The First Archmage

(Gavin)

"To think," Christopher mutters, staring at me. "That your Mana is at 60 with you not even having unlocked the Mana Affinity yet."

"The what?" I ask.

"Affinities," he says. "Are special types of Attributes. They determine how much of a specific resource you have. And the fact that you have Mana with your Mana Affinity locked is incredible. That's simply not possible, as far as our records go. Your Mana Pool is a combination of your Mana Affinity and your natural pool. It's unlikely you'll have learned it, but there are methods to increase that as well. It wasn't one I ever shared on your world."

"Is that what MNA is?" I ask. "Mana Affinity?"

"Indeed," he nods. "Other than CHA, anything with an 'a' after is an affinity. Humans have a natural gain to MNA and HLT – the only resource that's not activated through an Affinity, but we actually have all of the Affinities. However, most have all of them locked at birth, not just hidden, including Mana. I'm sure the System is a little confused at how to handle you, with you having Mana while having it locked."

"Human Species says it gives me MNA."

"So it treats it as unlocked," he laughs. "Let's actually get that unlocked, as it'll just be easier in the long run."

"Okay."

"Close your eyes," he says. "And sense within you the flow and ebb of magic, the natural flow of mana. Don't use your Magic Sense for this, just visualize it flowing through you like a river, a force you can shape into nigh anything you desire with but your will and runes."

I close my eyes, not sure how to do what he's asking. How can I sense the magic within me if I can't use a sense for that?

I do what he says, though, turning off Magic Sense. As I focus, I begin to sense other things flowing within me, all sorts of Resources. One of them is definitely Mana, from its feel, but I sort through the others, getting a feel for them as unlock messages flash in my vision.

Affinity Unlocked: Spirit!

Affinity Unlocked: Blood!

Affinity Unlocked: Aura!

Affinity Unlocked: Soul!

Affinity Unlocked: Aether!

Affinity Unlocked: Will!

Affinity Unlocked: Void!

Affinity Unlocked: Arcane!

Affinity Unlocked: Psionic!

Affinity Unlocked: Life!

Affinity Unlocked: Mana!

Mana Affinity Unlocked – Mana already possessed

Calculating Actual Mana Value.

[Mana Affinity: 68] has been added to 60 Mana.

Actual Mana Value: 128

Life Affinity Unlocked – Health already possessed (mostly because they'd be dead without it)

Calculating Actual Health Value

[Life Affinity: 109] has been added to 52 Health

Actual Health Value: 161

Overflow Value Increased by 4

Overflow Value now 6

Overflow Value now visible as a stat: OFV

Attribute Added to list: HLT Attribute (Value: 22)

"Whoa," I look at myself. That felt like all of the resources flowing within me. "That was… whoa."

"Indeed," Christopher says. "Know that you probably only unlocked Mana Affinity that fast because you already had access to your Mana Pool. Other Affinities won't be affected by that, and will take much, much longer for you to sense and unlock."

"How many other Affinities are there?" I ask.

"There are nine total that we know of," he answers.

"There are eleven," I say. "I unlocked that many. I could feel them all flowing through me when I looked inward, and just unlocked them. I got so much, too."

Name: Gavin

Age: 13 years

Title: None

Titles: Master of Pools

Species: Human Level 5 69/125

Primary Classes: Wizard 4 60/100

Secondary Classes: Scout 1 20/25

INT: 30, AGI: 23, CHA: 25, STR: 23, CON: 30, PER: 32, LIF: 29, LUK 32, HLT: 22

LFA: 109, MNA: 68, SPA: 69, ARA: 73, BLA: 59, WLA: 97, PSA: 81, ACA: 52, SLA: 68, VDA: 27, AEA: 61

OVV: 6

Health: 167/161

Mana: 134/128

Spirit: 75/69

Aura: 79/73

Blood: 65/59

Will: 103/97

Psionic: 87/81

Arcane: 58/52

Soul: 74/68

Void: 33/27

Aether: 67/61

Tier I Skills: Soundless 10/10, Camouflage 10/10, Cuteness 5/10, Acting 9/10, Magic Sense 7/10, Dekami Runic Language 1/10, Magic Bolt 6/10, Magic Missile 1/10, Magic Sight 1/10, Magic Shield, Party Leader 1/10, Bare-handed Fighting 2/10, Threat Detection 4/10, English 1/10, Jozan 4/10

Tier II Skills: Dispel 2/10

Tier VII Skills: Rift Sense 1/10

It also made the window take up even more space. Dammit. Is there any way to condense that?

