Soul of the Warrior

Chapter 254: Second Fiddle

“This is so frustrating!” Reivyn threw his head back and sighed. “I don’t get it.”

Reivyn leaned back and threw his forearm over his face, covering his eyes. The twins were working enthusiastically on their own easel nearby, and Kefira was watching them with interest. The three girls turned to appraise Reivyn.

“What don’t you get?” Kailey asked.

“It’s not hard,” Riley said.

“I don’t get how you maintain control!” Reivyn said, sitting back up straight. “Every time I try to infuse an additional Affinity into a single thread, the other Affinity disappears.

“Don’t talk about infusing all of my Affinities into a single thread. I can’t manage two.”

“There are a couple things wrong with what you said,” Kailey patiently explained.

“At least two,” Riley nodded.

“Teach me, oh wise masters,” Reivyn pleaded.

“The first issue, we don’t gradually increase our Affinity infusions,” Kailey answered.

“It’s all at once,” Riley confirmed.

Reivyn frowned in thought.

“Ok~ay,” he said.

His frown only deepened as he thought about the answer the girls gave.

“And secondly, who said we were in control?” Kailey asked.

“The Mana’s in control.”

“What do you mean by that?” Reivyn perked up. That was a concept he had never encountered before.

Kailey and Riley shared a look before looking back at Reivyn. Kailey just shrugged.

“I don’t know how else to explain it,” Kailey said.

“We don’t control the Mana. We let it do what it wants,” Riley said.

“I thought we already explained that.”

“We did mention how we didn’t choose the effect of our dancing couple.”

“And that little piece had multiple effects,” Reivyn said. He was starting to grasp something important.

“You mean like how their Mana simultaneously hold multiple combinations of Affinities?” Kefira asked.

Reivyn looked at Kefira in surprise.

“Exactly like that!” Reivyn said. “I think I’m beginning to glimpse what I need to do.”

Reivyn looked at his own amateur work of art. The painting wasn’t the important part of the exercise. At least, that’s what Reivyn told himself. He tapped his chin in thought as he considered the medium his sisters chose to teach their unique take on using Mana Affinities.

“By the way, I’ve never heard of such a technique before,” Kefira asked the two girls. “How did you come by it?”

Kailey flipped her hair around.

“It’s what we’ve always done,” she said.

Riley mirrored her sister's actions on the opposite side.

“It comes naturally.”

“What about the flower crowns,” Reivyn asked. “You made those before you had unlocked any Mana Skills or Affinities.”

“Like we said,” Kailey replied.

“We let the Mana do what it wanted,” Riley finished.

“Soo… you’re saying you just created the flower crowns and let the Mana pull from the surroundings and your intent to add the magical effect?” Reivyn asked. “Like, we were out in the wilderness surrounded by wildlife, so the Mana naturally took on that aspect?”

Kailey and Riley shared another look before looking back at Reivyn. Riley shrugged.

“I guess,” she said.

“You don’t know?” Reivyn pressed.

“We’re not academics,” Kailey shook her head.

“Again, we just let the Mana do what it wanted.”

“Ok. I think that’s enough for me to work with for now,” Reivyn said.

The two girls went back to their own project. Kefira watched them and occasionally asked them questions. Reivyn drowned them out as he concentrated on his own core of Mana.

He was getting better and better at using his Divine Sense. If he wanted, he could replay their entire conversation back in his mind while paying zero attention to it in the moment.

Reivyn sunk his consciousness to the center of his being and intently watched the Mana within his core. He reached out with his will and grasped some of it, drawing it out along his meridians. He concentrated on letting the Mana determine for itself what Affinities it would encompass.

He drew the Mana to his hand and watched in anticipation as it formed in his hand. A ball of Mana quickly formed just above his outstretched hand.

It was just a ball of pure Mana. There were zero Affinities in it at all.

Reivyn frowned as he drew the Mana back into his core. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, readying himself for round two. He tried to relax his intent as he grabbed control of the Mana…

He froze.

I have to not control the Mana… Reivyn thought. Then how do I bring it out?

