Just because your first attempt at this went smoothly, doesn’t mean that every other attempt will, or that they’ll be nearly as successful! “ Olivia was quick to argue against him.

“She’s right,” the healer chimed in. “Also, as I said before, we don’t know if this ability to improve your affinity can go past the awakening stage. If not, then whatever damage you do to your affinity may be more permanent than you’d like,” She cautioned.

Despite being the primary beneficiary of his decision, his teacher remained objective in her analysis of the situation, giving him sound advice without trying to embellish anything. Whenever there had been any conflict of interest between herself and her student, she’d always endeavored to make sure that he knew all the ways in which he could get the short end of the stick. She never used guile, misdirection, or manipulation to get what she wanted out of him and it was a trait that Greg both admired and respected.

“I understand all that, but one way or another, I’m doing this,” He stated firmly, making it clear to both that this wasn’t a whimsical decision on his part but a settled matter that he wouldn’t be moved on. “Besides, I’m assuming that there are beasts that make use of life mana, are there not?” he asked.

A look of slight incomprehension crossed the healer’s expression even as she nodded. “Almost every type of mana there exists has several beasts that make use of it, if not in this realm, then in another. The only known exception is faith magic. If there are beasts that make use of that kind of mana, we are yet to discover them,” She answered him.

“Well, then, there is our answer. I’ll just use the cores from such beasts to improve my affinity in life magic as well,” he said with a confident smile.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don’t think that will work,” The healer countered causing Greg’s smile to falter a bit.

“And why is that?” He asked.

“Blue is its own color and so is yellow, but bring them together and you get green,” She replied enigmatically. Noting that he didn’t seem to follow, she explained. “The mana pathways of one who focuses entirely on the earth element are vastly different from that of a healer. And the mana pathways of either one of the two are probably vastly different from the mana pathways of one who excels in both. Your theory makes it clear that affinity isn’t some free-floating concept but rather is integrally tied to the layout of one’s mana pathways. You don’t have two sets of mana pathways that you can independently realign, Roka, you only have one. If you keep switching between earth element beast-cores and life mana attuned beast-cores, you won’t be raising your affinity in both, rather you’ll just be playing a tug of war between both ends,” She explained.

“When you use an earth element beast-core, your mana pathways will be aligned closer to the earth element and further from the school of life. Likewise, if you make use of a life-mana-attuned beast core, you’ll be realigning your mana pathways closer to the school of life and further from the earth element. Not only will this be a pointless exercise but I’m almost certain that such drastic shifts between one end and the other will lead to injuries in your mana pathways, if not worse. The only way I can think of for you to raise your affinity in both is for you to find the core of a beast that is already attuned to both the earth element and life magic, that way your mana pathways can be adjusted in such a way that you can increase your affinity in both schools.

“The only problem with this proposition is that most creatures only make use of one element, not two. Worse yet, of the few creatures that use two or more elements, most tend to be really powerful. Finding one at the third or even fourth tier will be quite a challenge,” She informed him.

Greg was quiet for a second as he turned over the healer’s words in his mind. Of course, reality wouldn’t be as easy as he would have hoped. Just because they had found a way to increase one’s affinity, didn’t mean they had cracked the whole system. Increasing one’s affinity in one aspect was doable. The more aspects they added to the mix, however, the harder it would be to find the right beast-core to suit one’s needs. “And are there beasts that are attuned to both the earth element and the school of life?” he asked, unable to help the nervousness in his voice.

“I can only think of two. Both, however, are tier-five beasts, so even if we had their beast-cores, you wouldn’t be able to make use of them. Not to mention that neither one can be found anywhere near here, so even just getting to where they live will be an ordeal in itself, let alone procuring their beast-cores,” His teacher answered.

Contrary to what one might expect, Greg smiled, a sigh of relief escaping from his lips. “That’s okay, so long as they exist then I’ll find them eventually,” He said with a smile. His only fear was that there were no beasts who were both earth element and life mana attuned. Seeing as they did exist, however, Greg didn’t think he had much to fear. His plan as it currently stood was to first see if he could still increase his affinity after he was past the awakening stage. If he could, then the next step was to rely on the earth element beast-cores to undo any damage practicing healing magic would do to his affinity for the earth element. That way, he’d be able to rise through the tiers, while still pursuing both being an earth element mage and a healer.

