After eating and cleaning up Ben went back to the room he had been given and started to figure out how he was going to try and approach this. Up to this point he had never tried applying anything less than the totality of a skill, and he figured that would give him the most trouble, so he carefully attempted that first.
He started to use his enchanting and decided he would try focusing on using a fragment of dismantling first and got to work, trying to feel the way the skill was being laid down as he went. Aside from his usual method or any of the ways he had read about but had only dabbled with, this actually took more concentration. Even if he stopped placing the enchantment almost immediately it would create a small area that properly had a significantly weakened version of the skill, much in the same way he would do when he was piling up enchantments to break a material for his statues. He just had to get smaller.
The cloth now had five small sections enchanted with dismantling, a skill all but useless to have on a piece of fabric, before he finally got it right, creating a grain of skill that couldn’t possibly affect anything else in a meaningful way. With that success under his belt he was ready to start for real, but his practice created another problem he had to deal with first.
Having practiced on the same fabric he was meant to enchant, Ben now had five sections he would have to remove the enchantment from, an application of his skill he understood in theory but had never tried before. After all the basic means he used to enchant tools with his resistances wasn’t complex enough to require correcting as he went, and when he would make statues the point was for the enchantments to damage the material to get the end product.
Freaking great. He thought to himself, and got to work, doing his best to remember how the technique was done and finding it coming back to his mind easier than expected. It essentially came down to activating his enchanting and using raw mana with it to pry it off. It was a tedious task and the mana cost was higher than it would be to apply a skill or resistance instead, but his teacher only gave him the one sheet so there was no wasting it. He didn’t really think Falk would have any problem with giving him another, but it was a pride thing now. He wanted to get it done with the materials at hand.
So he started his slow march towards completing his task. In the early stages he tried to fail a few times, just to see what would happen. He applied the same skill fragments beside each other, curious as to what would happen, and it caused them to combine into a bigger one, destabilizing the fragments around them and erasing the enchantment. It was a curious result. When he layered resistances in the past it had never happened before, making Ben assume that the skills may be uninclined to exist in a partial state, but once whole would destabilise the rest. It would be worth looking into more in the future, but for now he was content to know what would happen should he mess up, and began focusing on the task in earnest.
Even with his focus and a generally patient attitude when it came to working on a task he had to admit this was a bit too monotonous, but his teacher did say he would be able to take a break while he worked. He would aim for about an eighth done and then stop to have a little rest.
So maybe he went a little longer than the eighth he intended once he got into his groove, having gotten about a fourth complete, but he really needed a break now. He had originally been counting the number of skill fragments it would take to make, but he gave up around three hundred after he lost count. It was times like this he desperately wished he had access to some sort of portable music player. Supposedly there were some magical music makers, but they were rare and expensive, not something he could manage.
He felt he had a vague understanding of how record players worked, maybe once he got some time he could devote some trial and error to figuring one out, but that would be once he had a stable income, long after he was done making this cloak. On the other hand he knew Thera played at least one instrument. Perhaps he could convince her to practice while he worked. He'd at least broach the topic later.
As he took some time to lounge before getting back to work, his mind turned to someone who had been mysteriously silent since his awakening. The one he would have thought to be the most invested, his god.
Hey Myriad, you around? I didn't die so what’s going on?
Silence. Ben let out a sigh, he knew Myriad had other things he would do in his free time, though he really wasn't sure what they were, and he had been a big help to Ben. He probably wouldn't have survived without the warning or his gift skill, so he should really do something to show his appreciation. It wasn't like he had started his quest yet, maybe he should start with getting him a new believer. After all, now that Thera had spoken to a god and he had tried to save her life she would probably be receptive. Maybe he should go ask her...
<DON'T!> Came a shout to his mind, startling Ben.
Oh hey Myriad, I was wondering where you went.
<I've been being chewed out pretty harshly for what happened so I haven't had time to check-in. The only reason they let me go now was because you were thinking of breaking my punishment before I could even tell you not to.>
Go back a bit. Who are you talking about and what are you being punished for?
<Other gods. Well mostly Thera's but the rest weren't too happy either. When you had her pray to me to open a channel it was technically breaking some rules, I'm only being cut any slack because it was done to save her life and yours.>
Wait, why was it against any rules? She acknowledged you right?
<Sure but it's a bit more complicated than that. She's already under the domain of a god, directly talking to the believer of a foreign deity could be viewed as trying to steal them away.>
What? We were literally being attacked! Where the hell was her god during all this then?
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<Unfortunately no matter how powerful a god is we aren't all-knowing. A god with tens of thousands of believers will always have many things vying for their attention, and the fact that I was acting in good faith is the only reason I'm being treated as lightly as I am.>
Okay if you say so, but I'm still not into it. So what's your punishment?
<You can't even really call it a punishment, it's more just a restriction. You can't try and talk Thera into worshipping me at all. Technically if she chooses to herself it's fine, but don't even bring the topic up. If she brings it up just brush it off, I'd rather not make too many enemies up here.>
So back to having no one in their right mind to ask then? Gotcha.
<Come on man you don't need to put it like that, weren't you just feeling super grateful to me?>
You're right, sorry. Not sure how much you've been watching but things have been a little stressful.
<I've been busy, catch me up?>
Can't you just see it in my mind or memories?
<It’s not like I become aware of every detail of someone's life when I’m in their mind. I hear conscious thoughts. Sure I could probably dig a bit deeper after being acknowledged but there’s rules about that sort of thing. Not to mention it would be rude.>
Ben decided to file that away as something that could be useful later before getting back to the main matter and told his god about the events of the last few days while he was unconscious and what happened after he woke up.
<So you’ve finally made a friend, isn’t that great.>
Ben felt himself blush again as he remembered the embarrassingly honest exchange he had with Thera. Not really the main point here. Can you find this Roan guy?
<Not all-knowing or all-seeing, remember. Still I don’t want you getting yourself killed, so I’ll at least keep an eye out to see if he comes around the house while you’re here.>
Okay, thanks Myriad.
<Of course, I need you to start growing my faith after all. Speaking of?>
I’ll try and figure something out. The connect skill did just save my life so maybe there’s an angle we can work there. Of course that was a pretty specific situation and I still almost died. Pretty sure most people would prefer a skill that could save them before they had something sink their teeth into them, but I’ll see what I can do.
<No rush, just focus on staying alive in the meantime.>