Reivyn relaxed his control over his Mana and watched it sit in his core. He imagined giving it the freedom to express itself the way it wanted while opening himself up for it to travel to his hand. It was the only thing he could think of to bring it out while not controlling it.

It just sat in his core. It didn’t budge.

After several minutes of trying to will the Mana to do something without willing it to do something, he threw his hands up in frustration once more.

“Gah! This is a paradox!” Reivyn exclaimed, startling the three girls. “How am I supposed to get it to do something without controlling it? It doesn’t make any sense!”

He sat back down once more.

“We never said you didn’t control the Mana at all,” Kailey rolled her eyes.

“You still have to direct it,” Riley pointed out.

“Ok, but that still doesn’t explain how you get it to take on your Affinities,” Reivyn retorted. “When I do what you’re saying, it just comes out as unaspected, pure Mana.”

“Hmm, maybe you need to look at it from a different perspective,” Kailey said, tapping her lips in thought.

“How about this?” Riley spread her arm out in a wide arc. “Look all around you. What do you see?”

Reivyn understood Riley was talking about looking with more than just his eyes. He activated his Mana Sight Skill and viewed the ambient Mana dancing all around them. It was quite thick in the Tier 4 Region.

“What do you see?” Riley asked.

“I see a bunch of ambient Mana,” Reivyn answered, still looking through his Skill.

“And how much of it is unaspected, pure Mana?” Kailey asked.

“Almost none of it,” Reivyn replied.

“Did someone enforce their will on that Mana to turn the motes into the Affinities they are?” Kailey asked.

“Hmm, that’s a good point,” Reivyn conceded. “I still don’t see how that applies to my own Mana, though. It’s inert, in its pure form, inside my core.”

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“Is it?” Riley asked, quirking an eyebrow at Reivyn.

Reivyn was surprised at that. He frowned as once again delved his consciousness into his core. He really dove deep to inspect the Mana in his core.

On the surface, the ball of Mana inside him was just pure Mana, but the deeper he dived, the more he could see traces of all the Affinities he had unlocked.

The lower-Tier Affinities were more numerous and easier to detect. He had to dive all the way to the very center of his core as deep as he could possibly go to see a hint of the Veridical and Abyss Affinities sitting there.

That’s not an entirely accurate way of depicting it, Reivyn thought. The Affinities aren’t just floating about inside my core. It’s more like the potential of the Affinities are there.

Reivyn felt like he was getting closer and closer to the answer. He took a break from trying to figure out how to coax the potential out of his core and into the Mana itself without controlling it and just spent some time observing the phenomenon in his core.

He came back to himself after several minutes and looked over at his sisters.

“Do you mind if I inspect your Mana cores?” Reivyn asked.

“Sure,” Kailey answered immediately.

“It’s no problem,” Riley echoed.

“Wait, you haven’t inspected their cores?” Kefira asked, confused. “Don’t you have a Skill that let’s you see it even if you don’t want to?”

“I’ve trained myself to ignore things,” Reivyn answered. “Unless I relax my hold on the Skill, I only view things on the surface. Plus, I respect their privacy, so I would never look without permission.”

“That makes sense,” Kefira nodded her head, a thoughtful expression on her face.

Reivyn relaxed his self-imposed restrictions and let his Divine Sense dive into his sisters’ Mana cores. He also opened his eyes wide and focused with his Mana Sight. It wasn’t as easy to bypass into things with his Mana Sight as it was for his Divine Sense, but he was Skilled enough that it was just a mental switch.

He was immediately struck dumb by what he observed.

“Wait,” Reivyn said, losing his concentration on looking at their cores. He looked up at their faces with wide eyes. “Your Mana cores look nothing like mine!”

His own Mana core was like a ball of pure Mana encompassing the potential of his Affinities within the center.

His sisters’ Mana was already infused with all of the Affinities as it sat in their cores.

“Of course your Mana holds all of your Affinities when you drag it out without enforcing an Affinity on it. It already holds those properties!”

“Mhm,” Kailey simply acknowledged the fact.

Reivyn closed his eyes and placed his palm on his forehead. He took a deep breath to calm himself down. He slowly lowered his arm and opened his eyes.

