Chapter 1071

Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

Originally heading back to the shop, Ben carried Delair while she trained with him in his head while Mora walked by his side, the three of them changed their destination as Ben talked with the gods to go to the town’s training grounds instead.

It was before the first wave that Ben had met Inux, the last of the talos, and building him a new body had been a constant goal since. A machine with a soul, built to be the protector of his dead creator’s people, the man had been a mythic item in his prime, even if he’d been slowly breaking down in the millennia since his world’s fall, not having his maker around to provide upkeep.

Through that, the task had fallen to Ben. He hadn’t wanted to see the man die, and while at the time he’d been unawakened in any skill, he had wanted to reach the stage where he could save him.

And arguably, he was there, maybe even had been for a while, but at the same time, it didn’t feel good enough. Inux had been a warrior, and Ben had wanted to build him a body that reflected that, not just some simple construct that the man could live and rot in, and at high legendary, that was possible, but not exceptional. The goal had to be lower mythic. Even if at that level, Ben couldn’t replicate what the talos had during the peak of their existence, he could at least aim for that.

Meaning the only thing I can do right now is see where I’m currently at, creation-wise.

Bringing them to the training grounds to do exactly that. In the past, Ben had made robot bodies and filled them with demon souls, but by that point, he was far beyond needing to settle for something so murderous when he had a far better option available to him, and with that, he spent his mana to bring forth the best design he could, leaving a new construct in the space and a frown on his face.

Roughly human in shape but taller than him by a foot, the magical machine Ben had made was only upper legendary, a result he had been expecting but still wasn’t satisfied with. How could he be, when making something at that level was in essence giving someone an inferior product, without even mentioning the fact that a creation like that wouldn’t make him cross that final threshold.

Still, it was only the best he could materialize. There were potentially limits he could surpass by using the correct materials to construct a body by hand, but for the time, it was enough. With that done, he materialized some rainbow mana crystal to house a soul and slipped it into place in the machine’s chest, providing what would be both the power source and, hopefully, the mind that would be using it.

But that would be far further down the line. In that current case, it was merely something for Ben to connect to as he linked his soul to that newly created one and experienced the world through its senses, ensuring that everything he’d enchanted onto the design was functioning properly.

With his own skills having contributed. His alien sense was enhancing some of the more magical sensory replacements he’d needed to make, his defensive skills protecting it, enhancements having their place, and so many more. Even his balance enhancement was being taken advantage of, and as he moved its body, he felt no issue.

When he wanted to move its arms, they responded. When he clenched its fists, he felt all of the artificial muscle fibres react, and when he ran through it, the legs he made carried the construct without issues. It could fulfill all of the simpler roles needed for a body. As it was, it could easily be lived in by any soul, but just living wasn’t the goal.

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If it’s going to be the new body of a warrior, it needs to be a body that can fight.

Perhaps the most important goal, and as the only one who could currently use it, Ben did what he could, looking through all of the information he had taken from the minds of the world to determine one of the more complicated fighting styles in order to do his stress testing and settled on materializing solid metal fans before working through the body to move in the set forms of the art, focusing to the same extent he would when using his own body before he finished the movement, a notification coming with it

<ACQUIRED SKILL FAN WIELDER LEVEL 0>

Huh, curious. I knew I could gain skills through homunculi, but I gained this one while controlling a soul that was controlling a machine. Maybe it’s because the soul had nothing going on itself? Either way, interesting, but not immediately useful.

Ben had already been fairly certain that he could gain fighting skills of all sorts by that point if he really wanted to without spending much time or effort, at least for the first couple levels. He had the information on the subject from experts across the world, and just as importantly, he had so many blessings giving him bonuses and even more jobs that might have applied to any form of combat that an ease of acquisition was basically a guarantee, and in other circumstances, he might have even enjoyed it.

While he hadn’t particularly wanted to become a skilled fighter after he’d come to terms with how things had gone with his arrival in the world, gaining and leveling skills was always fun and at his current point, it was even fairly likely that he’d be able to awaken them too if he had the time, but that was the very issue. He didn’t have the time to be pursuing such casual interests. He wasn’t going to awaken any combat skill in the little they had remaining before the third wave, and even at the low levels of the second tier, a combat skill would mean little when it came to facing a god. What mattered most to him was continuing to raise his high leveled skills and to reach the third tier in whatever he still could, with his enchanting being the extreme priority. If he lived, then he could really enjoy the ability to learn and grow that he’d cultivated in himself, but until then, he had other things to focus on.

With his current focus not quite being good enough. At the zeroth level of the skill, even when he tried mimicking the moves with his real body as well, he was at too low of a level to exert himself in the acts the way an awakened expert would.

Which means I need to be testing this body in a way I am an expert, he told himself. Alright, back to the shop it is.

“Huh? Uh, Mora? What did I miss?” Delair asked once she was released from Ben’s mind, having claimed her first couple levels of connect to find herself back in the shop where a metal man was busy working at the forge while her teacher stood by the side with a clear look of disappointment on his face.

“Ben’s trying something and it doesn’t seem to be going well,” the boy whispered back, filling in Delair more while also filling her with jealousy over what she’d missed, all while Ben looked at the results.

Using the robot body he’d made, he’d gone to the forge to start testing the degree at which it could be utilized and found it lacking. While able to make items that could reach legendary, same as he himself could, there was a clear difference in his eyes over just how they’d turn out, even if only other masters would be able to see it as well.

But, even if that might have made it sound slight, those were differences that mattered. The body was not moving perfectly to match his desires in some very small ways, but in the sort of life and death fights it would be used for, those ways mattered. An imperfect reaction could mean a severe result, and the consequences of such a thing would be squarely on his head. The body may have been able to work, but in his eyes, it just wasn’t good enough.

Which means the rest of my day is sealed, he sighed. I have to kidnap someone, and then I need to go back to Anailia.