Leaving the clinic took longer than expected, as soon as Sonya found out he was up she insisted on giving him a thorough look over, despite his insistence that he felt fantastic. He understood where she was coming from at least. He’d been unconscious and in bed for weeks on top of having a xenotransplant done with mystery organs in the middle of the woods. When he thought about it in those terms he became a little worried too, but once it was all done he made his way back to his favourite shop in town.

“Ah Falk, it’s good to be back,” He said, enjoying the sound of metal hitting metal when he entered the store. “I’m never leaving my forge again, I can’t go leaving it alone in the world if anything happens to me, I… wait, who’s at the forge?”

Falk was in the front of the shop, but he could hear something being made in the back, but nobody else worked there, unless…

“Did you really go and replace me when you thought I was going to die!”

“Calm down,” His teacher told him. “If you’ll remember, I didn’t even want you to begin with, no reason for me to grab a replacement.”

“True, but then who’s in the back?”

“We’ll get to that later. First things first, remember the money I took from you a while ago for supplies?”

“I do, it was a small fortune.”

“Ha, you aren’t wrong boy, but they came in and I think you’ll agree it was worth it.”

His teacher reached under his desk and pulled out a small box, something he never would have guessed cost as much as he’d paid for whatever it contained, and he opened it up, finding ten rings contained within.

They were all very plain, made of a simple grey metal and thin band, but each had a single word stamped on top, and the implication was enough to make Ben salivate.

“Are these what I think they are?” He asked, unable to tear his eyes from them.

“Depends,” His teacher replied, an excited grin stretched across his own face. “Were you thinking they’re ninth-level enchantments of each major affinity?”

“Ninth level! How did you manage to get your hands on these?” To place the entirety of a ninth level skill onto a single ring took a level of skill and patience that wouldn’t be easy to find, not to mention that it also meant finding either blessed enchanters with their affinited magics trained to the point it was almost going to awaken, or finding a regular enchanter with their skill trained just as well. Neither was an easy feat.

“I’ve gotten a connection or two in my time,” he said smugly. “Truth be told I was hoping to get more, but finding any enchanters that could make rings like those with a high level of either a combined magic or a non-affinitied magic is much harder than I thought it would be, so I’ll keep my eyes out but if you want anything like that then you’ll have to make it yourself.”

He slipped the rings on his fingers and admired them. “This is already incredible Falk. Really, thank you.”

“Bah, don’t go feeling too soft about it now, you did pay for them after all. Now aside from that, why not greet the other surprise you got,” His teacher told him, gesturing to the back of the shop where he could still hear metal being hammered.

“What, you got me something else?” He asked, excited about what it could be considering the quality of the rings. “I’m going to have to almost die more often if this is the sort of treatment I get when I wake up.”

“You’re at death's door often enough as it is, and this one isn’t from me. You’ll understand after a bit of talking so come on.”

What Ben saw making a sword at the forge could best be described as a mass of tentacles. Sky blue at the base and turning to a bright red at the tips, he found it strangely beautiful in appearance, though he couldn’t identify the race it belonged to, even given how distinct it was.

As far as he could tell, the creature lacked eyes or anything he would consider traditional sensory organs, but it seemed entirely focused on its work until Falk called out to it.

“Zandale, he’s here if you’re ready to finish up.”

It moved at Falk's voice as a ripple went through it and stopped what it was doing to walk over.

“I greet the apostle of Myriad, as your teacher said, I am Zandale, apostle of Ooro. It is wonderful to see you alive after hearing what you’ve been through.”

It was his first time meeting another apostle and they seemed polite enough, but he lacked knowledge on the numerous gods of the world and didn’t know what he represented.

Still, manners never hurt. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Zandale, anything I can do for you?”

He wasn’t sure why they would be here waiting for him, and they seemed confused by that lack of knowledge.

“Were you not expecting me? Your god contacted my own weeks ago about this meeting?”

Was he expecting him? Even if he wasn’t always the best apostle, he at least tried to listen when Myriad spoke, but he didn’t remember anything about a guest-

Wait, didn’t he say there would be a surprise for me when I got back? Is this it?

For the time being, he decided to be polite in a way that wouldn’t make his god look bad if he could help it. “Myriad said there might be someone here when I came back, but that was right when I left and he was going to explain more later. Not sure how much you’ve heard, but I’ve been out of commission for a while.”

“Of course, how thoughtless of me,” It rushed to apologize. “In that case, why not take a seat and I’ll explain the purpose of my visit.”

They made themselves comfortable while Falk went back to the front of the shop to watch for customers.

“First off, I am the skill master.”

“Um, okay?” His confused reaction produced a sound he interpreted as a laugh from the creature, who was quick to apologize.

“Sorry for the outburst, I take it you haven’t heard of me?”

“No, sorry.”

