Once Inux was unconscious again, he left to find everyone else, specifically Abrus and Pelenia to beg a favour.

They, along with Thera and Falk, were in the living room, talking over drinks, though with a dark atmosphere above them. It was his teacher who first spoke up when he entered, trying to be supportive.

“Come to terms with everything you needed to boy?”

“Sort of. I spoke to him about it, it was what he expected from the start so I don’t think he was bothered, but we want to try one last thing.”

“Boy, there’s nothing you can do,” Falk gently told him. “I know you aren’t one to give up on something so easily, but you’re gonna burn yourself out.”

“I know there’s nothing I can currently do, but I have a single option to buy enough time to figure something out. If it works then it will give me decades to either come up with a solution or pass on the task, and if not… Well, it’s an option with a lot of finality to it, if it doesn’t work he’ll be dead.”

The room's mood only darked more as Falk only nodded. “If he’s agreed and is gonna pass soon anyway then I won’t try to stop you. Could you use a hand?”

“Unfortunately it’s pretty dependent on having at least a bit of knowledge on how to seal a soul so I’ll have to do it myself. I’d like to buy a few materials for it if that’s alright?” He asked Thera’s parents, getting a nod from Abrus as Pelenia spoke up.

“What will you need?”

“A fists worth of mythril, half as much white mana crystal, and an orichalcum knife with the sharpest edge you can make me.”

“Alright, we’ll provide you with all of that, but in the future, we’ll ask you to make us something to the best of your abilities, agreed?”

“Sure, sounds like a deal,” He said, breathing a small sigh of relief. Even though Abrus was able to make them with his mana, he knew the cost of materializing something was high, all the more so for magic materials. He’d been expecting to pay a heavy price, a trade like that was nothing. “In that case, I’ll just need a hand bringing him down to the work area.”

“Alright, Abrus dear, give him a hand carrying him down, I’ll get the materials you need from storage.”

With everything decided they parted ways, each off to fulfill their own task.

 

---

By the time they’d brought Inux down, Pelenia had already come by with the materials he’d needed, leaving Abrus the last task of changing a lump of orichalcum into a razor-sharp knife with his magic.

The greatest benefit of the metal was that it could only be affected by magic so any cuts made with it wouldn’t dull the blade, but to be sure that no mana had the chance to either he applied all of his resistances with his enchanting, before heating up the forge to begin warming the mythril and cutting the white mana crystal to the shapes and sizes he’d need.

Once the mythril was heated enough he took it out and began hammering, working to get the shape as perfect as he could given what he could already tell of Inux’s core. Without cutting him open to see it, he could only base it off the arrangement of the enchantments coming off of it. He’d likely have to make some modifications when he actually saw it, but by then time would be of the essence, he wanted to at least have a close framework to build upon before anything else, a container that would hold it as well as it possibly could before moving onto the next step.

God, I wish I could grow more hands. Things are about to get hectic.

<Take a breath and try to relax. Worrying will only cloud your mind so give yourself a minute.>

He took his god’s advice, putting everything down to focus solely on his breathing. He’d only get one shot to do everything right the first time, if he panicked, if his hands weren’t steady, if he made a single mistake it would all be pointless. All he could do was try and relax while devoting his entire focus to his task.

He felt his heart rate lower as he calmed down, before picking up the orichalcum knife and carefully cutting into the talos chest. As a body that was constructed of metals and various materials he couldn’t identify compared to the flesh and blood of a person, there wasn’t as much mess associated with the act as he’d expected, nothing like blood or oil leaking out with the cut and it gave him the confidence to keep going, making careful slices while peeling away layers, doing his best to avoid harming anything that looked immediately vital to the core until it was before his very eyes.

His cuts had been clean and his precision rang true, leaving him with more wiggle room than he’d dared to hope as he inspected it. While he wasn’t positive about any of the materials that made up the talos’s body, this was the most mysterious of all. A sphere of what seemed like diamond at first glance from the way it glittered in the light, it was firm to the touch, but less like a gem would be, more comparable to an apple than anything else he could think of, with a dull, shifting glow moving about within on top of multiple nodes protruding from its surface, ranging from purple to green in colour.

