Jun groaned as another headache struck, her mana probes unraveling as she massaged her temples. She'd been poking at the strange membrane in her core for over a week but nothing changed. The tantalizing heat still called to her. She was certain now that it was the seal containing the [Soul Parasite] that had created the strange membrane, but the membrane itself wasn't the seal. It didn't make sense to her, since the seal had been placed before her core had been fixed. The only thing that made sense to her was that it was a side effect of the sealing, and with Shiori still sleeping for most of the day she couldn't ask her Master. That just left poking at it with the magical equivalent of a stick as she tried to figure things out herself.
She prepared to dive back into her core as her headache finally ebbed when Shiori stirred with a wide yawn. "Good evening kitten," she said calmly as if she hadn't just spent 10 days asleep.
"Shiori! You're awake!"
"Of course kitten, it was a refreshing nap."
"Nap? You've been asleep for 10 days!"
"A long nap," Shiori said as she got up and stretched before falling into a loaf.
"10 days is not a nap!"
"You don't know how to nap properly then."
"It's too long for a nap!"
"You clearly don't know how to nap properly kitten."
"I don't need to nap for over a week!"
"Then you're doing naps wrong."
"Argh! Why did you have to sleep for so long?! I have so many questions about magic Master! Do you know anything about [Affinity Layering]? Why don't I have any affinities on the tester? Why are my affinities locked behind some weird thing in my core? What am I supposed to do with this spell that's ready to evolve?"
Shiori stared at Jun for a moment. "What do you mean a 'weird thing' in your core? Describe it," Shiori ordered, her tone serious as her aura started to press down on the room.
Feeling her Master's oppressive aura, Jun quickly described the strange membrane with the heat behind it and how resisted her efforts to try and break past it.
Shiori stared at Jun for a moment before shaking her head in an all too human-like manner, her aura changing to that of a disapproving parent. "My stupid kitten," she said with a sigh. "You've been poking at the seal keeping the [Soul Parasite] contained. Stop doing that. You'll just hurt yourself."
Jun's eyes widened in realization at how dangerous her poking around at things she didn't understand had been. In hindsight it made sense, but she'd been caught up in how badly she was being left behind in her Practical Spellcasting class. After a week and a half, only a few of the students had failed to cast an affinity aspected spell, and Jun was the last remaining who'd started with their core already established. Deflated, Jun mentally reprimanded herself for trying to push ahead without her Master's help.
"We all make mistakes, and it is usually the role of the apprentice or disciple to rush ahead, experimenting with things they barely understand, hurting themselves in the process. It is the role of the Master to guide the disciple along the Path, but it is the disciple's role to push forward. You simply did as many before you have done before. Your Path is just one with far steeper consequences for failure." Shiori's aura lightened until it felt like a warm and comforting hug.
"To your other questions, [Affinity Layering] is a mere parlor trick. Where did you hear about it and why do you want to know it?" Shiori demanded.
Jun recapped the past week and a half of lessons, about how Sam tested their affinities, her lack of any, and the power of the spells her classmates were using through [Affinity Layering], especially her new friend Aya. She told Shiori about how the heat leaking from her core led her to the seal, and how she thought it might be an affinity that just slipped under the tester.
"It seems I have been remiss as your Master in educating you properly. That changes now. Do you know what affinities are kitten?"
Jun nodded as she pulled up what she could recall from her professors' lectures and studying sessions on Arcana Theory. "Affinities are a measurement of the strength of one's connection to different types of mana. An affinity for a type of mana makes it easier to touch and control that type of mana and enhances spells within its domain," she said, paraphrasing something that Sam had said.
"Partially correct. It isn't affinities directly, but aspected mana that can enhance spells that fall within their domains. A strong affinity for a particular aspect of mana will make it easier to control and influence mana with that aspect. It is this greater control over a particular property of mana that affects the performance of spells. Spells that take advantage of specific properties of mana are enhanced only in that less energy is wasted on conversion from one type of mana to another. Affinities allow magi to 'naturally' convert mana without spending mana on doing so, making them more efficient and leaving more mana to use within a spell." Shiori's tail started to flick back and forth as she started to lecture.
"Mana in it's neutral form is equally balanced, able to utilize all of its properties equally, yet excelling at no specific property. When affinities convert mana, they are destabilizing mana in a specific way that emphasizes certain properties while minimizing others. Fire mana as an example emphasizes energy transfer and combustion, among other things. Such mana is more efficient at converting mana into heat and flames than balanced mana, but far less efficient at neutralizing or blocking physical objects. Thus, a magi might rely upon a fire affinity to aspect their mana for attacks, which would provide an increase in power and efficiency. However, that same mana would be less effective in defenses, requiring far more mana to block an attack than an affinity such as Water or Earth."
"But what do you mean that [Affinity Layering] is just a trick? I've seen Aya's Novice ranked [Fire Bolt]. She's incredibly powerful compared to me..."
