After chatting for a while, we fell asleep, probably a bit later than we should have though. Well, a lot later, considering Gregory had to knock on our door, announcing that breakfast was already ready, for us to wake up.

We rushed to get dressed (with the new priestess robes for me), before heading to breakfast.

“You took unusually long to get ready, were you having problems?” Gregory asked.

“No, we just stayed up too late. I’m sorry for worrying you.” Rapunzel said.

“As long as you are fine, I am relieved.”

“So, are there any plans for today?” I ask.

“Other than some final checks to make sure everyone is ready? None. Everyone’s free to do whatever they feel like." The Hero says.

“Okay. Then, Gregory, are you free?”

“Fairly, do you require my assistance?”

“I was hoping you could teach me how to use my new staff. I figured I should figure it out as soon as I could.”

“Understood, I shall accompany you until noon, as I have an appointment at that time.” He responds.

“Thank you. I owe you one.”

And so, after we finished breakfast, Gregory led me to the mage’s guild, where he rented a practice room. I guess he wants to demonstrate and practice as well.

“There is one primary thing you need to know, staffs contain their own mana veins.” He started to explain.

“...Like how all living things have their own mana veins?” I ask, confused.

“Yes, though staffs do not contain any mana, they contain the pathways that mana flows through. Different from wands, staffs have a set way for mana to flow through them; if you attempt to force your mana through regardless, your spell shall instead be weakened. That is also why staffs can enhance your power, using one is similar to having someone assisting you in casting your spell. In essence, using a staff requires ‘teamwork’ to be used properly.”

“I see, it’s been a while since I cast with someone else though.” I say as I try to remember. “Yeah, not since I first started to use magic, huh.”

“Then this may take some time. Do not worry, for I shall be here should you require any assistance.” He says as he starts to practice his own magic.

Let’s see. I’ll just try to cast a spell normally first, to set a benchmark.

…Well, that was the plan at least. I thought that since I was, you know, a support, it wouldn’t be too bad. I was wrong. I figured that my spell would be weakened, I never expected it to be completely negated. It appears that my casts are actually quite unsupportive/aggressive/impolite/uncooperative/etc. Well then, at least I know now. But this is problematic. I guess I’ll try just passing my mana through the staff first, then.

Hmm, while it is working, my mana is taking quite a while just to spread through the staff. Mmm, let’s try one last thing. I first tried to ‘heal’ the staff, and when that didn't work, I even tried buffing it.

Well, I didn’t think those would work, per se, but I did think something would happen at least. I guess it makes sense, the staff isn’t a living thing, so of course my spells wouldn’t work. Haa, I’m stuck.

“Gregory, I’m lost. Can you help me?” I ask.

“Where are you having difficulties?”

“How do you pass mana through the staff properly?”

“I see, the first step.” He nods, appearing to have decided on something. “What have you experienced so far?”

“I was completely stopped when I tried to cast a spell, It takes minutes for my mana to pass through it when I try just giving it mana, and casting heals and buffs on the staff didn’t do anything.”

“I see, I never thought of casting spells onto the staff, though I suppose such actions do make sense for a support. I am quite surprised that you were completely suppressed when you attempted spellcasting, as such things are quite rare.”

Well aren’t I special. “So what now?”

“Let us start with infusing my hand with your mana. I can only properly understand your situation once we have a proper diagnosis.”

“Okay.” I say as I grab his hand. I try to gently infuse a small amount of my mana. Emphasis on try apparently, as he quickly pulled his hand away. Well that can’t be good.

He looked at me in shock, as he took a while to understand what happened. “Your mana is quite… aggressive. I never would have guessed such a trait. Just… how?” Hey, I recognize that expression! It’s the same look Rapunzel had when she questioned life.

“I… I have never experienced such aggressive mana before. Even the pyromaniac that I specifically met to experience aggressive mana pales in comparison. How are you a support?”

“I’m questioning that myself.” I wonder. “Do you think becoming the saintess has anything to do with it?” I asked.

Gregory didn’t even respond. He just looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Hold on. You see, I received some power from the Gods, you know. Maybe their mana just happens to be aggressive?”

