After only a few quick jumps, they managed to get to their first destination. A city named Castlelto, it was another mixed city, bustling like any other he’d been to as his eyes darted around to the many sights, trying to take everything in for their brief time there as he considered if it would be worth a second visit in the future.

Not that I need to decide that now of course. After this, I can pop by any time I’m near a gate.

Which was exactly where they were going as they walked to the city’s center, seeing the very structure that was their reason for being there.

Like any other gate, it was a huge metal arch, just waiting to be stepped through, but unlike the ones he’d seen in the past, it lacked the enchantment that made it work, the archway just leading to the other half of the city instead of the network it was all but begging to be a part of. Something he was eager to correct.

He had his deep connection set up and spread out, letting him know that the awakened skill holder he was waiting for was already there and leaning against the arch, looking around in wonder about just why he’d been asked to be there as Ben discreetly took a copy of his skill, advanced calculation.

“Hey there, you’re all good to go,” He yelled out to him, getting a confused look in return.

“Uh, sorry?”

“Someone asked you to wait here to meet a guy named Ben, right? That’s me, got what I needed so you’re all set.”

“Um, okay?”

Still clearly confused by how the interaction he’d been asked to take part in by his god had gone down, the man left, leaving Ben to focus on the structure as he ran his hands over it.

“Oh, you’re beautiful,” He muttered. “Whoever was in charge of putting you together did such a good job. I wonder how many decades or centuries ago they did it? Either way, today you finally get to fulfill your purpose.”

“Ben, this is getting weird,” Thera chimed in as the three of them watched him talk to the arch.

“Let me get a little emotional, not only is making a gate a huge deal, it’s my first time getting to properly use my connect since it awakened. This is a special moment.”

“And it will be a special moment for the city as a whole once you begin, so if you would?” Wedrow asked, clearly wanting to get it over with as Ben gave in.

“Fine, fine, ya bunch of killjoys. In that case, Thera would you mind starting to pour your mana into me and then carry us across to all of the parts I can’t reach?”

“Can do.”

With that she got behind him and placed a hand on his back, before creating a barrier beneath their feet with her new magic as practice before letting loose her power, leaving Ben struggling against the feeling of having his soul stretched out by the force of it all.

Every part of it was unpleasant, but as long as he focused it was nothing he couldn’t handle compared to so much he’d experienced in the past so he did exactly that, pushing everything away but the rings on his fingers and the metal under his touch as he opened a connection to the enchantments, letting himself grab onto what he had as he began placing them down.

Since it was his first time doing it, he wanted to start with the traditional method, using only space and time magic to build it up as he faithfully recreated everything he’d read, selecting the aspects of each mana he needed before weaving them all together into a thick tapestry while Thera moved them along.

“You can move us a fair bit faster if you’re able,” He told her, knowing that as long as her mana was pouring into him that he was unrestrained by his standard limit of how fast he could enchant. At the speed they were taking to travel along the arch he thought they’d be done in fifteen minutes but using the standard method of gate construction he was sure he could be done in five and was able to prove as much when she moved all of the faster until they reached the other end of the arch, the view through it changing from the city to the entrance of the network as soon as he did.

All around him, people who’d been walking by stopped to stare at it, shocked expressions on their faces. It had finished so quickly that word hadn’t even had the chance to spread that the gate would be finished after all of its years of waiting, let alone at a speed that stunned all who had watched in wonder at what he was doing, including two of the people he’d come with.

Both Wedrow and Steph had known what he’d be doing and they’d known he’d be fast, but they’d been expecting a matter of hours, not the minutes they’d just witnessed. It was an outrageous feat that could only be accomplished when his minds and skills were combined with Thera’s mana to go beyond the standard limits of what was possible.

And it looks like I have one more benefit with how my skills have grown too. I was able to place the current level of the skill I have down instead of being stuck doing one level below. Oh man oh man, this is going to be fun.

“Well then,” He began with a smug grin plastered on his face, feeling the success of what he’d just created. “Shall we move on to the next one?”