"[Affinity Layering] works by routing mana channeled into spells through the affinities of a magi's core, allowing them to convert mana for free, limited only by the size of their affinities. While useful for low cost spells, the size of one's affinities limits the speed and flexibility of their casting with [Affinity Layering]. Your friend Aya's spells may be impressive now, but no matter how strong her affinity, eventually it will only hold her back unless she learns not to rely upon it."
Jun was silent as she thought over the implications of what Shiori was saying. "So... what it means is that I'll be able to catch up without affinities?" she said, hope blossoming in her chest.
"What it means for you, kitten, is that your mana is stable and perfectly balanced, with all properties in alignment. Your lack of affinities is a blessing, not a curse. With the proper techniques and practice, you have the potential to reach the heights of true power." Shiori paused, fixing Jun with a stare. "Techniques you have already begun learning."
"I have taught you how to manipulate the aspects of a spellform to alter a spell's performance and how to alter the flow of mana into a spell to change its intensity. While you have done well in applying these techniques to [Piercing Missile], you have neglected your other spell. Tonight, you shall practice with [Barrier]. Apply these techniques to the spell and explore it," Shiori commanded.
Bowing her head in acknowledgement, Jun pulled up the System description of her spell as she looked at the spellform sitting in her mind.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
[Barrier] (Apprentice 4)
An upgraded variant of the basic [Shield] spell. This spell is composed of the aspects for Endurance, Adaptation, Redirection, and Negation. Blocks, absorbs, and redirects force.
Cost: variable.
Somewhere along the way, it had somehow lost the minimum, even though Jun had rarely practiced it. Pulling a tendril of mana from her core, Jun moved it through the 4 sided pyramid shaped spellform, probing at different glyphs and subglyphs. As her mana tendril touched each symbol, understanding slowly trickled into her mind. Rigidity, stability, manifestation, absorption, reflection, and a hundred more sub aspects of the primary concepts. Carefully, she fed her mana into the spell, feeding each of the symbols the minimum of mana and willing the spell to coalesce. A small, round plate of her mana appeared, the lower amount of mana rendering it less substantial. Her instincts told her that it was weak, the mana evenly spread to try and do everything, and thus would shatter against anything.
Holding onto the original spell, Jun pulled a new mana tendril and began to feed the symbols within the spellform, powering some to the bare minimum, while increasing the mana to others. Following her instincts, she willed the spell into existence and stared in shock at what appeared. The barrier spell drooped flacidly, reminding Jun of a melting clock rather than a plate. Her instincts told her it would deform around a strike, absorbing the energy of a blow, but a slash would carve straight through it.
She pulled up another tendril of mana, changing the symbols she powered, adding and subtracting mana where she thought it would yield the results she wanted. Again and again she coalesced new versions of the barrier spell as she figured out what each of the symbols did. Those she deemed failures she discarded, pulling the mana out of the spell and letting it vanish, only to create a new version. When she stumbled upon the symbols that affected the spell's shape, she changed things even more. Instead of plates, Jun manifested spells of thin layers built on top of each other, bowls, spikes, and even a tiny suit of armor though it was weak and purely for show. As her mana ran low, Jun slumped to the bed to rest, letting her core refill.
"Well done kitten. As you have learned, spells are malleable things. You can control the amount of mana to feed into a specific symbol to alter its performance, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in much greater ways. This is just the beginning, as spellforms are not the only malleable things. Mana itself is malleable as well." A ball of mana appeared in the air, glowing the light purple of Shiori's magic. As Jun watched, the ball changed, taking on a red glow as it burst into flames, sending off a wave of heat. The heat cut off as the ball changed again, solidifying into a rock, then freezing over as it became ice, before bursting into a swirling ball of air. "Mana can be manipulated and changed directly, without relying upon your affinities, to give you the effects you want. [Affinity Layering] is merely a trick relying upon the crutch of your core, limited by your affinities. Directly changing the face of your mana allows for—" The ball changed again, splitting into dozens and dozens of smaller balls, each taking on a different face, a different aspect. The motes of mana squeezed together, forming an ever shifting ball of aspects and colors. "—more." Shiori finished, letting the ball wink out of existence.
Jun stared at Shiori, all thoughts of the jealousy she felt as her classmates cast their spells forgotten. "Please teach me, Master."
Shiori nodded and began to lecture Jun through the technique. Jun learned to summon a simple ball of mana without a spellform by weaving tendrils of mana together into a ball and pushing it from her channels, though it took all of Jun's focus and several hours of practice to learn. That was the easy part. The hard part was in carefully shifting all of the mana to take on the properties of fire. As dawn rose the next morning, Jun still struggled to do more than maintain her ball of mana and she was forced to stop for her classes.
