"The best way to identify which affinity is which, inside of your core, depends on a lot of factors. For some it takes practice and that's all, but for others you need to be in a space that helps you better connect with the affinity itself." Xerxes then gestured to a enormous tub that he had spawned from what Owen could only assume was some spatial storage device.

Faster than Owen's eyes could keep up, Xerxes made the faintest gesture towards the pool and water created from essence flooded the tub in seconds. Owen had purified an essence before, so several times throughout the tub filling with water, he had expected it to stop. Water continued to gush until the tub was completely full and it deactivated leaving the water to perfectly sit just under the edges of the tub.

Xerxes gestured for him to hop in and as Owen undressed, he kept throwing glances at Xerxes. He didn't want to ask any questions the would derail what they were already working on. He had started to know Xerxes well enough that he knew his teacher would want more than anything to stay on topic so he temporarily shelved his questions. The water in the pool was colder than he expected, but the directions Xerxes had given him earlier ran through his head, so he fully submerged before Xerxes could tell him again.

While submerged, he opened up his senses as fully as he could and reached out to the energy of the essence based water. As he felt at the water, he began the process of forming a essence marble. When it got to the point when he needed to add an affinity from his core, he felt an overwhelming connection to the water surrounding him, but felt the slightest tug of energy in his core that gave off the same feeling.

He had to be a lot more delicate than usual when pulling the specific strand of energy from his core, but after all of the practice purifying essence marbles, he was able to pull out the water affinity from his core without any issues. When he finished combining everything and condensing the energy he grinned at the water essence marble he had created. It only occurred to him once he emerged from the water that he had been underneath the surface for an indeterminate amount of time.

He glanced to Xerxes in surprised, with a questioning gaze and Xerxes smiled back at him. "One hour and 17 minutes." Owen continued to stare as he tried to process the amount of time that had passed without him breathing. He had read litrpg before and was well aware that once people evolved past human limits, they no longer needed to do some of the necessary things, like eating, sleeping, or breathing. He often forgot now, but it had already been a long time since he had eaten anything, but without his body growing hungry, he hardly ever thought of it anymore.

Sleep was usually a short experience for him now as he could sleep for an hour or two and probably be able to function for days. As he scanned his own body with his perception at full force, he realized that while he still needed to breathe, he didn't need to very frequently. If anything, breathing mostly just helped him keep his mana cycling at an even pace. He did a quick scan of his constellation and realizing that everything was okay in his system, he held up the marble for Xerxes inspection.

"Good, now try to do the same, but while standing in the water, rather than fully submerged." Xerxes said and he began pouring himself another cup of tea. Owen quickly did as asked and began trying to sense the water around him and began to feel at his core, while he gathered his mana. It took several times longer this time and it was only after struggling for a while that he was able to sense a connection between the water he was standing in and the affinity in his core.

"56 minutes, well done, you're getting better at sensing it inside of your core, now step out of the tub and try again." Xerxes said. Owen stepped out of the tub, still soaking wet, but before he even had a chance to focus on his core again, a large gust of wind blasted him in the chest. The droplets of water that still clung to him were blown off, leaving him completely dry. Xerxes then gestured for him to continue.

Owen focused in on the water in the tub nearby and let himself be as emersed in the energy as possible. It floated through the air as as he pushed his senses to their limits, he could feel it slightly in the air all around him. Pulling on that energy he began to try and pull the same energy from his core. He wasn't sure how long the process took, but it felt like he had again broken his record as he held up the water essence marble to Xerxes.

"Almost exactly two hours," Xerxes said with an impressed look on his face. "It also looks like you were able to sense the water affinity in the air itself, rather than just the water in the tub." Owen wanted to grin, but was more surprised at the amount of time he had spent sensing for the energy. "Is each affinity I have going to take this long to try and master?" Xerxes began laughing and Owen began to think he had somehow said something stupid, but Xerxes shook his head as he started to calm down.

