The Sixth School.

Chapter Forty Two: Affinity…

There was a long stretch of silence between the two of them before Greg finally asked. “Why?” There was no accusation in his voice, just a simple curiosity. One’s path of magic was easiest and could go the furthest if one followed the school that they had the highest affinity in. This is what the healer had told him the day she tested him with the Azra bead. If one had a high affinity with magic, then they’d have a bit more latitude to ignore their main affinity and pursue another school of magic. Those that didn’t have as high an affinity, were better off focusing on their main affinity rather than going after other affinities.

Stepping out from his hands, the healer turned around to face him. “Before I say anything else, I want you to know that regardless of what answer you give in the end, I’ll still do everything I can to help you become the strongest mage you can be. Your continued learning under me is not contingent on you acceding to my request. I’m not trying to force you into any decision and I won’t resent you for not doing it,” She laid out. Greg could both see it in her demeanor and hear it in the healer’s voice that she truly did mean what she was saying. Before Greg could say anything she continued. “Secondly, I want you to summon Olivia. I want her to be there not only to advise you but also to point out any flaws in my thinking if there be any,” She relayed.

The more she spoke, the more Greg got the sense that this was a serious issue for the healer. And so, without wasting time, Greg called out. “Olivia!”

A mote of light escaped Greg's glabella and quickly transformed into a smiling Olivia. “The last time I was summoned in this cave, the results were rather… interesting,” The familiar said with a mischievous gleam in her eyes as she stood between the two of them. “I can’t say I’m not looking forward to a repeat performance,” Olivia confessed in a suggestive tone. Even though it was a complete shift away from the reason she had been summoned, Olivia’s tongue-in-cheek lewd suggestions had lightened the mood a bit. Even the healer despite not playing along with the suggestion, seemed a little bit less high-strung.

“How lovely it would be if pleasure is all I had you summoned for,” The healer replied with a weak smile. “The reason I had you summoned, however, is far more serious than that,” She stated.

“You wish for my master to lose his way and pursue a school for which he has no affinity,” The change in Olivia’s tone and demeanor was so sudden that one might be forgiven for thinking that two different people spoke. Since they first met, the most that any situation had elicited out of her was turning her serious. Greg had never seen any situation upset her, let alone cause the familiar to radiate such waves of cold fury. “Your desire to misguide my master, I have heard! What I am yet to hear, is why you would betray his trust like that!” The familiar practically growled.

Greg was taken aback by Olivia’s reaction. He knew that there were some downsides to pursuing a school of magic that he had no affinity with. He, however, didn’t think it to be as serious an issue as the familiar was taking it to be. The healer, however, didn’t seem at all taken aback by Olivia’s reaction and instead seemed to show even more guilt. A fact that left Greg thinking that perhaps he was the one taking the healer’s request far more lightly than it should have been.

The healer was quiet for a while, her gaze moving to the large sigil that Greg had been sitting on just a few minutes before. “The sigil is a work of brilliance that can change the world of magic as we know it. It, however, wasn’t what I set out to discover in my research. Monumental as the discovery is, it does absolutely nothing for me. It doesn’t in any way patch up my fractured core or restore my mana pathways. I am a seventh-tier mage, and yet, if I were to try and cast a fourth-tier spell right now, it would completely shatter what remains of my core and kill me in an instant,” She spoke. There was no plea for sympathy or understanding in her words. She spoke with the indifference of one who was simply reporting on the reality of the situation.

Despite this, Greg couldn’t help the shame that filled him at hearing her words. Ever since that first day that they got the corrected sigil from Olivia’s original, he had never once paused to look at the situation from the healer’s perspective. Just as she had said, as groundbreaking as the sigil inscribed inside the cave was, it didn’t do anything for her. She was already a mage, not a mundane human looking to become one. The sigil inside the cave had no way of helping her situation in any way. And yet, on top of benefitting from her daily lessons that lasted from morning to evening, Greg had spent every free moment he could get trying to draw her away from her research in an attempt to bed her. On top of being inconsiderate of her situation, he’d been completely selfish, only looking to get his rocks off and thinking nothing of his teacher.