“Elizabeth.” He sighs as he stares at me. “The previous Saint was known to have an extremely kind and gentle mana. It is absolutely impossible for the Gods to have caused your hyper aggressive mana.”

“I see.” I did not know that.

“You did not know?”

“Uhh.”

“How!? Saint Cameron was famous for his mana!”

“I mean, I never met him. Besides, his death was the reason I could become the saintess in the first place.” I argue.

“You should have… no, it does make sense. You did not even know about your position within the church, it is reasonable that you would not know about the previous Saint’s mana.” He sighs.

“Yeah… wait, the previous Saint was? Not all of them?”

“Yes, only the… previous Saint.”

“What about the previous… saints? Saintesses? How do I refer to previous generations in general? I’ve always referred to each one individually.”

“It follows the same rules. The title itself has been changed to saintess. They were previous saintesses, and your successors shall be saintess candidates. The only exception is when you talk about specific individuals, then you use the title they had used.” He explains. I see.

“So, previous saintesses.” He continues. “The next Saintess’ mana was extremely mild, not reacting to anything, and the next was… extremely energetic.”

“I’m seeing a pattern.”

“Yes, it appears that the Gods enhance the state of the saintesses’ mana, causing their mana to become extreme versions of what they held previously. Fascinating.” Gregory says as his eyes sparkle.

“I wonder.” I pull out a book from my bag.

“What would that be?”

“It’s a book about saints… well, an older book, but it has information about previous saintesses and what responsibilities and privileges I have. I made sure to get one when I was gathering supplies. I planned to read it on our journey.”

“That sounds like a marvelous plan.”

“So… here it is! Every saint, after being approved by the Gods, finds that whatever traits their mana previously had are increased to an extreme degree. This empowers their mana, but drastically increases the intensity of their mana trait reactions towards anything that would cause them to react, both positive and negative.” I closed the book with a sigh. “This might be… problematic.”

“That may be the case. I am surprised I could pacify your mana now.”

“I mean, mana poisoning tends to overwhelm any traits your mana has, and the second time I probably just needed something to distract me from the, worms. Besides, it’s much harder to notice a mana’s traits without it being infused into your body.”

“May I infuse my mana then?” He asks.

“Sure.” I say as I hold out my hand.

As he does I analyze his mana. It’s… warm. Like, that’s all. It’s not comforting, aggressive, energetic, or anything really, just, warm. Cool, well it’s not, but it is quite interesting.

“Hard to notice does not apply to your mana’s aggression.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yes. Despite usually requiring a fair amount of effort to analyze an individual’s mana traits in such a way, your mana felt as intense as the pyromaniac’s mana was when he had infused his mana into me.”

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“That’s quite impressive. And concerning. I’m surprised that I never noticed.”

“You said that you previously dual cast when you first started to use mana, why did you not notice then?”

“Well, the priestess only infused me to help guide my spell. She didn’t really have the chance to check.”

“Did you never check your mana’s trait at any other time”

“No, I never really cared too.” I shrugged. “I never really cared to find out anything about myself. I just wanted to live my life.”

“I… see. Understood. So, how do we enable you to utilize the staff’s power? Should it even be feasible, that is.”

“That’s what I want to know.” I sighed.

“Well, we should start with just infusing your mana and flowing it throughout the staff. This way, you shall at least become more familiar with the staff. Alas, we can only utilize a slow and steady approach.”

“Okay.” I agreed as I started infusing my mana. And, after only a few minutes, I had fully infused the staff with my mana. I then got my mana inside the staff to flow. It, it’s not going very well. Haa, I need to become more familiar to even attempt to use it, but even that step is slow. If only I had a way to better tell what’s going on, I sigh.

Wait, I do! Patient analysis. It takes until I almost used it for me to realize that I’m an idiot. Whatever, I might as well finish.

Huh? HUH? It worked! How? OH, I forgot, it even works on corpses, so it potentially could work on staffs, especially one mostly made out of wood. Well then, let’s see what’s going on.

Hmm, well, I can’t see what’s wrong. Patient analysis, while powerful, doesn’t show you the patient’s mana veins or flow, after all. It can barely even detect any mana usage, showing as a vague of on or off, and not being even close to knowing what the mana is being used to do. Haa, this is annoying.

