Oh god, time flew by way faster than I thought it would crap there’s still so much I want to do.

<Then just put off leaving for another week.> His god told him. <You still have two to spare.>

No can do, we have that fancy library letter and everything, I’m not going to waste it by not spending at least a couple weeks reading up on whatever I can.

He and Thera never did end up putting the letter they’d received from Uliel and Vasta to use, their time after getting it being a combination of being too busy mixed with a desire to just get home, but now that they were going there for the trial anyway, they planned on taking advantage of it, leaving for the gate the following day and at the speeds Thera liked to travel, likely getting there in only a few hours.

<Well honestly, I’m not super concerned. With everything you made you seem ready to wage a campaign of guerilla warfare.>

Thanks for the vote of confidence, now I just need to finish up the stuff for my lady-love.

He’d already made her armour, with it being the simplest by far. It had forced him to push his magic skills, leveling up destruction in the process, but other than that it didn’t need any complex enchantments or means of construction, all it came down to was layering the thin, tiny scales of orichalcum along the light leather that was being used to both hold the metal bits and keep it from irritating Thera’s skin as she wore it.

A combination of the skill that went into making it and the materials used meant it would barely be heavier than a normal set of clothing, something that Thera could deal with easily thanks to how her attributes had risen after raising her skills, with only her cloak and staff needing to be finished.

It wasn’t as if Ben had been leaving it for the last minute, quite the opposite. Though he’d been working on a number of other projects and weapons to help them as they faced their coming trial, he’d been slowly figuring out how he wanted to put together what would be her two main items, experimenting with enchantments and blending materials, making composites of composites and pushing his calculate skill as he stress tested how each different end product turned out, working out the math on how each varying ratio affected different factors that by the end of it he was almost surprised he hadn’t leveled up the skill, not that it mattered. He had everything he needed to make some incredible items, so with that frame of mind he got started.

With the cloak coming first, Ben’s main concern being Thera’s defense, he began knitting and sewing together a beautiful blue thread, a product of unending hours of experimentation from trying to combine different rare and unusual materials while working to ensure it had the flexibility of any string after he was done, letting it be worked to make what he needed as he enchanted each individual strand as it came together, taking a mana potion when needed to let him keep up with the work rather than take a break as he connected to dozens of different enchantments at once, only leaving one mind to meditate while he told himself that was probably fine in order to create something spectacular as it all came together.

Even with his awakened crafting and enchanting skills it still took time, even if it would have looked like he was flying through it to any outside observer, but after a few hours of work he had that part complete, leaving only the finishing touches to work on in the form of powering it.

For that he added what would have looked like small beads to accent the cloak unless someone focused in on closer inspection, seeing the rainbow mana crystals, carefully carved and set to apply power to the enchantments on the rest of it so Thera wouldn’t need to, all subtly placed to enhance the look of the final product to bring out the best in both it and its wearer.

It was only when that was done and he knew he had no possible way of making it better that he stopped, letting himself have a few minutes rest to recover his mana before focusing in on the project that was going to be her staff.

The last one he’d put so much work into had included wood from the tree of the dryad’s grove as well as moribusial, and this one would be the same, the only thing lacking being the unique properties of her golden hair to try and draw the mana through it without letting it break.

While he wouldn’t be using the entirety of the last branch he had for it, taking only half, he was combining it with dozens of different powders, using bones and scales and horns along with other woods and rare stones that his teacher would never have let him play with so liberally if the end product wasn’t being used for his niece, all in an effort to give it the massive strength it would need to stand up to any spell.

Unlike in the past, he wasn’t adding his resistances to it to fight against her magic, weakening it to let the staff last longer. Her control was still far from perfect for her unawakened ones, but even there he’d seen enough improvement that he was comfortable giving it only the sacrificial enchantments it would need as he used his material skill to alter its consistency, making it workable like any heated metal as he hammered away at it despite the fact that even any casual observer could tell that it was largely organic compared to the other ones he’d made, with the finishing touches being added to match the look of the armour she’d be wearing while using it, a blend of moribusial and orichalcum in the same small scales twisting around its surface to both help direct her mana, as well as give it additional strength in the event that she ever needed to put it to use not as a mage, but by taking advantage of her staff wielder skill, and with that, both were done, the grand products of a month of work to give the girl he loved the best he had to give.