It was those very nodes he need to be the most careful of, but he managed to separate them from the surrounding materials without cutting any, giving him the time to go back to the mythril container, making the adjustments to its shape and size before carefully placing the mana crystals, arranging them in a way to match each node’s location when they’d be placed within.

From there, all that was left before sealing the core was placing the enchantments, the part that gave him the greatest worry. While he’d been theorizing on how to seal a soul, getting advice from Myriad and constructing his own theories, he hadn’t put them to practice yet. Now here he was, already modifying a design he wasn’t even sure would work in order to ensure the enchantments of the core continued to do their job, just with a little extra help. As useful as this experience would be to him for the future, for the time being he could only wish there was something else he could have tried it on first.

With any delay being a chance for something to go wrong, he pushed away the worry to focus on the enchantment he was building. Pulling from every affinity ring on his hand, he twisted and shaped the mana, blending some of it together while weaving others, all in a way he could only have achieved thanks to the buffs placed on him by Lux, at least at the speed he was doing it at.

He felt sweat form on his brow as he concentrated, making sure every part was perfect before he placed them down. It didn’t have to be the level of perfection it would take to seal a soul by itself, it just needed to help what was already there. It was only as the last part went down that he realised he’d barely taken a breath for the entire process, feeling the oxygen flood into him as he looked at what he’d made. It was perfect, at least as perfect as he could produce, meaning there was only one more thing for him to do.

With the container in one hand and the knife in the other he ever so carefully cut through where the nodes of the core connected to the rest of the body, separating it as it began bleeding mana, only to quickly and carefully place it into the container, sealing it shut.

 

<DISMANTLING LEVEL INCREASED>

<CRAFTING LEVEL INCREASED>

<ENCHANTING LEVEL INCREASED>

<FOCUS LEVEL INCREASED>

<MAX LEVEL OF THE MAGIC WEAPON MAKER JOB ACHIEVED>

 

He let himself feel a small bit of gratitude that all of those notifications hadn’t gone off as he was in the middle of any of his work before staring at the container itself.

What do you think Myriad, did it work?

<It seems like a success to me. If I had to say anything, it’s that it probably won’t hold up for as long as you thought, maybe fifty years tops, but that’s plenty of time to find a solution if there’s going to be one.>

He grimaced a bit but tried not to let it get to him. Fifty years would still be plenty compared to the few short weeks that he initially had, and there was bound to be a solution. Just because Falk thought that he would only be able to do something if he was on the verge of making it to the third tier didn’t mean he couldn’t find another option if he looked for it. As long as he managed to awaken his skills and continued to collect higher-leveled skill rings, he would eventually be able to come up with something, he just had to keep believing.

<You really aim too high you know.>

It’s good to aim high, gives me a goal to work towards. On that note, let's see just what options I have that can help me with that. He thought as he slipped his hand into his pocket, gently touching the miniature job crystal he’d made and feeling the options appear to him.

 

AVAILABLE JOBS

• Trap user
• Tree tamer
• Craftsman- alchemy path
• Craftsman- artistic path
• Craftsman- blacksmith path
• Craftsman- cooking path
• Craftsman- stonecrafts path
• Craftsman- sewing path
• Heretic
• Holy craftsman
• Kin
• Tank
• Mathematician
• Fractured mind user
• Adventurer
• Cursed item maker
• High craftsman
• High enchanter

 

Of all the options, four were new with one being wholly unexpected.

I get adventurer and high enchanter since I met the qualifications, and it looks like the job book I flipped through was right about being able to fill the requirements for unlocking high craftsman with my last two jobs, but do you know anything about cursed item maker?

