Leif trailed Lars as the two marched through the Twin Heart guild compound. They passed by several dorms, each with a continuous stream of adventurers coming and going. There was an interesting dichotomy to the place, younger adventurers, those of lower rank would give way for their more powerful seniors. Few of the less experienced adventurers openly displayed their rank, though from bronze rank and higher the practice became more common, usually with a small pin crafted into the shape of the Twin Heart guild’s symbol of twin circles.

“You have two aura skills, that is a problem you should resolve as quickly as possible.” Lars sent telepathically as they walked around a lowered series of training courtyards, one was full of people doing sword drills under the watchful gaze of an instructor, the other had two pairs of adventurers duelling, dust flying as their weapons clashed. There were large stone steps flanking both sides of the training spaces, some small groups of people lounging around or watching the training in progress.

“I know it’s a problem, I’m currently fusing them as we speak.” Leif said. He thought about prying for more information, and decided it was worth a try. Lars was in a teaching mood it seemed. “Other than having overlapping skills taking up skill slots, and both skills taking time and effort to train up separately, is there another problem?”

“Yes.” Lars said simply, turning to face the duelling pairs. Blasts of force washed against an invisible barrier surrounding the courtyard as the four combatants exchanged a blur of attacks and parries. Two adventurers, likely sisters judging by their similar appearances, clashed, multicoloured energy coursing through their limbs with every punch, block and kick.

Small spirits of different elements danced around one of the adventurers, the man standing back from the fight, exchanging a volley of elemental projectiles with the other pair's spear wielder. Javelins fell from the sky towards him, only to vanish after impacting the ground and reappear in their throwers hands.

“There is a problem with spreading yourself too far conceptually, though this is more of a general rule for progression. Gaining experience, and indeed advancing the ranks of certain skills becomes exponentially harder over time. The more focused you are, the more synergies and conceptual overlap the easier it becomes. This is why you don’t see people mixing and matching classes with little alike. A level fifty human could have four different thaumatic classes, each with a different speciality.

“But they’ll struggle to advance.” Leif said, thinking out loud. “Is that something to do with the experience penalty from having too many skills? Is it not just about the quantity of skills, but the variety?”

“Yes.” Lars said again, eyes darting around to follow the sparring match he was watching. “I think it’s why most monsters level up so quickly, though I suspect you will have more insight about that than me. Anyway, back to discussing auras. Having two or more aura skills has the same problem with having too many spell skills, or comprehension skills. They’re all competing for the same resources: time, effort, experience. At rank five the conditions for ranking up those kinds of skills goes from technique to… alignment. It’s not an easy concept to explain, but how you embody the skill is more important than how you use it.”

“And that’s lessened by fusing them together? Or at least partially?” Leif asked, wincing as the man with summoned spirits took a fist to the gut as one of the sisters suddenly blurred forward past her opposite with the activation of some sort of movement skill.

“That is correct. There are a series of exercises and training methods you can employ to strengthen your aura. Meditation techniques and thought exercises can also assist in this, but they’re not as important at your current level of advancement. I can teach them to you now, but you will need to start mostly from scratch when your skill fusion is complete.”

“Ah.” Leif said, not particularly liking the sound of that. “I’ll end up having a third aura skill, I think monsters are forced to pick one at level thirty.”

Lars blinked at him. “You’re not level thirty in your monster class? I… I had not considered that a possibility. Fascinating, I’m sure those who specialise in monster research would love to get their hands on you.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about that.” Leif replied telepathically. “But yes, my monster class is only at level twenty.”

“Don’t want to get dissected by a bunch of madmen, don’t go to the academy. Or at least, learn to properly hide yourself.” Lars said, stepping forward as the protective field around the courtyard dropped, the duel having come to an end. The two pairs of adventurers were gathered off to one side, towling themselves down, breathing heavily. One of the unarmed fighters jumped in place, turning to see Lars approach. There was a telepathic conversation that Leif couldn’t hear, then the quartet departed, leaving the courtyard vacant.

“You didn’t have to chase them off.” Leif commented, stepping up beside the guild enforcer.

