"Ah, there you are," Professor Tomas greeted with a thin smile. "Come in, come in. I've been looking forward to this."

"Have you, now?" Pale asked as she stepped inside his classroom. As per usual, it was empty, save for the two of them. She strode over to his desk and took a seat across from it, while Tomas himself settled in behind the desk.

"Indeed, I have," Tomas confirmed with a nod. "I have long since progressed past the point where I get to witness students discover their Affinity for the first time. I assume Kayla told you how that usually works?"

"She did," Pale confirmed. "She told me it generally happens when the mage is a teenager."

"That's correct. And as you can imagine, we seldom get any teenagers walking through the halls of the Luminarium. Why, if memory serves me correctly, our very own Headmaster Albrecht was the last one, and that was almost a century ago."

"I didn't think you were that old."

"Oh, make no mistake, I'm not. But the headmaster's reputation precedes him, as you can probably imagine – everyone knows the story of the young prodigy who graduated from here before even officially becoming an adult, and who went on to master three Affinities rather than one or two."

"I've been meaning to ask about that," Pale ventured. "What does it mean to have an Affinity for a certain type of magic? Initially, I thought it meant that you were limited to only casting magic of that type, but I suspect that isn't actually the case."

"It isn't," Professor Tomas explained. "Your Affinity is simply the magic you will learn the fastest. Everyone has a natural aptitude for a certain kind of magic. Your Affinity is meant to help you realize where you will progress the quickest, but you are by no means limited to magic of that specific type. In fact, at the Luminarium, we strive to teach our students basic useful spells no matter which kind of magic they may belong to. After all, things such as learning how to project a magical barrier or how to heal minor wounds are useful no matter who you are. In time, you will learn how to do the exact same as the others."

Pale nodded along in understanding. "What about someone like Kayla? I've seen her use fire and lightning, and yet she's only ever referred to herself as a Fire Mage. Is lightning not a type of Affinity?"

"It's a subclass of fire magic," Tomas said to her. "The same way ice is a subclass of water magic. People have tried to explore lightning more in-depth, but it is inherently volatile. It takes a talented Fire Mage to be able to cast lightning magic in the first place; frankly, I am surprised Kayla managed it at such a young age. But then again, she has proven to be quite skilled already."

"I suppose that makes sense," Pale conceded.

Tomas suddenly brought a hand up and ran it through his beard. "Well, I suppose that's enough beating around the bush," he determined. "Shall we begin?'

"Yes," Pale replied. "Just tell me what I need to do."

"Okay. Do the same thing as when you first unlocked your sjel. Do you recall how to-"

"I do."

"Very good. Okay, do that. Once you've got it, I will add a bit of mana of my own. This will require I place my hand upon your head in order to provide you with some of my mana. Are you okay with that?"

"Do it," Pale said.

Tomas nodded. "Okay. Let's begin, then. Let me know when you have your sjel."

Pale took in a breath, then began to call upon her sjel. She'd been practicing with it the way Kayla had taught her the day before, and so it came much more naturally to her this time.

"I have it," she said after just a few seconds.

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Tomas blinked, surprised. "Do you? I don't see your hands lit up…"

"I figured out how to call upon it without the visual indicator using a method Kayla taught me, plus a bit of reasoning of my own."

That earned her another surprised blink. "...Well, you're certainly full of promise already. Still, if you insist you have it, then I have no reason to doubt you. Hold still; you may feel a small jolt."

Pale offered no resistance as Tomas stepped over to her, then gently placed a hand on top of her head. For a moment, she felt nothing, but then a surprised gasp escaped her as she felt some of his mana flow into her body. Part of her suspected it would feel invasive or unnatural in some way, but to her surprise, it didn't – rather, in her mind's eyes, she saw another source of mana approaching the light she'd come to recognize as her sjel. Then, before she knew it, the two mana sources coalesced into one; a second gasp escaped her as light suddenly filled the room, spilling out from her hands involuntarily.

Tomas suddenly pulled away from her at that moment, then motioned towards her.

"Try to cast a spell," he said. "Be careful how much mana you put into it; the last thing we want is for you to cast fire, or Gods forbid, lightning, and destroy the room."

Pale nodded, biting her lip. "How do I cast something?"

"Take the mana source in your hands and project it outwards. The kind of spell doesn't matter at this point, so long as you don't pour everything you have into it. We'll know soon enough what kind of Affinity you have, so-"

Pale did as he asked, focusing on the raw mana in her hands and using her mind to push it outwards. She couldn't help but jump a little bit as a loud pop suddenly filled the room. The moment she heard it, Pale cut the connection to the mana in her hands, allowing it to fizzle out, lest she end up casting something incredibly destructive by mistake.

