Taking up most of the night, by the time they were done, it was too early in the morning to bother finding where Thera and the kids had gotten rooms, leaving Ben and Verbum to sit outside and enjoy the last light of the stars, sharing some snacks from his rings between them and chatting for the next few hours before the rest of the town would wake up, all while Ben reflected on what they’d found.

With the results practically non-existent. He and Verbum had discovered a few more molecular arrangements that made use of different magic materials which would normally only be able to exist in something like the heart of a gas giant, but nothing so valuable that Ben was going to change the plans he’d already made. He had a design firmly in mind, leaving only the need to bring it to fruition.

“And it looks like it should be about time,” Ben said, standing up to dust himself off before helping Verbum to his feet. “Let’s go get the others. I’m never going to hear the end of things if I start without Delair, and then we’ll deal with all the other chaos that’s going to come from this.”

“What other chaos?”

“This isn’t exactly the biggest town, and it looks like news travelled fast. Seems like I’m going to be doing this with an audience.”

Since it came to the mythical protectors of their people, word had gotten around to the majority of residents there about who he was and why he was there, his extended soul able to feel everyone's emotions of the matter, be they hope and optimism or else an expectation for only more sorrow and disappointment, as well as a general, overall desire to see things for themselves.

It was clear enough the people were restless, plenty of them hadn’t slept that night from the news, and even more intended to watch him work, knowing where he’d be doing it or not, with that desire shaping how he was going to need to handle things as he pinched his brow.

Okay, I can’t have everyone here trying to hunt me down while I’m doing this, which means I should properly arrange things quickly, but if I mess up, then what I’m going to have is an angry mob to deal with… who I can knock out before escaping the town with the others. Whatever, I’ll make this work.

He could feel Thera’s mind from where he sat and woke her before telling her where she and the kids could meet them before Ben returned to the church to begin setting up, either pulling out materials from his rings or materializing them to create some of what he’d need ahead of time as a forge was set up to begin heating, while all around him, bleachers sprung up from the ground under his power to give everyone that wanted to be there a view.

It was only when the other three were in sight that he spread word to the rest of the city, using soulcraft to speak to everyone within his range, telling them all what they wanted to hear.

The attempt to rebuild Inux will be taking place in front of your city’s church in fifteen minutes. Anyone who wants to witness it, be there, be calm, and be respectful while the craftsman is at work.

He could feel the shock and confusion coming from the many minds he spoke to, some of them wondering if he had been a god and others realizing that he was the same person who’d previously modified their souls, but he ignored them from there. Whatever they were thinking wasn’t important, and if they wanted to watch, then that was up to them. What mattered was his work.

Even as he went, continuing to lay out materials, he ignored the sounds of pounding feet as people rushed out of their homes to claim their seats, as well as ignored the looks of both the mayor and church representatives who were less than pleased about his announcement. If they had complaints, then so did he, given that they’d had loose enough lips for word to spread so fast, but with everything else going on and everyone gathering, they didn’t have the chance to try to approach him, instead just sitting as well, waiting for him to begin.

“Alright, Delair, make sure you in particular pay attention. With everything I’ve taught you, you should be able to tell what I’m doing here as far as enchantments go without me needing to explain, but if you have any questions, save them for when I’m done and just focus on trying to interpret what you can for now. When it comes to what I’m doing with materials, well, some of this is going to be beyond you until you awaken material user, but I’ll properly go over everything with you after, alright?”

“Alright,” his student nodded, eager and excited, while Mora and Thera watched closely as well. They’d both learned from him to one extent or another after all, and while Thera in particular didn’t have much interest in following the path of a craftsman or enchanter, there was still sure to be an interesting bit of magic on display in an attempt to make a mythic item.

Even Verbum, for all the complaining he’d done on the way there, was watching curiously, holding a bit of interest despite himself, but with most everyone who wanted to watch gathered, Ben let himself begin.

Starting by putting one of his stopstone ingots into his forge for later use, that was perhaps the most normal thing he was going to do that day. With that small bit of prep work done, Ben immediately materialized what would be Inux’s new bones on the table before him for all to see.

An act that pulled a reaction from the crowd, Ben ignored the gasps to continue with his work. Given the nature of it, large parts of the project were going to come down to materializing. They were going to have to, given there was no way to make some of the substances he’d be creating otherwise, with enchantments and all placed to keep them stable, but that wasn’t the only way he’d work, with a different application of his magic up next.

Ever since his discovery of the new magic materials, one of the earliest findings had been that every affinity had a corresponding mythril and mana crystal equivalent, with affinitied materials being the only ones he couldn’t materialize. Not being able to materialize them didn’t mean he couldn’t control them in other ways though, so with his mana, Ben pulled all of the mythrils and crystals he’d made Jake create for him from the side, stretching them into threads before carefully running them through the bones he’d just produced.

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With a skeleton structure as complex as a human’s, each bone was filled with thousands to hundreds of thousands of holes, just barely visible to the naked eye, that he filled with those different power sources, looking like a cloud around him as everything was moved into place, the complex arrangement optimized for what parts would be best suited for which enchantments they’d be touching.