The route they were taking was all planned out and they reached the next gate not long after, the two space mages pushing themselves to make sure the journey was quick as they arrived at the next arch, another person waiting to meet Ben at their god’s request, only to be sent away the second after he showed up as he took their skill without so much as a greeting.

For the second one, he attempted to change things. If it didn’t work he’d destroy the enchantment and replace it with the typical one, but he’d had the idea of how to alter it kicking around his head for ages now and he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to put it into action as Thera once again raised him into the air, letting his hands run along the arch as he connected to all of his rings, using his own system of enchanting instead of the more standard weave one as he put it all together into a greater whole.

It ended up taking the same amount of time as the last due to the greater complexity of what he’d just done, but the enchantment itself was shockingly smaller and his minds were already looking at how to simplify it further, wanting to cut off any useless parts of the spell as the gate opened up, garnering the same responses as before from the city’s onlookers.

There really is a world of difference between just planning something and properly testing it out. Now that I’m looking at it I think I might actually be able to get the mana cost down by another quarter if I’m lucky. It will take a bit of refining, but hey, I’ve got over a hundred more I can do to practice bringing it down, and from there, a whole other dream might just be possible.

“Uh, Ben,” Steph spoke up, pulling him from his thoughts. “I know we’re both here to help you get to each gate faster, but if you’re going to be finishing them at this speed the entire time, I think we’ll need an actual break after another five. We’d been expecting to let our mana recover in the downtime, but that really doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.”

“Hmm, that is a bit of an issue, isn’t it?”

His mana regen was one of the properly good attributes he’d come to the world with and had only gotten better with all of his practice and the skills he’d awakened, but most mages might need an hour or two to get back to their top if they let themselves get too close to empty, and given that long-distance space magic could be intense, that meant that both Wedrow and Steph had been burning a lot for him.

But then, I already have a bit of a potential solution to that, don’t I? Boy oh boy, looks like I’ve got another thing to test.

“Well first then, let’s see if I’m able to help at all with that,” He told her happily before moving to do two things. Taking her hand, he opened a connection with her and from there poured his mana through it.

And that works. Excellent.

Connect had always been a very two-way skill, letting the recipient of it see into the mind of the user in the same way their mind would be watched, at least until he got his hidden mind skill, and it kept up that property as Steph squirmed, not feeling the sort of pain he dealt with under Thera’s massive strength, but a smaller bit of discomfort that came from her soul not absorbing mana at its own pace, but having it forced within her.

“Alright, not a crazy fan of that experience,” She muttered as he laughed.

“Sorry, but you might have to put up with it. If I keep topping you both up, then combined with how fast I’m able to do this you can forget a week, I could get us done this in less than two days if you all don’t mind giving up your sleep.”

“We are not giving up sleeping just to have this done a few days early,” Thera told him firmly, knowing that Ben was dead serious about it and seeing that the other two wouldn’t argue no matter how much they wanted to given the importance of what they were doing.

“Fine then, four days. Still not bad, I’ll be done plenty earlier than expected so all that matters is that the higher-ups keep up their end of the deal.”

In that case, hope Pelenia’s feeling appreciative as my continued actions make her richer and richer.

Uh, maybe? I’m getting to the point where I don’t know if I could actually spend all of this in a lifetime but I’m not going to start working for free.

Irrelevant. Doing free work to help out common people is different from doing free work for nations, and I’m sure I’ll be able to find a use for all of that somewhere. Who knows, maybe I could go and get myself a full staff to help take some of the load off of me.

He gave the thought with a small chuckle, only for it to fade as he felt his eyes widen. He had so many projects, but there really wasn’t a need for him to test everything alone, and the money that was rolling in from his god potions each day was already more than enough for him to be able to hire dozens of people and pay them well for their work. It was just a matter of knowing what he could delegate and finding individuals he could trust to do the projects he needed.

“Okay, there’s an actual idea,” He muttered under his breath as the others looked at him. “But one for later. I’m getting this done and then I’ll figure out that whole ridiculous logistics thing.”

He still had days of work after all and wanted to get it done as fast as possible, so he kept the idea in the back of his head as they went off to their next destination.