“Alright let’s see how this goes,” He was feeling enthusiastic, with how promising the three-layered enchantment was, surely one of these would work and he was quick to hand over one of each staff he made.

“Hey I was thinking this for a while, but did we really need to bring all of them? Plenty are just duplicates of themselves aren’t they?” Thera asked as she looked on at the pile he still had in hand.

“It doesn’t hurt. They’re here just in case I want to see you use one again or try something different.”

“Alright then let's get this over with,” She was still uncomfortable to be in an area with a few other people around practicing in the morning and was a little jealous of how calm Ben seemed about it, still working on shaping his stone while seemingly having his full attention on her.

The five-layer and seven-layer staves worked a bit better than the three-layered one but were still ultimately disappointing, after a successful first shot they tried for a second and the five-layer was able to at least create a ball of earth while the seven-layer one being able to throw it a few meters, but not enough to really consider it a second shot. All that was left were the two different nine layers.

Thera started to activate her magic, letting it flow through her into her staff and felt the same unfamiliar resistance she had experienced with all of his latest works, before firing her first earth bullet. As was expected the spell shot fine, at least Ben had gotten the hang of making staves she could get a single-use out of, what came next was what would matter.

The staff itself still appeared fine, no visible cracks or damage was present, and she felt Ben's eyes glued to her, watching her every movement as she prepared to try a second spell. She concentrated, taking more care than she normally would to try and get it to work, and with a swing of her arm fired it.

As Ben watched he saw it was almost perfect. Almost. It fell a little short of the last one still but it was close enough that it could be called a success. But despite it all he wasn’t happy.

“What's wrong?” Thera asked when she saw the unhappy look plastered on his face. “I thought that last one went pretty well.” It was at least far better than most times she tried a staff that wasn’t made by her uncle but instead a random shop.

“No this is great, it’s a real improvement and all, I was just hoping that three times the layers would work out to three times the spells, but of course that wouldn’t be the case. All I did was create a smoother gradient for your magic to work through. Maybe I could make it work by making a bigger staff but at that point it wouldn’t be usable. So in that case should I go back to the drawing board? But then who knows how long it will be before I can make something that can handle three shots.”

She was beginning to pick up on the fact that he would talk a lot when trying to work out a problem. “But isn’t this okay? If you’re making three staves at a time like this, that's basically the same as firing six spells.”

“Yeah but the waste is actually insane. Honestly speaking I have no clue how Falk can afford this. The material costs can’t be insignificant.”

“Oh didn’t you know? Uncle has a few patents to his name as well as a few wealthy clients, he’s not rich but at the same time money isn’t really going to be an issue for him.”

“Wait really?” Ben asked in surprise. “Well I guess that's fine if my failures aren't going to leave him in the poor house. Is that what he’s working on now then?” Ben hadn’t bothered to ask Falk about what would be keeping him so busy for the next few months, but a big order from a wealthy client would make sense.

Thera only shrugged though. “Probably? He takes his confidentiality pretty seriously so he won’t talk about it though. So with this do you feel ready to try another hunt tomorrow?”

Ben gave it some thought. It was true that they should be fine if they had three of the nine-layer staves but they should still be cautious, plus after seeing her use her magic these last few days he wasn’t actually sure Thera could really use her spells in combat. He knew she had been adventuring before but he wasn’t sure about how well it went for her.

Still, if he wanted to know he had better at least ask. “Hey, when you were hunting solo how often would you fail a quest?”

“Guh, where did that come from?”

“I was just thinking about hunting. With me there you’ll still be basically hunting by yourself since I can’t fulfil any roles like fighter or tank and it seems like your magic takes at least a few seconds to activate.”

She fidgeted about uncomfortably before answering. “I guess I would get about one or two successful quests a week.”

At this point it was about what Ben had been expecting so the comment didn’t really faze him. Actually, he had an idea for just what they could do about it.

“Alright if you’re willing to try something a little different I think we can make hunting work.”

She was about to ask what he was talking about when a group of three called out to them.

“Hey man if you don’t want to get yourself killed you should find a real adventurer to party with.”

Ben turned to look at who was talking and saw the speaker seemed to be a four-armed warrior, carrying two shields in his upper hands and two spears in his lower ones. Following behind him were a horned woman with forest green skin that looked like she was carrying some tools for a healer and a woman with the lower half of a snake that seemed to be Naga whose role wasn’t readily apparent.

He was about to ask what they wanted when Thera spoke up. “Mind your own business and leave us alone Skoe.”

The man, apparently Skoe, turned to her. “Thera since it doesn’t look like anyone else warned him someone needs to step in. You have no skill as an adventurer, you're just going to get this poor guy killed.”

“I haven’t gotten any teams I’ve been with injured yet so just back off.”

“Pff, that’s just luck. When you were with us we couldn’t rely on you for any support. Your magic is basically useless, not to mention your curse-”

“SHUT UP!” she screamed, cutting him off. “I’m just trying to practice here so mind your own business and leave me alone!”

“Thera it’s nothing personal,” The horned green girl cut in. “You just need to find a job more suited to you. Adventuring isn’t for everyone.”

“Yeah,” said the Naga. “It’s for your own safety too, we already heard about your new partner getting injured and having to walk himself back to the gate. How are you going to feel if he dies because of you?”

Thera was shaking with emotion at this point and didn’t know what to say which is when Ben stepped between them and cut in. “Hold on, I got injured because of my own carelessness. If Thera hadn’t stepped in to help it could have been a lot worse. Besides that, I’m enjoying working with her and don’t plan on stopping any time soon. Now if you’ll excuse us.” He quickly grabbed his things and gestured for Thera to come with him.

As they walked away he heard one of them say. “Looks like the guy’s already cursed.”

They walked in silence for a minute until they were far enough away from the training grounds before Ben turned to her.

“Are you okay?” Even if they weren’t close and she didn’t want to be anything more than a temporary team he didn’t want to think about her being bullied by other adventurers. He really did believe she was a nice enough girl, if not a bit distant with people.

She was still trembling a little in anger but she was doing her best to pull herself together. “I’m alright… Thank you.”

“Hm? I didn’t do anything, don’t worry about it.”

“I mean for sticking up for me. I appreciate it.”

“Oh, well I mean we’re a team right now, it’s the least I can do,” He told her with a smile.

They walked in silence for a bit longer before she spoke up again. “Are you not going to ask about it?”

“Um, what?” He was genuinely confused.

“Being cursed by me. There’s those sorts of rumors going around.”

“What's that? I don’t care about any rumors. We may not know each other well but I trust Falk and he wouldn’t have asked me to work with you if he didn’t think I could manage.”

“But if we’re working together for a while it may negatively affect people's opinion of you. At the very least it’s well known with the adventurers in town.”

“Bah, what do I care if some adventurers think I’m being cursed, the whole world already decided I’m useless so this much is nothing.”

She was about to ask him what he meant by that but he spoke up again before she could get any words in. “Anyway, I have an idea for how we’re going to get some hunting done tomorrow, I’ll just need to gather a couple supplies and check the guild archives quickly. Meet up tomorrow morning?”

“Alright sure.”

“Cool see you then,” He turned around and was about to run off when he remembered one last thing and turned back to her. “Here catch.”

She grabbed what he tossed to her and almost fumbled it before she was able to give it a proper look. When she did she saw the stone carving he had been working on, of a small cloaked figure holding a staff above her head.

“Hope you don’t mind, I accidentally ended up using you as a reference while you were practicing. If you don’t want it feel free to throw it out. See you tomorrow then,” With his business done he ran off.