After spending the better part of the day walking out they were finally in the general area they could expect to find some of the plants. They’d lost plenty of time to Ben having to stop and gather others from the book he thought he could put to use, as well as letting Thera practice some of her magic on passing creatures, but aside from that they’d managed to keep a reasonable pace and were in the middle of setting up a camp while there was still light leaking from between the trees.

“So is any of that actually interesting?” Thera asked Ben as she peered over his shoulder while he pulled over a dozen different plants from the two spacial bags and got to the business of grouping the similar species together for convenience later.

“Of course it’s all interesting!” He told her, shocked that it could be considered anything but that and started pointing out a variety of them. “Aside from all the branches the guild wanted that can be used to refresh mana and stamina, these leaves here can be boiled down to clean and treat wounds, and this flower can be processed with a few of these roots to give a minor boost to mana recovery for a short time, not to mention that every part of this one has different minor medical benefits, but if you don’t separate them and process each one correctly all the effects are lost.”

“Okay, okay, your plants are very neat,” She said to appease him. “What about those ones over there?” She asked while pointing to a separate pile from the one he was currently sorting through.

“Oh those? Some have uses when applying alchemy to my blacksmithing, the rest are poisons.”

She was about to pick one up to get a better look but stopped herself when Ben said that. “Why do you need poisons? We’ll be in so much trouble if any get mixed in with what we’re supposed to be handing over.”

“Which is why I’m separating them out now ahead of time. Besides, it's for my crafting skill. The more branches of it I pursue and try to improve the more experience I’ll get compared to just focusing on one aspect of it like sticking to blacksmithing. I’ve pretty much ignored its alchemy aspects outside of its use in my smithing too, but if I take some time to learn to refine different potions and poisons it should be good for my skill overall.”

“Still seems kind of risky to try and make casually though, what if something happens?”

“I work with fire and molten metals on the regular, this is fine. Besides, they’re identified as poison because the plant itself is toxic to eat or they’ll harm you if they aren’t used in the proper way,” He tried to think of the best way to explain it. “Let’s see, does Sonya have any books on treating anyone afflicted with an animal venom?”

Thera gave a negative so he tried to explain the best he could. “Okay, imagine something bites you and it causes your blood to thicken. This,” He said, grabbing one of the plants from the pile. “Can act as an anti-clotting agent once it’s processed. If you get someone to consume it fast enough after being bitten then it might be able to slow down the effects of the poison for them to get to a light mage to detoxify their blood. Of course, this will have to be removed too, otherwise they’d stand the risk of bleeding out, but it all comes down to how it’s used. You should get Falk to loan you some of his books on alchemy, I’m sure it would help with your knowledge skill.”

She seemed interested once he started explaining how poisons could be used as medicine depending on the context, so he continued to explain different uses for each one as he sorted them to pass the time, at least until the notification went off in his head.

<ACQUIRED TITLE- MIRACLE MAKER>

All at once he just stopped talking and rested his head in his hand, trying to process what he’d just heard.

“Myriad, what the hell is this?” He muttered to himself, but loud enough for Thera to hear.

“What weird things happened to your status now?” She asked, immediately seeing to the heart of the matter.

“What makes you think it’s something weird with my status, or for that matter that it’s weird?”

He couldn’t be sure, but he got the distinct impression she was rolling her eyes under her hood. “Please, when something makes you react out of the blue like that it’s almost always about your status, and you have the weirdest one I’ve ever heard of. How is it you have a bunch of strange and rare skills, but none of the common ones?”

“What makes a skill common? I can’t use magic so you know that’s out.”

“Yeah but look at mine, I have calculate, coordination, and cleaning; three skills the majority of people acquire. Aside from the implication you’re a mess since you don’t have cleaning, how do you keep track of how much mana you use without calculate?”

“Is that what it’s for?”

“Later. First, what did you get? Maybe something like poison knowledge? That would make sense given what you were doing unless it’s some other poison skill.”

“It’s not a skill,” He said while sighing. “It’s a title.”

He let that hang in the air but Thera didn’t say anything, just waited while staring at him silently.

“Haa, it’s miracle maker.”

“I mean, that makes sense.” She told him, surprisingly unfazed by it. “You heard Onk right? The world just found out we have some powerful allies now, kind of reasonable you’d get the title considering the part you played.”

“The part I played was light blackmail on a race that was going to give in and do this eventually. Hey Myriad, come on and speak up, which god gave me this stupid title?”

It took a few minutes, but Ben’s god finally answered him.

<From what I can tell it wasn’t a god, it was the world so nobody’s at fault. Not that anyone would normally be unhappy to get a title like that if a god could give it.>

“What do you mean it was the world?”

<Ben all sapient life on the planet is connected through the status system, and the vast majority consider the fact that this close to the invasion date that a world full of allies has appeared to be a miracle. Since you’re as much a part of the system as anything else it knows that you’re responsible for it. Really you should feel lucky, less than a handful of people in the history of this world would have a title like that.>

“That’s a real fancy way of saying that things might get complicated if anyone finds out about this, but okay, do you have any idea what effects it has?” He immediately hid the title from his status as he tried to work out what benefits it might include. It was more than a little annoying how vague and undefined they tended to be, but he had to admit that the new one sounded like it would have some decent benefits.

Unfortunately Myriad wasn’t any help. <Like I said, less than a handful of people have had it and its effects seem vague. Unless you ask someone with a skill that lets them gain knowledge from the system itself you aren’t likely to get an answer for that. I’m fairly certain everyone in the past who had it went on to do great and incredible things, but then again the condition for gaining the title is to have already done something great enough that the majority of the world would consider it a miracle.>

“Uhg, why is the system so vague? Couldn’t everything have come with a description so people could actually know how everything worked immediately?”

<Ben when the gods who designed this system made it they were fleeing with the remains of their races,> His god told him, sounding unusually sharp with his response. <They all but invented soul engineering just to give their people as much of a chance to fight back as they could in case the invaders were only a few years away. While effects may not always be clear, they are always beneficial in some way, and more importantly the system can grow itself without needing new skills to be designed by gods each and every time. Even if it doesn’t always seem user-friendly, it’s no exaggeration to say it’s the greatest gift the sapient races have received from the gods, and should you all survive provide a brighter future than could ever be achieved without it.>

Ben was initially shocked by his god’s outburst but understood he’d offended him. “I’m sorry Myriad, I didn’t mean anything by it, I just don’t like it when I don’t understand something, especially when it relates to changes to me.”

<Well, it’s not that I don’t understand where you’re coming from, but remember, if you ever have anything you need to learn you can ask me. It may take some time, but if there’s information on it I’ll find it.>

The sincerity of his god was touching and caused him to clasp his hands in prayer. “Thank you Myriad, when I need help I’ll be sure to ask.”