Greg knew that being more earth-aligned would make being a healer harder, but it was just a downside he’d have to accept and make peace with. All the while, he would be training his soul's resilience. If he could tackle a tier-three beast core while being barely a first-tier mage, Greg was confident he could do the same with a tier-five core while in the third tier as a mage. Once he was both earth and life aligned, all he’d have to do was struggle to make it to the fifth tier, at which point, the fragment of divinity given to him by the deity-level being would come into play. The whole plan's success hinged on whether he could increase his affinity post-awakening or not. If he could, then Greg didn’t see any other fatal flaws in his thinking. If he couldn’t however, then he’d have to figure out some other way of dealing with his reduction in affinity as a result of learning and using healing magic. One thing, however, was for certain, he had no plans of abandoning his teacher to her fate.

“Thank you,” the words were spoken softly in the silence that followed Greg’s words. It was the healer that had spoken. Her expression seemed calm and her voice barely shook as she spoke. The more time he spent with his teacher, however, the more Greg could pick up on the subtle cues that gave away her true thoughts and feelings. She may have been trying to make him aware of all the risks in what he was planning on doing, but more than even Greg himself, she was the one who wanted this the most. That Greg was choosing to help her regardless of the harm it might do to him in the future, meant more to her than she could put in words.

With a smile on his lips and a nod of acknowledgment, he pushed up from the ground. “Don’t mention it. Now, it’s been six days since I last saw my family. If there’s nothing else, I ask that you excuse me,” He said ready to leave. Rather than turn into a mote of light and sinking into his glabella, Olivia also rose to her feet. Greg suspected that she’d continue to urge him to reconsider his decision on their walk home. While he planned to hear her out, his mind was made and he wouldn’t be convinced otherwise.

“See you tomorrow,” The healer replied with a small smile. With a glance at the mouth of the cave, Greg turned around and started moving towards the teleportation room. The sun had already been setting when he came out of the illusion. A little over an hour had passed since and it was now dark outside.

“Stop,” Greg had made it halfway to the teleportation room when he heard the healer call out to him.

A slight frown creased his brow as he turned back to her. Greg was surprised to see Olivia barely five steps from the healer. He thought she’d be walking beside him. “Is something the matter?” He asked.

The healer’s gaze, however, was not on his face but on his feet. “Walk back towards me,” She instructed.

A look of incomprehension crossed Greg’s face at the odd instruction. Still, he complied. Noting the fact that both the healer and his familiar had their gazes fixed on his feet, Greg also looked down as he took a step forward. Greg almost stumbled and fell when the cave floor rose and, like a wave, moved forward with his foot and settled back down into a flat surface when he stepped back down. Tentatively taking another step, Greg swallowed hard as the same thing happened a second time. When Greg took three steps in quick succession and found that he’d crossed most of the distance between himself and the healer, it suddenly clicked in his mind why Olivia had been left behind. Greg was unconsciously using the earth below him to propel himself forward with each step that he took.

“How are you doing that?” His teacher asked.

“I’m not,” Came Greg’s honest reply. His tone relayed that he was just as confused as the healer. He was still a half-step first-tier mage. He could move his mana around and operate simple magical items. Without fully formed mana pathways, however, he shouldn’t be able to cast complex magical spells or modify the earth under him in such a sophisticated way. His answer wasn’t an attempt at being enigmatic but the honest truth. Greg hadn’t even been thinking of his feet or the earth under him as he moved. Had no one brought his attention to it, Greg would have probably walked home, had dinner with his family, and gone to bed none the wiser.

“I think you may have just picked up an innate spell,” Olivia spoke up, looking pleasantly surprised.

“An innate spell?” Greg repeated, his confusion evident.

“Yeah, it’s the primary difference between mages and magical beasts,” His teacher explained. “For a mage to cast a spell, they must first understand the principles behind what they are doing and be able to guide their mana in the correct way to achieve the desired effects. Magical beasts, on the other hand, do not know magical principles of any kind, whatever magic they do, they do on pure instinct. Which is what I’m assuming just happened with you. You didn’t put any thought into it before you moved like that, did you?” The healer asked.

“No,” Greg replied with a shake of his head.

“Well, before this whole ordeal with the beast-core, I would have discouraged you from any kind of mana use, but with your mana pathways already as drastically realigned as they are, I don’t see much point in doing so. With your mana pathways not fully formed yet, you shouldn’t try anything that might put too much strain on them. But most innate spells aren’t that mana intensive so you should be okay. Besides, you should practice using it She said with a shrug. “See you tomorrow,” She once again dismissed him.

Not wanting to be rude and leave her behind, Greg turned to his familiar. “Can you keep up?” He asked.

“Easily,” His familiar replied with a smile…

***

Greg couldn’t help but shiver a bit even as they trudged through the snow towards his house. Though he hadn’t been aware of it until the healer pointed it out, Greg was glad to have learned the ‘earth step' as he was now calling it. His new speed would cut the time he spent out in the cold by half if not more.

