After Ben finished talking to his god and letting Thera know about the exchange, he got a bit more information on the calculate skill. When Thera had said it was used to keep track of one's mana he thought he had initially misunderstood it when he’d first read about it in one of the church books, but it seemed like he had it right the first time. It was simply a skill that improved a person's ability to do mental math quickly. Most people had it at one or two levels so they could keep track of how much mana they were using in battle or daily life by comparing a known quantity it took to power a spell against their mana pool and regeneration rate.
Given his own rather short supply of mana and the fact that he kept running out despite a lack of magic skills to take it up, he figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try gaining the skill himself, especially since it came down to doing mental math until it was unlocked.
He tried exactly that during his watch in the night, only stopping when it was Thera’s turn to take over while he got some rest and studied Myriad's blueprints in his divine realm.
When the sun rose and he got up they got to the main task of the day. Having already collected some of the branches yesterday they kept their eyes out for more, but it wasn’t the main goal of the day. They wanted the chance to hunt. In Thera’s case she wanted to attempt to work on her earth magic, and in Bens he had new tools to test, having spent his spare time during the last week seeing what he could do with his improved skills.
Ben set up his tools and traps throughout the area before going with his main strategy for hunting, climbing the tallest tree he could find for safety. Once both himself and Thera were up there they attempted something riskier than they normally would, only doing it because they felt confident in their current level of growth. They had Thera take off her cloak to see if it would draw anything in.
It was something they had spent long hours discussing throughout the days leading up to their first hunt since they came back. It wasn’t like the woods were dense with monsters after all. It was significantly more dangerous the further one went, but it was also more than possible to not find anything while out there. They’d been working around this by trying to lure creatures with the smell of cooking meat to begin with, but that took a fair bit of time and patience, they wanted to get quicker results.
Of course, that didn’t mean they were going to throw away their safety completely. The range of Thera charm would be affected by a few different things, from how much was between her and her target, as well as the target's darkness resistance, but as long as creatures wandered to the edge of it they were confident they would slowly be drawn in, unable to resist its effects.
The main thing then became being vigilant. As long as they got her cloaked again when monsters came within sight, hopefully they would go towards one of the traps Ben had set up that were enchanted with the higher level of charm Ben got from using Sonyas, even if the mana would be significantly weaker since he had to pour his own into power it compared to what naturally radiated from Thera.
It took twenty minutes of waiting, but eventually Thera spotted movement rushing towards them and quickly threw her cloak back on hoping they would keep coming, and even without the constant stimulus of her magic their curiosity and hunger remained and two creatures came through the woods. Ben was pretty sure they were cultrofels, large panther-like creatures that were covered in sharp, porcupine-like quills.
Still feeling the lingering effects of the charm they started wandering the area, and each of them started moving towards different traps Ben had set up.
The first of the beast walked towards a common pit trap, the kind he’d used in his hunts dozens of times by this point, but now the spikes were enchanted with both charm and drain, hopefully to get the monster more willing to throw itself upon it without needing to go to the trouble of hiding them in some way.
Unfortunately, there was no luck on that count. While it did walk up to the pit it didn’t throw itself in it, the draw of the charm apparently not enough to overcome its survival instinct.
As for the second one, it made its way towards one of the charm bombs Ben had made and left around. He had produced these ones to be simpler than the ones he’d made for the trial, not worrying about using overly expensive materials for it as he did, but he was confident they would work as long as a creature bit into one. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out quite so conveniently.
What it reached the first charm bomb, the cultrofels immediate reaction was to step on it. He was sure it received a huge shock from suddenly being thrown to the side by the barrier bubble that appeared for a few seconds, but that was all it came down to. It got up again immediately and focused on checking out the other charmed items around.
Watching all of this, Ben couldn’t help but be disappointed. He had prepared three types of traps and the first two were already failures. It all came down to the last one. As luck would have it, he had two of them set up and they were both approaching them.
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He had belief in these and was sure he would get them both in one go, but when the first of the creatures encountered his new and improved bear trap and felt thick metal teeth breaking through its needles and piercing its flesh, its scream pulled the other one towards it, leaving the other trap unused.
Thera, seeing that it might interfere with his ability to view how successful the first trap was, pulled together an earth bullet, and with careful aim all but destroyed the free creature as the other one continued to struggle. It was no use though, before their eyes it continued to grow weaker and weaker, until all the life had left it, the drain spell on the trap sapping it of everything it had.
Having watched it all, Ben could only feel unimpressed by his work. He’d had far too much confidence in his charm bombs, and unless he made dozens of them and carried them around, his bear traps would only be able to capture one or two creatures at a time as long as the animal’s cries didn’t scare off anything else with it. As for his improved spike trap, he didn’t initially have too much hope for its success from the beginning, but seeing the animal approach it had given Ben an idea. If he could construct a trap door with it, something that could cover it to make it less suspicious while being able to reset itself once something fell through, wouldn’t that be significantly better? The problem then was creating some sort of trap floor he could carry around with him, but he was sure he’d be able to figure something out if he put his mind to it, and there was plenty of time for that.
With both animals dead, Thera took off her cloak again to try and attract more for her own magic practice. They still had hours until they had to go back, all they needed to do was wait.
In the three hours they’d been there they’d been able to assemble quite the pile of corpses. A little over a dozen animals had come to be slaughtered, with Thera taking out the majority with her magic, but a few had actually fallen for some of the charm bombs scattered around, and one running towards them so quickly that when it happened to be in front of the pit trap it fell in immediately.
Still, as Ben dismantled the corpses he was less than satisfied with the results of his own work and tried to push that aside for the moment while he tried to figure out the pieces of each creature to keep for his personal use, taking them apart one by one.
The cultrofels quills were a given, Ben already thinking of what fun things he might be able to make with them, but it got harder as he started on the other creatures. Even with the spacial bags, he didn’t have nearly enough room for everything and instead had to be more choosy, only taking the densest bones and toughest of the skins for use. When he was done they would try and find a few more of the branches the guild wanted before heading home.
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