“I didn’t,” Lars said, “they were already packing up, I just gave them advice based on my observations.” Then he reached into his coat and pulled out a pair of what looked like silver bracelets. The enforcer tossed them over to Leif.

The scion caught both objects, then looked down at them. “What are these?”

“The toys I grabbed from the vault. Suppression bracelets, for aura training. Put them on.”

Leif did so, placing one on each forearm. “I need to attune to these?”

“You do.”

He nodded and focused on the metal bracelets. Expecting the process of attunement to take several minutes, Leif looked back up to where Lars was standing. Suddenly their power snapped around him, his aura becoming compressed, restrained by a weight that tried to squeeze his presence back into his soul. Leif took a step back involuntarily, surprised by the abruptness of the attunement completing.

You have attuned to an item! Attuned items count as skills, but cannot be fused or altered in any way a normal skill can be.

Warning! Attuning to any additional items may bestow additional penalties!

Warning! You are suffering from an experience penalty due to having attuned to multiple items!

“They’re called ‘adaptive suppression bracelets’.” Lars said. “The problem with items like these is that for them to work, they need to be willingly attuned to. It’s why it can be so difficult to incarcerate high level individuals safely.”

“Ugh. This feels horrible.” Leif grumbled, even the process of raising his hands to examine the bracelets felt weighed down. Small glowing runes had lit up around each metal band, though their meaning was beyond him. “I’m not sure how this constitutes a ‘toy’.”

“Because it’s a game, and unlike suppression items that they use to detain some criminals, you can easily take them off. Try to fight back against the suppression, push through the weight.”

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Leif did so, focusing all his attention towards the task. He wasn’t lacking in raw power, but control, so after a minute of mentally shoving his presence against the force constraining it the pressure buckled and he broke through. Two runes, one on each bracelet lit up further. “Like this?” Leif asked, still fighting back against the suppressing nature of the bands, but it was easier now that he had loosened their metaphysical restraints.

“Good. the suppression bands automatically adjust to your aura strength, to a certain point. Now try to light up the second pair of runes.” Lars said, crossing his arms.

Once again Leif fought back against the suppression, but expanding the small layer of aura he was projecting around him felt like an impossibility. “I don’t… think I… can.” He said aloud, unable to spare the focus to find out the mental link between him and the enforcer.

“Good. The reason why is that you’re not doing it right. Keep the suppression bracelets for the next week, if you can’t reach the next stage by then we can re-evaluate your potential.

Leif fell to one knee, the spiritual pressure exerting itself onto him manifesting as physical weakness. He let out a hiss, the sound muffled by his mask. His aura fell apart, what ground he had managed to gain being re-conquered by the items' effects. Completely suppressed for the first time he could remember, his every skill felt like it was a mile away, completely out of reach. Even [Grand Action], a skill who’s passive effects he has never been without faded away. Then the runes stopped glowing, and the bracelets fell inert.

His aura sprung back out, as if a drowning man gasping for air. “That… that was awful. Is this how you trained your aura?”

“It is, yes. And Nikolas before me. It’s something of a family heirloom.”

“You pass down a torture device? Has Darius been blessed with this yet?”

“No, his mother is tutoring him in aura stealth techniques.”

“Isn’t that what you have?”

“My aura isn’t stealth related.” Lars said, expression completely blank.

“I can’t tell if you’re joking.” Leif said, getting to his feet and dusting himself off.

Lars didn’t reply, instead he turned his head to see a gaggle of people entering the training area from a large main entrance. “Oh look, they’re here. Our new batch of hopefuls.”

Leif recognised the figure walking at the head of the approaching group, and he spotted them, giving the tree monster and human a curt nod. Darius marched stiffly towards the largest training field, shoulders partially hunched. Facing away from the group of mostly teens and young adults, he took a deep breath, then turned and started barking orders.

“What are they doing? I thought the guild tryouts started a while ago?”

“They were doing individual ability testing in the facility specifically designed for the process. This will be individual and group bouts.” The enforcer explained.

“I see, so is this the group that passed that first test?”

“Most of them, around eighty percent of the original group. You’d be surprised how many people show up to these sorts of events with all of their class slots prefilled with things not suited for adventuring.” Lars sent silently, stepping out of the courtyard he and Leif were occupying and making his way over to where his younger cousin was putting in his best efforts to act confident.

