“How a half-elf’s physical appearance manifests is something that I would have to research a bit further… however, considering that you are half high elf, we cannot look at previous instances since there are none documented. Your ears weren’t what I was trying to discuss before you interrupted me. What I wanted to point out was that you don’t have any beast attributes.
“Your elf parent’s physical appearance wouldn’t have dominated if you were half beast-kin. You would have looked more like your non elf parent. If the system had spoken about your other half before, I could have determined more accurately if you had aura instead of just an inability to use mana you could’ve started training much sooner. The system would have hidden this information since it's not something that is blatantly obvious, but now that I know you use aura it should just tell me what your other race is.
“I could easily narrow it down a bit more if I spent some time reading so why it refuses to just tell me outright is aggravating. Even more than you not caring about something like this.”
“It’s not like I don’t not care, its just never really mattered to me. Now though… if I look like a full elf why have I always been hiding my ears around elves. If I looked like a halfer and it was obvious then hiding it would protect me, but if I look like a full elf, what did hiding it even do?”
“Lykor only said you were a half elf because you were wearing a hood in elven lands. So, unless he knows how half high elves present physically… yes it seems that you would’ve been fine walking around with your ears out. From now on if you wanted to just pass off as an elf you could.
The other option is that you could simply not mention it. The instant it is revealed you use aura most people will know you’re half. The amount of half elves in the world currently isn’t great, we don’t know how many elves actually know what a half elf looks like. This Alrick however, does so we’ll need to keep that in mind. For now, though, we can simply just let others make their own assumptions that will be easier than trying to explain your way out of a lie.”
This was annoying, he said all these things, but we were back to the start of the conversation.
“What does it even matter what the system says? We know that I look like a full elf and that I use aura maybe the system will tell us later, maybe it won’t. Why did we talk about this if we didn’t get any where?”
“We did get somewhere; your aura and the fact that your elf physical appearance being mostly dominant is the key.”
"What do you mean, mostly dominant?”
“Your hair color. You spent a decent amount of time on the twentieth floor, your hair has grown, and yet the demarcation line of color between the silvery top of your hair and the black ends has not changed. Your other parent’s race is quite strong. The most probable race would’ve been completely dominant in any other mix. No other race makes sense.
“The system not updating could mean that I’m wrong or that it could just mean that my administrative level is still unchanged from the beginning. Personally, I’d like to blame the tower instead of my own access level, unfortunately I can’t know for sure.”
He could’ve gotten to the point a whole lot faster.
“So, what is that race?”
“Goliath.”
“I’ve only heard them mentioned, don’t know much about them.”
I instantly regretted saying that because Alcoroth just took that as a chance to lecture me.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Even though the information is limited, what I do have is good enough for a basic explanation. Goliaths are a nomadic race that lives in the snowy northern planes past the dwarven and beastkin lands. Most importantly they rarely mix with the southern lands. Unlike other races where aura manifestation is in the minority, mana manifestation is in the majority for them. Even if someone has mana it is strictly spirit manipulation mana.
“Those that are spirit manipulators are the religious leaders within a clan. Goliaths aren’t a monolith like all races and are separated by clans without any distinguished land partitions. Most of the goliaths that do not live with the clan they were born into, were either outcast, or grabbed as kids and sold into slavery. Outcasts refrain from speaking about their culture, their fighting methods, or their cultivation methods, and slaves simply don’t know. This is why the knowledge is so limited.
“They are still a culture that is firm in their oral traditions of passing down information and even if there are books written down, they are closely guarded as none have been found. There’s so much we don’t know about them. And if you were one, then I could figure out how goliath traits mix with others.
“There is so much to learn its exciting and yet utterly frustrating how you and your existence makes me so annoyed and interested at the same time. While I wished the young master chose someone more worthy of him, you ignite my curiosity. I am excited to learn about things related to your circumstances especially because it is something that hasn’t been written about. You know absolutely nothing, be it because your memories are messed up…. or the unbelievably frustrating option, that that you simply lack any interest in this. If you knew things it would be a simple matter of questioning you and studying you but instead it’s a slow process of learning things. Even the simple process of uncovering new things is enjoyable, honestly the only annoying part of it is your apparent un interest.”
I’m sure somewhere in his long rant he insulted me at some point, but I still didn’t understand why.
“What’s the point of knowing or even why do you want to learn?”
“What?”
I’m glad my confusion wasn’t just ignored; it would be great if I could have this explained to me.
“Let’s just say you find out, what do you get from it? I’m still going to annoy you.”
He stared at me a bit.
“You eat when you get hungry right?”
I nodded.
“Its like that.”
Was it really that simple?
I tilted my head and scrunched my face a bit trying to process it.
“So… you’re hungry to know these things about me… and once you know you won’t be hungry anymore?”
“Well at least for a bit, until something else comes along that makes me curious, or hungry as you put it.”
“Like how I get hungry at different times during the day?”
Alcoroth nodded.
That makes sense. Mypheryn’s interest in knowledge felt more like what I now know is my interest in fighting. It's just fun, I don’t know why but it is. Alcoroth though, wanted to know more things and was frustrated about it, how was being frustrated fun…. It couldn’t be the same thing as me liking to fight. If it was like being hungry then that made sense.
When I was hungry my stomach growled and made me uncomfortable till I filled it so if he says it's similar to that I can understand it more.
“Yes, so even when I find that out, I’ll still want to know the details of everything. Where and how your parents met. What is this healing ability you have. Once I have a small piece I’ll keep wanting more.”
"Okay, that makes sense, thanks for explaining.”
“Do you get confused about other things like that?”
“Yeah, well for some things at least. Like if I don’t want to do something I don’t really get why other people want to do it even if they say they want to… I don’t know why though. I don’t know a lot of things. I don’t know why I had to hide my hair color, or why I was living in an orphanage, but my uncle was helping me out. I don’t know who my parents are, why I was living with dwarves, or why my memory is messed up.
Most of all though, I don’t know if I would care if I ever find out. With my hair it's just something I always did, like being wary of my eyes and my ears. I knew why I’m careful with my ears, since I know I’m a half elf and since I was told elves hate halfers. But that changes things now since my ears aren’t clearly a half elf’s”
“Your eyes? Is, that why your hair is so long there?”
“Yeah, I mean I don’t really focus on it so much cause there’s not much I can do about it. It was just something I was always told to watch.”
“By your uncle?”
I nodded.
He looked at me a bit again.
“If you ever have questions like that, I will do my best to answer them, so ask.”
There was a ding and the door appeared along with a banner.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The monarchs request that you progress onto the next floor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mezu started to wake up and I stood up with him in my arms.
“Let’s get going then.”