Greg was sure that the healer had noticed the shame in his eyes and the fact that Greg could suddenly no longer meet her gaze. She, however, didn’t comment on it. Instead, she continued to speak. “The sigil is based on the one I came up with trying to heal myself. That’s why, for the past month, I’ve been trying to work backward from this new sigil to try and find a way to use it to shift its purpose from creating a new mana core and pathways to restoring those that have been badly damaged. Unfortunately for me, I keep hitting the same impediment, no matter what I try. It’s a closed loop. The mana pathways that I set up are a closed system that doesn’t allow for any spillover as this new sigil does. No matter what I try, I’ve so far been unable to merge the two systems into one coherent whole. Think of it like a string. My original mana core and pathways require that I tie both ends together to make a closed system. This new system requires that I bring both ends close to each other, but never actually close the loop. Except that to do this would cause mana to leak into my body, outside of my mana pathways! Something that will almost certainly kill me,” She explained.

“Does it have to be the open-loop mana pathways? Why not try to come up with a closed-loop system using the sigil,” Olivia spoke up. While her tone remained hard, a lot of the venom had left it. It would seem that even Olivia hadn’t paused to consider things from the healer’s point of view. Hearing her out had lessened a lot of the rage she’d expressed at the beginning.

A bitter and frustrated laugh escaped the healer’s lips. “Because, in an ironic twist of fate, that impediment, is the one thing I can’t give up from the sigil,” She revealed much to the confusion of both Greg and Olivia. “For thousands of cycles, countless mages have been trying to find a way to rise past the peak that is the ninth tier. Mages far sharper, wiser, more powerful, knowledgeable, and even more gifted than I could ever hope to be. Thus far, however, no known mage has ever broken past the ninth tier. I’m nowhere near arrogant enough to claim that I am smarter than they are, or to state with complete certainty that I have found a way to break past the hurdle that stumped all my forerunners. I have, however, managed to come up with a completely new system for setting up one’s foundations. A method of creating one’s core and mana pathways that might very well be the secret to breaking past that barrier of the ninth tier. And the core of that method is the fact that it’s an open loop as opposed to a closed one,” She informed them.

“You see, to rise to the ninth tier, mages need to weave into a coherent whole all their insights of the particular school of magic that they follow. This includes all the aspects that they’ve incorporated into their magic. In short, they need to make a complete and perfectly balanced internal magic system that can fully express everything that they’ve accrued over the cycles. The problem with this, however, is that a closed system that is already balanced can’t accept anything new that would push it to the next level without the whole system being pushed off kilter. In short, under the current system, mages set themselves on a path that is destined to end in a dead end right from the very moment they begin to set up their foundations,” She asserted.

“But what then does this have to do with my master leaving the school he has the best affinity with for one that he has zero affinity with?” Olivia questioned.

There was a stretch of silence from the healer and Greg could tell that she was struggling with her next few words. “Because I plan to start over,” She revealed. Greg could understand the words but wasn’t sure what exactly the healer meant. It wasn’t like she could rewind time and go back to the time before she had set up her foundations. From the way Olivia’s eyes went wide as saucers, Greg could tell that she knew exactly what the healer meant. And from the look of wide-eyed shock on her face, it wasn’t a small issue. Seeing that he was the only one not in the know, Greg asked plainly. “What do you mean by ‘start over?’” he posed.

“A controlled dissolution of one’s mana core and pathways,” The answer came from Olivia, not the healer. The familiar was still looking at the healer as if she’d grown a second head, unable to wrap her head around what the healer was planning. Greg himself was also left speechless once he understood.

“To answer your question,” The healer spoke directly to Roka. “The reason I asked you to become a healer is because you are the only one I can trust with this task Roka. I don’t think I need to tell you that as revolutionary as this idea is, it’s also a very dangerous one. If even a hint of it were to come to light, it would cause rivers of blood to flow as mages from all over try to get to it. And considering the fact that I am asking to have my core and mana pathways all reset, I would be completely at the mercy of whoever it is that I ask to do this. I would be completely powerless to stop whoever it is from just taking the method for himself or herself and silencing me thereafter!” The healer laid out.

While Greg could understand her reasoning, he was also aware of the other reason that the healer hadn’t mentioned. To get the corrections for the sigil from Olivia’s original, she had already agreed that she would never reveal the sigil to anyone else. She was allowed to make use of the sigil so long as she lived. This brilliant discovery, however, would die with the healer. Even at the height of her power, it would have been a very bad idea for the healer to try and cross the primordial. In the damaged state that she was presently in, it would be simply suicidal. As such, even if her words turned out to be a lie and she didn’t truly trust Greg, it wasn’t like she had much choice in the matter. Greg was the only person in the world that the healer could turn to with this issue without breaking her agreement with the primordial. “Can it even be done?” Greg couldn’t help but ask, still not believing what he was hearing.