"What happened?" she instantly asked. "Did I do something wrong?"

She didn't receive a response from Professor Tomas, which instantly sent chills down her spine. She turned towards him, a worried look crossing her face.

"Professor?" she asked.

Tomas blinked, which seemed to snap him out of whatever trance he was in enough that he was able to start moving. He began to walk over to a nearby desk, saying the entire time, a stunned look on his face the entire time. For a moment, Pale was worried she'd accidentally done something to his brain, though her fears were alleviated somewhat when he bent down to pick something up off the floor and show it to her.

To her surprise, it was a quill that had somehow been knocked off a nearby table… or at least, it had the vague shape of a quill. It looked to have been one at some point, but no longer.

Instead, it was a solid piece of lead now.

"...Gods above," Tomas finally breathed. "You're an Alteration Mage…"

Pale's heart skipped a beat. "Is that bad, Professor?"

Tomas set the lead quill down on a nearby table, then took a seat at the edge of it, that dazed look still etched across his face. After a moment, he shook his head.

"No," he assured her. "No, it's not a bad thing at all. Like I told Nasir earlier, I don't believe there's such a thing as bad magic, only bad people who use magic for evil purposes. No, this isn't bad… just complicated."

"Complicated how?" Pale asked, rising from her seat and stepping over to him. "You make it sound like this is unprecedented."

"Because it is. We haven't had an Alteration Mage student walk through the doors of this school in almost a century."

Again, Pale's heart skipped a beat. "...Oh."

"Yes, indeed." Tomas sucked in a breath. "...Alteration magic is very strange, even compared to something like Blood Magic. Are you familiar with the concept of alchemy?"

"I am."

"Good. Because as an Alteration Mage, you'll need to get even more familiar with it."

Pale blinked, then tilted her head, confused. "...Are you telling me that this kind of magic is essentially just alchemy? As in, I can turn lead into gold?"

"Skilled Alteration Mages have been known to do that," Tomas replied dryly. "They've also been known to be hunted down specifically because of it. You don't seem to understand, Pale – what an Alteration Mage does is, essentially, use their mana as fuel to alter the chemical composition of something and change it to something else entirely. We don't know how it works, exactly; Alteration Mages are few and far between, and there hasn't been much study on them because of that. Most of them tend to keep their Affinity a secret, and instead pass themselves off as Healing Mages."

"Why is that?" Pale couldn't help but ask.

"Because it's like I just said – people hunt them down for their powers, hoping to enslave the mage so they can get rich off of having them turn lead and rocks into gold or other precious metals," Tomas specified. "Ultimately, Healing and Alteration are two sides of the same coin – you're both using your mana to change the structure of something. It's just that Healing Mages specifically use it to affect people and other living things, while Alteration Mages use it to affect the world around them. Does that make sense?"

Slowly, Pale nodded. "I suppose so…"

"And unfortunately, that's not the only bit of bad news, I'm sorry to say," Tomas said, his voice apologetic. "Because your Affinity is so rare, we don't have much information on it. That makes it incredibly difficult, almost impossible to teach. Short of teaching students how to project a magical barrier, we are not capable of delving deeper into the theory behind Alteration magic."

"So anything I want to learn, I'll have to learn on my own," Pale finished.

Tomas gave her a nod. "Yes. I'm sorry."

"Don't be; it's not your fault." Pale let out a tired sigh, running a hand through her hair. "Do you have any resources in the library I can use? I'd like to learn more about this."

"You should ask Virux about that," Tomas told her. "It's up to you whether you want to tell him your Affinity while you do it. I doubt you'll have anything to worry about with regards to any of the teachers here trying to use you for their own ends if they know, but still. Letting people in on the secret means you're potentially putting a target on your back. You should consider whether you're ready to handle the consequences of that before you start telling people about it, at least in my opinion. Unless it's something you really trust, that is."

Pale gave him a nod. "I'll take that into consideration. Thanks, Professor."

He waved her off. "Anything to assist a promising young student in her pursuit of magical knowledge. Now, then, I'd suggest you go talk to Virux before it gets too late and the library closes. I don't know what, exactly, we have in the library with regards to your Affinity, but there has to be something there for you to use."

"I'll go right away," Pale promised. "Thanks again."

Tomas waved her off once more, and Pale turned and marched out of the room, her heart going a mile a minute. To say she was excited was an understatement. If what Tomas had just told her was true, then this had the potential to change everything. Even if Virux couldn't help her, she already had a good idea of where to start on her own.

Whatever happened, she was going to be brushing up on her chemistry over the coming weeks, that much was certain.