Days passed while Ben worked and planned, neither making any more legendary items after his first major success nor coming closer to thinking of how to help Thera with her charm. It wasn’t like he had zero ideas, it was just that they all felt terrible given what would have to go to making them happen.

Still, that one is really the best I’ve got. I’ll talk to Myriad about it tonight.

It was the sort of idea that demanded the help of his god if he wanted to make sure nothing would go cataclysmically wrong for him, but he wanted to be up there himself to discuss it face to face, not speaking into the heavens with who knew who else listening.

As things were though he couldn’t do anything in that moment so he focused on something else for the day. Testing skill synergies.

“I want you to know I hate this,” Thera told him, having been spending more time at the shop with him than out hunting or visiting various clinics. She seemed better emotionally than she had that first day but it still weighed on her, and combined with the fresh new level of awareness the town as a whole was paying to her, both for her title and connections, as well as the suspicion of more than a few that she’d charmed the man who’d come looking for her, having the privacy that came from just staying with Ben while he worked managed to make the days feel a little easier while she waited for things to calm down. At least it had been managing to until Ben decided he wanted to stab himself.

“It’ll be fine, I’m not even going to be hurt, it’s just going to be the homunculus.”

“I know you can feel its pain when you do this!”

“And I’ll take my soul out of it after the first little poke. Please, this is the best way for me to test my defensive skills without hurting my real body.”

No matter what he said, she wasn’t going to like it, but she still gave in in the end. “Fine, let’s just get this over with so you can move on to doing something less crazy after.”

“You got it.”

He turned to the homunculus he had sitting in a chair before slowly stabbing into its arm with the point of a knife, feeling almost no resistance from the flesh against the blade as it slid through before he pulled it out for Thera to heal.

“Okay, that was pretty much what I expected,” He muttered. “Now for the less fun bit.”

He reached out with his deep connection and found he was looking at himself through the clone's eyes like he always would when using the skill before he went to repeat the test, trying to keep the pain from both faces as he did.

Getting stabbed always hurt, there was no denying that fact, even when he was the one holding the knife, but it did let him see what he considered a worthwhile change caused by the skills bound to his soul when he connected to an empty body. The knife he was stabbing with was upper rare in quality but had zero enchantments. It was about as good as a knife could get without any magical aspect to it but when it bit into his flesh he felt a level of resistance that hadn’t been there during his first test. Not enough to stop the blade, but enough to make it need significantly more pressure to go as deep.

As far as he was concerned, that was a win on the right track to leaving him less injured the next time he ran into something, or more accurately implied that his skills were doing what they were supposed to and had been making a meaningful difference in keeping him alive. On top of that, it also suggested a potential avenue to getting a few very desirable skills he still lacked despite all of the things his body would go through, both intentionally and otherwise.

“I wonder if I just keep beating these things while I’m using them if that would be a path to finally getting me pain resistance?” He mused, dreaming of a future where it didn't matter how battered he’d end up so long as he was better in taking the hits that would come, only for Thera to try and dash that small hope.

“Ben, look at everything that’s happened to you. If you haven’t gotten pain resistance by now, it might just never happen.”

“That’s quitter talk! It’s way more likely that I might be super close to getting it given everything I’ve been through. Who knows? Maybe one more tiny poke is all I need to push me over the edge and finally get that skill.”

“Sure, until it doesn’t work and you decide that it’s just one more from there, and then another and so on and so forth until I’m left trying to put you back together again. This is definitely the sort of skill you shouldn’t be trying to force.”

“Mmh, fine.”

Admittedly, the prospect of stabbing himself repeatedly until he got the skill wasn’t exactly a desirable one so he didn’t argue more, not when he was already passively applying a fair bit of pain to himself anyway. The magic bands he had on his arm to try and raise his resistance enhancement were far from pleasant

“So what’s next then?” Thera asked him, knowing he wanted to do more and was happy to show the deep distrust she was feeling after that last test.

“Okay, so there’s this teeny, tiny, little spell I was hoping you’d use on the homunculi for me, same way as last time, with one before I’m using it and one during…”

“Get to the point Ben.”

“Can you please please petrify it so I can see what the experience is like?”

“...Yeah, you know what? Fine, let’s do it.”

Something about the act just seemed so much more inherently harmless compared to stabbing that she didn’t care and went right away, pouring enough of her power into her spell that the clone instantly turned to stone before she concentrated on turning it back, needing a couple minutes to reverse the effects.

