With the brace done, Ben discreetly tested the effectiveness of it before Thera woke up with the results being that the amount of dark resistance someone would need was down to 17 at a distance and 27 on contact, a measly one point off both. While it did show that improving the quality of the item was able to increase the power of his enchantment, considering just how much better this brace was compared to the first one, only to get a single point of resistance off, chances were good there wasn’t any point in making another unless he could get it to ultra-rare through technique alone, before he applied a single enchantment to it. 

It was frankly disappointing. He knew it wasn’t guaranteed to work, but if it did he was sure it would have taken at least three points off, not just a single one. He knew his ultimate goal of completely suppressing her charm was a slow march to progress but wasn’t this too slow?

He sighed and left her room, slinking to his own to work on something to take his mind off his disappointment until Thera woke up, namely tending to his plant, Fredrick.

His houseplant was looking exceptionally healthy, which shouldn’t have been a surprise given the amount of care he put towards it. Since he still practiced his connect with it frequently he had been able to pick up on various things about it to improve its life, some far less obvious than others, and since he had the time he focused on the current issue it need attending to as he snacked on some of its berries, namely repotting it

He’d had to do it once in the past already and this time he had a larger pot and soil already prepared, having made the pot himself to try and give it a specific role, namely helping his dear plants growth. While he had been in the dryad village he made sure to make a ring with plant magic on it for his use with the help of Fontesh, who had the skill at the fifth level. An interesting problem arose when he came back and showed it to Falk though, learning he’d only been able to copy the skill to the third level, and while he had his theories on why that was the case there was nothing to be done. At least he could still use it as he intended.

In a blatant bout of wastefulness of the magic materials in his possession, he incorporated the smallest amount of mythril he could into making the pot, before tying in a low-plant magic enchantment to aid in both the health and growth of his dear plant. As his first constant training partner, he’d grown invested in its well-being, making sure it got nothing but the best for its simple life.

<But is that even necessary?> His god asked as he watched down on them. <If I remember correctly, it was only supposed to grow those berries every few months right? Hasn’t it started doing it slightly more than every other month now?>

I’m sure it’s because I give it so much love and affection. Ben thought positively as he briefly connected with it, feeling it respond in kind. Though not by much, he had noticed the speed of the small plant’s thoughts increasing slightly as it grew, giving Ben no end of joy. Still, I’m surprised you aren’t annoyed at all that I’m focusing on this instead of writing out your holy book.

<It’s not like this is taking too long. Besides, the plant reminds me a little of my homeworld so it has its charm.>

Wait, really? You had plants like this one on your world?

<Saying I had plants like that would be a bit of a stretch seeing how it might be hard to argue that the things on my world technically qualify as plants, but it has more to do with you. It looks like you’ve prayed with it enough that I’m able to get a little bit of faith from it.>

What? Does that mean I should go around the forest and pray with some trees for you?

<I mean, you can if you want, but it would be a waste of your time. All gods are able to gain a bit of faith from the life on their homeworld, but it doesn’t come close to comparing to the quality of faith we gain from a sapient believer. It’s part of why it takes so long for a god to develop their race anyway, a lot of faith needs to be acquired before anything can be raised up like that.>

Myriad immediately regretted sharing that as he felt Ben create a mental file in his head, labeling it as ‘potentially abusable info’ and pressing his god with a request.

So if you can get faith from Fredrick, does that mean you could give it your blessing?

<...It’s not something I’ve tried in the past, but it should be possible.> He felt the expectations raise in his believer’s mind before he put a stop to it. <But absolutely not, there’s no reason for it. Do you know how hard it is for me to gather the faith for that sort of thing? It would be so wasteful after all I've managed to gather through all of these years without believers.>

Come on, it never hurts to experiment a little. Think of it this way, it’s only costly to give a blessing to something that doesn’t worship you, right? Since you’re already getting faith from it that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, and wouldn’t it be interesting to see if it has any effects?

Ben had no reason to want this other than pure curiosity, but he seemed determined to convince his god, just to see what would happen. Myriad sensed this and decided that rather than deal with his believer’s pestering, he would compromise.

<If you want to see if anything happens so badly then fine, but I have two conditions. First is that it’s only going to be a minor blessing. Think of it like when you got those five points to your mana from Jagal, but unspecialized like the standard blessing gods give out. Second and more importantly, I want a proper church.>

What? Isn’t that a bit much?

