<She didn’t seem thrilled to be used like that.> Myriad said as he was waiting in the evening.

“I know, I wouldn’t have chosen to do things that way either, but since they wouldn’t just trust my work I had to do something. Hopefully, the surprise is better than any unpleasantness she had to deal with.”

<And if they act out during your little surprise?>

“Are you kidding? If they do, I'm raising hell. With the amount I’m paying I refuse to let them be anything but perfect,” He was already in a bad mood from a few days of beatings with no success at gaining the defense enhancement skill. He’d managed to level up both hidden mind and calculate in that time which eased his pain a little bit, but being free from this particular training would be far more desirable. He knew it wouldn’t be easy, especially given that some of his attribute values left the skill at just the edge of something he could attain, and he was more than willing to act out a bit as a stress relief if things were bad enough. Of course, he wouldn’t so long as the people he hired did what they were paid to, he didn’t want to be a jerk to them, he just wouldn’t accept anyone acting in a way that would upset Thera given the roles he was hiring them for.

<Mmh, alright. As an aside, maybe you should take a day off from trying to get that skill. It seems to be stressing you out.>

"I'll be more stressed if I draw it out longer than I need to. Hopefully, I'll get it in the next day or two, just need to be patient."

<Very well. Speaking of patience, think he's going to show?>

"Since he stopped by long enough to say he would be a couple days late I don't see why he wouldn't. He did seem a bit stressed himself though."

Quilith had shown up on the day they were supposed to meet just long enough to tell him there was an emergency and he'd be delayed a few days, something Ben didn't argue. From what his god had heard when listening in on them before, it sounded like he had some significant problems on his own world. With that in mind, a delay in him learning how plumbing worked wasn't something he'd hold against the little alien, even if he wanted the distraction.

Still, to keep himself from dwelling on the past few days he chatted with Myriad as he waited to distract himself, asking some questions related to parts of his god’s blueprints he was struggling with understanding while he’d visit Myriad’s realm, as well as get updated on how the various other believers were doing, spitballing ideas between the two on how to increase the faith as a whole. As they drew blank after blank on that particular topic, Quilith finally revealed himself.

“My apologies about the delay,” He said as he arrived, looking completely indifferent to being there.

“It’s no worries, I’ve been out of commission long enough that it only really feels like a week since I’ve seen you anyway.”

“Indeed, my superiors were curious about whether we’d be free of doing your research for you earlier than expected given the severity of your injuries. Universes with mana equivalents can allow for more interesting potential than they first appear, especially when it comes to something like the adaptation of specialized organs to a foreign body. Seeing its success has given us much to consider.” 

“You know, it’s not like I didn’t already think I was being watched by you guys, but between interdimensional aliens and gods staring down on me, I need a tinfoil hat or something.”

“It can’t be helped that this world and its summoned would receive a lot of attention,” The grey said with a shrug. “We’ve spent almost a millennia peering into other universes, and of the small fraction that allow for the existence of life, this is the first we’ve seen that is able to interact with other realities to a greater extent than our own. To pull in 200 people from ten different universes is a feat we couldn’t replicate with nearly a thousand years of experience on the subject.”

“I’m not going to argue it doesn’t sound impressive, but it was just our souls pulled over, I don’t get the impression they’re huge or unwieldy.”

“Don’t underestimate the weight of a soul,” He warned, sounding surprisingly serious before getting to the matter at hand. “Of course, we aren’t here to discuss theology, no matter how relevant it may be to you personally. As I warned, our information regarding weapon and communication technology for this world is still developing, but I got you what you wanted to know as far as plumbing goes. Hope you’re ready to be up for a while and take some notes, this is going to be a lot.”

He was in fact, very ready to take notes and got to work as Quilith began reading from his own, explaining how plumbing systems were managed on earth as far as they could learn, with the reason behind not teaching Ben how greys would manage their water being that aside from their race making use of it in different ways compared to humans, their technology to do so was different enough given the how advanced they were even when compared to his own people that the replication difficulty would spike significantly, and there were a few aspects of it where minor physical laws might leave it impossible to replicate. At least on earth, they relied enough on gravity and pressure to get things done that it seemed likely it would be replicable with minor changes.