“So we’re back to square one, then,” he said. “I’ve been trying to do this in a fundamentally different way than the two of you. Now I have absolutely no idea how to proceed from here.”

“I have an idea,” Kefira said. Three pairs of eyes focused on her. She smiled. “How about you watch Kailey and Riley Absorb and Circulate their Mana? There’s obviously something in the process before the Mana settles in their core, and you’re uniquely qualified to observe it.”

Reivyn nodded his head.

“That’s an excellent idea,” he said.

“You’re just too close to the problem,” Kefira said, resting her hand on his forearm. “You probably would have thought of it… eventually.”

“Maybe. Either way, this will save a lot of time and headache.” He turned to his sisters. “You two don’t mind, do you?”

The girls were already in the process of sitting down in the lotus position.

“Sure,” Kailey said.

“Observe away,” Riley said.

Reivyn waited patiently for the two girls to get comfortable and enter a Meditative state. He opened his senses, Mana Skill and Divine, wide to watch the Mana all around.

He watched as the Ambient Mana was agitated and drawn toward the two girls. It didn’t move nearly as fast as it did for him when he used his Skills, but it wasn’t slow, either. Little vortexes of Mana formed centered on the girls.

He watched the Mana as it entered into their meridians and began moving along the channels. The Mana shifted from its ambient Affinity to the conglomerate of Affinities his sisters had unlocked simultaneously too subtly and too swiftly for him to catch the transition.

He focused his will. Like when observing his own core, his consciousness delved deeper into the Mana flowing into and through his sisters’ meridian channels. He was still unable to grasp the change.

He focused even deeper. In the center of his sisters’ beings, a faint outline of the two slowly became visible. It wasn’t located in their core. It was true center. The outlines mimicked the posture of the two girls and appeared to be sitting in the lotus position.

The faint outlines became more corporeal to Reivyn’s senses the more he focused on them. They consisted of the full spectrum of colors from one end to the other, clearer than he could observe in the natural world even with his Divine Sense.

He could tell that there was more to discover deeper within the little outlines, but he realized he didn’t need to search deeper for his purposes. He wasn’t trying to figure out the outlines, but he had a guess as to what they were.

Those are their souls, Reivyn thought. And they themselves hold all of their Affinities within them.

He observed further as the different functions Reivyn recognized as Mana Skills connected to the soul apparitions. The girls’ souls didn’t just connect all the processes together. They combined them.

The different aspects of the Mana Skills were brought together, blended into one, and dispersed throughout their bodies.

Without realizing it, Reivyn also assumed the lotus position. His eyes closed, but he was still focused on the two girls with his Divine Sense. He didn’t even know that he was doing anything.

Slowly, he began to attempt to mimic the two girls.

The first thing he had to do, though, was disperse all of the Mana from his core. He took control of the entire core and willed the Mana out of his body.

“Wow,” he faintly heard someone whisper.

He didn’t lose control of his Mana. He simply sent it outside of his body. It formed a sphere around himself, waiting for him to direct it back into his being.

He subconsciously focused on his Affinities, his Mana Skills, and his own Soul. He tied all of his Mana Skills more tightly together within his Soul and infused the entire thing with all of his Affinities.

He wasn’t just dealing with the potential of the Affinities like they had sat within his Mana Core. They were all there, together, all at once in their true form.

He slowly started pulling his Mana back into himself, running it through the different processes like the girls, but many of the functions of each process were now shared with each other.

At first, he kept the Mana completely away from his core. He brought it into his body in a trickle and ran it through his meridian channels. Slowly but surely, the Mana in his channels took on the same multi-colored aspect of his Affinities the same way his sisters’ did. Once he was sure the Mana was saturated, he ran it through one more full cycle before depositing it in his core.

It was a slow process at first, but it gradually picked up speed. Reivyn was completely unaware of the passage of time.

At some point, his Divine Sense had quit observing his sisters, and he was fully focused on his own task. He didn’t even know when that had happened, but he was so engrossed in the task, he didn’t even realize he didn’t know.

Eventually, the last of his Mana re-entered his body and cycled through the process of taking on all of his Affinities. Once the last drop was nestled within his core, he reached for more and was surprised to find there wasn’t any.

