“Awe Ben, you can be such a good boy when you want to be,” His god cried, interrupting his lessons with Helori. “I’m going to make sure to show what you said to Thera to everyone, that should be plenty to show that you’re not actually as bad as you act.”

“Or you could not, that was kind of a private moment you know. Not that I actually have any of those. I wonder if I can use my sacrilege to keep the gods from watching me in general?”

“If you aren’t planning on doing anything bad then I wouldn’t try it,” Helori told him. “If you can, it's likely to make you seem more guilty to the gods that don’t like you and it might sway some of the neutrals too. More important than any of that, how do you think the potion turned out?”

“Sonya seemed to feel an immediate effect which isn’t exactly shocking. As for me, no change in my status yet but I think I felt something. Of course, that could just be the placebo effect, I’ll know for sure in the morning.”

“Good,” The goddess said approvingly. “It was a good idea after all, it’s sad that it's wasting time, but the other bones are being sent back to the alchemist since it would be good to raise the power of a few more mortals in the end. I have to say though, spending your whole share on that one woman is ridiculous. Everyone else who’s getting any will be getting one or two bottles only.”

“What can I say, I want Sonya to be okay. Hell, I want them all to be okay, but there’s no way Falk’s attributes are low if he’s a contender, and as much as I care about Thera, it’s hard to worry too much about powering someone up who has nearly half a million in mana, at least in comparison to the far more humble ones Sonya has.”

It wasn’t like Sonya’s attributes were bad originally. In fact, when he’d found out what they were he had to admit they were shockingly good. All of them were in the mid three hundreds with the exception of her mana which was low five hundreds. She was an allrounder in that sense, her mana only being so much higher than the others because she’d given up the combat she’d been doing when she was an adventurer to focus on her magic, and with how much the clinic relied on her, she’d been able to see far more practice then she’d likely expected when she’d first joined.

He couldn’t deny that he wished that he’d had some other way to quickly raise his stats, but it wasn’t like he was completely lacking in ideas on that front either.

“So what are the odds we can get another god to descend on the world? We could open up a vein, get a couple awakened life mages to keep them safe and just keep shoving food down their throat so we can keep collecting blood for potions.”

Helori looked horrified by the suggestion while Myriad just came across as exhausted as he spoke to the goddess in his realm.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t spread around the fact that my apostle is like this.”

“What? I think it’s a pretty darn good idea!”

“Would you be happy if someone suggested you be made into potions?” Helori shot back.

“If I was going to survive basically unharmed then yeah it would be fine.”

“Ben, the gods need to save their strength. The only reason three descended when they did was because of just how big of a deal what happened with the demons was. Nobody’s coming down to bleed for you.”

“Lame, but fine. I have other ideas anyway.”

“Why does your mind feel like it’s actively trying to hide whatever they are?” The cube questioned.

“Because you’re being paranoid.”

“Then what are they?”

“Not important.”

He could feel the stress coming from his god but was sure it wouldn’t be an issue, at least not a big one. He couldn’t deny what he was planning was arguably unethical, but there was a better than not chance that it would yield some benefits and he was equally as sure that some gods would get a kick out of it.

Still, he did his best to change the topic. He’d need to get Thera’s help for buying some of the equipment for it anyway and both gods would see soon enough.

“Anyway Myriad, Falk asked me to do a write-up on ritual magic, go over the finer details of it with me again while I’m practicing Helori’s language with her, would you?”

It felt like more and more was falling onto his plate, not that he minded. As his mind skills kept growing, the more he had to do to keep himself busy the better.

Waking up earlier than he needed to, the first thing he did was open the archive to spend an hour in it. An hour in real time that was, but with the massive time dilation effect upon it, it was more like he was spending four days there.

It was an interesting experience. So long as he wasn’t hungry or tired before he went in he wouldn’t grow to be as the time passed, the state of his body having more to do with the real world than anything else and it gave him all of the time he needed to focus on any interests that didn’t involve physically training his skills. He spent hours upon hours writing things and ideas out any time he went in there.

From hundreds upon hundreds of ideas for potential enchantments to a dictionary and a translation guide for the language Helori was teaching him, and of course what little he could of his god’s ridiculous language to try and help him remember and process it, even if he didn’t think many of the sounds could be properly expressed in the characters of this world or his last.

I suppose I could make my own to try and capture them, He mused. It would probably be easier than learning whatever sort of writing system Myriad would use. We’ll put that as a maybe.

It was an interesting idea, but one he could fiddle with using only a single mind. The majority of his thoughts were going to be devoted to the same thing that had been stealing every bit of his interest more and more as time went on. The summoning spell.

Back while they were with Vividus, one of the things he’d painstakingly done was trying to recreate it within the archive, drawing out every single bit of it by hand using the pen provided, going back to Myriad’s realm a number of times to try and make it look as close and perfect as possible, and he’d been pleased to say that he’d done it. Its already huge scale had to triple in size due to the limitations of the size he could work in, but he was confident it was nearly close to perfect and he felt he’d actually learned a bit more about it in the process, even if it wasn’t enough to be immediately helpful.