“So tomorrow you will be having dinner at the Ember household and the day after in the Aria household,” Olivia updated him from where she was seated on his shoulder. Apparently, her idea of keeping up was simply shrinking to the size of Tinkerbell and seating herself on his shoulder. Not that Greg minded. Much to his relief, she hadn’t chosen to remain corporeal just to hound him over his decision to help the healer. Instead, she was updating him on all the things he’d missed during the six days he was inside the illusion. Six days in which she had masqueraded as him.

A put-upon sigh escaped Greg’s lips as he gave voice to his thoughts. “Are dinners all that these people can come up with in trying to win me over,” He grumbled.

“Well, your whole day is already reserved for your lessons with the healer. None of these families are anywhere near bold enough to try and impinge on the time your teacher has already staked a claim on. That doesn’t leave them with that many options as to what they can invite you over for,” His familiar answered him

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

While Greg couldn’t argue with the sound logic of Olivia’s answer, it wasn’t really the dinners themselves that bothered Greg. Instead, it was more the fact that he knew that none among the three families was actually interested in him. He was just a stand-in for his master. It was a relationship with the healer that these families truly coveted. They were just pretending to be friendly with him in a bid to garner her favor. If for whatever reason Greg was no longer the healer’s student tomorrow, then with no shame at all, they would all cease to show any interest in him. To act like he was happy to be invited by them would be a lie. To him, it just felt like a chore.

Not wanting to dwell on the subject, Greg moved on to a subject he was more interested in. “Did my mother or Shalia suspect anything?” He asked.

“Why would they? Nothing changed,” Olivia answered nonchalantly.

Greg, however, came to a sudden halt as he turned to regard the miniature form of his familiar as she smiled slyly up at him from his shoulder. “Did you have sex with them?” Greg asked, unable to keep the frown from his face.

“Would it bother you if I did?” Olivia questioned him instead of answering.

Although he could tell that the familiar was taunting him, Greg couldn’t help but give the question serious consideration. After all, if Greg was going to make use of beast cores in the future, there would be more times in which he would be out of it. Whether it was to keep his family from worrying or to keep others from raising questions, Olivia would have to take his place again whenever Greg was indisposed. Was she supposed to act like Greg had suddenly gone celibate during these times?

“My family is off limits,” Greg finally replied with the answer that he’d come to. “Shalia is not mine. What we have is exciting, but in the end, it’s purely physical. If all goes as she hopes, she’ll end up marrying Bran. As such, I am not too bothered by the thought of you taking her. On the other hand, my relationship with my mother, taboo as it may be, feels a lot more intimate. I’m not in love with her, and I doubt she is in love with me, but in a way that I can’t explain, what has happened between us has only deepened our relationship. I don’t want you messing with that. This one time, I can understand as no one could have predicted that things would go the way they did with the beast-core. In the future, however, please don’t do anything with her,” Though he remained polite, Greg’s tone of voice made it clear that this wasn’t negotiable.

The smile on Olivia’s face just widened as she replied. “Except nothing happened between me and either of your women,” She informed him, sounding amused.

A look of confusion crossed Greg’s face at this. “I thought you said that nothing changed for either my mother or Shalia? Weren’t you implying that…”

“I am a creature of lust, Master,” Olivia cut in. “Do you honestly believe that it’s beyond me to induce a few lewd illusions to cater to the needs of two mundane women?” She asked, sounding amused at the little trick she’d played on him with her words.

Greg’s confusion faded as her words registered. While the familiar had taken his face and pretended to be him in the time that he was under the illusion, she hadn’t really touched either Shalia or his mother. Instead, whenever appropriate, she’d ensnared the two women in an illusion that left them feeling sexually gratified without anything actually being done to them. The familiar had only been teasing him to see how he’d react. But while her words had been a harmless prank, they had, all the same, forced him to think about the complex question of what would happen with the women he was sleeping with whenever he wasn’t available and for one reason or the other, Olivia had to take his place. “What about my patients? “ Greg asked as he started moving again.

“The blacksmith’s wife visited you in your office for the first time two days ago. Her husband was with her but as soon as I had dealt with his arm, he looked impatient for the chance to leave and get back to his work. It didn’t take a lot of convincing from his wife before he excused himself to go deal with some work he’d left undone. I didn’t do anything too crazy with the illusion I put her under, I suspected that you’d want her first experience with you to be a real one and not an illusion. However, given what I had her experience, let’s just say that she’s looking forward to seeing you again in a few days,” Olivia reported with a sly smile…

***

Step away from your wife,” Greg growled in a cold menacing tone. “We wouldn’t want to poke her full of holes, now would we?”

