The next week was a dull blur for Ben. Falk left and Sonya finished his treatment, and Ben spent most of every day he had working on the cloak and preparing meals with Thera. While doing both things he was constantly looking at his card, waiting to catch his level going up to see if there was only any growth while he cooked, or if he would improve his job by working on enchantment as well. It didn’t take long to confirm his suspicions and convince himself that the Craftsman job considered enchanting a crafting skill.
Other than that passing the time wasn't too bad, eventually Thera found herself bored of her books as well and started to come and chat with him while he worked, but it was still tedious. The days were blending together, and since he wasn't leaving the house he had all but lost his sense of time.
Surely there had to be a better way than this? His teacher had mentioned there were others, but he hadn't told Ben about them at all. Of course if there was a better option available he was sure that Falk would have done that instead of spending over a week making one of these stupid cloaks.
"Um, Ben." Thera spoke up as these thoughts ran through his head. "Everything okay? You're grimacing pretty hard."
He took a break and felt his cheeks, he hadn't realized how tensed up he had been. This must have been getting to him more than he thought.
"I'm fine, sorry. Just understanding why these things aren't more common. There's no way an average person could afford the amount of time and effort that goes into one of them after all. Any enchanter that would want to make one of these would probably make a lot more money just producing a bunch of smaller simpler things."
"I'm sorry to put you through all this work."
"Don't apologize, it's my fault I broke yours anyway. I'm just going to have to do something a lot more fun after this is done to blow off some steam."
"Oh yeah? What are you going to do then?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.
He thought about it for a moment before his stomach gurgles, alerting him it was time to cook something, but also giving him his answer. "Let's go to every restaurant and food stall in town."
"I have to come too?" She asked with a hint of surprise.
"Of course, you'll have your cloak then so let's eat till we puke."
A small laugh escaped her while she considered his suggestion. "Okay sure, I’m getting pretty bored being cramped up in here myself, but need I remind you I won't be able to see through the hood of this one?"
He gave a little shrug. "Then I'll guide you. Anyway, speaking of food, I'm getting pretty hungry. Let's cook something up. What are you feeling?
"How about the salad you made the other day?"
"The cetail one? Sure we should still have the ingredients for it."
<FOCUS LEVEL INCREASED>
"Of course it happened now." He said with a sigh.
"What's wrong?" Thera asked, looking up from a game she was playing with Sonya.
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"Nothing, just thinking out loud. Anyway it's done."
Hearing his words they put their game on hold to rush over and give it a look.
“The appearance isn’t going to change from how it's looked the last two weeks guys.” It was a nice forest green, and all-in-all a good quality cloak, but the appearance hadn’t changed much at all. He wasn’t sure how good their mana sight was, but he could only barely tell the particular technique he had used because he knew what to look for, to an average person with any mana sense it would probably appear as if he had just laid a random skill on top of it without having any clue the amount of work it took.
Still its appearance didn’t dissuade Sonya at all. "That's wonderful Ben! Let's see, it's a little late but it should be okay if I grab a couple of the guards to verify it works. Wait here and I’ll be right back." Sonya told him with cheer before running off.
As they waited Ben took her place in the game and kept playing against Thera. It was called lowmage and vaguely reminded him of chess. Each team had a piece that represented a different magic affinity that would move a certain way or be able to perform an action, as well as ten non-mage pieces that could only move.
By the time Sonya came back he was fairly confident he had left her in a terrible position to continue the game, and Thera threw on the cloak while the guards waited to be let in.
“Alright Dewbal, go in and let's see how it goes.” Said one guard to the other, forcing him inside while he waited a few meters away.
“What are they doing?” Ben whispered to Sonya, unsure of how they were testing the cloak.
“Basically a guard with a high resistance waits to the side in case anything goes wrong while a guard with a low one approaches Thera. If she can noticeably affect his will at all the idea is the first guard can run and alert the others of the problem if it seems that they’ll try something they shouldn’t.” She lowered her voice even more before continuing. “Of course if the cloak doesn’t work there's no way either of them would be safe from her magic, but it should be fine.”
“Cool, no pressure.” Now Ben was getting nervous, it would be a nightmare if he did something wrong while making it and it didn’t end up working.
While they spoke the guards told Thera to give an instruction and she did. “Jump five times.”
It sounded a little silly, but it was as good an option as any, and Ben waited with bated breath as worry started to seep deeper into him, but the guard stood motionless. They continued on with a few more questions and attempts for certainty, but with each failed attempt Ben was feeling more and more sure of the quality of his work. It was doing its job, no doubt about it.
“Alright, everything seems in order.” Said the first guard. “As long as you make sure to wear it properly there’s no problem with you going outside. I’ll make sure the rest of the guards are aware of the results.”
“Thank you both so much for coming on short notice.” Sonya told them happily.
“It’s no problem ma’am, now if you’ll excuse us we’ll be heading out. You folks have an excellent night.”
When they left Ben turned to Thera with a big grin on his face. “So, eating till we puke?”