-0 INT

Guess not. Would sure be nice it we could, though.

Looking at my stats, I determine that the base value of the stats is whatever the Affinity is. For Health, it's also increased by CON and HLT stats, but it has a base state as well – LFA. That means it's a resource I can pull on.

Not sure I want to pull on my Health as a resource, though…

That sounds dangerous.

I'm a little amused by what I can only assume was a note to the System from itself on the Life Affinity Unlock message. I don't think it thought anyone would unlock that Affinity, and so never got around to removing the note from whenever it was setting things up.

+0 PER!

+0 INT!

It's probably busy removing the message right now.

+0 INT!

I snort, and Christopher looks at me strange.

That was definitely the hardest one to unlock, Life Affinity. Took me a few moments longer than Aether Affinity, whatever that is. I've at least heard of everything else.

"What are all the Affinities you unlocked?" He asks, and I tell him. "Aether and Life are the two we didn't know, though we always suspected Life had one, since everything listed separately like that had an Affinity attached to it, but no one could ever sense it and unlock it. Aether is a resource that's told of only in myth and legend – no one's ever believed it to be one someone actually had. And for you to unlock all of the Affinities we knew of – plus two more – is just incredible. You truly are of our bloodline."

"You mentioned that, earlier," I say. "What is a Bloodline?'

"Complicated," he answers. "Most species, it's the exact same. Our specific branch of humanity… not so much. Instead of having the Human Bloodline, we often have varied monsters' Bloodlines instead, and we're not entirely sure why. Basically, the Bloodline you unlock grants further stat boosts, but they're far, far greater than your Species's boosts. However, it's much more difficult to gain Experience for them. Even the eldest of our Elders has only managed to reach Level 8 of his Bloodline. We can work on unlocking that some other time.

"For now," he shakes his head. "Let's teach you the method toward increasing your pools. It's the same for all of them, though I'm not sure on Life and Aether Affinities. To… did you say there are eleven? You sounded so confident in that there are exactly eleven, not more."

Something about his explanation of Bloodlines feels off to me, but I'm sure I'll get the proper explanation eventually.

"I gained a title," I nod, looking at the message in my view.

Title Gained!

Master of Pools: One who has unlocked every Affinity there is; no power is beyond your grasp. Even the power of Life and Aether will bend to your will, should you learn to shape them.

"Set it," he tells me, and I do. "I can't imagine that was easy to gain. What Tier is it?"

"Third."

"Incredible!" He laughs. "Your Bloodline must be truly incredible, for you to quickly unlock all of them."

"It's not going to be yours or hers?"

"It's possible," he nods. "But it could also be something else. Your mother and I have two different Bloodlines. Looking at your stats now, you still seem to have Mana that's unaccounted for – 68 Mana, to be exact."

"It increased when Human and Wizard gained Levels."

"I'm sure it did," he nods. "Both affect MNA. And yet… it seems what you had access to wasn't affected before. Did the Class and Species description change at all with the unlocks to indicate a separate thing affecting them?"

"No," I answer.

"Strange," he mutters.

"What's Overflow Value?"

"Already?" He asks. "No one's ever achieved that until Archwizard, earliest."

"I've always had it," I nod. "But it's now a visible stat, so I didn't know what it was called."

"I'm surprised you've unlocked it," he nods. "Overflow Value is how much higher than your caps your pools can reach, a sort of buffer, if you will. Normally, you can't go above your caps without something external boosting that pool, such as a potion, but yours seem to hit that during natural regeneration. Interesting. Your Bloodline must be truly incredible.

"Let's move on to increasing your resource pools," he says.

The process to doing that includes meditating and reflecting upon the pool itself, mentally willing it to expand, ever so slightly. He says that it's akin to using that resource every day to expand the pool. For the first year or so, one can manage around one or two points a day, three or four if a Wizard, but after that, it can take a month or more of trying for each additional point.

It's strange that it requires me to will it to happen, yet doesn't use up Will. Christopher explains that Will, as a resource, has an entirely different function. To expand the pool, I have to push at it with my actual will, making more space.

At least, that's how he describes it. That's hard to figure, but I focus on doing that for my Mana, anyway. I sense the pool within me, focusing on trying to push it past what it can hold now. That sounds really weird to me, though.

And it doesn't really do anything. I'd think that trying to increase the density of my Mana would be more effective. Since the former method didn't work, I try switching to the latter, gathering up a little bit of Mana and doing my best to compress it, to make it a little bit denser, thicker, so that it doesn't take up as much space.