<You’re asking me to give up plenty of my faith to satisfy your own curiosity, I’m just asking to get something better than a freaking jacket, is that so wrong?>

He thought about it for a bit. That was definitely more than he’d been expecting to be asked for, but then again he did kind of feel like he owed his god it anyway considering how he twisted the actual quest for it.

Alright, as long as you don’t expect it to be quick I’ll do it.

Myriad was a little surprised, half expecting the request to get his believer to give up on the matter, but since he didn’t the trade worked out well for him.

<So long as you get it started before the invasion then that’s fine. Of course, that could be in as little as just over a year from now, so I wouldn’t dawdle too much.>

Deal.

With the agreement struck, Myriad did as he was asked, giving the purple houseplant a smaller version of the blessing he gave out to any of his believers.

Ben eagerly connected to it again, but the only difference he felt was a small increase in the happiness the plant gave off. While not immediately exciting, it just means that he’d have to watch for anything as time progressed, hoping for some interesting changes as he did.

<Alright, now that we have that nonsense done with you can focus on getting back to my holy book, there’s still plenty to write and I don’t want to waste time.>

Yeah yeah, give me a minute. He told his god before leaving Fredrick to go sit at a small desk with a thick stack of paper already on it. For weeks now he’d been transcribing the words of his god, slowly chipping away at the text when he could to get his current quest done. As easy and straightforward as it was compared to some of his other ones, it was also time-consuming to the extreme, with no way he could think of to cheat it and make it faster. As a result, it was also incredibly boring, and to make up for that he was splitting the time trying to get a different skill he saw that Zandale possessed when the many-tentacled apostle had been in town, one he thought might be handy to him, but not so valuable that he wouldn’t just take the time to try and train it himself.

With that goal in place, he used one mind to listen to his god and record what he had to say, while the other two were focused on his other hand as he carefully drew picture after picture. With just how much his crafting had leveled up since coming to the world, his art had also improved immensely, letting him capture a level of photorealism he’d never managed on earth, at least when he was using his dominant hand.

The task was pushing his artistic skills and his mind to the limit as he did his best to capture the level of detail he fully knew he was capable of, straining to make each line perfect. A task that could be done without any thought ordinarily becoming an actual challenge, but that just made it more fun.

After all, what’s the point of life if you don’t push yourself a bit?

<You push yourself too much as it is.>

Hey, you know I like to keep busy. He thought with a laugh before hearing the notifications going off in his head.

<COMPLEX MIND LEVEL INCREASED>

<ACQUIRED SKILL AMBIDEXTERITY>

The happiness of getting the skill he wanted was briefly blotted out by the feeling of the various strands of thought in his head rearranging themselves and leaving him with a fourth mind, but when things came under control he was drawing just as well as if he was using what was previously his dominant hand.

<It’s getting far too loud in your head.> His god told him as he sighed.

ProbablyATurnip

So we continue the slow march to progress on the brace, see every single readers favourite character fredrick the houseplant again, and learn that Ben wasn't able to get a skill ring for plant magic to the level he could for most other skills. I've mentioned that last one before in passing and it's attached for some of the background rules for how connect works with enchanting that Ben hasn't confirmed yet, but seeing as how that impact is low on the overall story I have no clue when it's going to be properly explained.

On a related note to that, I can't help but wonder how soft or hard you all think the LITrpg system I have is. Honestly its a mix of both, but I have a bunch of formulas for some of the growth areas that are simply never going to make it into the story that explain things like how each characters attributes grow as well as one for when Ben enchants with his rings, neither of which really matter but it sometimes feels crazy to think about all of the background stuff that adds time to my writing that isn't immediately apparent (though on the other hand by keeping it all in the background it makes things significantly easier to get away with any mistakes in my math because god am I bad at math.)

One place it is a bit more apparent is determining how the brace affects the resistance needed when dealing with Thera's charm, being affected by things like Ben's skill level and Thera's charm level. I always need to triple check that one each time I make a chapter that mentions it.

Finally, sharp eyed readers may have noticed that I didn't include level 0 in the ambidexterity acquisition notification, which isn't because I forgot it but because it's a skill without a level like bind and partial demonic body. Not as exciting as either of those two, but the sort of handy thing I could see someone working towards, especially in a profession that involves using your hands.

Anyway, that's all from me, you guys enjoy the day and see you tomorrow!