“Normally, It should be impossible for someone at a lower tier to dissolve the core and mana pathways of someone at a higher tier than themselves. My core and mana pathways, however, are already close to if not over ninety percent damaged, it shouldn’t take much for you to be able to slowly and carefully break down what little remains. Normally, one should have at least two powerful mages that can help in the process of dissolution along with two powerful healers to heal any damage that may be suffered during the process. Given the circumstances, however, we don’t have the luxury of choice. If you agree to the request, I’ll use the time between now and when your foundations are fully formed and stabilized to train you as much as I possibly can in the healing arts,” The healer said, finally laying out the reasoning behind her request in its entirety.

Rather than immediately answer the healer, Greg turned to his familiar. “Why are you so objected to this request? What would happen if I chose to pursue a school of magic I don’t have any affinity with?” he asked. There was no accusation in either his voice or demeanor. Greg was genuinely curious to get Olivia’s input on the whole matter. Although Greg could understand having an affinity with a certain school of magic, he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t succeed at another school so long as he put in the requisite effort.

“Magic is a race, Master. As a mage, you’ll be racing against two major factors. The first of the two, naturally, is time. You don’t have forever to rise through the tiers master. The exact reason for it is as yet unknown, but between two mages of the same tier with the same affinity to a certain school of magic, the younger mage will almost always have an easier time rising to the next tier compared to the older mage. As such, even though rising to a higher tier will add a certain number of cycles to your life, it doesn’t mean you have all those cycles to break through to the next tier. The generally accepted time allotment is a quarter in the lower tiers, a third in the middle tiers, and a half in the upper tiers. That is, between the first and third tier, you should take only a quarter of the time each tier gives you to break through to the next tier. Between the fourth and the sixth tier, you should only take a third of the time each new tier gives you to rise to the next tier. At tier seven and up, you should aim to only use half of the time you get for each new gain in tier to rise to the next tier. The older you get and the longer you linger in any given tier, the more of your potential you lose as a mage. Consequently, it becomes harder for you to break through higher tiers,” Olivia explained.

“The other factor that you’ll be racing against in your journey as a mage, is other mages! The simple harsh reality of the magic world is that there simply aren’t enough resources for everyone to advance to the next tier. The natural consequence of this state of things is that the competition to get resources is rather harsh and unrelenting. And the higher the tier you rise to, the more sharply this scarcity will rise and the bloodier the conflicts right up until you reach the seventh tier. By this time most mages are part of an organization or have made their own that views them as a strategic reserve that is not easily expended. They can thus pull back on the fighting and focus more on their particular school of magic.

On average, however, it takes between six hundred and a thousand cycles for most mages to make it to the seventh tier. And for every mage that made it to this tier, more than fifty thousand others didn’t. Some were fully tapped out of all potential, and others too badly injured to risk trying a breakthrough. Most, however, became corpses either from ambushing another mage for their resources or for trying to protect their resources from other mages that would try to take it from them. Every seventh-tier mage you encounter, no matter how benign looking they may seem, is probably up to their eyeballs in the blood of others,” Olivia relayed. Some small part of Greg had been expecting the healer to try and object and claim otherwise. There was, however, barely any reaction from her. It’s as if they just heard someone say that the sky is blue, just a simple acceptance of a spoken truth.

“The reason affinity is so important is that it not only determines where you start in that race but likely also where you’ll end up. Someone with just a decent affinity for a given school of magic will start the race with their feet on the ground. Someone with a spectacularly high affinity for that same school will be starting that race with their feet high in the air. Whereas, someone with a mediocre affinity for a given school such as what you have for the earth element, starts that same race already knees deep in the mud. Not only will you take much longer to cover the same distance as the other two, but you’ll also expend much more effort to do the same compared to the other two,” Olivia continued with the explanation.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the effect that any given affinity gives in terms of helping you gain insights into the intricacies of that type of magic declines the higher the tier you rise to. In other words, it’s like all three of you are descending a set of stairs. A step forward will cause the mud to rise to halfway between your knees and waist, another step and you’ll be waist-deep in the mud. Meanwhile, the one who started with their feet on the ground is only now knee-deep in the mud like you were back in the first tier. To add insult to injury, the one that started with their feet in the air may still have their feet in the air or be coming into contact with the ground at this point,” She stated.