"It wasn't a dumb question, I can already see from the look on your face, that is what you were worried about. No, it was more about how short a time it took you and you complaining it was taking too long. You certainly don't have complete mastery, but each other affinity is going to become easier and easier. Though even if you were to try and create another water essence, you would probably fail now. The strength of your affinity dictates how much of that type of energy you have at your disposal, before you will need to refill it."

"You seemed to have a higher wind and dark affinity, which means you probably could make several essence marbles of those types, but your water affinity is lacking. If you had an affinity stat, you could slowly increase the amount you have on hand, but it would only start to matter as you got it close to a triple digit stat." Xerxes said. Owen nodded and began feeling out his core, trying to reach for his water affinity, but just as Xerxes had said, even with one of his hands dipped into the pool of water, he couldn't find anything that resonated with the energy coming off of the water.

"Is there an easy way to find out what my limits are?" Owen couldn't help but ask. Xerxes seemed to think for a moment before shaking his head. "The easiest way would be to create as many essence marbles of every affinity you have access too and count them." Owen nodded and got ready to do just that. He heard someone make a light cough and he turned back to Xerxes who made a suggestive gesture at the clothes Owen had left lying on the ground. Realizing he still hadn't finished dressing himself, he quickly threw on his clothes before trying to find his limit for his affinities.

Hours passed and Owen had forced himself to not worry about going down the mountain that day. While he had a mana pool, it didn't play as big a role in his ability to use "magic" as he thought it would. Xerxes said he would explain more later, but that it was also information that he could unlock upon the next guild upgrade. So, he temporarily pushed it from his mind. He eventually was able to exhaust all of the affinity based energy in his core and found out he had several more affinities than he originally thought.

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He had already known that he had access to three affinities; wind, dark, and water. After his experiment though, he found out he had access to most of the affinities that Xerxes had mentioned so far. When he asked about it, Xerxes looked like he felt bad for Owen though after he started speaking, he realized it was cause Owen's access to affinities wasn't special.

"Most people have access to every affinity, even if it is miniscule. Most of the time though, it is enough that they can still create an essence marble's worth." Xerxes said, while scanning Owen's face. Owen didn't care too much as after he had finished making an essence marble for every affinity he had, he still felt strong. Owen had hoped there would be some system menu that could keep track of all of his affinities and how many essence marbles he could create with them, but a quick explanation from Xerxes, sadly shut down that idea.

"Because you have an affinity with any element, the purpose behind creating a list becomes pointless, if everyone has the same affinities." Xerxes said shrugging. It made a little bit of sense to Owen, but he still felt like it would be more useful to know what his top three affinities were without needing to keep track of them himself. Taking a pen to paper, he wrote down the affinities Xerxes could help him recognize and how many essence marbles he could create using them. The list was a lot longer than Owen had expected, but he was a little disappointed that he only had three affinities that he could create more than one essence marble.

*Affinities: Numbers are amount of essence marbles that can be created.

Wind = 11

Dark = 6

Water = 3

Lightning = 2

Life = 1

Death = 1

Earth = 1

Fire = 1

Light = 1

Metal = 1

Gravity = 1

Space = 1

Time = 1*

"So, while you were filling the tube with water, you created a lot more water than I am able to with your essence marble?" Owen trailed off as he framed it as a question. He had still be surprised that Xerxes had been able to fill an enormous tub with water using a single essence marble, but Owen had activated one of his own and hadn't managed to do more than create a water balloons worth of water himself.

"Intent is important when using magic. When you create an essence marble, if you are able to infuse your intent into its creation, you can do things a lot more complicated than increasing the volume of the basic creation. For example," Xerxes said. "If I wanted to throw something simple like a fireball, I would need to make sure that when I made the essence marble, it wouldn't burst into flame when I purified it."

