Chapter 1144

With a groan, Delair and her mother woke up, both in a better state than earlier, yet both still sore, leaving Ben to speak to them from across a table covered in the pastries he’d let Mora pick for everyone to brighten the boy’s mood.

“How are you two feeling?”

“Better,” Fontesh nodded, finding the experience to be far more manageable than it had been before. “Thank you.”

“Like my entire body has a headache,” Delair answered, trying to put words to the feeling the best she could. “But also better. Thank you, Thera.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Thera told them, having herself in a far better spot as well. “If either of you want to rest a bit longer, then you can do that too.”

Fontesh looked at her daughter, not wanting to say she was fine and risk Delair declining as well because of it, but the younger girl shook her head.

“I’m okay. More importantly, are those for everyone?”

“Ha, come on and help yourselves,” Ben told the two, picking a baked good himself to enjoy. “But Delair, beyond being sore. How do you feel?”

“Stronger,” she grinned as she considered her state, noticing a level of power she hadn’t previously due to the pain she’d been under. “Really, really stronger.”

“That’s going to make sense. Your attributes went up by a lot.”

Strength by 914, stamina by 1903, agility by 372 were all attributes she could immediately feel the difference in, but it went so much further than there too. Vitality grown by 1462 and its recovery rate grown by 84 would give him a lot more confidence about letting her begin to work with some more dangerous materials like deathstone, now that one wrong move wouldn’t be enough to instantly wipe out all of the vitality she held, leaving only the biggest changes left.

Mana at 3242 and a recovery at 373. Considering that a non-mage adult could expect to have a hundred in their total pool, or at least could have expected that before Ben had modified souls across the planet, she had just gone past it by leaps and bounds. Even compared to someone closer to her position, a mage from an inherently magical race, she was exceeding what any at the first tier previously would have by far, and that wasn’t even considering the biggest change yet: being her intelligence.

Unlike when he’d done a second round of soul modification for anyone who’d skipped the first, in all of the new attempts, he was giving people the best modifications he could, which means the attributes they’d receive from him had gone up as well, with none so more than his intelligence. While before, in his modifications sanctioned by the gods, everyone had gotten 13532, now, Delair, Fontesh, and Thera had all grown their intelligence by 24883. He could feel their thoughts and how much smoother they were for the growth and, while it was hard to say just how much more it would benefit Fontesh or Thera given they’d both already had theirs grown by so many thousands of points previously, for his student, that amount would be life changing.

But while he was excited to see just where such growth would lead her in the future, there were matters that needed to be addressed first. When Delair tried to jump from the bed to enjoy the treats waiting for her, she did so with her newfound strength, rather than her old, and it left her shooting towards the ceiling, only saved from putting her head through it by Ben pulling her to him with his magic, catching her instead while he chuckled.

“You’ve gotta be careful there, Kiddo. You’re a lot stronger now, which means you need to spend the next couple of days getting used to your new attributes. That’s going to be basically the only thing we do today and tomorrow. You’re going to need to practice as much as you can without me here to keep you from hitting your head.”

“I’ll make sure I practice outside tomorrow,” she agreed. “And if you’re busy, that means I’ll have Mora to catch me if I jump too high.”

She smiled Mora’s way when she said it, leaving the boy to wonder just how much harder keeping her safe was going to be while Ben laughed, trusting them both to manage fine.

“I’m sure you’ll both be alright, so for now, you can have a snack and we can see how much we’re going to need to work on.”

He put Delair down on a seat at the table and immediately got to see her struggle again as she reached out for a baked good too fast, banging her hand on the table instead and shaking it with pain, not noticing the dent she’d left before she tried again, far more carefully.

Hmm. I’d brought them back to the shop intending to get her to see how different it felt making things with her new attributes, but that might actually be a step too far already. She needs to get used to the basics, and then in a couple of days, we can worry about making sure she can handle getting back to work.

As he considered what to do, he watched her successfully pick up one of the pastries before the success on that front left her far too confident and, as a result, ended with her hitting herself in the face with it when her excitement led to her trying to eat far too fast, making him hold back his laughter as he created a napkin to help her clean up.

Yeah, we’re definitely going to have to start with something else before I let her do any work with knives or hammers.

In the town’s training ground, Ben, Thera, and Fontesh watched the kids run, Delair screaming in excitement as she did.

