Every living thing has a soul and every living thing’s soul is inherently unique. But it is not the personality, environment, memories or experiences of a person that determine the uniqueness of their souls.

No.

What determines their uniqueness is their affinity spectrum.

I previously mentioned the mana affinity spectrum. It is the composition of the soul in its entirety, consisting of every single mana affinity there is and being a part of every living person.

There were at least hundreds, possibly thousands of affinities that the researchers from the Institute had stipulated and worked on and there are probably many more that remain undiscovered, though all still remain an integral part of every person’s soul. This lack of knowledge is in large part due to two main reasons.

One. Affinities can overlap. Just the affinity of fire has so many particular aspects from light, heat, burning, combustion, flickering, sparking, etc. Then, these various traits can combine in specific ways that can mingle and manifest into a distinct and specific application of fire that could be one or many affinities. There are even the affinities that merge and border on other affinities like icefire and poisonfire, which have completely different characteristics yet still hold together as one affinity. This makes specifically identifying certain affinities difficult and their classification left up to a lot of individual interpretation, hence, making the conclusion on particular affinities just as much a practical problem as a philosophical one.

Two. Affinities have come into prominence only when an individual succeeds with them. An example of this is the magnetic affinity. Until a certain sorcerer discovered the ability of magnetism to affect metal it wasn’t even given any serious consideration and was a discarded affinity that was given no attention. Only when this particular Sorcerer became a Master and could wield thousands of metal blades in intense and intricate attacks did it become a focus of research. Only from that Sorcerer's discovery did a multitude of magnetic and metallic affinities start to come into the limelight.

In light of these reasons, research was naturally rigorously conducted by the Institute to explore the mana spectrum into as great a depth as possible. However, the only thing they could conclusively determine was that the affinities of one’s parents acting together during a conception develop a fetus that attracts a soul with affinities in sync with the parents. But besides this one certainty, there are still differing opinions and conflictions in findings that make the exact amount and identification of affinities ambiguous.

Even the universal classification system they created after millennia of research has its ambiguities

This classification system, to sum it up, is the division of all affinities into five specific strata dependent on their qualities and the aspects of the world they pertain to. These five strata are arranged into a pyramid like structure with the largest at the base and the size of the strata shrinking as one makes their way up the pyramid.

The first and largest on the base is the Physical Strata. This strata is focused on the physical aspects of the world meaning the solids, liquids and gases.

The solids include earth, dirt, stone, metals, gems, crystals, sand and everything solid and inorganic in between.

The liquid focuses on water naturally but also includes acids, bases, oils, liquid metals, oils and other inorganic liquids.

Finally comes gas, featuring the wind of course but it can also include the various elemental and other gases.

These affinities aren’t just about the specific nature of these physical elements too, but are also as much about the behaviours they have as well. An example would be a physical affinity that could easily pertain to being unmoving as stone while in fact actually having nothing to do with stone whatsoever.

The next step along the pyramid is the Organic, or Life Strata, where all the affinities relating to all organic matter are organised into. There is blood, bone, flesh, poison, mind, emotion, sexuality, plant, wood, fungus, disease, parasite and all the other affinities concerning some sort of aspect of life arranged into here.

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In the middle is the Energy Strata, housing all the various energy affinities. I.e. thermal, kinetic, potential, nuclear, sound, chemical and electromagnetic affinities. Basically all forms of energy.

The second to last is the Force Strata. This entails the forces of gravity, electric, magnetic, friction, attraction, repulsion and particle force affinities and is very rare to manifest as someone’s prime affinity.

The last and top strata isn’t even really a strata because it is occupied by one sole affinity. Some scholars even consider this classification to be false and that it should be brought down to the force strata to make the affinity classification a four strata system instead. However, that was levied heavily against due to the unique power of the affinity and the influence of the sole clan that utilises it.

This last strata is the Spacetime Strata, pertaining to the affinity for spacetime, the rarest of all.

Summarising all of this, the affinities rise from the physical into organic into energy into force into spactime. The principal behind its structure was primarily the progression of the scope of existence from the physical as it made its way into the metaphysical.