“It’s quite alright, that’s just a novel experience for me is all. How many decades has it been since that happened?” It wondered aloud before getting back on track. “But that means my explanation must also be longer as a result. To put it simply, I’ve been a follower of Ooro for many decades now, and as a knowledge god, I show my faith through learning, in my particular case I learn and develop various skills. Your god informed mine of your connect skill, and from the characteristics I’ve heard it sounds like it could aid the growth and development of my most important ones, so I’d like the chance to learn it from you.”

“Well I’d help if I could, but you must have heard it was a gift skill. I don’t know how a person could get it without following Myriad.”

“That will not be an issue,” It was quick to say. “I possess four very special skills that allow me to learn from others as well as teach them skills as well, so whenever I get the chance to learn a new skill I typically pay with one in kind. That was the proposal your god made to mine, and when I’d heard the details of your particular ability I cleared my schedule to rush to this town. I have hundreds so I’m sure you’ll find one that suits you.”

Hundreds of potential skills and he would be able to pick one to learn. He had to wipe his mouth, the thought had him salivating. Part of him was mildly concerned that others would be able to learn connect from Zandale instead of having to go through Myriad to get the skill, but if his god arranged it he couldn’t have been too concerned.

“I’ll absolutely do it. Just out of curiosity, if I had other skills you didn’t would that mean I could learn more from you too?”

It gave a small chuckle. “Of course, but as I’ve said, I have hundreds of skills. I’ll lend you a book later containing the full list of them I have for you to go through to figure out which are possible for you to learn based on some of the conditions involved, but if you find you have any not on it you’re free to tell me, I do love a fruitful trip after all.”

He would keep an eye out as he read but he wouldn’t get greedy, being able to learn one new skill would be great enough as it was, even if it sounded like there might be some conditions to which ones he could.

“Alright, sounds good. In that case, I have time to get started if you do.”

“Excellent, then if you’d please grab my limb while using connect and I’ll activate my skills. It’s doubtful I’ll be able to gain the skill on the first attempt or that you’ll be able to get whichever skill you desire on the first one either, but I’ll be sure to stay in town until both of us do.”

A bit of time spent was a small price to pay and he did as he was told, grabbing onto an outstretched tentacle and connecting with Zandale. He felt a small amount of mana enter him and quickly retract as the connection was made, and the connection was suddenly strengthened in the same way it was when he’d done it with Sachel.

“Wait, did it work already?” He asked in surprise, but the other apostle gave a negative.

“The two skills I’m using right now are borrower and learner. Both let me copy a skill for a period of time while learner in particular lets me learn it, but the condition is that I use it to get used to it before the time is up. Of course, if I don’t learn it before the time limit then I can just activate my skill again to continue.”

Something about that sounded familiar and he thought about something his god had previously told him when he first learned he could enchant with other’s skills. “You mentioned you have four special skills right? Does the reason you want connect have to do with them having similar effects?”

“Indeed!” It said, the enjoyment Ben felt bubbling in its mind felt familiar compared to how alien the rest of it seemed against all of the hominid types he’d used his skill on. “I’ve spent over a century to train the skills learner, lender, teacher, and borrower in the hopes that I’d be able to get them to combine when one awakened. Hearing that another skill with similar properties now exists, I had to get it.”

He could feel all sorts of positive emotions coming from it as it thought about the efforts it went through to train those skills and Ben understood its excitement. It wouldn’t be accurate to say everyone wanted to awaken their skills, many people in the world were content to get them to a certain level and let them be rather than constantly have to push themselves to new heights, but for those that did the payoff was huge, with boosts to their base abilities incomparable to just going up a level or two.

“So when you do, what will it awaken into?” He asked, curiosity leaking from his voice.

“I don’t know, no one has managed it before.”

“Wait, so you’ve spent over a century working on something that might have no payoff?”

“That’s the risk of those who aim to learn, sometimes the results don’t live up to expectations. Though I’m not too worried. When a skill awakens it will almost always merge with other skills if it can, to reach greater heights.”

Interesting, I wonder if any of my skills will combine if I ever awaken them. It was a fun thought, but still a while off yet.

As they spoke, both aloud and through the connection made, Ben took the role of a teacher, explaining everything he knew of his skill while Zandale eagerly listened, and allowed Ben to train with it himself given the bountiful resource he was connected with, enchanting with all of the skills he could feel coming from the tentacled creature onto some metal rods laying around in the back. He could get Falk to tell him what they were later so he could make use of them in the future if it was possible, but from the feel he could tell they were low level.

It made sense to him at least. Training up hundreds of skills would be impossible, especially if they wished to focus on their important core ones. No matter how long a race lived, very few had unending lifespans, and even those ones could still die, time couldn’t be wasted like that.

Zandale enjoyed learning how to use the skill by feeling Ben put it to work through the connection and like that the hours passed until it was almost time to close up for the day.