Vath blinked away the tears in his eyes from the sudden bright flash. “Wald? That’s not what you said would happen.” he questioned.
The woman’s gaze shot to him, a little sharp. “Inner disciple Wald. What you call each other in private is your business, and the sect isn’t strict about such things between two people of the same rank (although it’s still considered polite), but you’d best get into the habit of using it on those above your rank in public before you get yourself in trouble.” she said.
Vath’s head bowed, “Yes, inner disciple. I was surprised and forgot. It won’t happen again.” Vald didn’t overly care for being required to address people this way, but he couldn’t afford to antagonize people unnecessarily either.
She nodded, and then began again, “You must have many questions. I promise I will answer all I can, but first, I’d like to test your brother, so that I can compare your results.” With that, she took a blank sheet of paper and touched them to the orb before setting them on the table. Vath couldn’t read them at this distance and upside down, but there was clearly writing that hadn’t been there before. She fiddled with something on the base the orb rested on, and it cleared of color, ready to be used again. She gestured to Kaser, and he grinned widely before reaching for it. There was a hint of worry in his eyes, but he was clearly more excited than concerned. Vath braced his eyes for a repeat, and that turned out to be a good decision. Nearly the same thing happened again. Vath thought he noticed two differences, but they were so slight he couldn’t be sure. He thought that the light might have been a bit different in color, perhaps ever so slightly oranger than his red, and that the light might have been a tad less bright. It was hard to tell, but the more he looked, the more sure he became. Tiny differences, but there. It made sense to him. They were brothers, and close, but they were different people, after all. If measures of their power and abilities had been exactly the same, that would have been odd. If anything, it was stranger that they weren’t more different. Wald looked surprised, gobsmacked even, and the tester had an almost predatory smile on her face as she tapped another sheet to gather Kaser’s results. It somehow got even wider as she scanned the two papers.
“Now. I will go over your results in very basic terms. These results will stay with our archives, but they will be entered into your Essence Catalogers, the devices that will allow you to check your own growth, so that you might reference it in the future should you find the need. To start with, your basic physical condition. This will be covered in more detail in classes, but to summarize, essence improves your body’s abilities, but it is building off of the body you have given it to work with. You could focus much of your essence on improving your physical strength, and if you have never exercised a day in your life, you’ll still be significantly weaker than someone rippling with muscle who’s used far less essence on that facet of themself. I’m happy to report that while you are both very low when it comes to cultivation itself, your physical condition is excellent. You have a strong base to work from. Don’t lose that.” she looked at the two of them for acknowledgement, and continued when she received it. “Next, your cultivation. This is also a strong start, although you are early in your cultivation for your age, especially in the sect. You may be unaware of this, but you can manipulate how your cultivation reinforces you to a high degree, depending on the cultivating technique you use. I mentioned a moment ago focussing your essence on physical strength. That was not just an example; some do just that, pushing much of their essence into muscles, and related structures, which results in significant increases in physical power. The trade off is there is less essence to use for things like reinforcing your skin to increase your resilience to blows, or reinforcing your lungs to increase your stamina. There is a set amount of essence that a body can take at each stage of advancement, and before you ask, no, I don’t know why. If anyone does, they aren’t sharing that freely. For your purposes, just know that if you prioritize one area, there will be one or more others that are lesser. The one exception to the maximum is that if you are fully and completely balanced to your whole body, the maximum raises. Just by a tiny amount, perhaps five percent, but it is there.”
Vath’s brows furrowed. He’d learned percentages in the village as part of his schooling, but it had been shortly before the brothers had to flee, and he certainly had never used it in the wilds. Five percent was… one in twenty? That sounded right. So she was correct, not a large increase, but certainly enough to be noticeable. He had tried to teach what he knew to Kaser, but he hadn’t fully understood everything, and both struggled to see why they’d need it anymore, so they had quickly given up. So he leaned over to whisper his conclusions to his brother, whose face lit up with understanding.
The inner disciple waited for them to finish, and then quickly indicated she’d heard his whispers as she went on, “That’s correct, Disciple Vath. To add to this, it’s important that you understand something. Each stage of advancement is more difficult to attain the the last, but, in addition to this, the worse or more narrow the previous stage, the harder it becomes. It is the prevailing belief that attaining a higher stage is never impossible if you manage to reach the peak of your current stage and have time to attempt advancing, but the practical reality is that there are many ways to make it difficult enough that it might as well be impossible, and many more that will make it painful or slow. For example, if your physical body was in bad shape or if your essence allocation was unbalanced, both would make advancing harder distinctly harder, even at your early stage. How much harder would depend on how physically unhealthy you were, or how unbalanced your essence was. It is more complicated than that, but you should understand the general concept from this. I say this so that you will understand when I say that your cultivation, while small, is perfectly balanced. Astonishingly so. Both of the techniques the two of you have used, the Empire’s general method, as well as the sect’s, emphasize balance. In fact, the main point of Empire’s is to encourage balance in the general populace who lack the knowledge or resources to specialize safely and without constant bottlenecks, and the sect’s is little more than a refinement of that with a few minor twists to speed it up. But even with those methods, little imbalances creep in. Keeping that many different pieces infused in a completely even manner is VERY difficult even with such techniques, and you have both somehow managed that with almost no training at all. I am QUITE impressed.”
