His head was pounding as he got up, the feeling of his minds being pushed to their limits sticking with him despite how powerful they now were as he took a moment to try and let the feeling pass. Even if that intense bit of study had been good for his knowledge skills, it still felt like too much.

And only weeks more to go.

He tried to shake that depressing thought from his head as he went to make breakfast, his god whispering in his ear the entire time.

As sad as it is, this is already the most viable project I’ve got going. Making Inux a body is going to be hard enough when I still can’t make legendary items, the summoning spell is just waiting for my new employees-to-be, and as much as I want to plunge the secrets of the archive, that one is so low on the list I basically don’t care about it right now.

Sounds good. Things will probably be fine.

“Morning,” Thera yawned out as she came up behind him, resting a head on his shoulder as he finished cooking. “How’d your talk with your god go?”

“Good, I’ll tell you and Sonya about it tonight if that sounds good?”

“Mmh, you know I don’t like waiting.”

It’s for my own safety. I still need to work out how I'm going to tell you both about the finer details of what I’m thinking.

“Ha, I just need to work a bit more out is all. Are you going to the clinic today or flying around?”

“Flying. Aunty should have things well enough in hand here with the other staff to help. If I just do everything then the others won’t get their practice so it’s better for me to check out the surrounding towns.”

“Okay cool, there’s actually something related to that that I want your help with if you don’t mind?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“I kind of have this new thing I want to try, but first I need to raise someone's level.”

After giving Thera a small bit of an explanation and eating, the two of them left, driving through town under Myriad’s directions to get to the home of his fellow believer and banging on the door until a very tired Sachel answered.

“Huh, uh, morning. What are you two doing here?” She asked, clearly only up because of Ben’s persistent knocking and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Rise and shine, what level is your life magic right now?”

“Six, why?”

“And how long has it been at six?” He asked, ignoring her question.

“I don’t know, a couple years at this point.”

“Cool, you’re coming with us today. And tomorrow. And every day till you raise it.”

“Wait, what are you talking about? Why?”

“To make a long story short, because I’m a wonderful apostle who’s going to do his absolute best to help you achieve your dream of awakening to plant magic, but to do what I’m thinking I need you to get to level seven from practicing, hence this.”

That was enough to make every trace of sleepiness vanish from her eyes, only to be replaced with sheer excitement. “You have an idea to help me awaken my skills?”

“I do, and no I’m not telling you anymore until you’ve shown that you have the drive to get to the seventh level of your life magic.”

Mostly because I’m hoping by then you’ll be too invested to say no to the admittedly insane thing we’re going to need to do to get you to the eighth level.

He didn’t need to say anything else. In a flash she was saying goodbye to Ralia, giving a quick explanation to her that she might not be able to hunt for a while and to pass that along to Skoe before running out to face whatever the day was going to hold.

“Okay, that was not great,” Sachel groaned as Thera brought the cart to the ground. “How can you handle it?”

“I don’t,” Ben muttered back as Thera shook her head.

“You’re both being silly, it’s exhilarating once you get used to it, now come on.”

Their first stop was to Stonewall’s neighbouring town, a smaller place than their own but still in need of healers like so many others. It seemed they were a welcome sight too, getting plenty of positive looks as they made their way through the streets before arriving at the local clinic where Thera made her presence known.

“Hello, I’m back again if you all need any assistance,” She called out as the healers around locked eyes on her.

“Thera, so wonderful to have you as always, we could absolutely use the help,” One said before looking at Ben and Sachel. “And you brought guests?”

“One of them also needs to work on their life magic, I hope you don’t mind?”

“More hands are always a blessing. I’m sure you know your way around now so we’ll take whatever you can give.”

She gave the healer a bright smile and went in, the two of them following her as she looked to the various patients waiting for any healer to have the time and mana to either treat them or finish up treatment depending on what needed to be done.

From the way more eyes locked onto her, it was obvious that many knew who she was and she had their trust, getting more hopeful looks than she ever would in Stonewall as she tried to return each one with one of confidence before focusing in on Sachel.

“Alright, I think it would be best if you focus on injuries since anything else is going to take a bit more time, but depending on how things go I might grab you if I see any sort of illness I think you can work on. For now, I’m going to start but let me know if you have any questions.”

With that she left them to go to her first patient, Sachel looking surprised by the entire exchange since they’d gotten in there.

“Thera seems a lot more open here than usual.”

“She doesn’t have any baggage in this place, it’s probably easier to get her brighter side. You’ll have plenty of time to see it till we get you your level too, for now though, let’s get you started.”

He pulled Sachel to the closest patient, someone with a gash in their arm just waiting to have it closed as they gave a friendly greeting and got started, with the oracle managing to treat it fast enough before they moved on to the next one, getting most of a broken arm repaired before she needed to take a break for her mana, or at least that was the intent.

When she’d told him as much he placed a hand on her arm, flooding her with his own reserves and telling her to get back to work, repeating the process again and again as need be as she dealt with both the surprise he could do such a thing, as well as the physical discomfort of having her soul filled faster than it wanted to be.

Nonetheless, she worked fast and tried to be attentive, making sure everyone was feeling their best by the time she was done and putting all of her focus into the act.

“But it would still be better if you were faster,” Ben muttered, removing and reshaping one of the mythril bands he kept on his arm and applying his thought speed skills to it to create a circlet to aid her. “Use this, otherwise Thera’s going to take all of the patients.”

A person could cast as fast as they could think after all, so long as she dealt with the bit of disorientation that the tool brought then combined with how her mana could keep being topped up, she’d get even faster, letting her squeeze in more experience each day till she got it.

It does have the mild side effect of making her talk and move faster since it alters her perception of time, but that’s probably fine. It’s not like she’s going to exhaust herself.

She kept it up well too, slaving away at her work, only stopping when Thera grabbed her to try and advise her on how to help treat different illnesses, until finally they were done, the clinic being left empty of patients.

They received their thanks from the present staff before they finally left, Sachel looking completely worn out by the time they got back to the cart.

“Ben, no offense but I hate your circlets,” She complained as Thera looked at her with pity, knowing just how bad they could be. “I’m so glad we’re done.”

“Um, we’re not though,” Thera told her. “That was just the first stop, I usually try and hit five a day when I go out, but since you’re here making things a bit quicker I was planning on going to seven instead.”

“...So do you not get home until midnight usually?”

“Sachel, we weren’t even there for an entire hour,” Ben told her. “Your sense of time is just off because of the circlet, we’ll be back before dinner.”

She looked at the item in her hands, understanding but not thrilled with what it implied about how she’d be handling the rest of the day.

“I’m not sure I have the mental stamina for this.”

“Well, hope you get used to it,” Ben laughed. “You’re stuck with it till you level up your life magic again. Just do your best, the faster you succeed the faster we move on to part two.”

“Which is?”

“I’ll tell you then.”

So you’re too far in to say no.

That fact that he wasn’t being forthcoming with whatever it was he was planning filled her with suspicion, but she tried to keep the thought away. If her apostle was doing all of this to get her a bit closer to achieving her dreams of awakening to plant magic, she wasn’t going to turn him down.