“Oh sweet, got some levels to speed reading and my knowledge skill,” Ben happily announced as he finished his book to the yeti laying on the ground.

While Ben was having no issue with the heatwave thanks to the enchantments within his coat, his teacher wasn’t so lucky. The thick white fur that coated Falk's body may have been perfect for his race's homeworld and the colder climates on this one, but in a heatwave it was showing its harsher effects, even for someone who was used to spending all day in front of a forge.

“Don’t tell me you just finished another book already?” His teacher asked as he looked up at him. “You must have only started that an hour ago?”

It was the fifth one he’d read through that day, and none of them were particularly easy reads. From going through thick textbooks on advanced life and fire magic, to finally reading up on the awakened space magic needed to construct the gates, as well as a book on the limits of enchanting and ending on one on skills in general, previously he would have been lucky to get through even one of those in a day, but he’d figured out a handy trick to get through them faster by putting his skills to use.

“Since complex mind helps alter my perspective on top of giving me a few extra minds, I can use it with my speed reading to read multiple spots of a page at once and just rearrange it to the complete thing in my head,” He explained, feeling like he was bragging a little. “It’s pretty handy. As I keep gaining new minds and leveling up my speedreading it should only get faster too.”

“If you ever run into someone with a mind-reading skill I’d pity them,” Falk said with a shake of his head. “I’ve never heard of anyone using mind skills like you do.”

“What can I say, got to work to my strengths. Anyway, I know you said we aren’t turning on the forge today, but-”

“You try and I’m throwing you out. Are you trying to kill me boy?”

“But Falk, I have a theory on how to enchant with my bind skill, I’ve got to test it out!”

Ever since he failed to use it in the dryad village he’d been tossing the idea around in the back of his head, trying to figure out a way to make it work, and after making his way through his last book he thought he finally had it.

“The forge stays off unless you do something to cool down the shop, I’m melting here.”

“Hmm, I mean, I don’t think it would be too hard actually, but I’d still need to make something like an air conditioner to hold the enchantment either way.”

“Figured as much. Get to it instead of watching me suffer this entire time,” His teacher complained.

“Ha, sorry,” He said sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his head. “I was just kind of focused on my books, you know? Anyway, will you let me use it to see if I can make you something then?”

Instead of agreeing, his teacher got up and tossed him a piece of paper and a pencil. “Just sketch up what you’d need for it and the other tool you want made, I’ll sort it out without dying in the heat.”

He did as his teacher told him, making a sketch of exactly what he’d need and explaining it in further detail as Falk listened. The tool he wanted to test bind on was simple enough, it was basically just a compass.

It was the magic air conditioner he was planning that was slightly more complex. While there were plenty of items that could produce a cooling effect, they suffered two drawbacks. The first being that unless they were enclosed like a cold box was, they tended to be weak if the user wasn’t close by, and the second being that they took a lot of mana to run for long periods of time. Even despite those issues, there simply weren’t many in town due to the weather being uncharacteristically hot. If this sort of thing was in the norm, he doubted his teacher would have ever made his home there.

For Ben though, these were no longer issues. He wasn’t just an enchanter after all, he was an eighth-level enchanter that had it as his blessed skill. Combining that fact with how he could use his connect, he could likely make something that would serve its purpose even without adding a mana battery to it, though he still included a space for one in his design, a box with both a rotating fan and a water catch at the bottom.

Once he’d explained how they were meant to look and the sizes of each he needed his teacher got started, going to the storage room to grab the metal and stone he’d need before getting to work in a way he’d never bothered showing Ben before, shaping it with his earth magic.

He watched in silence as before his eyes the raw materials reshaped themselves to match his designs, each one flowing like water until it locked into place, finishing in seconds as it did.

“God I wish I could use magic,” He muttered, mostly to himself before addressing his teacher. “And why do I never see you doing that if you make it look so easy?”

“You can get better results if you use your smithing and magic in tandem,” His teacher said with a shrug. “Since that’s not exactly an option for you there’s no point in showing it off, but it makes the work significantly quicker.”

“Ugh, so that’s why you’re still so faster than me. Man, I really am never going to be as good as you even if I do awaken my skills, huh?”

Of all the affinities magics, two were exceptionally useful when used in tandem with various crafting disciplines, earth and fire, while water and death had its uses in alchemy. It was no wonder his teacher’s items were so good when he had two of them at his disposal on top of whatever awakened skills he had, and it made Ben feel his own limits all the more. Even if he could enchant with those magics, he couldn’t make himself actively use them in his creation process, a handicap he couldn’t help but feel.

“You don’t need magic to be a great craftsman boy, I’ll admit it helps, but you’re already blowing away what I’ve seen from most others I’ve known,” Falk said encouragingly before switching focus back to what was more important. “Instead of worrying about that though, worry about your teacher being cooked alive before I get the chance to pass on all I know.”

“Yeah yeah, give me a second,” He told him as he grabbed onto the box and began weaving and blending his enchantments. While most people would use a water or air spell when making a cooling device, he mixed things up by using a more advanced fire spell while adding the properties of the two others to enhance it. Unlike a typical fire spell which would be designed to let out heat and flames, he’d created it to be the reverse, drawing in heat from the surrounding air while using the water spell to cool it further, with the air properties of the enchantment made to circulate it around the room. As a finishing touch, he added an additional water enchantment to the basin at the base, letting it pull water from the air to lower the humidity and keep things colder.