“Crude as the example may have been, I believe it captures the essence of what affinity for a given school of magic will mean for your journey as a mage. Your poor affinity for the earth element already disadvantages you as it is. Much as I’d like to paint a more optimistic picture, with your affinity, chances are even getting to the fourth or fifth tier will require an all-out, teeth-gritting effort from you, and even then, it’s not a given that you’ll reach it. Should you choose to do what she’s asking of you and shift over to the school of life to become a healer, then you won’t just be starting knee-deep in the mud, you’ll be up to your shoulders in the mud trying to wade forward in a form of magic for which you have no affinity,” she cautioned.

“That’s why I reacted so negatively to her request. In the race against time and other mages, the slower you are, the more at a disadvantage you are. In this game, the score is kept in terms of how many life-and-death fights and situations you manage to survive, and should you happen to lose, even once, then it’s game over. Make no mistake, master, your teacher’s words were exactly correct. It’s an extremely selfish thing for her to ask of you! It’s like cutting you off at the knees before you even begin!” Olivia stated.

Greg was silent for a long while, unsure what to make of the healer’s request now that he’d been given this new slate of information. A part of him couldn’t help but feel slightly upset with the healer for asking for such a monumental thing from him. On the other hand, another part of him was grateful for the fact that, rather than trying to manipulate him, the healer had asked for Olivia to be present. What Greg understood about affinity had turned out to be worlds apart from what it actually was. For him, affinity was little more than inclination towards a certain school of magic and nothing more. That it would have such a drastic effect on one’s path of magic was something he wouldn’t have guessed on its own. Had the familiar not been there to paint the right picture Greg could have easily made the wrong decision in ignorance of what he was setting himself up for. “That’s a tough ask,” Greg finally turned to his teacher, voicing the only thing that was going through his mind at that moment.

“I know,” The healer answered simply, not trying to argue against any of what the familiar had said. “If it helps in your decision-making, know that I do not intend to let you suffer a loss on my account. You may not have that much affinity with the school of life, but I am a healer at the seventh tier. I have walked this path before and given my penchant for magic research in this area, I will teach you all that I can and guide you on how to make your way through the tiers. In this world, few things are certain, seeing as anything can happen. However, Take this as the closest thing to certainty you will ever get, I will do everything in my power to bring you up to the fifth tier as a healer,” The woman promised. Greg could see the resolve in the woman’s eyes. These weren’t just empty words for her. She intended to do everything within her power to see him rise to the fifth tier.

Much as it galled him, he knew that the fifth tier was as far as the two women before him expected him to go. Both were much older and more knowledgeable than he was when it came to the subject of magic. Still, he was certain right to the core of his being that he wouldn’t stop at the fifth tier. Whatever it took, Greg would rise to the very top. “What stops me from learning the healing arts from you, without committing fully to the path of a healer? Greg asked. “I mean, why not just learn what I need to know to help you safely dissolve your mana core and pathways before resuming my path as an elemental mage?” He asked.

“There are some small issues that mixing different schools might cause but nothing so major that it can’t be dealt with,” The healer replied. “However, should you choose to resume being a mage of the earth element, I would be powerless to help you the same way that I would if you were to remain a healer. Other than some general information that you can easily get from other sources, I can’t say I know much about what it takes to be a good earth mage,” The healer confessed readily.

“What about your revenge!” Greg found himself asking. “If you lose all your powers and start over from scratch, what happens to those who hurt you?” He further pushed.

A chilling smile crossed the healer’s face that answered his question before she even spoke a word. “You may be under the impression that I’m letting them go because you are thinking from a mundane human’s perspective. It took me six hundred and eighty-eight years to rise to the seventh tier. I’m almost certain that even with the changes this new system will cause, it will still take me less than a third of that time to retrace my steps!” Somehow, the fact that the healer was simply stating this as fact and not in an attempt to brag, made the statement appear even more arrogant than if she had actually tried to brag. “Even if they were to rise to the eighth tier in this time, they still wouldn’t be out of my reach. We have thousands of cycles to settle this grudge Roka, and I for one, am not looking forward to seeing it end any time soon. They will have hundreds of cycles to regret the day they thought to stick a blade in my back!” The healer stated with a façade of calm that did little to cover the dangerous beast lurking just under the surface. 