Leif thought Darius was doing a fine job, the kids seemed keen and interested, their attention focused on him almost completely, though some were staring around, wide-eyed at the spars taking place around them. A small group of guild officials started directing the applicants to gather in groups based on their level.

There were three groups, a sub level ten group, a sub twenty group, and the smallest, an above twenty group with only four people. Darius practically teleported away as the guild hopefuls moved off to follow directions, the man appearing before Leif and Lars, mist sweeping past him from some sort of skill. “Oh, hey. Didn’t expect you to take so long.” He said, voice strained.

“I’m sure you were handling things well without us? Nobody seems to be dead, which is a good sign.” Lars said calmly.

“It was a close thing, one of the [Mage]’s thought she could display her power level better by targeting one of the guild officials instead of the training dummies. I have no idea how that thought came to her. I know most of these kids haven’t had formal training, but there’s a difference between not knowing any better and attempting murder in-front of a hundred people.”

“Does anyone need healing?” Leif asked, half amused, half unbelieving.

“No, no. She missed, thank the gods. Anyway, there are some pretty interesting classes this time around. There’s a boy in the above twenty group who has an attuned class I’ve never even heard of before.”

“A conceptually attuned class? What is it?” Lars questioned, his gaze sweeping the four tryout participants in the mentioned group.

“[Attuned: Spring], I have no idea what that even means. Probably some system weirdness, the kid doesn’t know what it is either.” Darius said, mystified.

“Spring? Are his skills jumping related?” Leif mused, equally as baffled.

“No, it's a healing class based around new growth. He can make flowers bloom with a domain skill. It’s like [Druid] but even more specific.”

A pair of under tens stepped into a part of the large training area, one of the guild officials creating the shielding field around them with some sort of crystalline device. It was two boys, both around fifteen years old, and both brandishing training swords. One of the boys charged forward, sword raised as silver energy wreathed the blade. The other lowered his stance, dropping into a defensive posture.

Their clash lasted twenty seconds, the attacker being disarmed by a flourish from the defender. Now on the back foot the first boy stumbled back, trying to ward off the onslaught from his opponent. Without a weapon, he quickly yielded the match, but not without taking a nasty smack to the forearm.

“They were both [Fighters], yes?” Leif asked, watching as the victor raised his hands in triumph while the defeated shook out his arm and activated some sort of self healing skill with a deep exhale of breath. Leif could sense the increase in life-force through his innate perception.

“Uhh, yes, I believe so.” Darius said, though his attention was on the under twenty match that had just started. He pointed to one of the combatants. “That one has glass magic, it's quite potent for his level.”

And he was right. The man, older than his opponent by at least half a decade, had conjured a tornado of flowing glass shards, the occasional barely visible fragment zipping out towards his unimpressed looking opponent. But the glass user couldn’t be approached without his opponent risking injuries, so after a minute long ‘battle’ he drove his opponent into a corner where they promptly surrendered without even using a single skill.

“What's his story?” Leif asked, gesturing to the sweating glass user as his conjured materials dissipated into motes of energy.

“Union of [Crafter] and [Attuned: Glass], level eighteen. Only one actual combat skill, but as you saw he made good use of it.” Darius explained, his usual hesitation gone now that he was a safe distance away from responsibility.

“Free class slot too.” Lars said, rubbing his chin in thought. “What would you pick in his situation?”

“Uh, probably [Tracker], maybe [Psion] if he had the aptitude for it.” Darius said. “You want good perception with all that glass flying around, and [Tracker] gets some light weapon skills that you could make out of glass with the right setup.”

“What about you, Leif?” Lars asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Truthfully I don’t know. [Tracker] sounds like a good idea but I’m fairly ignorant as to all the available options.”

The enforcer nodded. “Understandable. It’s a lack of knowledge you will need to rectify. Nobody has all the tier two classes memorised, I don’t even think humanity has discovered them all, even with thousands of years of history. But knowing all the foundation classes is a good way to learn about the possible powers you might face.”

Leif nodded. He liked the sound of knowledge, and if he could learn by watching a bunch of fairly entertaining fights that was all the better.