The room Nate found himself in was not at all what he had expected. Evindal had led him down into the bowels of the Guildhouse and towards the vault that contained the Guild’s Common and Uncommon resources. Based on that, Nate had expected that it would turn out that they had some enchanted device or item, kept under lock and key, that could be used to determine an individual’s affinities. The logic had made sense to him, since he had assumed that the Guild would likely offer to regularly test Adventurers to help guide their development. In addition, wouldn’t the Adventurers want to know so they could direct and control their spell selections. That should have been especially true since spells so heavily relied on an individual's innate affinities.

  The problem he hadn’t considered was the sheer scale of potential affinities. He was mentally kicking himself for oversimplifying the concept of affinities. The key was in that exact thought. Concept of affinities. All mana affinities were based on Concepts and as Evindal had just pointed out, they could present in more specific flavours based on what one could argue were Subconcepts. Evindal had said it himself. Life affinity could be fungi, animal, or a host of others. That didn’t mean they weren’t still a Life affinity. Instead what it meant was that within the sphere of life you might have additional affinities. It was that particular premise that gave rise to the room he was in and if he was being honest, given his love of art, he wasn’t complaining.

  Instead of a simple room with a simple item he found himself in a heavily warded and well-lit room underground. The room was almost as large as the vault they had veered away from and the reason was the circular enchantment laid into the floor. It was everything he would have expected a magic circle to be before coming to Galle. Using his sphere of awareness he could trace the various mana pathways that made up the magic circle as they led out to gems embedded into the floor. The gems started out large, and then led to smaller variations as they moved further and further from the centre of the magic circle. They also appeared to be colour-coded at face-value, but his identification flashing told him it went deeper than that. The gems weren’t just similar colours in their various quadrants. They were also similar types. He suspected that it went back to what he had learned about enchanting when he was in Helmfirth. The gems were chosen for their natural affinities towards particular types of mana. The result was a rainbow circle of slowly shrinking gems. He supposed that ‘rainbow’ wasn’t entirely accurate as he could see other colours and even black, white and translucent gems. The number actually astounded him and he quickly realised there were well over four hundred gems embedded into the floor.

  “Done admiring the work?” asked Evindal politely from behind him.

  “Yeah,” Nate muttered. “It’s kind of amazing.”

  “It’s not bad,” agreed Evindal. “Where I come from, ours has almost twice as many gems so that we can detect more esoteric affinities. However, for an organisation like the Adventurer’s Guild, it makes less sense to delve that deeply. Especially in a country like Etrua where the populace is mostly stifled. Now, let’s get to your test. All you need to do is stand in the centre and feed mana to the enchantment. I’ll handle the recording.”

  “Is the room warded?”

  When Evindal gave an answering nod Nate moved to the centre of the enchantment. Standing there calmly, he relaxed his shoulders and guided a small filament of his mana into the enchantment. His sphere of awareness told him that such a small amount of mana wasn’t going to be enough and so he quickly increased the flow. As the mana started to flow out of him and into the enchantment he felt Conceptual Insight activate. The Skill began to hum and he quickly detected a number of elemental Concepts from the inner circle of gems. Water, fire, earth, air and a number of other Concepts flickered briefly before fading into the background as the second row of gems activated. This time he got the sense of things like fluid, coolness, heat, sound, flow and too many more to name. By the third layer he started to feel overwhelmed as a cacophony of Concepts filled the room. That feeling only worsened as he felt some of the concepts present begin to war against each other. Coolness and heat. Solid and fluid. Shadow and light. The opposing affinities felt as if they were trying to suppress or defeat their antithesis. It worsened again as he could feel some Concepts shifting back and forth as though unable to choose a side, while a host of spectator Concepts watched on, ambivalent to the outcome of the many battles.

  The taste of blood on his tongue finally let him focus long enough to hear that Evindal was yelling at him to stop and he collapsed in the centre of the enchantment, dragging his mana back to himself forcibly.

  Touching his nose his fingers came away bloody, but the red colour on his fingers was nothing when compared to the kaleidoscope of the enchantment. He looked around slowly, watching as the small amount of light present in every gem slowly faded. Only two remained lit after a few seconds. The yellow gem that had only emitted a light slightly stronger than the hundreds of other gems followed them back into a dormant state within a couple of seconds, leaving one final purple gem that continued to blaze so brightly that it drowned out the sconces that lit the walls of the room.

  Nate slowly turned to look at Evindal, only to see confusion and consternation writ upon the elf’s flawless pale skin. The man brushed his silver hair absently as he continued to look at the magical circle rather than Nate.

  It was when Nate finally wiped away the blood from his nose that Evindal’s attention flickered back to him.

  “That…that should not have happened.”

  “What shouldn’t have?” Nate asked, standing carefully and moving towards the edge of the circle, stumbling for a moment when he realised his mana reserve was almost empty. When had that happened? He hadn’t been feeding that much mana to the enchantment had he?

  Evindal waved his hands at the magic circle.

  “They’re only supposed to show any light if the mana passing through them has a matching affinity. They shouldn’t have all lit up. The values were so low that they didn’t even register,” explained Evindal, pointing at a panel that seemed to record the results, presenting them as a percentage.

  Nate walked over to join Evindal as they looked at the results of his affinity test. As expected, his Spatial Affinity remained impressive. At forty percent it didn’t look like it had regressed at all since leaving his first Dungeon. On the other hand, his only other affinity was for earth, and at one percent it was negligible. Those were the only results that showed upon the display and he turned to Evindal in confusion.

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  “So, what does it mean?”

