Helpful source or not, there were many things Malwine did not like about Veit, and his tendency to ruin moments for her was fairly high on the list. Her first proper lesson on cultivation, safety, and whatever else she could get out of the forester had been something she greatly looked forward to. She’d considered how it would go, down to her entrance!
And he'd ruined her plans. Again.
Their time together on the first day of The Snow had so far mostly consisted of her getting glared at. Quite rudely, as Adelheid would have put it.
Still, if Veit hadn't already been in such a suspiciously good mood by the time she arrived, she suspected he might have given her more of a hard time. It was only because of that, that she chose to endure all that glaring in silence.
Malwine had gone over the broad strokes of what she'd done. Mainly her rank-up, the harvestable, and the Debuff. She might have embellished a detail here and there—as much as she liked to fantasize about it, she wasn't actually going to tell the man that she did it just because he'd said she couldn't or wouldn't, not when she needed his help.
“Well,” Veit broke the silence. Even before she'd found herself explaining her actions, an undercurrent of awkwardness had plagued the conversation. It had taken her so much insisting for the conversation to happen in his cabin instead of the mangal that Malwine half expected him to be hiding something in there. She hadn't seen anything—yet!—but she considered the matter to still be up in the air.
The forester coughed, drawing her out of her ruminations. Once she'd stopped staring off into the distance, he continued. “I suppose this does prove you can, in fact, act your age, no matter your claims.”
“Excuse me?”
“In thinking of how to handle you, I hit a wall more than once. I have known countless others who were prodigies in their youth, some having reached the Mortal Esse naturally by your age,” he told her. “But I never knew them at the time, only later. Forgive me, but there's something inherently vexing—almost uncomfortable—about addressing a child one barely knows. When one teaches, the expectation is that one must do so responsibly, and in a case like this, knowing which boundaries to set is… difficult.”
“Why?” Malwine asked. She found she didn't have to fake curiosity there.
“Because you're young and it's troubling. Even if you have mentally lived longer than four years because of time dilation brought on by stasis, I still have to make a conscious choice as to what to tell you. You chose to set a sibyl ablaze at the urging of some dubious book, but should a child your age know about such things, let alone be involved with them?”
“...Probably not?”
“Exactly,” Veit laughed airily, much to her surprise. “Your actions have brought me some much-needed clarity.”
“Oh?”
“You have the understanding and impulse control of a toddler, with the capacity to act—and the impulse control—of a bratty teenager.”
“I take offense to that last part,” Malwine shook her head. “But seriously… does this matter?”
“It does, because it means I can have peace of mind. While the wisdom of teaching you certain things could be up for debate, I believe the risk of letting you continue basing your actions on uneducated guesses is too considerable to ignore, even if it means broaching topics that should normally be left to actual teenagers and up.”
Malwine gave him her best attempt at mimicking his earlier glaring session. “Like what?”
“Sibyls. Cremation. Just to name a few,” Veit's smile had faded, but it was clear he was still having a bit too much fun at her expense. “We do need to agree on something, however.”
“What?”
“Do not do something like this again,” the forester started, his tone cooling abruptly. “Do not rush things just to prove you can do them at all. And when I tell you how to do something, or not to do something, you are to heed that advice. I did make promises… but I will not teach someone who will go out of their way to be a contrarian.”
Malwine gulped despite herself. “I won't be pushing myself to the Mortal Esse ahead of time again, that's for sure,” she let out an uneasy laugh. “...But fine. I get it. I'm not going to lie and tell you I don't know what I'm like. So long as you keep your end of the deal, I will listen to you.”
The silver-haired man silently stared at her for another while. “That will have to do, then.”
“Okay… So, Veit…” she decided to just go for it—while she'd learned he wasn't easy to push, they were here so he could teach her things. “I don't suppose you know how I can get rid of the Debuff.”
“Oh, I do. I believe you will be particularly fond of the answer.”
“Great! So what do I—”
“You will need to think long and hard about your mortality.”
Malwine's eyes narrowed. “Don't joke like that.”
There was a glint to Veit's gaze, and his smile had returned. “I speak nothing but the truth.”
She groaned. Had she been a fool to expect literally anything else?
----------------------------------------
“If you wish to keep anyone with decent Perception from noticing you, the first step you must take is working on understanding your foundation. Understanding your Affinities. The cores we weave for ourselves are subject to our whims, obedient to our thoughts and desires. I assume, from what you've told me, that you've encountered this in practice.”
Malwine considered the statement. “I don't think I've ever thought of it that way. But yes.”
“Certain concepts are somewhat instinctive to grasp. Most people with at least one Affinity can exert some control over their core before even comprehending what that means,” Veit said. He raised both hands to the height of his chest where he sat, palms facing each other with some space between them. A flat, crystalline disc formed there. “I’ll show you, how my father taught me.”
Before she could question it, the disc started to crack into a myriad shapes that took on various hues. Despite the material, the swirling lines reminded her of those educational images of sedimentary layers, each distinct. The changes stopped. On the surface of the disc, a series of nested circles was now visible.
