“Finally.” He quietly sighed and prepared to slink off for the night. He most certainly wasn’t expecting a reply to his casual thought, but one came anyway.

“That's what I want to say.” Thera spoke, laying down still but eyes clearly open.

“Oh sorry Thera, did I keep you up?”

“No, I went to sleep fine eventually. I’ve been awake for over an hour. It’s morning Ben.”

He looked to her window and found that though the curtains were closed, there was indeed light leaking through them, gently filling the room.

“Wow, that took a lot longer than I thought it would.” He said offhandedly.

“I’ll say. At least you were lost in your own little world. I was stuck doing nothing the entire time, dealing with those two peering in on occasion and laughing.”

She sat up and Ben did his best to not pay too close attention to the pajamas she wore, something resembling a cotton nightgown, as she gestured to the doorway with her head.

He turned to look and found both Falk and Sanya grinning.

“So how did that go lad?” His teacher asked him.

“I applied the enchantment. All that's left to do is see if it works. Should we be asking a guard again?”

“No need, I whipped something up quick before coming here, I’ll just need you to apply the enchantments.” He pulled out a stick with ten different pegs in it.

When Sonya saw it her eyes widened and she spoke out. “ Wait Falk, isn’t that-”

“Why don’t we let the boy save the reveal. Gotta see if it works first anyway.” His teacher interrupted her. “Now boy, let's leave the house for a minute and I’ll tell you how to finish this, okay?”

“Sure, can do.” He said, not really understanding the point but obeying his teacher anyway. They went outside and walked for a minute away from the house when Falk handed the stick to him. “So what is this anyway?” Ben asked.

“A simple way to measure passive magics, the only issue is you need someone with high enough resistances to set it up. Now link your dark resistance with the bind spell, and attach each peg to the base, increasing each time. Start at four and end at forty.”

Ben followed his instructions and did as he was told, quickly applying the enchantments and then started to head back to the house and Theras room. One by one the pegs began to fall as they got closer, making him realise how it worked while at the same time crushing his spirit.

Falk however was staring at it intensely as they moved back to the waiting Thera and Sonya, eventually making it back to the room.

“Sorry to have wasted your night Thera, it looks like this was a bust.” He told them, filled with disappointment.

She was going to ask what it was supposed to do anyway since she still wasn’t in the loop, when his teacher stopped him. “Not so fast boy. Hand Thera that and let's see what happens.”

There was no harm so he did as he was told and walked across the room to hand it to her. Of the remaining four standing pegs, one fell as he got closer, leaving only three remaining upright as Thera took the device. As she grabbed onto it two more fell, leaving only one remaining

“See, waste of time.” Ben's thoughts turned to how good it would feel to waste some money on a street stall for some food right now when Falk grabbed him to get his attention.

“Boy, this is important. Did you only make the last peg reach 40?”

“Yeah, of course, I wouldn’t mess up on the only practical thing I can enchant.” Given that his max darkness resistance was 85, and taking into account that he’d leveled up, he could now enchant up to 51.

His teacher's eyes light up hearing that. “Then you did it. Infinite hells boy you created a new way to block out passive magics.”

“What!” Thera yelled, looking down at her arm.

“Falk, don’t raise her hopes like that. Thera I’m sorry, that was my goal but it was a failure. It’s nothing to be excited about.”

“Nothing to be excited about yet.” His teacher clarified. “Boy, anything she touches needs just over 40 resistance. If the last peg isn’t coming down that means you’ve successfully blocked some of her magic. All that's left to do is experiment. First we should remove the enchantments on that to do both the full range between the 26 and 30 pegs, as well as between the 36 and the 40 pegs. After that do you think you could make another?”

“I mean sure, my enchanting went up after doing the first one so hopefully I could make it a little more powerful if it really did work, though it will take hours.” Hearing his teacher's enthusiasm brought back some of his own hope, maybe his little project wasn’t as much of a write-off as he initially thought.

“You told me you were wrapping it around the person's mana, right? In that case I would say to do it on someone with significantly less to save time.” At that he turned to Sanya.

“Wait, you have charm as well? But I’ve seen you walk around town without a cloak?”

She gave him a brief explanation. “When you get to level six in charm magic it’s possible to suppress its effects. Unfortunately until that point its effects only become worse so it wasn’t an option for Thera. I’ve spent a few decades myself to get to that point. I actually don’t suppress it if I’m at home though, you just can’t tell.”

So they had someone else to test on, perfect. “Alright, if I’m going to do this I’ll need a medium to bind it to. Falk can you run and whip up an armband in the shop? If her mana is significantly smaller than Theras I doubt I’ll need more mythril, in the meantime I’ll redo the resistances.”

“Can do boy, I’ll be right back.” With that his teacher ran off and Ben started to remove the enchantments on the tool, while Thera was busy examining the brace around her arm.

“So this was your secret project the entire time?” Sonya asked as she walked up to him. “Why wouldn’t you just say this was what you were working on?”