  “I don’t know, Nate. I don’t know. Maybe your mana was searching for an affinity that wasn’t present. Maybe the enchantment malfunctioned? Maybe your spatial affinity is the cause. I suppose I could see how space might apply to every other affinity available and so the sheer scale of your affinity was enough to cause a reaction in the other gems. I just…I just don’t know. It was so low that it didn’t trigger a recording so I wouldn’t worry about it. Perhaps it was nothing,” Evindal explained, obviously hedging his answers.

  “That’s less important than your complete lack of a life affinity,” continued the elf. “That is something we will have to remedy.”

  With those words Evindal produced a set of three vials from his spatial storage. The liquid in them glowed a beautiful yellow and green. Rather than looking toxic the colours seemed to shift around each other invitingly. Conceptual Insight went wild in the back of his mind and he could tell that whatever was in the vials was heavily influenced by the Concept of Life.

  “I only got you three to start with, as I had hoped you might have at least a minor affinity for Life. Especially coming from a place like Helmfirth, surrounded by a forest teeming with life on all sides. Regardless, you’ll need to take one every five days. I will purchase another three for you, but that is the limits of what I will put towards your affinity development. I suspect you might need as many as twelve in total to get even close to the strength of affinity you will need. That also assumes we do not need to procure ingredients with a stronger affinity. Though, I imagine that shouldn’t be a problem for you. However, this means you have a month to get enough mana or coin to pay for your next treatment. You could of course take longer if you are willing to slow down your development. But I get the sense that that is not an option. So don’t dally. Come back and see me after you’ve taken the third, so in eleven days. I will teach you your first Life spell then and we can start going over the types of Achievements you will need to progress down this path,” explained Evindal, the elf checking to confirm that Nate understood.

  “Should I take one now, then?” asked Nate.

  “Yes, I suppose it would be best if you did. In case something else weird happens.”

  Nate shrugged and removed the wax seal on the top of one of the vials. The smells that wafted off of the liquid were so varied that he doubted he would have been able to pick them apart without his high Perception Stat. There was a floral scent of flowers in bloom mixed with the musk of animals and the smell of leaves. Underneath that was the smell of petrichor that he realised was likely from mushrooms and other fungi, coupled with a hint of the iron-tang of blood.

  Without waiting any longer he tipped his head back and swallowed the liquid. Despite the many smells there was no taste to the liquid. Focusing his sphere of awareness inwards he could feel as the liquid rushed down his throat into his stomach before beginning to diffuse through his body. However after only a few seconds he could tell that something was slowly gathering in the space that marked his mana reserve. Specks of yellow and green light kept entering him and he could see how they would slowly vanish, absorbed into his mana.

  Glancing back at Evindal, Nate smiled, “It seems to be working.”

  “I would hope so, given how much it costs. This would not be within the reach of any Silver-ranked Guild members beyond yourself and perhaps Null and Coralie. And those two would need to rely on their parents. Now, I have some other things to attend to. Was there anything else you needed today?”

  Nate had been getting better at reading people since coming to Galle. He wasn’t sure if it was his enhanced perception, his improved memory and processing speed from his increased Intellect stat, or just spending more time with different people. Whatever it was, he was confident that Evindal was hiding some concern behind his words. Was it the reaction from the enchanted magic circle that had the elf worried? Nate wasn’t sure, but there was nothing he could do about it for now. With a shake of his head and a quick thank you he found himself headed back to the Royal University with Luc shadowing him till he was through the gates and back onto University grounds.

  The whole experience had been new and interesting. It also gave him some ideas for his own creations. Could he create a miniaturised version of the affinity measuring enchantment? The plethora of gems had been necessary to make sure of the individual gems' affinities. What if he just created a material where each section of the material had a different affinity? If he could do that he could potentially make something the size of a plate that could do what that gigantic enchantment had just done. He was definitely lacking all of the Sigils necessary, but he bet he had enough to have a play with the idea. With a curious smile on his face he rushed back to his room to perform some basic experiments, while also getting the results to his latest experiment! It was time to quantify the difference in strength between using his own mana and processed mana to power a construct created through Conceptual Automation.

  Less than an hour later he was leaning back in his chair, staring at the two misshapen hunks of Common metal. Just a few minutes ago both pieces of what he thought was iron had been pristine and Rare tier, with an affinity for Durability.

  “Four times as strong,” he ventured.

  “Agreed, Boss,” responded Frick, the spirit flashing a toothy smile as he floated nearby.

  “I hadn’t expected the gap to be that vast,” he replied, thinking out loud. “I thought it would be only twice as powerful. Maybe three times. But four times as strong just by swapping to processed mana.”

  He flicked the empty processed mana gem in annoyance.

  “Is it that big of a deal, Boss? We can collect some more processed mana for when shit hits the fan.”

  “It is. Much bigger. Think wider, Frick. Think bigger,” answered Nate, leading his Familiar to the conclusion he had already reached.

  Frick stopped, the goblin spirits blue eyes slowly widening, “It’s not just this Skill. It’s any Skill.”

  “Exactly. And I very much doubt that this isn’t known. There is no way it couldn’t be, with processed mana being used as a currency. Which means the nobility knows. Certainly doesn’t matter at the lower levels and for those who need every scrap of mana they can get just to advance even slightly. But for those at the top, want to bet whether or not they have a small stockpile for those ‘shit hitting the fan’ moments?”

  Frick nodded along, “You need your own stockpile then, Boss. So does Kiri.”

  “I’ll let her know,” Nate answered absentmindedly, his thoughts already elsewhere.

  What was the difference between mana and processed mana? Why did they need Dungeons to collect processed mana? The questions were already plaguing him. With a sigh he settled in to work on his class project for the Affinities and Mana subject. As he got to work on the soul-based rune he was designing to show his capability with the energy type, a part of his mind continued to worry over his questions, unable to let it go. He had no answers yet, but he was going to get them, either at this University, or in the wider multiverse. That, and his very own affinity tester.

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