“Heck, if I could afford to do so, I would spend the next one hundred cycles just testing and trying to look deeper into the sigil before making any moves one way or the other,” The healer said with a shrug. “The only reason I’m making this request of you right now is because I don’t have the luxury of time. Trying to break down one’s mana core and pathways is a dangerous undertaking that only gets more dangerous the higher one’s tier is. As I said before, it’s only because of how damaged my mana core and pathways and consequently how low my effective tier of magic is presently, that I’m even willing to consider this crazy move,” She declared. “If I were to waste time on research and recover even more than I presently have, the plan would go from being very dangerous to suicidal!” She explained.

“Now the decision lies with you. And just as I said at the beginning of this conversation, whatever you decide Roka, I won’t hold this against you. I won’t hate you or stop helping you use the sigil to grow as a mage,” She plainly stated, not adding anything to her statement to try and sway him one way or the other. The woman had done all she could to keep from either manipulating or coercing Greg in the making of this serious decision. Something that Greg both noted and appreciated.

Turning his gaze away from her, Greg thought over the issue laid before him. Essentially, he’d been asked to choose between his own progression as a mage and that of another. A choice that, by all logic, should have been an easy one to make. Why the hell would Greg wish to turn his already incredibly difficult journey as a mage into one that was impossible? And yet, here he stood, unable to flat-out reject the healer as the logical part of his brain knew that he should. Turning back to the healer, Greg laid out a question in as serious a tone as he could muster at that moment. The answer to this one question would be the true determiner of how he responded to the healer’s request. “I imagine that getting to the fifth tier is a resource-heavy endeavor even for a gifted mage. That cost will only grow wildly compounded when the mage in question lacks even a basic affinity with the school of magic you wish to have them grow in. So, tell me, teacher, how certain are you that you can help me rise to the fifth tier?” He asked.

A smile crossed the healer’s face. “Given the plan I am hatching with this sigil, I’ll be churning out powerful mages left, right, and center! Trust me, you will have more resources to use in your advancement than you know what to do with. That, along with my careful guidance in your path as a healer, then I don’t see how I can’t make you into a fifth-tier mage,” She claimed.

The healer had built enough trust with Greg that he knew this wasn’t empty bluster. She truly meant every word she said.

The response also left Olivia with no space to argue. From their words, it was clear that even the familiar didn’t think he would make it past the fifth tier as a mage. With the healer’s reassurance, it was simply switching out the fifth tier in one school with that of another. Rather than becoming an earth mage, he’d be a fifth tier healer. A difference in occupation but essentially none in ranking! Still, the familiar spoke. “I’d urge you to think this through very carefully, master,” She said. The healer made no move to argue against the recommendation.

A small smile crossed Greg’s lips less than a minute later when he finally spoke. “I’ll do it!”

“Please reconsider!” The words were barely out of Greg’s mouth and Olivia had already interjected. It was clear that she was unwilling to take the risk inherent to the undertaking.

Greg, however, hadn’t made this situation out of some emotional attachment to the healer or without considering the risk hell be taking. He had done the exact opposite. Greg had made the most logical decision available to him. What the two women didn’t know, was the fact that sealed within Greg’s soul, was a fragment of divinity. The deity-level being that had granted it to him, had said that it would grant him both a deeper understanding of magic and a greater affinity with it. Greg could only guess at what a being of such caliber defined as a “deeper understanding “ or “greater affinity”. Needless to say, however, he was more than excited to find out.

The only condition placed on him by the deity-level being was that he’d at least have to reach the fourth or fifth tier before using it, depending on how solid his foundations were. Given how they were going about his awakening, Greg was certain his foundations would be very solid. Still, this was something with the word “divinity” attached to it. And not by some charlatan on the side of the street, but by a being that for all intents and purposes was no different from divinity herself. As such, Greg wasn’t willing to risk it and having something go wrong because he’d grown too impatient. He’d wait until he was firmly in the fifth tier before using the fragment.

Much as it irked him, Greg didn’t write both the healer and familiar off just because he didn’t like what they’d said. According to them, based on his current affinity to the earth element, the fifth tier would be the pinnacle of his achievement. And that, only after he’d shed blood, sweat, and tiers. There’s also a chance that he wouldn’t make it to the fifth tier on his own despite putting in every bit of effort that he could. As such, Greg deciding to agree to the healer’s request for help wasn’t him just going along in order to please the healer. Instead, he was choosing the most sure path for himself. With her promise, he was almost certain to reach the fifth tier, and with the fragment, his low affinity would become a moot point…

***