Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

“Well, don’t you look happy?” Ben teased, even as Thera strongly denied it.

“Of course I’m not,” She told him, trying to control her face. “Do you really think I’d be happy just because I have an official excuse to avoid helping out at the hospital for a while? No matter how constantly draining and exhausting it is, it’s important work.”

“...I was actually assuming it was because you finally get to do a rank one quest. Something you want to get off your chest there, Thera?”

She slumped over as he asked, looking all the more tired for it. “Ben, you’re clever. Please do me a favour and put that freaky brain of yours to work figuring out how to awaken more life and light mages.”

“Pretty sure you don’t ask for favours while calling someone's brain freaky.”

“Let me try again. Using your completely normal, not at all unnatural mind, please save me by awakening more of the planet's healers.”

“Somehow the lack of sincerity hurts even more, but what’s the problem currently? Weren’t the mana bracelets I’d distributed to everyone helping?”

“Mmh, they were and they are but this work is never ending,” She complained. “Everyone is still getting hurt all of the time to the point that any day I need for something else, everyone I work with ends up on the edge of tears with how much more that means they’re all going to have to do and as handy as your new tool is, the fact that it hurts to use doesn’t exactly leave it as an enjoyable option no matter how much it helps. It feels like I’m drowning every time I go off to work.”

“Mmh, kind of sounds like you guys need to unionize.”

“Why not? Leverage that collective bargaining power as the only people who can keep everyone from dying en masse. Break off from the mages’ guild and start your own, I think the healers’ guild has a pretty good ring to it.”

“Okay, but that sounds like a multi-year project that would be completely impossible to pull off in the middle of a war. The much easier alternative would be to turn to my very smart, very caring boyfriend and hope that he’d be able to find a solution. All I’m looking for is only a hundred new awakened mages.”

“That really isn’t some small ask but I’ll at least think on it, even if it isn’t going to be my area of expertise. As both this world’s awakener and great teacher, I suppose it's the least I can do.”

“Yes, let those and any other useful titles go to your head so you can solve this for me,” She joked, feeling better with his agreement to try. “The sooner we get more healers, the sooner I can take more days off to work on other things, guilt-free.”

“How could I even force any levels in those branches though?” He muttered to himself, seriously considering the problem. “They’re both non-physical so I can’t force any materializations to make it work and trying to force groups of ninth-level mages to take on their respective towers to get the gods to awaken them mostly just runs the risk of killing off some of the world’s better healers. That really just leaves trying to force them to constantly use complex spells until they break that barrier themselves and with my mana bracelets and the constant work they’ve already been put through then you’d expect some to awaken on their own eventually anyway so what does that leave? Hmm, I suppose I could suggest to the gods that a new hospital be set up with every mage at the ninth level of those affinities acting as the staff. From there, divert all of the most extremely injured to work it and get Yuzu to visit often enough that she could constantly lower their awakening limits… No, there’s a better option. I could help Falk build an enchantment to place on any such building as a whole to help reduce the awakening limits for the people in it and I could just supply however much mana crystal or souls to ensure they’d always be fully powered which actually feels like a decent idea for awakening people, I’d just need to convince the gods it would be worth it. Okay, I can at least bring it up, not like it would do any harm.”

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The small strategy that had formed in his head as a way to potentially eventually help awaken some healers made it all the more clear how lucky the planet had been to get a soulsmith when it did as Ben continued to think of more ways his teacher might be able to help while also considering options without him, putting a few minds to the task as they went, Thera slipping her arm around his as they did.

“Have I ever mentioned that trying to solve the impossible for me is a very attractive quality?”

“Man, do I really seem so easy to butter up?”

“Sometimes.”

“Alright well like I said, I’ll work on it. Either when we’re done with this or we get a small break I’ll talk to Myriad about the first idea but for now, feeling a bit more excited about the quest?”

“Mmh, a bit,” She admitted as they finally arrived at the gate network, only moments from their meeting place for it. “It sounds like it could be interesting, even if a bit underwhelming.”

“True.”

They were to be watchers more than participants as they judged the results of whatever group they were following and while that made for a unique quest, it didn’t mean it would be an exciting one, with Ben having an issue besides that.

He hadn’t finished his job. He had to be close, basically right on the edge with the way he’d been pushing himself in the last few days, he just hadn’t been able to cross the finish line of it.

Even then he was making more souls with the spare mana he had, keeping enough for himself to prevent his total from getting too low in case there were any emergencies but still chipping away, hoping that each one he’d make would be the last as he continued to not get it, with that meaning he’d be back to his coat, pushing with all he had the instant that quest was done.

Which also means a non-zero chance of damaging my soul again, even with the band Falk made me. He sighed as they went through the gate they needed to the untamed lands. But not getting it done until after my mass job run is scheduled would be so infinitely worse. If I hurt myself a bit then I can just get my dear teacher to fix me up so I can finally finish this stupid thing and then I basically never need to worry about over-straining my soul to this extent again. I just need to put in the work for a little longer.

With the taste of freedom on his lips he couldn’t help but spend just a little more mana on his soul creation as the two looked around the area, the place filled with teams of adventurers and soldiers who’d be going out to patrol the lands for what demons had escaped to the unpopulated sections of the world as they tried to find the group they were meant to meet, with Thera seeing the sign for them first.

“Oh, you can’t be serious,” She groaned, forcing Ben’s eyes to where she was looking. “I change my mind, any bit of excitement I was feeling is gone. Ugh, let’s just get this over with.”

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Ben tried to encourage, feeling himself fail to get any positivity across.

“There’s no possible way that anything involving her isn’t going to somehow be a nightmare,” Thera sighed but with the quest already accepted there was nothing they could do, leaving the two to walk over to a small crowd, with the great life spirit Vividus standing at the front of it.

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