet wants whatever levels they can get, this is just the way some of them are aiming for it.”

“Okay, but I feel like those same levels could be achieved with something that wouldn’t sever limbs.”

“Plenty would disagree with you.”

“Then plenty are wrong. Levels are a measure of skill as much as they are a boost to it, you should be able to display the same technique whether it’s from a wooden or metal sword.”

There was no point in suggesting that to any of the contestants though, he knew it would fall on deaf ears. People believed what they wanted to, if they didn’t want to accept that safer practice could still yield them good results then they wouldn’t do it, no matter how dumb that might have seemed to him.

Luckily though, as the next matches went on, there were no major accidents, bringing things close to an end with only one more fight for the first round of matches as the last two contestants went up to the stage, seeing them bringing Ben to his feet as well.

“Ben?” Thera asked him, but he barely heard her. He didn’t even realize he was standing.

It was a fight of spear vs sword, but he barely even noticed the first of the two, his eyes were locked onto the blade.

By all reasonable accounts and standards, it was a beat-up, ugly thing, something that offended all of his sensibilities as a craftsman. It was covered in small scratches and nicks, but worse than any of that, the entire blade was slightly warped. Add in that it lacked a guard and that the handle seemed like it needed to be rewrapped as well and he could have only taken it to be a piece of trash if not for one small thing, the limited bits of analysis that had come to him after getting to the ninth levels of crafting and enchanting. 

Those sang a far different song, revealing not only was the weapon ranked as lower legendary, but also what was on it. No simple enchantment, not even something Ben was capable of doing himself. As far as he understood things, it should have been impossible.

What Ben was seeing was a blade bound with magic nullification and in that second knew he needed to get his hands on it.

ProbablyATurnip

Like any reasonable person, I expect you all to remember the single throwaway line in chapter 278 that makes this a surprising thing for Ben to find. Any little sentence across these 1.2 million words could have some future relevance and it's all going to be on the test.

Also, 6 extra chapters this month thanks to some lovely sponsors!