<You know I would prefer you not invoke my being in vain.>

And I would prefer if I hadn’t just wasted a bunch of time.

“What's wrong?” Thera asked him, and Falk came to the back as well after hearing him yell.

“Oh hey, I didn’t realize you were still here. Nothing wrong, in fact it's the opposite of wrong, it’s good news. Just would have rather gotten it before starting on the new staves. My enchanting went up.”

“Isn’t that great though?” She was a little vexed at his apparent unhappiness. In the few days she’d known him his level went up for two separate skills, if only she could be so lucky.

“It is! It’s fantastic. I just wish it happened before I started this is all.”

“Ha boy I get you. There isn’t a craftsman alive who doesn’t know the pain of working hard on something only to suddenly become able to do a better job at it after the fact,” Falk told him surprisingly sympathetically. “Unfortunately it comes with leveling. Your greatest gains in improvement always come after your best work. Speaking of, may I?” Gesturing at the two staves at the forge, he clearly wanted a look and Ben was happy to comply. It never hurt to have his teacher's opinion.

As he gave one a quick appraisal Falk couldn’t help but let out a low satisfied whistle. “I gotta say boy, even if you’re still learning a lot of the craft, you're probably the only one who could make a staff like this at your level. It’s a clever idea, though definitely unusable to anyone but Thera.”

“Wait, why?” Thera wanted to know. “Don’t get me wrong it looks fine and all, but what has you so impressed?”

“Ben, did you tell her at all how you enchanted the staff?”

“I mentioned it a bit when she tried out the prototype earlier today, though that one was bulkier and only used three layers.”

“Can you guys just tell me what you're talking about?” She asked in some exasperation.

Ben took the lead. “I didn’t do anything too crazy, I was just able to create a five layer gradient of earth resistance enchantments. I’m pretty sure anyone could do it.”

“But there’s only a handful of people who could do it like you boy,” He saw that Thera continued to not understand, so he went on to explain. “I’m not sure how much of his skills he’s mentioned, but if he doesn’t mind,” Ben gave him a quick okay. “Alright, so one of the boys' blessed skills is enchanting. Now regularly enchanting can only apply about 10% of any affinity or resistance for every level you have in it, but since his is blessed that means he can get 15%, or 30% total since he was level one. Now ordinarily that still wouldn’t be a ton but the boy has some really good earth resistance. Just the core of the staff alone has a resistance of 24.”

“Wait, that's almost as good as my actual earth resistance?”

“Well with the level up he could make something even greater, around 36 I believe.”

“That’s insane!” Falk had been right, she really needed to try and appreciate the work that went into one of the staves she could only get a few uses out of. Gods know she wouldn’t have guessed it would take a resistance level that high just to make a staff she could use once.

Ben for his part had something else on his mind. “Come on now Falk, you know what I want to know.”

His teacher let out a long sigh. “Now boy, this here is really good work. You shouldn’t let an appraisal get to you.”

“Aannd that means it’s bad.”

“Huuh… middle common.”

“Middle common! Not even upper? I don’t want to say I thought it would make it into uncommon, but this is some of my best work!”

“Uncle, that does seem a bit low. What’s the issue with it? Will it not work?”

“No it will work fine. Like I said, it’s good work. The issue is that it’s a specialized tool. Wait, I’m not explaining this well, specialized tools don’t get lower ratings, it’s just a matter of how this particular one was specialized.”

“What do you mean?” Ben asked, curious on where to improve.

“Let me show you, I have a bit of earth magic myself so let's use a simple spell.” Falk held the staff in front of him and prepared his magic, forcing mana through the rod… only for nothing to happen.

“Um, Falk? Are you going to show us?”

“Brat I am. To any ordinary earth mage this is literally worse than a stick. The small amount of mana I was able to channel through it couldn’t even pull together a few grains of dust, let alone an actual ball of earth. It’s a staff only Thera could use. Since it’s basically useless unless someone has enough raw power to deal with it you’re lucky to get mid common.”

“Man, that's way too disappointing.”

“And that's why I said not to worry about it. You’re too caught up in some arbitrary evaluation. What really matters is if the item you’ve made does the job the client needs.”

“Your right, your right.” Ben conceded before turning to Thera. “Hey I’m going to try and spend the rest of the day making some more staves with my new enchantment so hopefully we can have better luck tomorrow. Meet up just after sunrise as usual?”

“Sure.”

“Okay sounds good, I’ll see you then. Also Falk thanks for the advice I’ll try not to let the ratings get to me.”

“Of course brat. If I’m still here when you finish the next one come and grab me, I wouldn’t mind giving it a look.”

“Sounds good,” With that he turned away from them both and got back to it. The next ones would be quicker at least since he still had some material prepped from his last batch. It was time to get to work.