It was interesting enough to watch from the outside but even more interesting to experience firsthand as he connected to it, speeding up his thoughts to their maximum potential so he could feel every bit of the spell's effects.

From the outside it seemed to happen just as instantaneously, the volume of Thera’s mana along with her levels meaning that the effect showed little difference to anyone but him, his sight sped up with his mind skills enough to know that there was a change of milliseconds, but that didn’t compare to the feeling of being petrified.

He’d gone through it once before, albeit at a far slower rate, and what it was was a slow feeling of his body seizing up, the characteristics of his flesh disappearing under the changing force of stone right up until the connection was broken. As powerful as he’d grown in the abilities he possessed, he couldn’t maintain a bond with rock.

Interesting.

He didn’t know how much use that bit of knowledge would have but he didn’t want to discount it as nothing. When he’d tried to use the souls of imprisoned demons as weapons he had found out all too quickly that there could be unintended side effects of things, there was no harm in knowing a way to break a connection in case it was ever relevant.

“So any other crazy things you want to test?” Thera asked him. “Or can we finally give these guys a bit of a break?”

“Ha, if I’m not taking a break then some flesh golems sure as heck aren’t getting one either. Besides, even if I can’t keep stabbing myself with a knife, it did give me a pretty great idea.”

An idea he was eager to test. One by one he materialized five identical tools, almost resembling his guns but made to serve a far different purpose with both the small motor and air enchantment each contained, along with dozens of fine needles.

He’d never actually seen a tattoo gun in real life but that didn’t matter, he was just basing it off some half-remembered concepts that he had no trouble completing to suit his needs and pulled out his other three homunculi to give one to each before they began using them on each other for one simple goal, raising a skill.

They didn’t apply ink to any of the bodies but still had the benefits of piercing each one hundreds of times a second, not creating any true harm, even if it wasn’t a pleasant thing to go through.

Thera only shook her head in the end, seeing that there wasn’t going to be a need for constant healing and settled down to enjoy whatever conversation Ben had to offer while the rest of the day wore on.

“Hey guys, how’s it going today?” Ben asked when he made his way up to visit his god that night, seeing a full house with both Helori and Nare there too.

“Busy as always,” His god sighed. “Your little discovery with Thera kicked up quite the fuss, it’s been all hands on deck to re-examine everything that was seen during the first wave to make sure nothing else that powerful got left behind. So far at least, it seems that your poor luck is our good fortune. We think it was the only one that got stuck on world.”

“And it fills me with so much joy to hear you say that,” Ben said dryly, hating that he’d somehow managed to be one of the suckers to find it. “I must be some sort of invader magnet. But to abruptly change the subject, sorry guys but do you mind if I have a moment alone with Myriad? There’s something a little private I want to talk to him about, god to believer.”

The request caught both Helori and Nare a little off guard, Ben never having seemed shy to discuss things in front of either of them in the past, but they each stepped away easily enough, respecting that even he had things he might be dealing with given everything going on that could demand a bit of spiritual guidance.

Myriad too was surprised, though he didn’t show it, instead trying to be a comforting figure for his apostle in what seemed like might be a time of need.

“Are you okay Ben? I’m always happy to listen no matter what’s happening.”

“Thanks man, because I have a big favour. I’m not exactly unaware that gods other than you and Helori might watch me sometimes, probably all the more so now that I’ve made a legendary item. Is there any way you could cause some sort of distraction in the next couple days that would make sure I have a few hours where I won’t have any eyes on me?”

“...Why?” Myriad wanted to know, any desire to help slipping away and disappearing altogether with the answer he got.

“Because I’m going to be doing something that some of them might want to get in the way of.”

“Ben-”

“It’s nothing bad, I just know some of them can kind of be touchy about the smallest things and it’s an idea for how I might be able to help Thera with her charm. If you don’t help I’m still going to do it too, it could just end up significantly more dangerous for me. I might even end up dead.”

“You really are the worst, you know that?” Myriad sighed. “Fine. I’m not going to cause a distraction for you but you’re in luck. There’s a big meeting in two days, all hands on deck. It should end up taking most of the day too so handle whatever you have to do then.”

“You’re the best.”

“And you’re stressing me out. Just make sure you don’t do anything too bad, alright?”

“Please, when do I ever?”

He chose to take his god’s silence as agreement and gave a final smile before leaving for the night, wanting to spend all of the time he had making sure he planned things right.