The Sixth School Ch. 060

"To bring it back to the original question you asked. Yes, you've copied over the obsidian earthmover's mana pathways, but that's only because compared to your original mana pathway layout, the beast's was much closer to the ideal for an earth element mage. I suspect that in the future, the changes in the layout of your mana pathways won't be as drastic as it was this time. Instead, you'll only be picking those elements that will help you improve your affinity for the element, and discarding all other aspects that don't help you raise your affinity. What I can't tell at the moment, is whether this refinement process will only work while you are in the awakening stage and not yet a fully-fledged first-tier mage."

"If it stops once you are past the awakening process, then you'll have to find the highest affinity tier-three beast-core to help refine your own mana pathways layout and increase your affinity. If, on the other hand, it doesn't, then we might very well have just discovered a way to increase your affinity to almost perfection," She said, her tone conveying that she understood just how incredible a feat that would be if she was right. Greg too could understand how epic it would be to be endlessly able to increase his affinity to one's element of choice. Excitement shone in his eyes as he imagined just how awesome it would be to have his affinity increase endlessly until it reached perfection.

The healer, however, was quick to bring him back down to earth. "That, however, isn't to say that it'll be easy, or risk-free," She warned. "Remember, the higher one's affinity for a particular element, the easier it is for them to rise through the tiers. That means that, if you keep looking for beast-cores with greater affinity than your own, you will inevitably find yourself looking for cores from beasts higher tiered than yourself. Hunting them down by yourself will carry the risk of losing your life in the process. If you choose to buy them, however, it'll probably bleed you dry financially to get anything above tier five. And that's only on the procurement side. We don't have any guarantees that the cores of higher-tiered monsters are going to be as easy to deal with as those in the third tier are. Remember that the higher the tier of the creature, the more powerful their soul. If you are not careful, higher-tiered cores may do you more harm than good," She laid out.

Greg found himself respecting the healer's ability to remain calm and think several steps ahead. While he had been drooling at the prospect of achieving a perfect affinity. She had gone ahead and thought through what that would actually entail when put into practice. And she was completely right. First off, all this depended on whether he could still improve his affinity after he was past the awakening stage. If he couldn't then it was all moot. If he could, then that was just the first of many hurdles. Getting cores from creatures with a high affinity for the earth element would be the next challenge. She hadn't said anything about it but Greg doubted that such beasts were common.

After finding such beasts, Greg would have to figure out how to obtain their cores. He could either hunt them directly or hire a group to hunt down the beast on his behalf, that is if he didn't get it in a shop where he could easily buy it. Either way, he'd have to either risk himself or tear a hole through his pocket to obtain the beast-cores he wanted. And as if that wasn't bad enough, getting the core was only the first part of this whole debacle. Using it to improve his affinity was the second half of this battle and somehow, the consequences were even more dire. With his soul on the line, any mistakes or failures could lead to his soul suffering injuries which in turn could have catastrophic implications!

"Aren't we ignoring the most important question of all?" Olivia spoke up in a serious tone. A look of confusion crossed Greg's expression, as he turned in her direction. He couldn't think of any particular issue that they were purposely ignoring, least of all an important one. But while he was confused, a bitter but resigned smile crossed the healer's expression. It seemed that while he couldn't work out what his familiar was referring to, the healer already knew. "Before, when Roka's affinity for the earth element was barely any better than his other affinities, we could justify his shift to the school of life! The situation, however, has changed completely. With his increased affinity, Greg is almost certain to easily reach the fifth tier, with some effort, he could even cross into the sixth. It'll be a long shot, but it's still within the realm of reality that he even climbs to the seventh tier. With that in mind, asking him to ignore the best path before him for a path that he still has next to no affinity with is completely unjustifiable," She expressed.

Greg sat in silence not having thought about what the implications of this change in his affinity would be. On the one hand, he didn't want to abandon his teacher in her current state. After all that she had done for him, it would feel like a betrayal for him not to help her start anew as a mage. On the other hand, his familiar was completely correct in more ways than one. It wasn't just about his affinity, after living through the life of the obsidian earthmover, Greg couldn't see himself ever abandoning the earth element. It had become just as much a part of him as his very skin was. Even now, Greg could feel the earth below him through his strengthened earth connection. To lose that connection would be akin to losing one of his limbs, or one of his five senses!

"It's simple, is it not?" Greg finally spoke up, "If I remember right, you said there were only a few minor issues with someone pursuing more than one school of magic, but nothing so major that it can't be resolved. I see no reason that I can't be both a healer and an earth mage," He said with a smile.

"I see a big one!" Olivia immediately countered. "It's something along the lines of having no fucking affinity for the school! Do not confuse having a good affinity with having a guarantee of rising through the tiers, master. Rising to the higher tiers as a mage of any school is by no means easy. You can't afford to waste either your time or efforts pursuing a school of magic that you have no affinity with! If you try to pursue both being an earth mage and a healer chances are that rather than going far in both, the opposite happens and you end up mediocre in both!" She informed him.

