Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

Sporting hesitant looks from two of them, Sachel’s party made their way to the shop, still trying to be optimistic considering how the last two times had gone for them. Sachel and Ralia had been able to speed through multiple jobs thanks to his help and the entire party had gotten to benefit from his new strengthening potions after they’d gone to collect the seeds for them, making putting up with whatever he was going to put them through currently look like a winning strategy, especially when he was offering to pay. Regardless of whatever it was, they all knew it would be at worst the equivalent of weeks of work which was far too much money to want to turn away so casually, leading them to his door.

“Friends, welcome, so good to have you all!” He greeted enthusiastically, instantly raising the worry of the ones he didn’t share a faith with.

“We’ve made a serious mistake,” Skoe muttered, Ralia nodding by his side but neither tried to escape now that they were in his sights, with Ben looking more annoyed than anything else.

“Okay, first of all, rude. Second, you’re actually in less danger than usual for what I want to test on you, I’ve literally already tested it on myself first so I just want to use you guys to check the long-term results. Plus, you’ll all be fairly compensated for it.”

“Ignore them Ben, they’ll get used to you one day. So what can we help you with?”

“Sachel, this is why you’ll always be my favourite. The bond between fellow worshipers really is something else. Anyway, for anyone who wants to, you’d just need to wear one of these,” He explained, holding out the bracelets. “Keep them activated at all times and check and record your attributes daily so I can see how they change after, do you mind?”

“In principle, no but what do they do and what are you looking for?”

“An excellent question. You can think of them as a different sort of buff bracelet. If my results are repeatable then you should find your attributes growing by about ten percent for everything and what I’m trying to check for is how it affects your growth rates. Since this isn’t a normal sort of buff I need to know how bad the side effects of them are. Ideally, I’d like you guys to wear them for two weeks and if you like them you can keep them after.”

“I mean, a hit to our growth rates could be a real problem, even if it’s just for a couple weeks,” Skoe started before Ben cut him off.

“And you’ll be well compensated to make up for that, not to mention the fact that the divine potions I’ve given you will help make up for a lot of whatever growth you might lose in that time. So what do you say?”

Skoe and Ralia looked between each other, still unsure while Sachel spoke up without another thought. “Sure, sounds useful. Do I even want to ask the ranking?”

“This one’s nothing crazy, only upper ultra-rare.”

“We have different definitions of ‘nothing crazy’.”

Hearing the ranking settled things for the other two though, both instantly on board to try, just for the knowledge that they’d gotten to enjoy such a quality item at least once in their lives as the bracelets were handed over and activated, all of them reacting instantly while Sachel and Ralia both spoke at once.

“This is way more than a ten percent increase!”

“Why is there a soul in this!”

“Um, okay, we’re actually going to get back to Sachel’s comment in a minute. Ralia, how can you tell?”

“The way this feels, did you manage to model it off a beastform skill?”

“Good senses, I should have known you might pick up on that. You’re right about both, the strength in it comes from a soul and it’s using a copy of that skill with a few others tied into it for full effect. What do you think?”

“I think my whole body feels weird. I feel more powerful but everything I am kind of lightly hurts.”

“What? That shouldn’t be happening, one second.”

He connected to her to experience her senses, finding she was under a similar level of pain as when he’d put on two. It wasn’t unbearable, especially not compared to some of the other things he’d put his soul through, but it was there, constantly making itself known to her while she wore it.

“Interesting, it seems like a reaction with your personal beastform skill. Ralia, if you’re willing to put up with that then I’ll pay you triple to also test if it eventually fades away.”

“Deal.”

“Perfect, now just one second while I address what Sachel said.”

He expanded the effects of connect to reach the others to feel what they did before pilfering through their memories, something he was going to need to do anyway to get an idea of how fast their attributes typically grew to compare against the results of his test but in that moment to also understand how powerful they usually felt before it, coming to a surprising discovery. The growth they’d gotten from the tool didn’t seem to be based off of their attributes, but his.