Above any small clue on how different parts worked together though came a renewed appreciation for just how ridiculous what the gods had been using without any real care for how it worked truly was. He made piles of notes within the archive, theory-crafting on ways to apply the smallest of sections to his enchanting without distorting the original purpose of the structure and came to accept one inescapable conclusion. The way he typically used magic was equal parts art and science. There were rules within the framework his enchantments were built in, but as long as he understood what he was doing there was plenty of room to play around. That summoning spell was different. It was a precision piece of magical engineering. He was nothing more than a caveman trying to comprehend a rocket before it.

But anything can be learned given the time and resources.

Time? He had a mythic item that stretched out what he had beyond his wildest dreams. Resources? He was rich from his patents and happy to throw money at the problem if it would help. He refused to believe the problem in front of him couldn’t be solved, he’d just keep doing the one thing he could, chipping away at it till something gave.

When he left the archive he checked his card, seeing far better results than he’d expected from his leftover potion, his attributes growing by ten all around, with his regeneration rates growing by one each and felt plenty satisfied as he looked at it.

He passed on the results to his god and Helori, the latter of which he chatted with in his head about exactly how it had turned out as he prepared breakfast for everyone, waiting for them to get up.

The smell of his cooking acted as its usual siren's call, and as both women sat down he placed plates in front of them, looking at Sonya, filled with expectations.

“Alright, alright, I’ll check, just a moment,” She told him, pulling out her card as he and Thera went to lean over her shoulder, all of their eyes bulging from the result, even if it was in line with what Ben expected.

“So your stats are up almost fifty percent, incredible,” He muttered. “Really makes me hate Galwax all the more since his stupid trial only brought a couple of mine up by a third, but with results like these, it puts those potions in the middle of what it sounds like the other ones that were distributed would do. Plus, it will be neat to see if your growth will decay as you drink the rest.”

“Or you two could have them,” Sonya said, almost pleading as she did. They weren’t wrong that it could help her stay alive if things got bad in the future, but there was something mildly horrifying about so casually drinking something that was giving results people would happily kill for.

Ben though didn’t budge. “I can grow the attributes I want to by wearing my bracelets. If you want to share some with Thera I don’t mind, but I really think you’re the priority here.”

“I’m not taking any. They’re all yours aunty,” Her niece was quick to say, ignoring the small out Ben offered. “They’re good for you and you’re outnumbered.”

With how firm they both were once again she accepted she wasn’t getting out of it, resolving to just let Ben check her card without looking herself until all of the potions were done to ease the level of guilt so much unearned growth was giving her.

With that done, they both went to get ready to leave for the clinic for the day, Ben stopping her at the last minute.

“Hey, so I need a teeny tiny little favour and I won’t complain about how fast you want to fly in the cart for it.”

“I’m listening,” She told him, perking up at the prospect. The entire time she’d been getting them home only the day before he’d spent the whole time complaining about danger and a lack of safety features and how hitting anything at the comparatively slower speeds she was going for him meant instant death, even with nothing to hit in the sky. If he needed her to fly for it that meant they were likely going to the gate, and she was sure she could cut the trip down to an hour or two if she went as fast as she was comfortable.

“There’s something I want to test out but it means buying supplies from your dad and a few other things. I mean, I guess I could use some worse materials, but that would still mean waiting for them all to come in and I want to see if what I’m thinking would work as fast as possible.”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” She told him, pretending to think on it. “You still owe me the best day of my life for my stupid title and you haven’t mentioned it once since we got back.”

“How’s the weekend sound?”

“Excellent,” She said happily, shooting him a dazzling smile that lacked any of the worry from their talk the night earlier. “I’ll try to finish as early as possible, I want to get back on the same day.”

With that done she cast her spell on him before running off to work as he did his best to contain his worry thinking about the trip being shortened so much that it could be done both ways in a single day.

I definitely need to figure out a faster and safer means of transport. Tossing that near the top of my ever-growing list.

Once he was alone again he went back to the desk in his room, pulling out four pens and a thick stack of paper to complete the tasks Falk asked of him. He needed to write a comprehensive outline for both ritual magic, as well as how he used enchantments which would need at least three sections.

He laid out four pages, taking two pens in each hand to take advantage of the ambidexterity that had merged into his unending crafting, while at the same time carefully lifting the other two pens to write by manipulating them through the aid of his material user skill. He’d be slower with his magic than with his hands to ensure it was legible, but it would be decent practice and would still save him a bunch of time by doing it.

He began writing out all he knew of ritual magic, before reflecting on what to do about something minor he’d never considered for his enchanting. What to call everything.

“Let’s see, I usually just call the blending method the blending method, but since this is going to be its first time being written down and I feel like it has a good chance of being popular let's call that one Myriadic blending and make sure to include its history as being developed between me and Myriad to see if that scores him some faith. At worst it will spread his name around a bit which I’m sure will keep him happy. Think I’ll call the final system of merging them all together the Heph system for myself. I had to deal with way too much to make it so it might as well have my name tied to it. That just leaves whatever to call the ring system.”

It wasn’t like he’d invented it so it felt strange to be the one to name it, but if he was going to give any credit that meant naming it after Galwax and there was no way he was going to do that for the god that had put him through so much.

“Sorry assface, but there’s no way I’m letting a bastard like you have the fame, even if you’re too dead to get anything from it. I guess I could just call it the ring system, but that feels pretty lame. Hmm, then what?”

Only one of his pens was still as he thought until he felt the perfect name come to mind as he jotted it down, a strong spiteful smile painted across his face as he did.