Myriad let out a long sigh. <I guess it’s a better option than kin or heretic, but you seem to insist on gaining options to cause me stress. It’s an advanced variant of magic item maker, the same as magic weapon maker. Between your cursed ring, the jackets you made to train that one man's dark resistance enhancement, and now actually sealing a soul, even if it was only to the extent of reinforcing what was there, it looks like you’ve managed enough nonsense to unlock it. It isn’t exactly a bad job, you can figure out how to level it from the name alone, but information is restricted because most things that might qualify as cursed items aren't exactly something people want floating around the market. As long as you're responsible with it, it could be a decent choice one day.>

Okay cool, I’m pretty sure I know what I’ll be aiming for with my next two jobs anyway but maybe I’ll consider it after that. For the time being though, I’ll be taking high enchanter.

<ACQUIRED JOB- HIGH ENCHANTER LEVEL 0>

<BONUSES GRANTED TO IMPROVING MANA, MANA RECOVERY, AND INTELLIGENCE>

<ENCHANTING WILL RECEIVE A GROWTH BONUS>

<ALL OTHER SKILLS WILL RECEIVE A MINOR GROWTH BONUS>

<ACQUIRED SKILL ENCHANTING KNOWLEDGE LEVEL 3>

Name: Ben Heph

Race: Human

Titles: Apostle of Myriad, The Forgotten One, Miracle Maker, Skill learner

Jobs:  High enchanter (lv 3)

Previous Jobs: Apprentice craftsman, Craftsman, Priest, Enchanter, Mind user, Magic item maker, Magic weapon maker

Attributes:

• Vitality: 191
• Vitality recovery rate: 2/hr
• Mana: 130
• Mana recovery rate: 7/min
• Strength: 197
• Agility: 85
• Stamina: 705
• Intelligence: 396
  

Affinities:

• Light: 3
• Life: 2
• Fire: 4
• Water: 3
• Air: 4
• Earth: 2
• Death: 3
• Dark: 1
• Space: 4
• Time: 5
  

Resistances:

• Light: 68
• Life: 72
• Fire: 75
• Water: 69
• Air: 66
• Earth: 81
• Death: 78
• Dark: 85
• Space: 63
• Time: 61
  

Blessed skills:

• Crafting lv8
• Enchanting lv7
• Focus lv7
  

Passive skills: 

• World speak+
• Tolerance lv2
• Sacrilege lv3
• Complex mind lv4
• Bind
• Partial demonic body
• Defense enhancement lv1
• Parallel thought lv2
• Ambidexterity
• Absorption resistance lv0
• Enchanting knowledge lv3

Active skills: 

• Dismantling lv4
• Stealth lv1
• Connect lv7
• Hidden mind lv5
• Calculate lv3 
• Knife wielder lv0
• Hammer wielder lv0
• Meditation lv1
• Cycling lv0
• Marksmanship lv0

Blessings

• Myriads Blessing
• Anailias Blessing

Trials

• Trial of Anailia and Tolona

 

Okay not that I’m complaining, the fact I just got enchanting knowledge with the job is fantastic, but why was it at the third level already?

It was an incredible boon to him to receive with the job. When almost all of his goals depended on improving his enchanting, a knowledge skill related to it would do nothing but help, he just couldn’t understand getting it at anything other than level zero. At the very least he’d never heard of such a thing. Luckily for him, his god was still around to shed some light on things.

<Knowledge skills simply help to solidify the things you know while making it easier to learn information on the topic. It can happen on occasion if a person gains the skill much later into their studies that it will appear at a higher level so it’s nothing too surprising.>

Wait, then don’t I have the complete opposite issue now? I have enchanting at the seventh level, why would my knowledge only be at level three?

He didn’t have any illusions that he didn’t still have plenty to learn, but only being level three felt low considering all he made and knew how to make, with his god seeming to agree.

<It is a little unexpected. Give me a while and I’ll ask around about the skill, see if any of the crafting gods know much about it.>

Awesome, thanks Myriad.

With his job change done he looked down at the container in his hand. He’d done all he could hope to for the time being. It was time to go home.