Jun struggled to stay awake through the repetitive lessons on Math, Science, and History, firming her resolve to test out of the classes as soon as possible. After a light lunch that consisted mostly of tea, since coffee didn't seem to exist, Jun had her afternoon physical and weapons training. Here the lack of sleep dragged her down, making every exercise feel 10 times harder than the week before. Her weapons training was even more of a disaster, fumbling to the point that she'd dropped her weapons multiple times and been berated by the Sergeant. She didn't miss how some of the students smirked at her and seemed to delight in her being singled out, but was too tired to care. Immediately after class Cecilia all but carried her back to her bed, where Jun passed out and slept through the night.
Her every free moment became consumed with practicing the mana shifting technique. After 2 weeks of relentless practice, Jun was finally able to shift some of her mana to fire. After Jun managed to shift her mana, it was time for her learn to cast while shifting her mana. On Fifth Day of third week of term, just a day after Jun managed to shift her mana for the first time,
Jun was excited for her next Practical Spellcasting class. After working closely with Shiori to learn her new technique, she'd finally grasped the basics and was able to create a flaming [Barrier] using fire aspected mana, though Jun erred on the side of safety in not trying to work on her offensive spell in her flammable dorm room. She'd asked her Master about at least evolving it, but Shiori stated that Jun should only evolve it when inspiration struck, not just because the System offered her the option.
As she stood with Aya in the spellcasting range, she closed her eyes, tuning out the sounds of her classmates casting spells and focused on her mana. Pulling a tendril from her core, she painstakingly shifted the mana according to Shiori's lessons into a fire aspect. Inspired by an idea, she fed the whole of the tendril into a single glyph controlling the spell's impact before spooling up new tendrils and shifted them into more fire. The spellform in her mind began to glow red hot with flames as she opened her eyes and smiled with a nod at Aya. Returning her smile, Aya motioned for her to go ahead, and Jun coalesced her spell.
A red orb the size of her head appeared in front of her and compacted down to the size of her fist. Energy roiled inside the sphere as Jun targeted the dummy at the end of the range. With a thought, she unleashed her spell and it raced down the lane, leaving a trail of flames in its wake. "[Fireball]," Jun whispered happily as her spell struck the dummy and winked out of existence. Disappointed, Jun's smile started to turn into a frown at her failed spell when the dummy exploded in a wave of heat and flames, parts of the dummy flying towards her classmates!
As if time slowed to a crawl, Jun saw the shrapnel headed straight for them and rushed to channel as much mana as she could into her [Barrier] spell, but there wasn't enough time. In the blink of an eye, her vision was filled with a cloud of flaming shrapnel headed straight for her and Aya, her friend still recoiling from the sudden explosion. Though mana could move quickly, Jun couldn't form the tendril fast enough to feed it into her spell, and she was certain she'd just killed herself, her friend, and her classmates.
A barrier across the entirety of the range lit up as the flaming shrapnel collided with it. The air filled with smoke as her classmates screamed, many in the process of ducking for cover as the shrapnel bounced off the barrier. As the smoke cleared, Jun and Aya stared at the dummy her spell hit, or what was left of it. The entire area around it was scorched black, and the two adjacent dummies were peppered with shards of metal and stone. "Wow Jun, nice spell!" her friend said with a giggle, patting Jun on the back.
"Miss Jun, congratulations are in order!" Sam said as he briskly walked over to them. "It took you longer than normal to figure out how to [Affinity Shift], but you made up for it with a nice show," he said with a smile. "Though, perhaps tone it down for future classes, you shouldn't scare your classmates like that," he said quietly, gesturing her classmates, some of whom were still picking themselves up from the ground.
Stammering out an apology, Jun ducked her head as her cheeks started to warm. "S-Sorry Sam," she said quietly.
Her professor nodded, before turning to the rest of the class with a smile. "Well, I think that's enough excitement for the day. Let's call it a bit early shall we?" As her classmates filed out from the room, more than a few shot glares at her, though a couple students gave her approving nods before they left. Jun and Aya were the last pair to leave.
"So," Aya said with a smile. "That was awesome, you should blow up a dummy every class!"
----------------------------------------
Sam waited until the last of his students left before locking the door to the range behind them. Finally alone, he dropped his smile and massaged his aching cheeks as he looked at the damage to the room. The girl who'd cast that spell was Jun, he thought to himself. A bronze ranked student who always paired up with Aya, another bronze ranked student. He'd had his eye on them since he got the class roster, if for no other reason than their names were a bit strange for bronze ranks. Traditional names were usually reserved for old noble families. Or those who came from the Empire. But neither girl seemed the type, and their student profiles only noted that both were scholarship students.
With Aya, she seemed to fit the mold. The girl had already demonstrated spells with all 6 basic affinities, while the next most advanced student was Lord Myron who'd only managed 4. On the other hand was Jun, who until today hadn't managed a single affinity aspected spell. She was slow and Sam had dismissed her as useless, only interesting for her lack of recordable affinities.
One girl who'd effortlessly mastered all of the basic affinities in 3 weeks. Another who struggled with the easiest one. Both far more powerful than their peers. Two opposing sides of a coin. Eyeing the slowly recovering room, Sam smirked and muttered to himself. "Looks like there's 2 worth special attention..."