<MATERIAL USER LEVEL INCREASED>

He waited for a moment, patient to see if the system had more to announce but shrugging as it stopped at that, still incredibly satisfied to have gotten the level, even if a part of him hoped it would have been enough to push one of his awakened skills to greater heights.

Maybe if I cracked into high ultra rare it would have. He thought, looking at the items with the limited form of analysis his crafting gave him to see both were only at the middle grade.

It wasn’t surprising he hadn’t broken into high yet, even if more and more of his items were being rated in the middle, but with how much work he’d put into those two he couldn’t help but think that even if he hadn’t achieved it yet, he was close.

“Boy, I can see the wheels turning in your head and you sure look like you’re thinking something stupid,” His teacher said from the side, bringing Ben back to reality.

“Not that stupid,” He said in his defense. “I was just wondering how close these are to being classed as high ultra-rare is all. You’ve gotta admit, even if I didn’t make it, I can’t be too far off.”

“If someone else said that at your levels I’d call them a fool, but…” His teacher trailed off as he looked at what Ben made. He was confident in calling it some of the boy's best work by a large margin, and it couldn’t help but warm the yeti’s heart that he’d reached such heights for his niece. “Normally you wouldn’t even be making it to the middle grade of ultra-rare if you didn’t have your skill at the fifth level of its awakened form, and even then it would be considered lucky. That’s not mentioning that most people would need to be using an awakened skill with it. I’m not going to say it’s not possible for you to get to the high tier of it as is since you constantly surprise me, but I don’t think your chances are great unless you get another awakened skill that would actually give it some benefits.”

Ben couldn’t help but grimace hearing that. While his crafting did have some sharpening aspects to it that he could use to enhance bladed weapons, that was far from the main point of the skill, meaning that it wouldn’t do much to get him there, and as for his enchanting, while it did have some spells associated with it, all of them were by their very nature significantly worse than what an equivalent level of different magics could pull off, meaning that they wouldn’t do much for him either.

And that’s not even considering my sacrilege, honestly, what a rip-off.

When he’d had the chance he’d experimented with enchanting with it, of course. It was his highest leveled skill by far after all. Thanks to his enchanting being his blessed skill he could even enchant with it at the sixth level as well, making it the perfect skill to use to break into the high side of ultra-rare and beyond, except for one small problem. The vagueness of the skill.

From what he’d discovered so far, the skill itself gave some control over how gods could interact with him, a clearer sense of both divinity, as well as weaknesses in the divine or objects and individuals closely tied to worship, and it seemed to let him see the faith in people, or at least that was what he was assuming. None of which were qualities that he could figure out how to incorporate into weapons, barring the few times he’d added the entirety of the skill to something as practice since he’d hoped doing so would count as the sort of acting against the gods that the bonuses from both his heretic and divine heretic jobs needed to give a boost to his crafting and enchanting. 

He wasn’t sure it was actually doing anything of course, and other than seeing how adding sacrilege to a knife had made it a lot easier to kill the forbidden gods, he wasn’t sure about just what sort of effect he could expect from doing that.

Although on that note, I wonder if distributing weapons with my highest level of sacrilege on it would be enough to help bump my skill to the third tier? I mean, maybe if someone goes and kills a god with one of them I’ll get a bit of that sweet sweet experience by association.

<Or you could not do that when we’re months away from an event where gods will be fighting on world and likely dying too. I think one of the first rules of warfare is don’t do anything that would kill your allies!>

It was just a thought, relax. He thought back, brushing off his god’s worries while at the same time filing the idea away to think on later.

All of it was worries for later really. Ben knew it was late, his teacher only sticking around to see the outcome of his two big projects, and he’d wanted to get home to see just how much the woman they were for liked them.