Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

“Have you gotten yourself some combat skills since I’ve seen you last Ben?” Abrus asked curiously.

“I mean, yes but they’re level zero so not much good against someone like you.”

“Come on, give it a go,” Writ told him encouragingly. “Take it from me, you don’t get many chances to fight against a being that powerful without having to worry about being hurt.”

He was planning on declining but felt some curious eyes on him, including Thera’s. They knew he was competent at his actual work and Thera had seen him use his traps to deal with a variety of animals, including a demon horde, they couldn’t help but wonder just how long he’d last.

“Fine, if you think it would be such a good idea then give me a minute. I at least need my equipment.”

“No problem,” The spirit told him, sounding uncomfortably excited as he did. “Thera, let’s have another round while we wait.”

He would have liked to watch, but instead he went to his room and grabbed everything he thought he’d need, namely his knife, his barrier bracelet, and his gun before he headed back out to find their fight had already finished.

“Alright, I think I have everything I need if you want to give it a go,” He said, standing away from the spirit with weapons in hand.

“Sounds good, how hard do you want me to go on you? I can take things a bit easier than I did for Thera and Glob if you want.”

“Just do whatever you want,” He told him, knowing it wouldn’t make much of a difference considering the sheer difference in strength and skill but regretting it as soon as he saw the grin stretch across the other being's face.

“Alright, I’ll do exactly what I want. Writ, call to start, would you?”

“Very well, on go. Three! Two! One! GO!” The satyr called out, bringing a gust of wind with the words as the match ended.

Ben hadn’t even blinked, he simply hadn’t been able to react. By the time he was aware that anything happened the earth spirit was right in front of him, a finger gently pressed against his forehead as Abrus let out a laugh.

Teleportation? No, Abrus has the wrong affinity for that. So it was just speed then? But that’s ridiculous, how fast would he need to be able to move to manage that? So this is what Writ meant by an insurmountable mountain.

“Dad come on, you obviously went too hard!” Thera yelled out at him, annoyance sharp in her tone.

“Haha, sorry honey I just wanted to have some fun! Why don’t we give it a proper try Ben, I’ll only go about as hard as I did for Thera and Glob.”

“I think that’s alright, I got plenty out of that so I should go back to work,” He told the earth spirit as he started to walk off, stopping for one more thing. “But would you mind if I try again next time?”

The laughter slipped away as Abrus changed to a more curious tone. “I don’t mind, but you don’t mean the same way I just did, do you?”

“It’s just to help with my curiosity is all,” He lied as he waved them off to get back to his work area. He knew that he was going to lose, it was obvious. All of his hunts always depended on plenty of setup to be successful and dealt with mostly dumb animals. He’d had no time and was going against an ancient being who was a master of their magic, the thought that anything else could happen was outlandish. But the fact he hadn’t even been able to attempt to use any of his tools hurt his craftsman's pride. He wanted to see if he could at least make things a little more interesting the next time.

Getting to his area he thought about just how he’d tackle going against someone like Abrus, deciding to redo the enchantments on his jacket as he did, replacing them with the higher-level skills he’d just gained access to.

The first question was how to deal with that speed. When a creature moved that fast there was basically no difference from teleportation, minus the fact that they would have to go through barriers the long way instead of skipping them entirely. Let alone weapons, his barrier bracelet would be worthless as well.

“If I want to go against someone that powerful, I need not only better items, I need to be able to activate them almost instantly.”

His bracelet might have been able to create a shield, but it showed its full effects when he threw it down to create a barrier around him. He hadn’t even updated it with the higher level of barrier magic yet either but it was obvious that it would be meaningless. He needed a barrier that would be able to do what he’d designed this one to do without the step of sliding it off his arm.

As for his knife, well as proud of it as he was, there was no escaping the fact that it had no hope either. It did well against the pixie dragon, but against an earth spirit, most of its enchantments would be meaningless. He supposed there was the chance it could do some damage if he managed to restrain him, but by that point he would have already won, it wasn’t like he was looking for a fight to the death or anything.

That left his last weapon, his gun. Even though he knew it wouldn’t make much difference with his abysmal aim, the fact that he hadn’t at least tried to line up a shot beforehand was a glaring mistake. On the one hand, doing so might not have exactly been fair, he was pretty sure that in a spar like that archers wouldn’t be allowed to have a bow and arrow already prepared ahead of time, but on the other if he was trying his luck against a being as powerful as Abrus then it didn’t much matter, at most having a shot ready was the difference between a guaranteed loss and an almost-certain loss. It would give him a sliver of hope for the next time.

Hmm, for now let’s just remake everything with the more powerful skills I have access to, from there I can start thinking on how to do better.