It shouldn’t have shocked him, he was already seeing that how much mana a soul he created could hold seemed to be directly related to his own total volume for reasons he still wasn’t certain of but the fact that they were getting results based off of his own changed things in a big way.

When he did the math, they were all actually getting worse growth than him if they went percentage-wise, only getting an increase of five percent of what each of his attributes had which he could only assume had to do with how the nature of the souls he’d create would relate to his own in yet another way he didn’t know how to test, but looking at it proportionally based on what they each currently held the change was massive, the buffs that were piled more than doubling their attributes in some cases, especially when it came to intelligence.

They were all getting to enjoy the years of work he’d put in, sleeping with moribusial and deathstone to train, all of the jobs he’d been through, all of his awakenings and every deal with the gods and other skills he held that were helping to raise things for him and as good as that all objectively was for the world as a whole, it couldn’t help but leave a bad taste in his mouth knowing that years spent clawing his way up from the bottom could now so easily be given away instantly without the effort to go along with it.

That’s a dumb feeling though, I’m being stupid. This is objectively a good thing, even if I accidentally just created yet another tool the gods are going to want me to mass produce. Okay, I’m going to have to stop materializing everything myself when I’m also trying to get my levels, at this point, it really is too much. When I’m done here I’ll work on that but for now-

“Uh, Ben, are you okay?” Sachel asked him. “You look kind of unhappy about this.”

“Oh, just a lot of complicated emotions swimming around in me right now, it’s fine. Anyway, I have a quest in about a week that should take a few days but I’ll check in on you when I get back if that’s cool?”

“Sorry, would it be okay if I convey our results through Myriad?” She asked him. “We actually have a pretty big escorting quest soon too and since it’s going to take us near my village I want to make sure my family is all okay.”

“Oh, of course, no worries. In that case, tell everyone I say hi and… Mmh, okay, seeing as how you’re the oracle of Myriad I guess I can treat you a bit. One second while you enjoy the perks of the faith.”

Pulling out some of his remaining voidstone from his many rings, Ben quickly shaped and enchanted on it, making a brand new one to give to her and explained its purpose in only a few words.

“Spatial ring, put things in and take things out and make sure you guys keep safe and alive to give me my results.”

“Um, what?”

“Like a bag but instead a ring. It’s handy, you get about two cubic meters of space from that one, which reminds me, I really should remake my current ones since I leveled up recently. Mmh, that’s on the to-do list I guess, I’ll get that done later.”

“...Ben, do I even want to know what the ranking of this is?”

“A very low, very reasonable middle legendary, with all of the usual threats about what will happen if you spread that around implied. Oh, and a warning in general that you really shouldn’t talk about it casually, even if you keep its rank to yourself. These aren’t exactly on the market since making them involved creating a previously non-existent form of matter and I’d rather not find out someone decided to try and cut your hand off for it. If you have a bag around, try to make it look like you’re pulling things from that instead.”

“...”

“Sachel?”

She still didn’t answer, dealing with the knowledge that she’d just been given a legendary item like it was nothing with the various feelings tied to that coming out in full force, with overwhelming guilt at the idea making her speak up.

“Ben-”

“Not only have I given one to Delair and Fontesh but we’ve already had a talk before about your value as a member of the faith. If you try to return it I’m destroying Skoe’s brain.”

“WHY?”

Neither paid attention to the warrior’s scream, with only Ralia giving him a consoling pat on the shoulder while Sachel made up her mind.

“I understand. I’ll… try to get better at accepting gifts.”

“Good, in that case, thank you guys for coming and thanks for being willing to test those out but I’ve gotta get back to things. I’ve got some work to finish up and some more ideas to test out so for now I need to get back to it. Do me a favour and don’t get killed for whatever you’re escorting.”

Saying goodbye and watching as they walked away, Ben went back inside and closed the shop doors behind him, a new idea as to what he could test with the souls he could create swirling around in his head.