As I focus on doing that, I notice a slight change. Just a tad bit more Mana than before, but not a full point. I stop the focus, and watch, seeing if the extra Mana remains, or dissipates out of me. It doesn't, so I keep working at it, until, eventually, a full extra point of Mana forms.

"I think I got it," I open my eyes, and Christopher frowns at me. "What?"

"That's a test we give to all," he says. "It's impossible to do it that way."

Yeah, no shit. Your explanation was suspicious as fuck.

"I figured that out," I say. "I instead focused on condensing my Mana to make room for more, and-"

"That's… unbelievable!" He laughs. "The others will get a real kick out of you doing that, Gavin!"

"Are you making fun of me?"

"No," he grins. "It's the fact that you switched from trying to do an impossible task to something that's close to it! They won't believe me when I say you did that all on your own!"

"So how many Witches and Wizards are there?"

"Thirty-four," he answers. "Including yourself. Then there's at least one Mage wandering around the universe."

"What's your Bloodline?"

"Kesru Bloodline," he answers. "It boosts my Health and Mana by immense amounts, and my LIF by just a decent amount every Level. I've only gotten it to Level 3, and I unlocked it when I was twenty. I'm nearly four hundred."

You don't look it.

"It also," he says. "Gives me the benefit of being able to walk between worlds, realms, and planes with no regard to their distance, which is why I'm the only one who goes to your world. It's farther than any we know, and I only found it by accident. No one else has managed to get there."

"What's a continent?" I ask, and he raises an eyebrow. "The king mentioned it in a journal. He said that the Dungeon's link was a continent to the north, but I've never heard of that before. I know everything to the north – and past that, it becomes the endless sea. I know the map of the entire world, and have never heard that term before."

"A continent," he explains. "Is a massive body of land. The 'world', as you know it, is just a continent. Your world is odd, in that its continents each sit in their own sort of plane, yet they're all connected, like on other worlds, by the oceans – what you're calling the endless sea. Strangely, if you try to travel directly between them, you fail, no boat able to pass through whatever the distortion is. Flying, I ran into the same issue, and same with Teleporting. I had to resort to using Dungeon passages to find my way through, or leaving the world and reentering. There are two continents to the north of you, though I think the one you were sent to was the home of Oberon, the king of the fairies, and the home of the majority of the fairies. Not a fun place for Wizards."

"Why?"

"The southern part of that continent," he says. "Is safe, but the far northern part, where the fairies live, isn't safe. Oberon and I had a few disagreements, and I find myself under attack anytime I go there. He's ordered me to inform the order that his woods are off-limits, and that none of us are to approach any of his fairies. You know the overseer the message mentioned?" He asks. "The Divine Being of this realm, Merlin Abrosious? On your world, it's a tree called Yggdrasil, the world tree. Oberon has lived in a palace at her base for far longer than any Wizard has lived, and his power is immense. He can prove a threat to me. If you do ever end up on that continent, do not, for any reason, go to him."

Which conflicts directly with acquiring the Grimoire from Oberon.

That might make things fun for me.

"Okay," I say.

I still have one Grimoire, so it's not like I need the second one. Especially since it'll probably take me forever to be good enough to prove worth to Oberon normally, anyway.

"Also," Christopher says, and Rift Sense reacts to a Rift not far from us. "Get back!"

He pushes me behind him, though I can still see what's coming out of it.

Rift Wolves are still as massive as they looked in my memories. Unless this one's just bigger than those ones. It's head is all that's poking out of the Rift, and it fixes its golden gaze on me.

Gavin, its voice reverberates in my head. Get in here. Now.

"No," Christopher says firmly, and then is flung into the wall.

Now.

I can't resist the force of the voice, my body moving on its own, no matter how much I fight it. In just moments, I'm through the rift, standing in front of a Dungeon entrance in a forest, the massive Rift wolf lying on the ground.

The knowledge you gained is far too great for a child, it says. I have bound all your Affinities, save for Life Affinity and Mana Affinity. Those, you may keep unlocked.

With a small flux of power in the air around me, I lose access to nine of my resource pools, and when I check my status screen, I find them and their Affinities no longer listed.

The Title, you may keep. One day, you will unlock them again, but these powers are too great for you to possess now.

"Give them back!" I charge the Rift Wolf, pounding my fists against it.

The moment one connects, I'm thrown back, slamming into a tree, and blackness fills my vision.