After a few more hours of practicing with her father, Writ, and Glob, Thera decided to go see how Ben was doing. She couldn’t help but be a little annoyed at how over the top her dad had been, that was Ben’s first proper fight with him, of course he would feel a little discouraged to be crushed so badly.

She let herself into the work area he’d been given, not sure what she’d been expecting but even then finding something completely outside the norm. Hanging in the air were dozens of frisbees, the sort he’d made to sell at the market so long ago and Ben just ignored them as if they were the most normal thing in the world as he instead was looking at whatever project was pulling his attention.

She made her way to him, taking care to avoid all of the items spinning in the air, until she hit her head off seemingly nothing and gave a small cry, catching his attention in the process.

He stopped what he was doing to go over to her. “Sorry Thera, you alright? I guess you found the invisible one,” He told her, waving his hands in the air until he seemed to catch whatever it was and breaking the enchantment on it to reveal yet another frisbee.

“I’m fine, just surprised. I actually wanted to see if you’re okay?” She asked as she rubbed her head.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”

“You kind of just ran off after dad beat you and never ended up coming back.”

“Oh well, I ended up making myself busy trying to figure out how to do a bit better next time, but speaking of your dad, just how powerful is he?” Ben asked curiously. “If I didn’t know he couldn’t get space magic I would have thought he’d teleported when he attacked me.”

In all the time Ben had spent trying to figure out how to do better on the next fight, that question was the wall he kept coming up against. He knew great spirits were immensely powerful, but he wasn’t sure how powerful.

Thera took a minute, putting on a thoughtful face as she tried to figure out how to answer. “I can tell you he has a total mana quantity of about a million and a regeneration rate that’s measured in mana gained per second, but beyond that it’s a bit hard to tell. From what I know the system was built before the existence of mana-based lifeforms was known to the gods so it struggles to properly express their other values. For example, their mana and mana regen are both listed with the same numbers as their vitality and vitality regen, so when dad uses a spell, not only does his mana go down but so does his vitality. Strength, agility and stamina are also all listed as zero, even though that’s clearly not the case because his body is made of mana. Literally any speed, force, and effort he can exert comes down to how well he can control the mana that makes up his body, with a bit being burned up by how hard he pushes himself.”

“God damn, okay good to know. I guess I can assume his resistances are all pretty high as well since he isn’t bothered by your charm, but what about his skill level itself? He must be in the third tier unless it’s possible to go beyond that,” It was already clear that winning against her dad would be impossible, but he was going to enjoy going against the futile struggle of it. Everything else he asked was just to sate his own curiosity as Thera caught him off guard by shaking her head.

“A spirit's magic isn’t listed the same way a regular mortal's magic is. In the case of a regular earth spirit, they would have ‘earth spirit magic’ instead of earth magic, and as for my dad, he has great earth spirit magic. Their skills aren’t leveled like a normal mage's magic would be but from what I understand spirits magic is the equivalent of a ninth level mage, while a great spirit is equal to an awakened magic at the ninth level.”

“Wait wait wait, does that mean a standard mortal that made it to the third tier of their magic would be better than your dad?”

“That is… a complicated question. From what I know a typical mage at the third tier wouldn’t have mana anywhere near that of my father. It would actually be shocking if they had mana close to what I possess, but that’s neither here nor there. You could say that from a technical standpoint, they would be better than my dad, being able to do a few things he wouldn’t, but honestly there wouldn’t be much difference when you consider not only the raw power he has access to, but the fact that a spirits affinity to their element is so high it’s probably impossible for a regular person to be born with one that’s even close.”

“Interesting, thanks,” He told her with a smile as he turned to get back to his work, only to feel a firm grip on his arm.

“So if you weren’t disappointed by how your fight went, what the heck is all this?” She asked him as she waved her hand in the air at all of the disks flying around.

“Oh that, I was just experimenting a bit. I thought if I had enough space between me and Abrus when I tried to fight him again I might be able to throw a bunch of these after attaching a few other spells to them, maybe like drain and a few other debuffs to basically create a flying weakening area, but now I’m not so sure. Glad I gave it a try though, it has the side effect of cool things like this.”

He grabbed one of the frisbees as well as her hand, dragging her outside and giving it a throw. They both stood there, watching it gently glide away, presumably until it was stopped by one of the surrounding buildings or trees.

“As long as it doesn’t hit anything that’s going to just keep going until it runs out of mana. Pretty cool, right?” He told her with a stretched-out grin.

“Um, I guess? Kind of defeats the point of what you were hoping to use it for if they would keep flying one you throw them though, doesn’t it?”

“Sure but I made a workaround, not that it matters since I don’t think this idea’s going anywhere.”

“So what are you working on now?”

“Mostly a new way to do barriers since the brace won’t work, just watch, it’s going to be great.”

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