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She smiled at them, and a glance at Wald told both brothers that he was happy but hadn’t expected this, given his grin along with his raised eyebrows. That was somewhat confusing. He’d taught them that second technique. Did he not have a way to know how well it was working? He’d always seemed to know when they were doing it wrong. Maybe it was possible to sense how essence entered the body, or even circulated, but not to sense where it was infused into the body? He’d have to look it up later.
“You both still have a long way to go, but this is an excellent start. The sect would gladly take the time to catch up every student if their delays led to foundations this strong. Now. To the actual fun part. Affinities.” her eyes twinkled. “You may have wondered what the flash of light meant. It is two fold, although more detail is included on the full record. The color of the flash is related to which affinity is your strongest currently, and the brightness is a measure of its strength. The affinity strength you two exhibited is high, just so you know. Very high. Not the highest ever recorded, but the highest I have ever personally seen. Vath’s is slightly higher, but only slightly. The colors are a bit more ambiguous than the intensity, at least until the readings are transferred to the paper. Red, for instance, can be many things: Fire, blood, and more. Indeed, the slight orange to Kaser’s might indicate fire for you both, with slight variations. But in your cases, your affinity has done something uncommon yet again. Most people have more than one affinity, with one being more dominant than the others. It could be so dominant that the others aren’t worth focusing on, or they could be nearly equal. However, when affinities are strong enough, they sometimes become the only ones a cultivator has. I say become, but we do not know how or why this happens. It’s possible this is from birth, since few are ever tested in this way until they start cultivating. It’s also possible that cultivators are born with more, and the rest are simply outcompeted by the strongest until they disappear. It matters little at this point. The end result is that you both have one affinity. One that I believe your sponsor guessed, or at least hoped, based on his expression when it was revealed. Void, the primary affinity of our sect, and it is strong in you both.” she said the last proudly, both of her sect, and, apparently, of the brothers.
Wald looked proud too, as well as excited, and Kaser joined him. Vath, for his part, was conflicted. Every part of this sounded good, and he couldn’t complain about that, but they had already been singled out once, and not positively. To show up out of nowhere, as unknowns, with this many gifts, but still behind? This would invite mockery and resentment, especially if those boys spread the story of them living in the wilds and their crude crafted clothing. He’d only been in a school for a few years, but he knew how children spread rumors and reacted to those who stood out too much. It didn’t even matter why they stood out, just that they did. He would seize every advantage he could, now that he was here, but this promised to be… complicated. He was also a little confused. He had thought purple to be related to Void, but now it was also red, and even the bit of orange Kaser had? So he asked.
“I will let Void Disciple Wald answer this. I know the basics of void every sect member learns, but I have never studied it in detail. It may be our primary affinity at the sect, but most here can’t use it. It isn’t exactly rare to have the opportunity to cultivate it, but it is… esoteric. Difficult to understand and use, compared to many other affinities cultivators are usually stronger in to begin with.” she said, before looking to Wald.
Wald began without preamble, “The simplest answer to your question of what color void is, is that void doesn’t have a color. Any. What you see, both in tests like these and in the techniques I use, is the result of void interacting with the world around us, which it is anathema to. Void is the absence of things in a way that will be explained more to you later, but suffice it to say that it is not supposed to exist on this world naturally. This causes a reaction when it comes or becomes here, and the light is the result of that. The color of the light is a reflection both of the power of what is being done, and how well controlled that power is. It is similar to how the orb works, but there are a few fundamental differences that your classes will explore. In the case of the orb, red is the starting stage of control, and the light is the power, which is what we’d expect of someone with a high affinity, but no training or techniques for it. The true anomaly here is Kaser. The hints of orange indicate progress towards the second stage of control, although he is not fully there. For someone with no techniques except a basic cultivation method, and no training - not even knowledge that the affinity is there? Even such miniscule progress in control should be impossible. I will have to consult someone whose knowledge is greater than mine. Apparently it is lacking.” He finished his explanation looking both intrigued and a sliver disturbed. Though whether that was because he realized he didn’t know something he thought important, or if it was the anomaly itself that was disturbing, Vath wasn’t sure.
“Ah,” the tester cut in, “I believe I actually have an answer to that, at least, a partial one. Although, if I’m right, it’s interesting that only Kaser has the orange.” Wald looked more than a little interested, and she continued, “By all accounts, these two should not have an affinity this high at all. Strengthening those takes time, knowledge, and often resources. None of which they had in their village, let alone the wilds. Where, exactly, do you think they got it?”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps a natural treasure or formation in the wilds? But I spent the night with them and sensed nothing. Developing affinities naturally happens all the time, but to this extent? I genuinely have no idea, senior.” he responded.
Her smile turned positively mischievous, and she gave her answer, “They are descended from Empty Wolves, Void Disciple Wald. And more recently than any in our records save the Founders themselves.”
Vath had been wrong earlier. Wald had been surprised then; now he was gobsmacked. But Vath was too confused by that pronouncement. He had to ask Wald, “Empty wolves?”
“Void Beasts, Vath. One of your recent ancestors was a void attuned Beast.” he whispered in a shocked voice.
Vath had been wrong twice earlier. THIS. This was complicated.