It's like a mosaic, Malwine realized so abruptly she almost groaned. Of course it is.
The central circle was off-white, its glow subtle. The one that surrounded it was duller, almost translucent, while the next was starkly unlit. A thinner glowing ring shrouded that one, with the fifth and final circle appearing like a wider version of that second dull one.
As the image settled, Veit spoke once again. “Consider, an Affinity within a core. There may be slight variations in what an Affinity means to each individual, but all have a similar structure in terms of functionality.”
“My Affinities don't look like that in my core, though.”
“Please. This is a representation,” the forester sighed. “As I said, your core bends to your will. It will look and behave however you want it to, because it's meant to serve as that which bridges the gap between you and your Affinities. It enables you to understand yourself, to interact with your power. But what about Affinities? Can you add them and remove them at will? Make them that which they are not?”
“I haven't tried.”
“The answer is that you cannot.”
Malwine wrestled the entirety of her self-control into not snapping back at that.
“Now, back to this,” Veit continued. The mosaic followed the movements of his hands, expanding impossibly. Or maybe the glass just gets thinner?
Gaps formed between the five concentric circles, making all but the centermost one look like rings despite the variations in width, some dimmer than others.
“Imagine an Affinity is this,” his words made that central point brighten. “If Existence is full of incomprehensible powers and endless mana, an Affinity is a light that makes it possible for you to see yourself, and in turn, see and act upon possible paths for yourself.”
I honestly wasn't expecting this to get… poetic?
“Having an Affinity means you are ever so slightly less helpless against the darkness represented by Nonexistence.”
…Maybe poetic isn't the right word.
“The more Affinities you have, and the better your Control and Acclimation grow, the brighter the outlook.”
Yeah, it's just weird.
“Okay,” Malwine interrupted. “I think I get that part. But is that literal? Like, does the secret to keeping people from noticing me as you did actually lie in some metaphor about Affinities being the light of our lives?”
“Tell me, Malwine Rīsanin,” Veit's smile just made her increasingly concerned as to the man's state of mind today. “Why do people cultivate?”
“To become Immortals?” she figured the answer was probably more complicated than that, but that was the obvious part. It wasn't that unlike how people on the widow's Earth worked to avoid starving—people probably did it, well, to not die.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“And why do people wish to become Immortals?”
“To live forever,” Malwine shrugged, voicing her earlier thoughts. “To not die… and maybe for the extra power, too.”
Veit's expression went slack. “You are unlikely to have encountered any…” he paused, frowning. “There are countless people who have died and been resurrected. Do you know what happens when people die?” he did not wait for her to answer. “Nothing. Either they're resurrected, or they stay gone. Once an obit expires, that person is gone forever. Everything they were, everything they thought and achieved—gone. They no longer Exist. Period.”
Malwine suppressed the urge to raise an eyebrow. She had very much reincarnated after her first death, and that had been after the widow’s systemless life, where resurrection had not been possible at all.
Unless the system somehow disables that option when it makes resurrection possible…?
That was a terribly discomfiting thought.
“Cultivation isn't about living forever for the sake of power. It's about avoiding death. About Existing for as long as possible, because if you do not make the effort, if you fail, if you die, sooner or later, you will no longer Exist.”
“Okay…”
Veit sighed. “You are not getting rid of that Debuff anytime soon.”
“If only someone would help me with that.”
“What do you think I've been doing?” Veit shook his head. The second ring on his apparent representation of Affinity anatomy did not brighten as the initial one had, but it appeared emphasized somehow, as if pulsating periodically. “From an Affinity, come the inevitable effects. Their mere presence has them passively generating a minuscule amount of mana, which may increase as your understanding of it grows. But most importantly, this means the Affinity’s mana has a tangible impact. The consequences of that vary from person to person, even when they have the same Affinity. Increasing an Affinity’s tier can also affect the details.”
Malwine resisted the urge to scowl—though she couldn’t recall the exact wording of {Foresight}’s description, she did recall its initial useless effect had been something along the lines of a 2% accuracy guarantee for predictions. Using her connection to OBeryl and Katrina had improved it, but the description had gotten vaguer.
Foresight IV
The deck, once stacked, accounts for tomorrow.
This Affinity may be increased to Foresight V by reaching Acclimation and Control milestones—or automatically for the next generation—to evolve its core effect.
If you turn this Affinity into a Root, you may use Foresight-aligned mana as Mana Source regardless of origin.
Veit displayed no signs of having noticed her be lost in her own thoughts as he continued the near-monologue. “Now, what do you think Control or Acclimation do?”
“You tell me,” Malwine shrugged.
“Really? No guesses, in all that time you say you spent bored in stasis?”
“I could guess,” she admitted. “But then I would likely be wrong. So why guess when I assume you’ll tell me anyway? I’d rather not have my understanding of it get mixed up, between potentially incorrect theories and what’s actually the right answer.”