Wait, I can see my own mana clearly though, and far clearer than when I just detecting it normally. Maybe I can just use trial and error to figure out the staff’s veins.

“Yes!” I accidently cheered once I started to notice results. I just kept my flowing the same way in the smoother parts, while adjusting the slower parts.

Slowly, I am slowly starting to understand the staff. At least this is far faster than what I was doing before. After a bit, I removed my mana to test my new infusion speed, when my patient analysis got cut off. Aggressively.

“That was a bit disorientating.” I mumble as I reorganize my perception.

“What was disorientating?” Gregory asks. “Your patient’s analysis?”

“Ah, yes, it suddenly cut off.”

“Odd. It is also interesting that you were capable of using it on a staff.”

“Yeah, but I can’t anymore.” I say, confused.

“Is there anything different now as opposed to when you could use it?”

“No, all I did was remove my mana, and it- Ah, my mana!”

I infuse the staff with mana, taking less than a minute now. “It works!”

After a minute, “Ah, let me stop.” I say. “So that’s the requirement.”

“Congratulations, you are now closer to being capable of using your staff.”

“Yeah. So, let’s try casting a spell.” I say as I start. While the spell struggled, and was massively reduced in power, it was barely cast. “Yes!” I shouted.

“Congratulations, you were finally able to cast a spell. Sadly, this just means you are only now at the same level as most others when they first acquire a staff.”

“Yeah, yeah. At least it’s a start. I’m gonna use patient analysis to see what’s happening when I cast a spell.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.” Okay, let’s try again. So, first problem, my mana isn’t flowing smoothly. Yeah, I’m not perfect with my understanding, so that makes sense, but what’s strange is that my spell isn’t even properly using what I do know. No wonder I’m struggling.

Let’s try again. This time I spent more effort guiding my spell. But here lies the second problem. The staff itself is redirecting my mana.

Okay! I can work with this. I’ll just let the staff guide the spell. So I started casting some spells. I even made sure to cast a few different types of spells to see which ones worked best. Sadly, none of them were even remotely efficient.

Haa, I’ll just work on improving my understanding of the staff’s veins first. So, that’s how I spent the next hour. I should have gotten pretty familiar with the staff’s veins after that. It now only takes a few seconds to completely infuse my staff, after all.

“Okay, let’s try just casting another spell now.” I say. “Haa, it is still weaker than just using my hand.” I complained.

“Yes, but you have at least been making progress, so do not be disheartened.”

“Yeah. So now I need to try working with the staff.”

“You, have not been cooperating with the staff?”

“No, I wanted to understand its veins first. And now that I mostly do, I can finally attempt that step.”

“Understood. While I believe that you are overcomplicating this, there should not be any issues with your chosen path. Such actions might even result in an experienced understanding once you have finished.”

“That would be nice.” I hoped.

Okay, let’s try again. I shall once again let the staff guide my spells. Hmm, ah, ooh, uh, um. Haa, what is the staff doing!? That’s not at all how you do this! Why aren’t you properly flowing!? Look, this is how you cast. You need to follow your veins. Come on, I’ll show you how to do this. See, isn’t that better? Let’s try again.

I then proceeded to spend the next hour ‘teaching’ the staff how to use mana. I continuously guided the staff’s intent so that it could actually work properly.

“Haa, there we go.”

“How is everything going? You have been mumbling to yourself for the last hour.”

“Ah, sorry. I’ve guided the staff to the proper way of casting spells. It no longer tries to draw my spells around pointlessly, instead it obediently follows my lead.” I smiled. “Okay, now to test its power before properly training to work together.”

I then cast a spell. “Ooh, nice! That worked wonderfully! That spell was a good bit stronger than when I cast it on my own.” I cheer.

“Hmm, can I observe?”

“Sure.” I say as I let Gregory infuse some mana into the staff.

“What did you do?!” Gregory shouts after I cast another spell.

“Hmm, what do you mean?”

“You are supposed to work together with your staff, both of you guiding the spell so that it is cast more effectively than when done on your own.”

“Yeah.” I nod.

“Then why is the staff only following your lead?”

“Because it’s more efficient that way.”

“What happened to working together?”