Greg was back inside the dungeon after almost ten or so days of being away. Greg hadn’t been aware of just how much he missed the adventure the city of Torrin promised every time he appeared at the gate. He’d been so elated to be back that a part of him was worried that he wouldn’t be able to be serious when the situation called for it. As it turns out, he needn’t have worried, the fact that he was still smiling despite his menacing words and the cold tone of his voice only served to increase the fear Greg could see in the eyes of the merchant and his wife. To them, he must have come off as completely deranged. Their bodyguard was already on the floor, bleeding from the three arrows right through the skull that he’d taken. And yet, not only wasn’t he even remotely remorseful, but he looked like he was positively chomping at the bit for a chance to end another life.

But, just because he was smiling, didn’t mean Greg wasn’t angry. The moment he saw Sir Joram, the memory of his death during his last dungeon run came back to him. It was this man’s unreasonable greed that transformed what should have been an easy dungeon run into another failure. This time around, Greg had no plan of wading into anything dangerous. He’d deal with the merchant, hold his wife hostage, and have her take him to the Mayor’s dinner party, simple.

“Le… let’s talk about this…” The merchant stammered even as he held up his hands in a placating manner. “Whatever you are being paid to kill me, I… I can pay you double!” he tried to negotiate.

A harsh laugh escaped Greg as he replied. “Tell me, Sir Joram, how much do you think my sister’s life was worth? Huh?” he asked with the demented look of one who was ready to kill at whatever cost, even one’s own life. “Your thugs forced her into prostitution because one of your loan sharks thought it prudent to give money to my drunk of a father that he knew damn well would never be able to pay him back. My sister was forced to take her own life just to spare herself the shame and indignity of what your men would have done to her! Tell me, sir Joram, how much do you think I ought to ask for her life?” He ground out through gritted teeth.

It was all made up, of course. Greg didn’t have a sister inside the dungeon. He, however, had thought long and hard about how he’d go about this. For all their dysfunction, the two before him seemed to, in their own convoluted way, love each other. If he just killed the man, with no reason or justification, it was almost certain to turn the wife against him. At best, she would just refuse to cooperate with him, at worst, she would try to sabotage his plans if not outright kill him. No, if he was going to take out the husband, he’d have to give a justification that not even she could argue against.

Luckily for Greg, the two had already given him the bits and pieces he’d need to put his plan together. From her, Greg had gotten the confession that she knew that her husband was more than a mere merchant. During his very first dungeon run, after he'd had his first run-in with Sir Joram, he’d gone to find the man’s wife in the garden of this mansion. That’s where she’d admitted that she knew about her husband’s darker dealings and that she was scared by it. She’d even said that she feared that Greg would be killed for the stunt that they pulled. This fact made it so that Greg didn’t have to worry about evidence. All he’d have to do was raise accusations that sounded plausible and she would be inclined to believe them to be true.

The blonde thief that Greg met during his first dungeon run had told him that almost everything on the dark side of the city had this man’s mark on it. As such, he could have made up any accusation and the merchant probably would’ve been guilty of it. Fortunately for Greg, it was Sir Joram himself who had given him all the ammunition he needed to make his story airtight. In his last dungeon run before his break, Greg had forced himself into the role of the man’s bodyguard. In an odd twist, after the Owl-eyed noble Sir Lark had almost bought him out from the merchant, Sir Joram had come to fully trust that he was loyal to the highest bidder, which at the time, was him.

This made it so that during his meeting with the spider queen, he was a little more open with the details of his operations than he would have otherwise been. That the man was into loan sharking and owned a few illicit brothels didn’t come as that much of a surprise to Greg. In fact, it was among the more tame of the man’s operations. From what Greg could put together from the conversation, Sir Joram was involved in everything from illegal fighting rings, and the sale of a certain drug codenamed ‘spice', to darker things like the sale of slaves. The man didn’t expose anything too critical to his operations, but he gave enough peripheral details that Greg could weave a tale that the man wouldn’t be able to deny. His inability to deny what Greg was accusing him of was all that Greg was going for.

This wasn’t a court where someone’s guilt needed to be proved beyond reasonable doubt before a judgment was rendered. The merchant’s fate was sealed from the moment Greg started this dungeon run. But if he couldn’t deny what Greg was accusing him of, then in his wife’s eyes, he would essentially be admitting that Greg’s accusations were true. Vengeance for one’s family member was a motivation that few people wouldn’t be able to understand or even relate to. Greg didn’t harbor any illusions that the woman wouldn’t be unhappy with him for killing her husband. She, however, wouldn’t be able to fault him for wanting to get revenge for his ‘sister’. That, however, was just the first layer of his plan.

