The next day he woke up to see everyone off. It felt far too quick to him, they only got their offers yesterday. But it was literally the world at stake, every second wasted deciding was time spent that could be used for training and improving their skills. Not to mention that there was nothing really holding them back. They came to this place without any possessions, all they had right now was each other.
His friends told him where they would be training and made him promise that if things got too bad he would come to them, and a few others he was acquainted with put out the offer as well, just in case he needed it.
Everyone shared a teary heartfelt goodbye, promising to visit when they could, and went off their separate ways. Ben for his part went back to bed.
He laid there for two days, ignoring Lehie as she came to check on him and just getting up to eat the meals she left him.
On the third day when he woke up there was only one thought on his mind. God this is boring. Even if he was still depressed he couldn't wallow in it any longer, he needed something to occupy his mind. Looking out the window he could see the sun had just barely risen, so he decided to find Lehie to plan out what to do for now.
When he left he immediately realised he was faced with a problem already, she always came to him, he never found her. This changed his first task to finding someone else that could help and after searching around fruitlessly for a few minutes he came across a passing priest, who was thankfully able to give him directions to her room.
After a little walk he was able to give a knock on her door. "Coming!" She yelled, throwing it open a few seconds later.
"Ben! You're finally up! Are you in better spirits now?" She asked, grabbing his arm and giving it a friendly squeeze.
"At least better enough to figure out what to do now." He told her, doing his best to focus on her face instead of the fact that she was wearing some rather cute frilly pajamas instead of her usual robes.
"Well me and Father Yan have been working on that while you pulled yourself together. He should already be in his office, let's go discuss it together and see what he thinks." She was already dragging him off before he could reply.
"Sure but maybe you should change first."
Stopping in her tracks she took a quick look down at herself, gave a small squeak, and ran back to her room.
My caretaker's a bit of an airhead, huh.
A few minutes after that minor detour they were in Father Yan's office, discussing where to go from here
"Unfortunately we don't have many ways we could truly help you develop your blessed skills, so the best course of action would be to find a suitable teacher when you feel ready to venture into the world. Of course there is also the option of staying here permanently, joining as a monk or priest of the church and offering your faith to help strengthen the gods."
"Thanks for the offer Yan, but I don't really feel like I have much faith to give. What do you think I should do while I'm here?"
"If that's the case then the plan we had discussed would involve using this time to learn. Lehie is already working on preparing you lessons about the world, but other than that I was told you had already reviewed some books on skills, if there were any you wanted to try acquiring we would be more than happy to accommodate you in any way you can."
"In that case there's actually two I saw that sounded worth getting if you guys can help, I was looking at dismantling and stealth."
Yan stroked his chin in thought. "I understand the use of dismantling for your blessed skills, but why stealth?"
"On paper, because it would be something I could hopefully use for enchanting since magic isn't an option. In practice it just sounds really cool."
It briefly looked like Yan was unhinging his jaw as a clicking sound came from his throat. Ben was unsure what was happening for a minute before understanding that he was laughing. "Yes wonderful! There really is no better reason to learn something than an interest in the subject. We have both hunters and butchers among our priests so it should be easy enough to find you a teacher for both skills, I'll get on it right away. In the meantime Lehie can begin her lessons for you in the library."
Feeling the conversation was done Ben got up to go, but Yan stopped him.
"One last thing, how are you at waking up in the mornings?"
"Not terrible I guess. Why?"
"I was thinking of having you help out with preparing meals throughout the day if you would be interested."
"Yeah I guess I should do something to earn my keep, I can help." But Yan shook his head at Ben's response.
"This isn't about earning your keep Ben. I looked into your crafting skill a bit the other day myself, cooking should fall under it as a skill that produces an item or product, so it should be able to provide a bit of experience to leveling it up. It would also just be good practice to learn how to use ingredients you aren't familiar with here."
They really had put thought into how to make his time with them as useful as possible, Ben couldn't help but be a little touched they were doing so much. He thanked them both as sincerely as he could before going off with Lehie to begin his lessons.
The month that followed dragged on at first. Ben tried his best to throw himself into his lessons, using focus to its full potential so as to try and keep him from any negative feelings, and in doing so lead him to his biggest breakthrough in accepting his new environment.
In the middle of one particularly boring lesson with Lehie, where he was learning about the different kingdoms and city-states in the world and how they would interact, he had been doing everything in his power to keep paying attention, despite just how dry and dull it all was. It was when he was sure he was going to fall asleep from the boringness of it all that he heard it.
Suddenly the world was clear again, his energy restored. He felt at that moment that he could sit down and listen to an explanation on the trade relationship between the Scylla and Wolren for hours.
Lehie could tell something had changed just by looking at him and asked what happened.
"My focus skill just leveled up! It's incredible everything seems so bright and I feel like I could study all day!"
As he spoke he saw her smile take on a scary edge. "Oh that's wonderful. Say you know skills improve by repeatedly using them and pushing them to their max potential, don't you? You aren't telling me that my lessons are so boring that you leveled up, are you? Not with all the time I put into putting these together for you."
Oh crap, I'm in danger.
"No of course not!" He told her, trying to think on his feet. "I was devoting my full attention to what you were teaching, trying to do my best to learn, that must have caused it."
"Really! That's wonderful!" She beamed.
Safe. He thought, mentally pumping his fist.
"In that case I'll prepare a test for you tomorrow, we really should see how well you're taking this all in."
… Crap.
The next few months he continued his new routine with significantly more enthusiasm, cooking meals with the priests, having lessons with Lehie, trying and eventually succeeding in getting the 0th level in the two skills he desired, and time spent in both the library and working on his art for some fun.
Someone from his old world once said time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time, and the statement should apply to his last four months, but he needed to move on. Having a solid basis for his knowledge on the world now he wanted to use the skills the world saw fit to give him and see what they could be good for.