“Learning isn’t about never being wrong. I can see what you mean, but Malwine,” Veit eyed her. “One thing you should take into account is that there is far more value to being able to recognize and correct a mistaken view than there is to always being right.”
“Fine,” Malwine huffed. She supposed Veit wasn’t… well, wrong. But this was a penchant she recognized she shared with the widow—she’d rather avoid trying anything she could do wrong, even if it meant missing out on opportunities or experiences. Better never play than to lose, or so the saying went. “I’d guess Control would be exactly that, while Acclimation would be something like how familiar you are with the Affinity?”
Veit nodded, looking back down at his creation, in which the unlit ring now pulsated. “Close. Think of Acclimation as a wall between you and the power of your Affinity. It ensures it cannot damage you even in the stages where you technically remain mortal, and regulates how much [Toll] is accrued. You do indeed improve it by growing more familiar with it, but your resistance to it also serves this well. The easiest example for this would be to envision someone with a {Cold} Affinity—say they partook in ice baths. That would make them more resistant to it, and improve their Acclimation. Both mundane resistance and Acclimation would feed into each other, meaning there would be near endless room for improvement.”
Malwine felt her eyes light up at the realization—didn’t this mean she could use abilities that accrued [Toll] more often if she increased her Acclimations? Familiarity wouldn’t exactly be an issue. …Then again, how could she go about working on her resistance to subjects as esoteric as hers? She poked [Multitasking] just to stare at her Affinities that still had zero on both values without missing the rest of the lecture.
“Now.” It was the thinnest ring’s turn to preternaturally catch her eye. “Think of Control as that which holds everything in place—a clamp that holds your Affinity itself, and everything it does, in a state where it is subject to your whims. The efficiency, the finesse, anything and everything you may think of when it comes to how your Affinity interacts with your abilities and how it functions by itself, is filtered through your Control. Or alternatively, if your grasp on Control is inadequate, it may all slip past this filter.”
“Hm,” Malwine nodded back, part of her mind still staring at her Mana Sources panel as if that would achieve anything. “I can see where this is going. If I increase my Control, I could make it less likely for anyone to notice me.”
“Again, recall the values and your actual capacity feed into each other. Increasing the value plays a part, but you need to actually understand how to manipulate the Affinity. Understanding it, all aspects of it, is the only real way for Control to reach its true potential here,” Veit told her. “The final level here would indeed be that which leaks out,” he motioned again, the last layer pulsating. “How little escapes—or how much you choose to show—is something you can learn to control. So if you wish for your secrets to remain safe, that should be what you focus on. Even if you hadn’t gone and earned yourself a Debuff, I would have insisted you work on this first, before seeking to further cultivate.”
“Okay,” Malwine agreed absentmindedly as the crystal between Veit’s hands vanished. This is great. She hadn’t been expecting Veit to be this decent a teacher—if she’d had any true expectations at all beyond hoping she could avoid an argument—but this could actually help her.
As she went over what he’d told her, wondering how she could apply this to her own Affinities, she only distantly noticed Veit pulling a small disc out of thin air.
Malwine refocused, glancing at the object. It was a bit too reminiscent of a fried egg in shape, and entirely royal blue in hue. The center of it was reflective, in contrast to the matte edges.
Mana Source Projector
Brought forth by Aitel Khödan
Enables the user to share details about their Roots, Affinities, Acclimation, and Control as seen on the Mana Sources panel, through a special panel visible only to them and their targets.
Information other than that which the user willfully shares will be redacted
“The values for your Control and Acclimation on all Affinities, if you will.”
Eyes narrowing, Malwine pointed at the projector. “Will that show you how many Affinities I have?”
“You have five,” Veit smiled thinly. “You need not share what they are—only the values. That will help me decide how to proceed.”
She kept her eyes on him, mulling it over. It wasn’t even a matter of trust. Her reflexive instinct was to say ‘no’ by default, but as far as she could tell, the object all but guaranteed she could pick and choose what to share. “This would display the values, and nothing else?”
“I can show you, if it’ll ease your doubts?” Veit raised an eyebrow. He reached over to touch the projector, then paused, his hand hovering just shy of it. “I confess your hesitance is amusing. This is par for the course in almost every environment where cultivation is taught.”
“Well, glad to see I can be a source of amusement?”
He laughed. “I’m used to people knowing who my parents are—were. To knowing who everyone’s parents were, where I grew up. Even without confirmation, it was exceedingly easy to make confident guesses on which Affinities people could possess. Seeing a toddler before me, treating the subject like a Principality-wide secret is… quaint.”
Malwine pouted. “Not all of us can be famous.”
The forester coughed. His hand finally touched the projector then.
“Ignore the name,” Veit instructed with a seriousness that came off as harsher than even some of his words back before she’d convinced him she wasn’t an impostor—while she would certainly remember this, Malwine took the hint and did not address it.
Displaying Mana Sources for Niemat Khödan
Root Acclimation
Control
Vanagloria ∞
-
Other Affinities: Redacted
“Excuse me—what the fuck?”