Owen felt the energy stirring in the air as Xerxes made his essence marble, then he passed it over to Owen. "Purify that for me," he said and Owen did as asked. He quickly purified it and almost immediately it burst into flame. Owen looked at him confused and Xerxes smiled. "Now watch me do it," All Owen's senses told him was that Xerxes had done the same as him, but when he finished purifying the marble, he gestured with a hand and what had been a burst of fire had turned into a spear of flame and was launched into the ground.

"Now you try," Xerxes said. Owen shook his head, "Sorry, I haven't recovered any of my affinities yet, so I will have to try later, but I think I understand how to do it." Xerxes nodded sagely as Owen spoke and only when he finished did Xerxes speak. "What is left that you're hoping to accomplish while you still have a couple days left?"

Owen thought for a long moment. He knew he had still planned on reaching level fifty, ending the contract with Briar, an gaining his secondary class. The process still hadn't been explained it great detail to him, but he knew it wasn't a small event. "I think I am probably going to focus on reaching level fifty before I get sent back. There is a lot I want to focus on, but I am still worried that I am not making the best use of my stats. I've been increasing my stats the way you recommended, based off of my potential, but I am not sure how my dexterity and perception are going to allow me to hit harder when I need too."

Xerxes sighed, "Your secondary class will make it a little bit more clear, but I am worried you're too busy seeing this world as something like a video game. You have several means at your disposal to punch above your weight. In fact the last time I checked you had been fighting in the middle of the level 70 monsters range on the mountainside." He said turning a soft smile towards Owen. "You are making it sound as if having a higher dexterity or perception is making you weaker, but everything you are capable of is at your disposal."

"Your stats are almost representative of what your potential is, when you gain your secondary class, it is more of a trial than how you chose your first class. Keep in mind that your secondary class is supposed to be about you rather than about a specific path or person. Your main class is what is based on your sponsor or a guided path. Your secondary class also has to make up for all of the missed stats you would've been able to gain through hard work. There isn't much I can tell you without drastically changing how the system would perform your secondary class test, but I've told you what I can say."

Owen wanted to demand more information, he had gained over twenty levels since arriving and had placed the sixty plus stat points evenly between his dexterity and perception. He wasn't the biggest fan of seeing his vitality and agility fall so far behind, but if the secondary class was supposed to make up for it, then he would trust the process and continuing throwing his stats into his highest potential options.

The rest of the day was spent talking to both Myra and Peggy about their plans once they got back and he and Myra took some time to chat on their own as well. What he didn't tell them was that he had been fighting the entire time he had been talking to both of them. He had realized early on that only monsters above level 84 could survive one of his resonance slashes. He had practiced for a long time to be able to use it more than twenty five times, but it had been well worth it, even not counting the training gauntlet, his experience gains had shot through the roof.

The only downside that he decided he would have to talk to Xerxes about later, was that his chaos was having less and less of an affect on monsters. It was almost as if they had a natural protection against it at a certain level. Deciding to stay up for the rest of the night farming, he tried to figure out the issue, but his main focus was on reaching level 50.

As the sun began to rise and Owen no longer had to strain himself to see, he raised a fist in triumph as he looked at his notifications and grinned.

*You have gained a level

You have gained a level

You have 6 unallocated stat point(s)*

*You are level 50, you have the ability to create your secondary class now: Options available

Form a common - requirements met

Form a uncommon - requirements met

Form a rare class - requirements met

Form a ultra rare class - requirements met

Form a epic class - requirements met

Form a arcane class - requirements met

Form a legendary class - requirements met

Form a hero's class - requirements met

Form a unique class - requirements met*

Owen just stared at his secondary class notifications for a long time. He hated that he didn't understand any of what was listed other than, that he could choose one of the options. He didn't waste anymore time on the mountain side and rushed back up the the school rounds immediately finding Xerxes waiting for him. "Congratulations, you leveled up faster than I ever expected you too. Now I assume you have questions about the secondary class system?" Xerxes said.