He woke up early as per usual, ready to start the day, only to get the surprise of finding Thera up ahead of him.

“Mmh, hey,” She muttered, eyes still closed while she pressed up next to him.

“Hey, you’re up early.”

“Couldn’t sleep. Mind telling aunty I won’t be at the clinic today? I really want to try and get a bit more rest.”

“Sure, I’ll let her know and come right back.”

“Don’t be dumb, you don’t need to be stuck here doing nothing just because I’m in a funk. If I wake up before you’re home then I’ll stop by the shop, okay?”

“You sure? I really don’t mind sticking around.”

“I am, I think a little time to myself would be for the best right now.”

Leaning up to kiss him, trying to look a bit better than she felt, it wasn’t long before she fell back into an uneasy sleep, leaving Ben worried but off to prepare breakfast for himself and Sonya.

It wasn’t long until she was up as well, meeting him in the kitchen and looking worried as he laid out the meal.

“So how’s she doing?”

“Not great,” He admitted. “She says she won’t be at the clinic today, I don’t think she got much rest.”

“So can you tell me what’s going on?” She asked. “This doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with the issue in town, I’d expect her to be a lot more mad than anything.”

“Issue in town?”

He had no clue what Sonya could be talking about and the question left her dropping her head to the table, obviously not enjoying whatever the problem was herself.

“Well, it’s a little complicated and super annoying, but the long and short of it is word got out that she has the saintess title, along with just who she and I are related to. It’s been bothersome enough for me to deal with so I’d expect she might end up having it a bit worse.”

Wow, this is some horrifically bad timing. Thera is going to hate it when she finds out.

Ben knew she didn’t like the title because of the expectations behind it, and she hadn’t told anyone in town other than him about her relationship with her mother, the queen of Anailia. Even if he understood that it didn’t mean she held any power in her homeland, that didn’t change the fact that others might think otherwise, warping their perception of her all of the more.

“Great, just freaking great,” He sighed.

“So since that didn’t seem to be the case, what happened while the two of you were gone to leave her in such a poor mood?”

“She reached the sixth level of her charm but still can’t control it,” Ben explained, doubting she’d want to hide the fact from her aunt. “She’s taking it poorly.”

It looked like Sonya’s heart broke just hearing that and she was quick to make up her mind. “Alright, even if she wants some space, I’ll stay home today. Ben, I’m sorry but could you be a dear and tell the clinic for me when you head out? It will be good for the rest of the staff to have to work without me for a bit anyway, ever since I’ve come back they’ve been relying on me a little too much.”

“Yeah, can do. If there’s any problems I’ll be at the shop but I’m probably coming home early today anyway. I’ll handle dinner too so prepare for the best meal of your life.”

“Sweet boy,” She smiled, with the table falling quiet after that. Both of them were too lost in their thoughts to engage in any more conversation, each feeling too worried about who they held so dear.

After finishing and cleaning up, Ben’s first stop was by the cart, retrieving the five boxes waiting out there as he opened them one by one to free his clones.

They’d be seeing the majority of their work in the shop so that was where he planned to store them, with each of them carrying their own crates as he made his first stop of the day, delivering the news that Sonya had an emergency that she couldn’t avoid.

He ignored the tragic look that came to the eyes of the one at the front and left after, making his way back to the shop to start his work in earnest.

Usually, getting back would have felt incredible, being able to return to his work and his forge to put his creativity to the test with everything new he’d learned, but then and there he was too preoccupied with his worries and thinking about any potential theory for solving them to get that initial burst of joy.

He could have opened it up and made a bit of money, by that point his teacher had enough trust in him to handle such things alone, but he wasn’t short on anything and wanted to work free from distractions.

The only question is what to even do.

He didn't feel his passion flaring up like it usually would and ideas felt like they weren’t coming. He was just too distracted to give it his all, so he decided to focus on warming up at first, hoping inspiration would come from there.

He lit his forge and heated a block of iron, shoving in more than he typically would at one time before he and the clones he was inhabiting got to work, each of them making a different item.

Pots and cutlery, swords and shields, along with one that was aiming for something more artistic than anything practical, for the first part of the day things went like that, with a steady supply of more iron being created as Ben pushed his material manipulation and burned his mana, finally finding himself enough in the groove of things to decide where to go from there.