While her failures in the shop had been embarrassing, the moment she had the chance to stretch her legs with all of the room she could want had left her with nothing but pure exhilaration at the new speeds she could go, all while Ben observed from the side to make sure she didn’t get hurt.

Letting her explore the changes in her attributes freely though was as good a place to start as any. Her mind needed to understand what her body was now capable of, and running showed her both the differences in her agility and her stamina. As she went, it felt like she could go on forever, not breaking a sweat, nor losing any volume either.

“Mora, catch me!” She screamed before jumping as high as she could, shooting into the air before laying back and trusting the boy with her to manage, which he did admirably. Giving a small leap of his own, Mora grabbed her from the air and landed safely, getting to hear her laugh in excitement when he did.

“Delair!” Ben called out, getting her attention on him. “Make sure you do some smaller jumps by yourself first so you can figure out how to land safely! I don’t want you having to work that out sometime when no one’s there to grab you!”

“Got it, Ben!” she yelled back, immediately working on her jumps, leaving the adults to chat at the side.

“Now, I know I agreed to this, and it’s too late to change anything, but when she eventually breaks something important, can I ask you to fix it?” Fontesh asked him.

“Yeah, I’ll cover any accidents, don’t worry, but I think things should be fine. We’ve got all of today to help her get used to it. Mora can handle helping her practice tomorrow, and then I’ll be back again after for practicing more fine work. It should be a week before she’s completely used to this, tops.”

“And then she’s going to start working on awakening her skills to grow even more,” her mother sighed. “Which reminds me, I’m going to have to mention this to my grandmother before Delair can surprise her.”

“Ha, I’m sure Hentath is going to love it. Trust me, since she’s my student, I’m going to make sure Delair grows up to be the most skilled and powerful dryad in the world. Hell, technically, I might even accomplish that in a month if she can awaken a skill by then because then I’m going to have to live up to my promise of helping her awaken everything else I can.”

Depending on what she awakened herself, there were four different skills he knew he could awaken for her if need be, being material user, connect, plant magic, or her knowledge skills, and while he didn’t have as straightforward of a means to awaken her crafting or enchanting, even though those were currently her most powerful skills, he could at least put her on a good path towards doing so herself.

Hell, if Thera or Mora want to help her awaken those, then combined with my authorities, it actually might not be too much harder than awakening anything else. Plus, when I help her awaken connect, presumably she’s getting a mind skill like everyone else has when I’ve helped them, which means she’ll potentially get one that I can help her train and raise too. I’ve still got a lot of room to help her grow more.

He let his thoughts turn to how he’d continue to help her practice after her awakenings and the direction her training might go, all the while she kept working herself, testing her magic as she grew a tree in the field and then testing her strength as she climbed it, swinging from branch to branch and only needed to be caught from falling twice as she got used to her new body.

And since she’s getting used to her new attributes, I really do need to see what’s possible to do with her new affinities.

While she was clearly already feeling a difference from the growth of her water, earth, and life affinities, given those were what was directly linked to the plant magic she held, the growth of the rest created other new opportunities to explore as well, with one question more important than the others.

Will I be able to give her a general magic skill?

He’d been able to do it for anyone with two or less affinitied magics, and he’d been able to do it for Valaria, who held two affinitied magics, as well a specialized magic within the realm of one of her affinitied ones which had then merged into her third-tier skill, but he hadn’t tried to do it for someone with a combined affinity before. Both Delair and her mother had a magic that combined three different affinities, and while they could cast some earth, water, and life spells as a result, it was far more difficult than anything devoted to plants. They were clearly specialized in their plant magic, but was it enough that he’d be able to help them gain potentially the most useful option they could?

He had to find out so, turning to Fontesh, he gave her a brief explanation that he was going to try and help her gain a new magic before trying to help her daughter, just in case it failed, given he didn’t want to get his student’s hopes up, before teaching her the same strengthening spell he’d given everyone else he’d helped until that point, guiding her in casting it before the notification went off in her head, leaving her eyes wide and Ben relieved.

Perfect, he sighed. This means I don’t need to go through what other magics might be good for Delair to learn, and instead I can just teach her everything. And I guess I now need to give her mother a thorough magic lesson now, too.

Even if Fontesh hadn’t been expecting it, she now had the skill after all, and with her daughter still having most of the day left to get used to her newfound attributes, there was no reason not to give the woman all of the knowledge she’d need to use it, starting with the creation of knowledge skills for each of the ten affinities to bind to her soul.