Really, that was overkill, but in an attempt to go beyond mortal limits, overkill was the only option he had. Every enchantment needed to get its maximum degree of power beyond what any non-affinitied source could provide and that was the only method he had to achieve that, but once he was satisfied with his work in that regard, he moved on to what was next.

The artificial bones that had been laying on the table rose with his will, floating in an arrangement that would be far more natural than how they’d been spread out before, allowing for his next acts of materializing and his following acts of threading as, layer by layer, Linux’s new body came together.

Connecting tissues were added, followed by structures akin to internal organs, even if they’d been designed to support a robotic body instead of a living one. Sensory organs came next, carefully crafted and materialized to act as perfect replicants of what a living person would have, with artificial muscular structures following after.

To the audience, it seemed more like Ben was making a person piece be piece than a machine, but with that done he drew closer to the final, only a few steps left to go.

Reaching to his side, he pulled over a new container of stopstone, not the ingots he’d previously made but instead the fine powder he had Stonewall’s church of Myriad constantly producing before throwing it in the air before him to let it spread out, his senses able to take in every individual grain to materialize an impossibly thin shell of orichalcum around, using that outer shell to hold the grains with his magic in a way he never would have been able to if it was the stopstone alone and placed each one with purpose, either on or just above the muscles he’d created, with the body floating in the air to get all sides of it before what came next as he materialized what would be Inux’s skin over and around the fine powder he’d been controlling, getting more gasps from the onlookers.

All of them saw Inux, the last of their people’s legendary protectors, and even the most doubtful among them felt their emotions surge in the background while Ben continued to work. The body may have been done, but that wasn’t the only part he needed, and with work still to do, he moved over to the forge, pulling out the stopstone it held and created a hammer from his mana to shape it.

The area rang with the sound of metal being hammered flat, Ben’s control and skill turning it into a thin foil, giving him everything he needed for his final bit of creation. With that foil ready, Ben took the piece of rainbow mana crystal he had ready and began to enchant on it to make it act like a soul crystal.

But not a regular one. He intended for Inux to live for a long while yet, and given that, he was building the crystal with redundancy that the ones he’d normally make wouldn’t get. Should the enchantments on the section that would hold Inux’s soul fail then it was designed to move it to a different section of the crystal with different enchantments to secure it, and while Ben didn’t know for sure how long his enchantments would last, his best estimate being thousands of years thanks to the stability the ring system provided in their designs, he wanted to ensure that Inux would be around for as long as possible, in case he himself wasn’t going to be around in any capacity to do his repairs.

Once it was ready though, the stopstone foil he’d made was carefully wrapped around it as a final line of defense while the entire thing was then materialized over with thin, alternating layers of pure orichalchum, orichalchum dust containing more stopstone like what rested beneath the new body’s skin, and more stopstone foil, with an outer shell to hold it all in place. That was to be the container of Inux’s soul after all; it couldn’t be allowed to break so easily, leaving the totality of the construction needed for the project finished and no notifications going off in his head.

So it wasn’t enough then, he sighed to himself, seeing only a high legendary item before him despite all of his work. A shame. Still, just because I failed, doesn’t mean I can stop here.

After all, there was still the matter of whether Inux still existed in a meaningful enough capacity to use his body, and with all eyes on him, waiting to see what he’d do next, Ben did his last act of materialization for the day, creating what looked like a large needle before placing the soul crystal within it.

Normally, he’d use a knife to house such a thing, but given the audience he had, he didn’t want to risk creating a misunderstanding no matter how little of what he was doing any of them would be able to appreciate, but with that made, Ben pulled the last thing he needed from his ring and placed it on the table before him, the small container holding Inux’s soul before him as he brought the world to a standstill.

When Ben had first stored the strange, soul–container the maliae’s dead god had created away, he’d felt intense pressure to work quickly, but now there was no need. Through his magic, he could work as fast as he could think and at a speed that the rest around him couldn’t process, he removed the lid holding it and plunged the needle into the core, observing with his soul sight to make sure nothing went wrong.

At the very worst, he was prepared to hold tight the soul with his soulcraft to keep it in that plane, but he didn’t need to in the end. Before his eyes, the soul travelled from one receptacle to another, letting him breathe a sigh of relief that at least that had gone correctly before he pulled the crystal from the needle to end things once and for all and see if all of his work had been for naught.

Turning to the body, Ben reached out to the sternum and pressed a small pattern on it, making a small panel slide open with just enough space for what it was meant to hold, placing the soul crystal within and closing it once more before he waited, holding his breath as he did.

What was less than a second for the onlookers was an eternity to him, left to feel all of his lingering fears that had been clawing at him from the start. That he’d done all of that work for a power-source instead of a person, and held his breath as the body’s eyes fluttered open, looking uncomfortably unfocused at first before gaining some clarity as it stared up at him.

“You don’t look as much older as I thought you would,” Inux smiled, letting a sigh escape from Ben’s lips while he felt the roaring excitement of the crowd around him before he smiled down at the other man.

“It’s been a crazy few years, I’ll catch you up on them after we do some testing to make sure your new body is working right,” Ben told him before looking up and seeing that the surrounding maliae likely wouldn’t be able to contain themselves for so long. “Well, maybe we’ll hold off until a few others here get to greet you. It seems like you’ve been pretty dearly missed.”