Keeping each clone on its tasks while he stayed within range to let them work, he looked down at the mithril bands he kept on his arms, there to act as a constant place to enchant as even then he was making and breaking them at a rapid pace. The quality of the material meant he could create some deeply complex magical structures without needing to worry about them breaking, but it was that same material that gave a different potential he could put to work immediately.

I did tell Thera that if I had to I’d awaken my resistance enhancement, no reason not to get a head start now.

He absolutely believed there would be a solution to managing Thera’s charm but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t begin preparing just in case he was wrong, so it was with that frame of mind he began constructing new enchantments on each band to force an effect on his body.

I’m exposed to enough life and dark magic that I shouldn’t need to worry about either, and with my deathstone bracelet I’m exposed to plenty of death mana too. That just leaves seven affinities to act on me at a level where I won’t be harmed but will still be harsh. If I want it to be effective then I need to walk a knife's edge to make it work.

The first thing he did was create a heavily modified version of a spell that Thera was well acquainted with at this point. Petrification. In any normal case, it would always be done using a combination of both earth and life mana, but he intended to substitute the other for light instead.

There was a good reason that affinity typically wasn’t used for the spell though. While light had its healing aspects, same as life magic, it also had a purifying aspect that could make using it for what was by all accounts a curse difficult. The two just didn’t want to combine in such a way, making the very first option an already challenging task as he was first forced to suppress any level of purification to the extreme, leaving only the aspects that related to the body.

Once he was sure he had it, all that was left was calculating the strength it would need to just fall short of beating his resistances once all of his skills that could affect it were taken into consideration before he was confident in saying he was done.

“Myriad, Myriad, Myriad,” He sang. “Pay attention to me so I don’t accidentally kill myself.”

“Petrification bracelet. It shouldn’t actually be able to petrify me but it's going to be super close. What do you think?”

“Hey, you know what they say, no pain, no gain. My other bracelets work great for letting me raise my stats, I’ve just gotta hope this will do its job and let me raise my resistance enhancement.”

“You don’t have to tell me, I’m well aware.”

It was one of his more problematic skills in that sense, making it an undesirable one to level, but he’d already considered that. The fact that it raised his resistances to other magics on top of it was a boon, and he now lived with two awakened life mages. He could take the risk that raising it would bring.

“I always do.”

With that he slid it on, bracing for the worst but not getting it. He was sure of the quality of his work, but with things like that there was always a little voice in his head whispering what if. Still, it had turned out fine, leaving him nothing but an unpleasant tingling feeling in his arm but nothing petrifying in the end.

“Okay, that worked fine so I just need a couple more.”

“...I’m not super thrilled about what just happened there.”

“Okay, fine whatever. On to the next one.”

He had two more bands to make and already plenty of ideas on how to do it so got to work dividing up the remaining affinities.

The first was a grouping of air, water, and fire, built in a way to subtly affect his body, thinning his blood when it flowed past the bracelet and warming his cells to as much as they could take before causing issues. It was even more uncomfortable than the first one, becoming the most unpleasant of anything he was wearing but was another not causing any immediate harm. His blood would return to a normal state as it flowed through his body and if it ever felt too warm he could just shift it higher or lower to give any one area a break.

It was the last one he knew he was going to hate but began working on anyway. The enchantment on it was simple, stretching and shrinking both space and time for anything that was going to be within the ring, namely his arm. He built it to be subtle enough that his body wasn’t going to be torn apart, but the moment he wore it he knew it was going to be the hardest to ignore. He could feel how it acted on his body and it took more conscious effort than anything else he would wear to ignore.

Finishing didn’t come with an immediate level but he believed that was only a matter of time.

And if it takes too long I’ll just make more with different effects. For now though, what should be next?

That hadn’t been a particularly long project, he hadn’t needed to make the bands since he was already wearing them and his enchanting was only ever growing quicker, meaning he’d only spent a couple minutes total. As he admired his work though he couldn’t help but feel a flash of genuine inspiration on how he should spend the rest of the day and wasted no time getting to work with his god still watching, feeling the sudden drive and excitement welling up in his apostle.