With morning turning to late afternoon, both skills and levels flooding the children under his guidance, Ben was finally able to see them off, everything he’d promised to help them with and more now done.

Through his power, he’d helped them gain combat skills and magics, with more of both than he’d initially planned. After the initial four were gained and he’d helped them practice from there, a few of the children had hesitantly asked if they could still learn more, and Ben had no qualms about teaching. As soon as Delair had asked that favour of it, he’d fully intended to commit to it to the best of his abilities and from there, the practice only went on as the rest of them lost their hesitation, learning more weapon skills and non-affinitied magics until finally, he was waving goodbye to all of them while Sachel and Toltho took them home. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

<And now it looks like we can expect a future of demis and dryads acting as masters of combat and non-affinitied mages.> Myriad sighed in his head, already picturing just how potent the results of Ben’s lessons would be. <Are you sure that was a great idea?>

Eh, who’s to say? Currently, they’re all good kids who just want to feel safer, though, and having a bit of strength is a good way to get it. If they live long enough for it to become a problem, then you can set the demis right at least, and you can tell Jagal if she needs to talk to the dryads, but I really wouldn’t worry too much. Just think of this as securing them a living as mages and warriors if there’s nothing else they feel like doing in the future. Or maybe when they’re teenagers they’ll decide to become adventurers. Not a bad part-time job, is it?

<I’m more worried about how many of them are going to stick with their practice. If they do, with everything you taught them, give it five years and they might all be at the ninth level of their skills.>

Man, even if it was only for a day, I’m the one who taught them here. After five years of practice, we should have some of them awakened with all of the handy info I put into their heads. Only ninth level is thinking way too small.

<You really do have to stop trying to turn the children around you into the same sort of monsters as you. The way you’re training Delair is horrific enough when we look at how fast she’s managing to grow under your guidance.>

Ha, I’m expecting to have her at the ninth level for her core skills before the next wave, just you wait.

Given that his student had been linked to him like the rest of Stonewall and Anailia during his practice run of using god’s boon, she’d been able to finish multiple jobs and Ben could see that it had led her to getting new skills, along with levels to all of her core ones from it, making her one of the more powerful dryads around by that point, just under the ones Ben had awakened, not that she realized it.

It was actually to a point that left Ben at a bit of an impasse on what to do about her. He knew that, with time, she’d be able to awaken her skills by herself, there was no denying that, but with just one more level to her plant magic and two more levels to material user, she’d be at a point where he’d be able to forcefully awaken her if he so desired, which would be an undeniable blessing for her. He genuinely believed that it would be better for her to awaken her skills by herself too, he wanted her to know that she was capable of such things without his help and believed the long-term benefits of such a success would be superior to using him as a shortcut, but at the same time, by the time the third wave ended, he might not be there to help her with such things anymore. He really only wanted her to get one awakening by herself, after that he’d be more willing to be a bit lax about such things, but if he died, then he’d lose the opportunity to help her grow like that and she’d lose the chance to benefit from his power, leaving him lost in thought.

… I’ll decide by the time the next wave comes around, he told himself, pushing the matter off. By then, he’d be in a far better place to judge how close or far she was to any awakening and how worthwhile it would be to let her benefit from such help. That was when things were going to get their worst after all, even with all he’d done for the world, another thing he had to consider was that he couldn’t just leave his student weak when such threats were going to flood the world once more.

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“Ben?” Delair asked him, still standing by his side despite everyone else having begun to leave by that point, seeing him lost in thought.

“Don’t mind me, kiddo,” he told her as he ruffled her hair. “Just thinking about how that all went. What do you think? Satisfied with how it had turned out?”

“I am, thank you!” she beamed, able to see how the other kids had walked away more confident, and the good it had done in distracting the younger dryads, along with Kalley in particular. It had given them all exactly what they’d wanted, and she had gotten some out of it as well. Much as Falk had once done for him, Ben had made his own student acquire both the knife and hammer wielder skills for what benefits a greater proficiency in those tools would lend to her crafting, and even without being a mind reader, it was easy to see that she was looking forward to making better versions of those weapons than the relatively safe options he’d already made her.

“Well, good. With that sorted, though, I’ve got some things to work on still, but I’ll walk you home first, okay?”

“Oooh, working on what?” she asked, eyes sparkling, with all aspects of the shyness she’d shown when asking him to take the day off to train everyone now gone, leaving him to chuckle.

“Alright, I’ll tell you, but you’ve gotta keep it a secret,” he said as he crouched down to her level and whispered like he was conspiring with her. “I don’t know if it will work, but I’m going to try and make a mythic item.”

“Really!”

“Ha, really, but ‘try’ is the key word here. I’m optimistic about this idea, but odds are better than not that it’ll fail.”

“Doesn’t matter, sounds cool! Can I watch?”

“Hmm… it’s going to mean a bit of a trip, but… well, let’s stop by your home first and tell your mother. I don’t want her freaking out about her daughter being home too many hours late.”

“Perfect timing,” Ben said, he and Delair having only needed to wait for ten minutes in the shop before Thera and Mora passed through one of the gates, their time helping at whatever hospital had taken them that day finished, and sure to have been overflowing with good news. Now, wherever they’d go to would be receiving the help of not only the great soul spirit, but also a soul mage, even if Thera wasn’t advertising that fact. The already impressive scale of healing she’d do was going to get significantly easier, and the growth that both patients and healers alike would receive was going to be on another level, with her bright smile seeming to imply as much.

“That ‘perfect timing’ better be because you have good news and not because you need a favour, because I just had a very good day, I don’t need you doing anything insane.”

“It’s not bad news, at least. Why, though? What happened today?”

“A small platoon was almost decimated."

“Holy crap, not good news.”

“But it wasn’t demons. They came across some other thing deep in the untamed lands, so since it was just a dumb animal not specifically trying to murder them, nobody died despite how injured they all were, and we were able to awaken two healers while treating them.”

“Alright, very good news. That’s incredible!”

“You’d think it was the other healers around who awakened by the end, some of them were crying with how happy they were to have some new awakened mages at their location.”

“Doesn’t that just mean more work is going to be sent to them?”

“I didn’t have the heart to point that out. It doesn’t matter though; that just means that the workload across the world is going to shrink overall. So, with all of my good news out of the way, I’m ready. What’s perfect about my timing and will I really not regret it?”

“It’s really fine. I was just going to visit your family to get some help with something and the last time I saw your dad I told him we’d all try to come along sometime soon-”

“Ugh,” Thera groaned, visibly deflating before his eyes. “But I can already tell my mom has to be thinking something stupid.”

“Or she just wants to offer you a heartfelt congratulations on your awakening?”

“No, that’s not who she is. Trust me, she’s going to have some dumb idea about this, I just know it.”