But as I said, this system has its flaws.

For example acids. Acids are physical liquids but at the same time are produced naturally by organic beings and also have some relation to chemical energy exchange and molecular forces. Another is electricity, being an energy but also a product of electromagnetic forces while also being present as bioelectricity in living beings as well.

All these overlaps and different applications of the same affinities make it impossible for the affinities to be conclusively identified and categorised.

This in turn can put a ceiling on some peoples potential.

The crucialness of one’s mana affinity and their exact nature can’t be disregarded in any way. The slightest possibility of one’s affinity being suspect means that they become unsure of the best techniques to apply for themselves and makes their specific optimal Path… murky.

This can be even more serious for a Warrior or Sorcerer because if you get things wrong, things can be complicated, or even dangerous.

For Warriors, this problem can be mild to devastating. To become a Warrior you must have an affinity specific cultivation technique all of which are in the possession of the Corps. These techniques only really extend until the bottleneck before the Master level though because after that, progress along one’s Path becomes a much more intuitive process. But before you can even think about reaching that stage, the technique you utilize in the beginning is of utmost importance.

This is because this technique is what is used to draw in whatever specific mana element it is you are after.

The research and equipment invented by the Institute scholars now available makes determining one’s primary affinity and narrowing down some of its specifics much easier compared to the past. But, due to the inherent ambiguity of the affinities, mistakes, though now uncommon, can happen. If a mistake were to happen and an Initiate began on a slightly off kilter path then that misalignment would put an impediment on their development, forever slowing them down.

The worst scenario that could happen is that their future progress would be blocked forever by this small error.

An example the books gave me was if someone with a bioelectricity affinity, meant to enhance their reflexes, practiced an actual pure electricity technique. The dissonance between their soul and the incorrect electricity affinity would cap them off at the entry of the Adherent stage. This is because once mana is condensed as a liquid and has soaked into the flesh, it's stuck there forever. The soul and the body now stuck at a permanent impasse where mana can’t come in or be pushed out.

Despite this worst case scenario, there is at least no serious concern of safety for Warriors.

Unlike Sorcerers.

Warriorhood is all about strengthening the body. Evenly dispersing mana throughout the body in a slow and steady process. Sorcery in contrast is about condensing a core of pure concentrated mana into the body as a mana storage well as quickly as possible. If there was an incongruence between the soul and the mana, this core could collapse violently at some point and the mana stored would then be unleashed inside the weak body of a sorcerer and kill them outright.

So, anyway you look at it, affinity is everything.

Due to these reasons and depending on the potential Sorcerer’s circumstances, volatility of their affinity and resources available to them, some elect to go down the path of Warriorhood instead of the more profitable Path of Sorcery, as it's much safer with no risk of death.

Arriving at this point in my reading I then ventured into some other topics like the variations in atmospheric mana concentration across the world and how it peaked in certain locations. How generally, after becoming an Adherent the atmospheric concentration isn’t enough to maintain an advantageous speed of development and you need affinity specific resources such as mana rich plants and animals to consume regularly to maintain a rewarding pace of progress.

This aspect was in fact the basis for the Martial Association’s and the armed divisions of all other independent forces’ existence. Their main responsibility being to fight magical beasts so as to secure these resources. These resources in turn made the foundation of this world’s economy, but that was something to get into later.

Reading through many books over many months was how I got all of this information. Made harder by the long complicated sentences with words and terminology I had never seen before, leading me to consulting various dictionaries and encyclopedias. But having gotten to this point I felt that I had a good grasp on mana and the things it entailed and the importance it held here in this world.

So, satisfied with my first round of serious research I decided to take a few days off to cool my head and get outside into the city, away from the books so I could relax my brain and go over everything I learnt in my head lightly in the fresh air and let it sink in gradually.

After that, I decided it was time for a change of pace and that I should turn my attention somewhere else for a while and learn something different.

It didn’t take me long to come to my decision because I had been eager to study it in the beginning but held off due to my necessity to know about mana.

So I returned my accumulated pile of books on mana back to the shelves and started taking down the ones on my new research topic.

History.