466 The Weight of Secrets
Aron brought up Rina’s status screen. It was similar to the one his system generated for him, as he had used it as the core inspiration for the runes he’d used in its creation. It displayed everything that was known about her, like her name, height, and so on. It also included two entries showing whether or not she was awakened, and what system of magic she had awakened to. The field showing her individual magic system was blank at the moment, however, as it had yet to be discovered.
But none of that mattered just then, because the most important and attention-grabbing field—at least for Aron and Nova—was the affinity section of her status, which read “Affinity: neutral”.
The excitement on Aron and Nova’s face couldn’t be hidden, prompting Rina, who had yet to understand the importance of mana affinities, to ask, “What’s got you two so excited?”
“Having a neutral affinity is wonderful! Based on what we know, we expect that the majority of awakened will have an affinity to a certain type of mana. Fire, water, lightning, and so on. There are an unfathomable number of them, ranging from the easy-to-understand elements to more esoteric types, like time, space, faith, and so on. If a person has an affinity to a type of mana, they’ll find that mana to be the easiest to draw and will face a lot of difficulty if they want to draw other types of mana. And some will be outright impossible to draw. For instance, someone with an affinity to fire would find it impossible to draw water or ice mana, and would have a really hard time drawing earth mana.
“There’s also levels to consider, too. It seems like there are levels, from simple to complex, and those with simple mana affinities—like elemental mana-will find it extremely difficult to draw from the next level of complexity, and almost impossible to draw from two levels up. Three or more levels higher would be impossible for them to draw. For an example, the fire affinity awakened I used earlier would find it extremely difficult to draw lava mana, almost impossible to draw kinetic mana, and wouldn’t be able to draw any of the esoteric mana at all.
“We think that affinities can be manipulated. If you’re in an area with a lot of fire, for example, you would probably develop a fire affinity. People who were in a walk-in freezer, or at one of the poles, would probably develop an ice affinity. Basically, based on what we currently know about awakening and mana, your environment plays a big part in the affinity you become attuned to.
“In your case, your awakening was triggered by the burst of high-concentration aspectless mana triggered by the final stage of my evolution. Then that was compounded by the flood of aspectless mana you were exposed to during your awakening process itself, thanks to being in one of the pods in the vault here. Those two factors likely resulted in you having a neutral affinity to mana,” Aron excitedly explained.
“So what does that mean? I understand how it happened now... I think, but what can I do with neutral affinity? Does that mean I can only draw uh, what’d you call it? Aspectless mana?” Rina asked.
“Not exactly. Aspectless mana isn’t usually present anywhere. Mana is something like a building block, and we aren’t quite sure whether mana is present wherever the thing it’s aspected to is present, or if aspected mana has to be present for a thing to form. Like earth mana. We don’t know if the mana was what turned whatever basic building block the universe is made out of into rocks and soil, or if the rocks and soil themselves are responsible for concentrating earth mana in them.
“So your neutral affinity doesn’t, and can’t, mean that you can only work with aspectless mana. Instead, what it means is, you can work with ALL types of mana. So you can draw all of the elements, all of the derivatives, all of the mana from laws, and you can draw conceptual mana and perhaps even esoteric mana! I mean, the universe is fair, so your draw rate will likely be lower than an aspected awakened, but you, my dear,” he cupped her chin in his hand and gazed lovingly into her eyes, “are a jack of all trades and master of all.” Aron beamed at Rina.
“Does that mean I can use the golden letters like you?” Rina excitedly asked, imagining herself as a perpetual motion machine with the aid of the refresh rune.
“Unfortunately, no. My awakening was... unique, and related to my physique. You can’t cast runes unless you have the same, let’s say, mutation that I do.” Aron snapped his fingers and a model of his runic heart appeared, with a section highlighted like an illustration in an anatomy textbook that showed a portion of the billions of submicroscopic runic sentences carved into his heart.
“We also suspect that, since your awakening was triggered, rather than happening naturally, it’ll be difficult for you to learn to use your blessing. Those who naturally awakened should be able to instinctively use their blessings, but have you felt anything like that yourself? Without that instinct, you’ll have to learn everything from scratch. Either way, it takes repetition and training, together with researching the mana you want to use, to develop new abilities. So for now, we have to wait until we can gather data from the naturally awakened on how they use, and strengthen, their blessings before we can come up with a system for you to put your blessing to work,” Aron finished. Though he said that, he was already planning to buy beginner magical knowledge from the system and upload it to her—and the other awakened, for that matter, to act as their “instincts”—but he needed a cover for it that wouldn’t expose the system or his ability to upload information directly into someone’s brain. That was another secret he could only share with Nova.
Still, he was absolutely ecstatic that Rina was joining him as someone who could also use magic. Keeping that ability from her was beginning to weigh on him and he knew it would affect their relationship, eventually. Secrets are the heaviest thing known to man, and no matter how healthy a relationship was, keeping too many would cause it to crumble under their weight.
“We’ll know more in the future, but for now, you need some natural sleep. Your recent bout of unconsciousness can’t be considered ‘rest’, after all.”
Aron initiated a forced logout for the two of them and held her in his arms until they disappeared from the simulation.