As Ben took his notes and listened with one mind, the other two were devoted to trying to come up with solutions for the various problems presented. Since his main goal was to be able to have the occasional shower every now and then instead of having to rely on washing up with a bucket of water, the main issues that he could immediately spot were getting the water itself, applying pressure so that it would run, heating it, and dealing with wastewater.

Heating and pressure he was pretty sure he’d be able to manage with both fire and water enchantments, the main thing would be to design them in a way that the intensity of both could be controlled to match the user’s preferences and to ensure they had an external power source so nobody would run the risk of suffering mana exhaustion and drowning in a shallow puddle.

The other two were a bit harder to figure out. Since Stonewall wasn’t a modern city like from his world, it wasn’t like water was pumped in from anywhere. There were multiple large wells around the town could draw from if need be, and many people had a magic tool that could draw water from the air, so long as the users made sure to fill it with mana in both the morning and evening they could have a steady supply at home, but that wouldn’t be enough for what he wanted.

There was always the option of drilling down into the ground to access the same water as the wells, but that wasn’t exactly an easy thing to manage, and it also related to the final problem. What exactly would he do with the wastewater? If he thought about who might use it, he didn’t think that he, Thera, or Sonya were so dirty they might contaminate the groundwater if it was just dumped, and it was what people would do with their wash buckets anyway, but he still wanted to find a better way, especially since he wanted to make it right.

After a couple hours of dedicated note-taking, Ben finished everything Quilith had to tell him.

“Of course, it will need some experimentation by you to work, so we’re hoping you’ll share the results you get as you go if you learn anything.”

“If you’re already watching me, what’s the point in repeating it for you?”

“Just cause we can see what you do doesn’t mean we can hear what you think, make things a little easy on us, would you?”

“Fair enough,” He told the alien with a shrug. “But don’t expect anything too exciting, I’m already pretty sure I’m going to have to cheat a lot of this by using enchantments and some magic materials to make it work, not exactly anything groundbreaking.”

“All knowledge is useful when trying to understand the principles a universe is built upon. Speaking of though, with that out of the way, did you have any questions you’d want us to try and bring you answers to next month?”

Ben gave a shake of his head, feeling regretful he hadn’t been able to think of any for the second time the alien had come to meet him. “Being knocked out for a couple weeks messed up my sense of time pretty bad so I forgot to think of any in time. Come next month and I’ll have a few for you.”

He expected the grey to leave it at that, but instead he offered Ben a suggestion. “In that case, what about the opportunity to learn some foundational material science from us? I expect it would be handy for a craftsman to learn some of the underlying principles of the natural elements and how they might be extracted.”

He thought about it for a moment. It seemed like a good suggestion, if not for the obvious problem. “I’m not against it, but none of the materials here would be the same as the ones in your universe, would they? How are you going to teach me anything?”

“Well for one, these are basic experiments we’re having various nations testing to figure out so we can instruct you on the results, but also a large part of what I was thinking of teaching you was the principles on how to go about discovering the information yourself. The fact that we don’t have a complete list of the physical elements that make up the world, as well as their properties and how they relate to each other is an inconvenience we want solved. If teaching you this can help us learn anything faster then it would be a bonus all around.”

“Hmm, well I’m not sure if I’d end up doing any basic research like that, but sure, I don’t have any issue learning that sort of stuff and it sounds like it could end up being handy. I’ll take your offer and see you in a month.”

“Sounds good,” The alien said, standing there as if waiting for something else. A fact Ben chose to ignore.

“Anyway, I need to get some sleep for the few hours I can. Don’t stress if you have anything that makes you a little late and I’ll see you in a month.”

With that, Ben got in bed and turned his small lamp off to send the point home, making Quilith leave soon after.

<Seems like that might have been a little rude.>

Maybe, but if he wants to say something he can come out and say it. I feel like if I ask I’ll just get dragged into whatever problems he has.

<You never did ask him what was going on at his homeworld that made him late, did you?>

No and I’m not going to. As flattering as it is that they think I might eventually have the potential to help them if my skills grow more and are dealing with my requests to sweeten the deal, I’m already worried about one world's future, I don’t want to bother with a second.