"I know you want to help your teacher, master. To repay the kindness that she has shown you so far. But I am not her familiar, I am your familiar. And while you are thinking about her, someone has to think about you and your future. One path is already hard enough, trying to walk two paths may be taking a bigger bite than what can fit in your throat!" She cautioned. As unpleasant as it was to hear Olivia's objections, he could also understand where she was coming from. As great as it would be to have her fully behind him whenever he decided to do something, he knew that he was probably better off having her willing to vocally object when she thought he was doing something wrong that would harm him in the future.

His gaze turned to the healer who was regarding him with a carefully neutral gaze. Once again, when it came to major decisions about his future, even when it affected her in such a fundamental way, the healer was trying to keep a neutral expression to keep from influencing him one way or the other. Still, that's not what he wanted at the moment. He needed to hear her true thoughts on the matter and he communicated as much. A sigh left her lips even as she answered. "Your familiar is right. As my student, I can't in good conscience recommend that you try to walk two paths, least of all when you have such a poor affinity for one of the two paths. In any other circumstance, I wouldn't even be willing to entertain the idea."

"I, however, can't pretend to be objective in the present situation. The simple reality is that I don't think I can trust anyone else to do this. Remember that the first part of this process involves stripping me of what little power I still have. In essence, I'll have to trust that the one helping me won't strike me down when I am at my weakest. I've been betrayed once, I never thought I would be this trusting of anyone else, but so far you've shown yourself to be honorable enough that I am willing to risk it. But just because I am willing to trust you, doesn't mean that I am willing to trust anyone else with this. If you don't do this for me, chances are that I'll be stuck as I am," She said. Though her voice remained calm and her gaze steady, Greg could see it in her eyes how unwilling she was to see such an outcome.

"Why not just teach me what I'd need to know to dissolve your pathways and leave it at that?" He asked.

A sigh left the healer before she asked a question of her own. "Do you know why there are different schools of magic? For example, why don't healers try to cast fire spells? Or why don't necromancers try to learn a summoner's magic?" It was a strange question to ask at this point, but from the look on her face, Greg could tell that she was entirely serious. "Come on, you came up with the theory, you should be able to come up with an answer.

Given that he'd only come up with one theory of note, Greg didn't have to ask which theory. With that hint, the answer almost immediately came to him. "Different types of mana follow different pathways," he said in response.

"And what do you think would happen if the mana flowing along your closed channels decides to take a left turn where there is no left turn?" she asked.

Greg didn't have to think too hard about that one. "Trying to force mana to flow along pathways not suited for them will lead to injuries?" He said. A frown then crossed Greg's expression. "But you said that there were no major issues with mixing different schools of magic," he reminded with a questioning look.

"Think about it, Roka. What kind of mage would pursue two different schools of magic?" She posed.

Once again, Greg could see it in her expression that this wasn't a rhetorical question so he gave it serious thought. When he did, the answer came to him rather quickly. "One who already has a high affinity in both schools of magic," He said already understanding how this answered his contention.

"Not just high, but a very high affinity," The healer corrected. "In other words, based on you'd theory, they already had the architecture to handle the different types of mana from the different schools of magic. This is the only reason there has never been a problem in merging two or more schools. Because the people who did it were already suited to both schools they wished to pursue. To generalize this to everyone would be like seeing a group of exceptionally strong men lift heavy weights and assuming that everyone can do it since they were doing it. In all my years, I have never heard of a mage pursuing two different schools of magic where he only had an average affinity in the second school of magic, let alone a poor one as you do in the school of life," She revealed.

"If a mage is forced to practice in a school that they don't have a high affinity in, they might see some improvement in that school of magic. However, the improvement won't be anywhere near as drastic as the deterioration in their affinity for their primary school of magic. Before your theory, the common consensus was they different schools don't mix well in those with poor affinity. With your theory, however, it's easy to understand why. The mana from the school with a worse affinity is trying to modify the mana pathways to make them more compatible with it," She laid out.

"When all your affinities were mediocre, the cost of shifting you away from the earth element path onto that of a healer was justifiable considering my promise to help you reach the fifth tier. Now, with your increased affinity for the earth element, the cost vs rewards aren't at all balanced! You'd be losing a lot more by shifting away from the earth element than you'd be gaining by becoming a healer. She explained.

There was a long silence between the three of them. Olivia had made her objections known. The healer had also laid out the reality of the situation and all its implications. Now the decision rested with Greg, whether he would choose to help the healer to his own detriment or to do the smart thing and not jeopardize his future. "You say that trying to make use of life mana as an earth mage will harm my affinity?" he posed looking at the healer. A smile crossed his lips when she nodded "Well, I guess it's a good thing we have a way for me to increase my affinity endlessly," he said, his gaze dropping to the seven earth element beast-cores the healer had placed before him...

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