The moment he added a white mana battery to it there was an instant change as the enchantments activated and the temperature of the shop began to drop. It felt like he was able to watch his teacher come back to life before his very eyes as he sat in front of it, letting the cool air blow through his fur.

“Boy,” He began, his voice filled with a level of cheer and affection he wasn’t used to hearing from the yeti. “This is the greatest thing you’ve ever made.”

“Thanks, but it’s shocking how not true that is. Anyway, I’m going to test to see if I’m on the right track with my theory on bind, do me a favour and make another box for me to bring back for Thera and Sonya.”

With an appreciative grunt he took for a yes, Ben left his teacher to enjoy the cold air as he focused on the compass he was going to attempt to enchant, grabbing a small piece of metal to test it with as he got to work.

His theory was simple, though he had no way to know if it was right. From his reading on similar skills, he was pretty sure that skills that linked people in some way were composed of three main parts. There was the location marker which was basically the skill saying ‘I am here’, the detector which kept track of the location marker at all times, and a unique signature within that kept the detector from getting confused if any other individual with the skill was around. If he was right, then all he would need to do was construct a new signature, something that wouldn’t act like a skill itself, but instead be loosely based off the enchantment used on a fanet’ail cloak, where the skills used in the enchantment weren’t placed in a way that displayed any of their true effects.

It wasn’t a quick process to try and figure out how it was done, but it was built upon all he’d learned since coming to the world as he built up and tore down his enchantments, searching for one that would yield the result he desired. Only after an hour of attempts did he finally find his success.

“Holy crap I did it!” He cheered, his previous depression about his lack of magic all but forgotten as he watched the compass needle follow the small piece of metal as he moved it around. “Let’s see, it looks like it requires a specific amount of the enchantment to be blended with fragments of other skills, and both items need to have some mana loaded in them, but this freaking works!”

“Good work boy. Make sure you write the process down and we can send a report to the craftsman guild. Since almost no one has the skill I doubt you’ll be able to make much off of it, but it’s a good discovery.”

“Thanks Falk, I- wait, what’s all this?” He asked as he turned to his teacher, seeing that he hadn’t made just a single air conditioner, but a couple dozen, all waiting for enchantments.

“I gave the one you made a look over and your enchantment should have a low enough mana cost even without a mana crystal to power it. With the weather like this, we can’t just not sell this sort of thing so start building your enchantments and we’ll go back to using the forge tomorrow if things aren’t too busy for us.”

He couldn’t exactly deny his teacher's words. Even if it was easy for him to ignore thanks to his coat, there were surely plenty of people in town who would want something like this, and with that in mind, he got to work.

After the shop closed up he stopped by the guild to pick up some books he’d ordered. Since he was now a rank three adventurer whether he liked it or not, he intended to put all of the benefits of that role to its full use, namely the information the guild would actively work to get him. He’d been ordering even more piles of books than those he’d gotten while in Anailia, with a special emphasis on monsters around the world and the materials that could be gained from them. Thanks to his rank he was able to get them for half the cost he would have when he was rank four, and even if he didn’t exactly need the savings it was a nice little bonus.

It wasn’t strictly books on monsters he got this time though as he carried them home, but ones on ghosts. In their purest form, they were the souls of creatures that simply didn’t pass on, and given that information about souls was a point of interest to him he was going to learn all he could on the topic, using any resources he could manage.

He dropped that train of thought when he got home, as the first thing he saw when he got to the living room was Thera, laying on the ground as she listlessly read through a book while fanning herself with her tail. She usually had it wrapped around her waist, a habit she’d developed to keep people from being exposed to her charm should it ever slip out her cloak, so seeing her use it had its appeal.

Cute. He couldn’t help but think as she noticed him arriving and gave a small wave.

“You look like you’re having some trouble with the heat.” He joked. The majority of people he’d seen at the guild had been in the same boat, with a restriction even placed on skills like fire magic and augmentations until it passed.

“Not everyone has water enchantments built into their clothing you know. I'm pretty sure you’re the only one doing well in town.”

“Ha, well we can fix that,” He said cheerfully as he placed one of his air conditioners down in front of her and popped in a mana battery. As soon as the cool air started blowing out the change in her was as apparent as it was in Falk. She immediately repositioned herself to take the full force of the cold air that blew out as the temperature in the house began to lower.

“This is the greatest thing you’ve ever made,” She muttered blissfully, happy to enjoy the feeling of wind on her skin and through her hair.

“Why does everyone keep saying that? I made a church into a coat and a knife that almost killed a demigod. Heck the braces alone-”

“Nope, this is still the top by far. I’m going to have to sleep in the living room tonight with this here, aunty might too.”

“It’s powerful enough that you probably won’t need to. Give it an hour or so and it should lower the temperature of the entire place.”

“See? This is one hundred percent the greatest thing you’ve ever made,” She told him with a voice filled with contentment, the previous heat and exhaustion long gone thanks to the cool breeze.

“Yeah yeah, since we have this there shouldn’t be a problem with using the stove to cook dinner so give me a bit and I’ll get it started.”

“Wait,” She said as she grabbed his hand. “I’ll help in a bit, let's just enjoy this a little longer. Aunty may be home a little late anyway.”

With no reason to argue he took a seat beside her, enjoying the feel of the wind as they both sat and spoke about their days.