Greg’s deranged smile just widened as he dug deeper. “Tell me, Sir Joram? Is it a hundred? Two hundred? Maybe three hundred thousand gold coins will do for her life? Or maybe I should ask for seven hundred and thirty-nine thousand four hundred and sixty-seven gold coins in exchange for her life?” He demanded. The man’s eyes went wide with consternation and Greg could understand why. Before the meeting with the spider queen went sideways, she had quoted this exact number to the merchant to show just how much she knew about the man and his finances as a warning. Not that the man had been willing to listen. This specific figure was the total amount of gold that the man had managed to amass over the years. That Greg knew it with such specificity, implied that Greg wasn’t just some thug who had walked off the street and into his house, but rather, someone who had looked into the merchant deeply.

Greg’s goal, however, wasn’t to scare or stun the man, instead, his goal was to poison the trust between man and wife by revealing just how much he’d been keeping from her. Greg could remember during his first dungeon run that the man’s wife had pleaded that he couldn’t afford to pay anything above a hundred thousand gold coins as that would leave them in crippling debt. Only, during his last dungeon run, the man had been willing to bid half a million gold coins for his services. By quoting such a specific number, the man would know that his true wealth was already known and wouldn’t be able to lie. Besides, with his life on the line, he was too distracted to much care that his wife found out that he’d been lying about how much money they had.

“Why so silent Sir Joram, come on, let’s negotiate!” Greg mocked in a sneering tone suffused with hate. “Tell me, do you think all your wealth will be enough to bring back my sister to life?” he questioned.

“Look, what happened to your sister is regrettable. Give me the names of the men that were involved and I promise you, you will have their heads by the end of the day!” The man volunteered.

Greg allowed a smile to cross his face, though, from the look of the two before him, it didn't inspire much mirth in them. “The first man on that list, you may recognize,” Greg answered like someone trying to be reasonable. “He’s a merchant that goes by the name Sir Joram. And as for his head, you needn’t worry about it, I will have it whether he wishes it or not,” Greg growled. “Now, this is the last time I ask, either step away from your wife or die with her!” He said in the tone of one that had made up their mind. “You have three breaths to make up your mind. Three… two… one!

This was the only part of his plan that was a complete gamble. The one part that could undo everything that he’d set up before this moment. This was why Greg couldn’t help but burst out in malicious laughter even as the arrow he’d just shot went through Sir Joram’s shoulder and pinned him to the wall behind him. Greg knew that for all his faults, the man loved his wife in his own way. The question, and gamble, as far as Greg was concerned, was whether he loved his wife more than he loved himself and all that he’d earned. Would he be willing to die if it spared his wife from harm? Or would he buckle when faced with his mortality and choose to save his own skin over that of his wife?

Two things made Greg more inclined to believe that he wouldn’t choose his wife over himself. The first was the man’s past. His wife had once told Greg that the merchant came from the bottom rung of society and had shed blood, sweat, and tears to get to where he presently was. This, in and of itself wasn’t a flaw. If anything, it was an accolade to the man that he’d made it out of poverty to where he currently was. The flaw in the man was that deep inside, he was still that boy who didn’t have anything. That boy who had only known lack. It made him into the kind of person that was never content. He would see something he didn’t have, go after it with everything he had, and get it. But once he had it, he’d quickly lose interest in it and move on to the next thing he didn’t have.

This, in fact, was the motivation behind the second reason that Greg suspected that the man would pick himself over his wife. And that’s the fact that he’d kept the majority of his wealth hidden from his wife. On some deep level, the money probably meant more to the man than his own wife. Which was why not even she was trusted with the true measure of his wealth. That way, if anything happened, not even his wife would be able to take from him what he valued most. It was based on these two factors that Greg had made his gamble. Rather than where he was, Greg had shot a little to the side along the path to the closest exit out of the room. Had he stood his ground, no harm would have come to the man, worse still, all his sins would have probably been forgiven by his wife seeing as he was willing to give up his life to keep her protected.

Instead, he took the coward’s way out, much to Greg’s delight. He hadn’t just stepped to the side, the man had practically jumped toward the exit. Meaning that, had Greg shot where he’d been before it’s his wife that would have been impaled by the arrow. So, not only had Greg given himself justified cause to seek the man’s life, he had also revealed the man’s true wealth making it clear that he’d been a liar. And to top it all off, he’d forced him to show that when it came down to it, the man would be willing to save his own skin as opposed to saving his wife. The stage was set perfectly…