“We are though? We just need a bit more practice so that the staff has more initiative and starts being dragged along less.”

Gregory sighs. “What an aggressive way to ‘cooperate,’ Elizabeth.”

“Is this that different from how others use staffs?” I ask.

“Yes, here.” He holds out his staff for me to infuse. “Ready?”

I nod. Gregory then casts a spell, and I realize what he meant. If his cast was like two people working together to defeat an enemy, each one covering some of the other’s weaknesses, I was pulling someone along while telling them what to do so they could help me. His was proper teamwork, while mine was just me telling others what to do.

“Wow, that’s quite the difference.” I sighed.

“It is. I am astonished though, as it should not even be remotely possible to change a non sentient object’s will in such a way. It does not even have a will to influence, after all. That should have been impossible.”

“Huh.” I was too shocked to even react. I basically just told a rock to think, and then it somehow did.

“So, how did you do it?”

“I just forced the staff to guide my mana where I wanted to guide it.”

“What.” Gregory blanks.

“Well, whenever the staff would start pulling my mana, I would move the force that the staff was using to where I wanted to go, so it would end up pulling my mana to the correct place.”

“I take back what I said. Your method is not aggressive, it is tyrannical.”

“Ah.” I’m shocked. “You, you’re right. Huh, how did I not realize that?”

“You said that you were going to practice proper cooperation, but you were just going to get the staff more used to your commands.”

“I, see. Well, as long as it works, I guess.” I gave up.

“...You are correct. Though, I wonder how this may affect your end potential with the staff.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” I smiled.

“I am looking forward to your results, whatever they might be.” He also smiled.

I then spent another hour practicing. Gregory even mostly stopped his own practice to instead observe how I was training. He even gave me a few suggestions, while also testing some of the things I’ve tried for himself. With our cooperation, we both ended up improving. Yay having two magic nerds working together.

“Thank you, Elizabeth, this was quite helpful. I look forward to the next time we work together.” He thanked with a smile.

“Yeah.” I smiled back. “Sadly we use completely different branches, so opportunities for cooperation are rare.” I sighed.

“Alas, that is true. While this has been fun, though, it is time for my appointment.”

“What are you doing, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I am meeting with the head of the mage’s guild to discuss me acquiring higher tier spells.”

“Ah, I forgot that most other branches need to constantly acquire new spells.”

“Yes, while support spells’ effectiveness mainly relies on the user’s understanding and proficiency of them, elemental spells will only improve so much no matter how experienced the user is. We require more complicated magical formulas to draw out more power, as there is only so far just clumping fire together will get you. In addition, while support spells are almost exclusively beneficial, elemental spells are quite dangerous and destructive, so the higher levels are quite restricted.” Well, some of my spells are also dangerous and restricted.

“Yeah.” I nod. “Hmm, do you need any help? I’m sure a wandering priestess could potentially help your case.” I smirk.

“You are correct, priestesses are fairly trustworthy. Are you certain though? I presume you would much rather spend your last day relaxing.”

“It’s fine, I probably wouldn’t end up relaxing anyway. Besides, you helped me out, it’s only fair that I return the favor.”

“Fair, though, even with your help, gaining permission shall be difficult.”

“Even for the saintess?” I offer.

“Unlikely, though I would prefer to earn the privilege myself.”

“Understandable. Do you still want a priestess’ help?”

“That would be appreciated. As this process would normally take multiple days. I initially only requested this meeting so I could properly prepare. With your assistance, though, the possibility of passing is there.”

“Then I would be glad to assist you.” I say. “Oh, is there anything I need to do in particular?”

“It would be best to have your backstory story prepared, otherwise I was going to be honest about what we have done, just not who we are.”

“I see, there won’t be a problem then. As I was originally planning on becoming a priestess, I already know quite a bit about being one. I’ve also already finished most of my backstory as well.”

“Unlike the saintess that you actually became.” He teased.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m quite studious when I actually care.” I pout.

“I know, our previous exchange has proven that.”

“So, shall we head out?”

“We shall. Though there are still several minutes before the meeting time, as I planned to be ready for your practice to take longer than anticipated.”

“Okay, I’ll just review some things in the meantime then.”