April clapped her hands with excitement:

“I knew you would be up for it. Discovering one’s affinities is always fun.”

“I know mine.”

She ignored him. Suddenly, a slip of paper appeared in her hands. She studied it intently, and, for a moment, she looked stunned:

“Um… wow, that’s very interesting.” She peered at him. “There’s a lot more to you than I expected.”

Tom stared at the scrap of paper:

“What are you talking about?”

“These are the results of the ritual.” She waved the hand holding the paper, and he glimpsed its contents briefly. Six lines with his lightning affinity were listed in the middle. But that was all he had time to read.

The process she had used to create the results didn’t make sense to him. He cleared his throat:

“I’m a little confused. Don’t rituals need preparation, fancy lines in the dirt, chanting, infusion of power, that kind of stuff?”

She looked at him incredulously:

“Tom, I expected better from you. We’re in my trial. My control over this space is near-absolute. I could make kilometres of ritual infrastructure appear under your feet and then unmake them the next second. Which is what I did, and you didn’t notice.” She laughed. “Anyway, this contains your results.” She waved the paper. “Do you still want to see? Actually, you definitely want to see it, and you’ve already agreed to the price.” She handed it to him.

He read it quickly.

Tom Mark Brayshaws top five affinities:

Precognition - 95

Earth - 87

Lightning - 84

Wood Shaping - 78

Healing - 71

Tom stared blankly at the piece of paper. “This isn’t right. I don’t have precognition abilities… and”, he pointed at the relevant line. “How is it… How is it so high? I don’t understand.” There were other discrepancies as well. He had lost five points of earth, and that fact had almost halved its strength. Lightning had a slight boost, and healing a more significant jump. But it was the two new affinities that troubled him the most, especially the precognition one.

April smiled at his confusion:

“What you’re seeing is a known phenomenon.”

“Do you mean that all reincarnators get precognition?”

She looked shocked at that suggestion:

“No, absolutely not. That particular affinity is rather rare. Only one person who has come through has even had it, and they hadn’t been reincarnated. Besides, even for them it was only forty-five. I meant that reincarnators getting a new affinity was common. I’ve seen them get Wood Shaping dozens of times.”

“That one’s new for me too,” he confirmed.

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“I expected as much. It’s a known quirk…” she stopped looking thoughtful. “No, that’s not the best way to describe it. It’s a known benefit that soul-bound items are lost when you’re reincarnated, but they often grant a high affinity for the type of magic they use as a compensation. Given your obsession and technical expertise with spear fighting, I would hazard a guess that in your last life you had possessed a soul-bound spear. Furthermore, given the strength of your affinity, you probably got it early and upgraded it a couple of times.”

“Something like that.” He muttered, but his focus had returned to the precognition line. His mind raced, trying to understand it. “I don’t get this.” He stabbed the paper again. “I didn’t have a precognition artefact, unless…” He looked up at her in excitement. “I have holes in my memory. Do you think that’s related?”

“No, that doesn’t make sense, but…” she licked her lips and studied him like a scientist would a bug under his microscope. “Maybe if it was a divine level item; then it would make sense.” She didn’t look at all convinced. “But ninety-five is…” she licked her lips, again. “Let me put it this way, the highest newly-obtained affinity I’ve seen is eighty-six. They had a single-purpose, soul-bound legendary artefact they got from a trial, and it only gave them eighty-six.”

Tom’s eyes went back to the piece of paper once more. The affinity level of precognition was too high.

“Are you sure my results are right?”

She inclined her head slightly:

“There’s no doubt. I’ve double-checked and then quadruple-checked the precognition one with two other testing mechanisms. Cost me more than the quoted price to do so, but I figured it was necessary.” She snorted. “One of those said the affinity was actually ninety-six, which is even more terrifying.”

“But that doesn’t make sense.” Tom stammered. “Ninety-six is approaching the levels GODs have.”

“Yep. The highest affinity I’ve measured in this human-only trial was ninety-three. You know my age, and the highest I’ve ever come in contact with was ninety-six. Mind you, its owner was two thousand years old and had invested the treasures of an entire civilisation to grow her air affinity.” She shook her head. “Your new affinity, given it is precognition, is at least ten times more valuable than any affinity I’ve seen in a human. In fact, it’s the best one I’ve ever seen, period. It’s worth way more than an air affinity of ninety-six.”

“That’s fine, but what does this mean?”

“Profit,” she said immediately. “And as for your future, maybe you should refocus and become an oracle.”

Tom’s entire psyche rebelled at that thought:

“No. Never! I’m not doing that.” He snapped.

He knew he had never wanted that type of role, but the revulsion he felt went beyond what he could consciously remember. The theory about this being related to his missed memories was making more and more sense. Nothing could make him go down the Oracle road. He had a build, and he was going to execute it.

April across from him raised her hands to calm him:

“No one is going to force you to do anything you don’t want to, and definitely not me. However, an affinity that high is an opportunity, no matter how you look at it. Top line dodge skills and vital abilities like danger sense will be obtainable. Even for a spear warrior, this is a good outcome. Out of interest, did you have any of those Skills in you last life?”

“I had a dodge skill,” he told her quietly, remembering his fate based black dodge ability.

“Have you lost it?”

“You know I have. It would have been obvious if it was still active.”

“That might have partially contributed to the new affinity. It’s theorised that lost skills, traits and titles can also take part in forming an affinity.”

“The dodge ability explicitly had no precognition. It was its flaw. This affinity did not come from it.”

“Curious.”

“I did have a precognition trait that I got from the contribution store. It was called DEUS’s Chosen.”

“The one you still have?”

“It used to be at a higher level.”

That got her attention. She tilted her head to the side:

“How many questions were you getting per day?”

“It was eight.” She perked up. “Days between each question.” He finished.

Her excitement vanished, and she shook her head:

“That’s not enough… not even close. My guess remains that you somehow soul-bonded with a mythical or divine-level artifact.”

“But why would memories of something like that be blocked?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged helplessly. “Maybe it was cursed. However, the past doesn’t matter, and it’s a moot point in any case, as I lack the tools to extract lost memories. We need to focus on what this affinity can do here and now. Short-term, it means profit, and long-term… well, it’ll make obtaining precognition abilities naturally a lot easier, and, believe me, that’s usually nearly impossible. Unfortunately, I won’t share any of the methods that can be utilised. But you’re clever. I’m sure you can work it out.”

“Blanket all senses and then try to dodge,” Tom guessed.

April only smiled at that suggestion.