“I just didn’t want to raise anyone's expectations or hopes on something that probably wouldn’t work. Hell as far as I’m concerned it basically didn’t work. I thought that applying an equal level of resistance would counteract the magic since that's how it seems to work for living things, but it looks like I barely got a fraction of that.” He wanted to wallow in self-pity over his perceived failure, but that wouldn’t make things any better. “Okay give me a minute I need to reapply the enchantments outside so they don’t just break immediately.”

He walked out, then came back after the tool was properly set up, and watched for any falling pegs as he went back.

Just one. Just a single peg fell, meaning he brought her effects down to 27 at a distance. It wasn’t much, but it was something, especially if he could improve it some more. His excitement started to rise again despite himself and he handed the device to Thera.

Again only one fell. For both the effect at a distance and her effect on contact he had been able to lower both by three. It wasn’t what he’d hoped for when he first started to set this up, but it showed his idea wasn’t completely without merit.

As he ran through possibilities where he could try to improve the design in his mind Falk came back with a variety of braces, ranging from the same size as Theras to just a couple inches long.

“Alright boy, think you could apply the same enchantment to all of these for Sonya to try.”

“Wait Falk,” She interrupted. “Won’t this take days? Besides, I need to be leaving for the clinic in a couple hours.”

“It won’t take that long and it doesn't have to be all of them at once.” Ben explained. “The reason it took so long with Thera was due to the size of her magic. I don’t know how much you have, but as long as it isn’t on a similar scale it should be quicker. Here, let’s grab a seat in the kitchen. If it takes too long we can just stop and you can head out.”

They all moved to the kitchen, everyone excited to see what the result would be, and Ben got to work. He connected with Sonya for the first time, feeling excitement coming off of her in waves but he ignored that and instead focused on making the enchantment, first attempting it on the biggest brace that Falk brought.

Even if the time was flying by as he worked, Ben could tell there was no comparing how long it had taken to make Theras to Sonyas, her magic was just that much smaller and more manageable. Before he knew it he had her mana wrapped with his enchantment and he was done. He broke off the connection and looked at the faces around him, all looking on with surprise.

“What’s with the looks?”

It was his teacher who took it upon himself to answer. “Ben, that couldn’t have taken more than thirty minutes.”

“Yeah that tracks.” He responded nonchalantly. “Sonya has significantly less mana leaking from her than Thera after all.”

“I don’t think you’re thinking of the implications right now, but fine. Thera go put on your cloak so Ben can set up the passometer, would you? And Ben just set it up from 10 to 14 and 20 to 24, would you?”

They both did as they were instructed, though Thera was disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to see the results for herself, and Ben set up the device.

“Sonya, could you release your charm? Let's see if there's any difference.”

“Um Falk, I had stopped using it when Ben started on his enchantment, I didn’t know if it would interfere at all.” She told him, looking at the passometer in Ben’s hand.

“That was probably a good call actually but…” He was eyeing the tool himself, not a single peg had fallen. “Ben, hand it to her.”

Sonya grabbed onto it, and they all stared in silence. All except Thera that is. “Can someone tell me what’s happening? I still can’t see anything.”

“None of the pegs have fallen. Not even in the 10 to 14 range.” Falk answered, looking to Ben. “Boy, Sonya's charm is in the upper-middle range of what succubi have., and you’ve completely blocked it.”

“Okay, that’s cool and all, but why won’t it work for Thera then?” That was the main reason he’d tried to make it after all, he wanted it to work out as well, though hearing this only made Falk sigh.

“The sheer scale of her mana probably causes it to leak through the enchantment. Boy I get you haven’t met your goal, but you really need to look at the broader implications of this. I told you before that tools that block passive magics are either expensive or take too long to make right? Yours just solved both issues.”

“Alright but mine has a completely different issue. I’m currently the only one with the connect skill, we would need others to get it as well as enchanting for it to have a real impact.”

“Don’t worry about that for now, there's a lot of other things we’ll need to do first before we even begin to worry about that. Let’s see, first you said your enchanting level went up, right? You have to remove the enchantment you put on Theras brace and try to re-apply it. After that I’m going to have to get in touch with some people and set up some meetings, but if we’re going to try that I’ll have to finish Thera’s new cloak, I should be able to get that done in around five days. Of course we’ll need to see if you could apply the same level of enchantment to some of the smaller braces and bracelets as well… am I forgetting anything?”

“Um Falk? What are you all talking about?” Ben asked, unsure what to do about all of his teacher’s mutterings.

“Don’t worry about it boy. For now just focus on removing Thera’s enchantment and starting a new one, the best you can too. We need to see how leveling up impacted your ability to make hers.”

“Okay sounds good, but there’s one important thing I have to do first.”

“What could you possibly need to do that would trump this?”

“Sleep. I’ve been awake for almost a whole day, staying up for another ten or twelve hours to do that enchantment again is way too much.”