The lack of more Mana to filter brought him out of his epiphany. He channeled his Mana into his hand and a wide grin split his face as he observed the multi-colored Mana sitting in his hand. He brought it back within himself.

He intuitively applied an internal filter, and a weave of pure Fire Affinity formed in his hand. The process reminded him of running light through a prism. He could still dictate which Affinity he used, but he could now mix and match them at will within individual threads.

He pulled the Mana back into his core again and looked up with a grin still on his face. His grin faltered as he saw that his sisters were no longer present. Only Kefira and Serilla, plus a different maid, were still in the room. They were seated at the table and engaged in a hushed conversation.

Reivyn looked out the window and saw that the sun had long since set beyond the horizon.

The sudden lack of Mana fluctuations finally caught the attention of the two girls, and Kefira rose from her seat to approach Reivyn with a smile on her face.

“Finally done?” She asked.

Reivyn smiled and nodded.

“Yup.”

He once more displayed his Mana within his hand. Kefira gave an appreciative murmur of excitement at the sight of all the different Affinities represented in the Mana. Reivyn noticed the blinking Notification in the corner of his vision as he let go of the Mana once more.

“Give me one second,” Reivyn said, focusing on the Notification. “I think that’s all it took.”

He opened the Notification window.

Achievement! You have become the embodiment of Mana itself. The secrets of the Realm open up to you.

Skills Mana Absorption, Mana Circulation, Sense Mana, Mana Conjuration, Mana Manipulation, Mana Shield, Mana Sight, Dual Casting, Mana Weapon, Mana Drain, Mana Healing, Mana Reinforcement, and Multi-Casting have merged.

The Path has already been set.

New Skill Unlocked!

Bonus for merging multiple Tier 5 Skills

Tier 5:

Magic Prodigy (88)

Veridical Affinity +1

Further synergy has been detected between Skills

Insufficient Skill/Enlightenment

Reivyn pumped his fist in excitement.

“Yes!” He shouted.

“So I take it you succeeded?” Kefira quirked an eyebrow.

“Yep! It was as simple as that!”

“You call what you did simple?!” Kefira reeled back, eyes opening wide. “That was anything but simple! The things you say sometimes, I swear…” Kefira shook her head.

“What?” Reivyn asked, frowning in confusion. “After seeing how it worked, it was simpler than I thought.”

“Reivyn… nobody but you can see it,” Kefira rolled her eyes.

“Well, lucky for you, I can just show you,” Reivyn said with a smug expression.

“And then I’ll have to figure out how to do it. The things I sensed going on with my Sense Mana were pretty intense. I’m not sure I could even maintain control of all of my Mana outside of my body, much less while doing whatever it is you did.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out together,” Reivyn grasped one of her hands and smiled.

The door opened and the twins walked into the room. Reivyn had expected them to enter sooner, having spied them with his Divine Sense, but they had apparently been waiting for a lull in the conversation to make their entrance.

Reivyn frowned as he focused on the two girls.

“What I don’t understand is how the two of you haven’t combined your Mana Skills together already,” he said.

“Who said we haven’t?” Kailey shot back.

“We merged our Skills forever ago,” Riley added.

It was Reivyn’s turn to reel back in surprise.

“You have Magic Prodigy unlocked?” He asked.

“Nope!” Kailey shook her head.

“We did it before advancing to our Tier 1 Classes,” Riley explained.

“We have Magic Master.”

Reivyn slowly sat back down. His thoughts were a jumbled mess at the revelation. His gaze once more sharpened as he narrowed his eyes.

“And you didn’t think to tell anyone?” He asked.

“Of course not!” Kailey denied.

“We told mom,” Riley said.

“What?! Mom’s known this whole time?!” Reivyn sat back in consternation. “:And where was I when all this happened?”

“You were gone,” Kailey shrugged.

“And then you were busy,” Riley added.

“And then we didn’t want to interfere in your experiments.”

“Plus we didn’t really remember how we did it.”

“Like we said.”

“It just came naturally.”

The two girls flipped their hair at the same time in opposite directions, smug grins on their faces. Reivyn rolled his eyes and shook his head as Kefira laughed.