Chapter 31: Rifts and Attunements |
<pYou should focus on mana refining now," she said. "Racking your mind over attunements and higher theories will only be detrimental to your growth."But Ember obviously didn’t give up there. Every day after class, he would ambush her with questions until she finally agreed to spill some of the mystery.
The matronly woman eyed her wristwatch before sparing him a glance. “I’ll give you five minutes.”
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"Instructor Raven, what exactly is attuned mana?" Ember asked without ceremony.
"As you know,” she considered it for a moment before answering, “pure mana is pretty much harmless and of little use outside of helping us refine our bodies and prolong our longevity. It has little use in direct interference. An attunement, on the other hand, allows that mana to transform towards a specific element. For example,” she raised her hand as radiant mana flowed out of her palm, slowly transforming into a ball of fire, "this would have been impossible without an attunement."
"But a fire wand can manage that without an attunement."
Instructor Raven nodded. "Those wands were specifically crafted to help those without attunements, but their efficiency is minute, which is why they cost so much mana. Unless you get yourself a staff or wand with a tier 7 enchantment or above, their effectiveness can barely hold up to a minor attunement."
That left him with much to think about. The practical use of fire-attuned or other elemental-attuned mana seemed obvious. He wondered what it would do for mind mana. It would surely give him more out of his mind-related skills like Split Focus, Keen Mind, or even Meditation Muse, no?
He knew the answer to one of the questions, while his doubts were mostly related to the latter.
“Like skill stones, there are attunement stones that can help you acquire an attunement.” She paused, forgetting they were closing in on the five-minute mark. “Sometimes a life-and-death struggle could help awaken a latent attunement, but those are rarer instances. Most people just die before verifying the truth.”
Ember hid a smile.
"As for improving them, it's mostly related to your lineage, affinity, and skills. Of course, a higher-grade class can empower attunements, but you have to have decent attunements to even claim such classes.”
Ember thought of his father. His Life and Light attunement had both risen to Major and Higher rank, respectively, after his ascension to Dawn Marshal. Hopefully, that would keep him alive wherever he was now.
“Can a skill like Kinetic Release awaken an attunement related to it?"
Raven Blackstone gave him a perceptive glance. "Kinetic Attunement isn't the hardest one to awaken. Far from it, to be honest. Even I got it with little trouble. Why are you asking, though? Don't tell me, you have already acquired the skill?"
Ember shook his head, bitter that he didn’t have enough slots for all the skills. Kinetic Release would have been a good addition, as were the other skill prompts he had gotten through his confrontation with the monsters.
He had checked his log and found prompts for two mana skills somehow. According to Zephyr, Mana Skin was the easiest, yet Ember had gotten Mana Augmentation and the much rarer Mana Syphon. Both were at Iron rank and likely to be very significant to his future mana path.
After all, Mana Shaping would require two more skills to merge into for its silver-rank ascent.
It could be Mana Augmentation and Mana Syphon, or perhaps other skills like Mana Skin, Mana Craft, or something more obscure. There were countless variations of mana applications. While the three copper-rank mana skills were elementary forms, their intermediary and advanced applications were far broader.
Ember was of two minds about gaining those two mana skills next time. He was supposed to keep nine slots for the silver skill, but having those two skills sooner would allow his foundational mana skill to advance into silver grade more quickly. Then again, considering his experience in Desir, he felt he should prioritise defensive silver skills instead.
After his advancement, the instructor had allotted him the rest of the tier 4s in the clan for his physical and combat training. Everyone there was older than him, and half of the people were already close to their class ceremony.
He had already attended mana classes with twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. It made little difference if the same became true in combat training as well. Their training, though, was also far more gruesome.
Every day, they pushed their bodies incessantly, only stopping a step or two before the limits, but his grandfather had already pushed him further than that for him to be too aggravated by it. At least the old man was now busy with his own plight to care about his training.
For the next few weeks, Ember's practice largely revolved around academics. He soaked in any information he felt was important. Of course, he made sure it didn’t hinder his mana practice either. Split Focus allowed him to keep his mana skills running as long as his mental capacity allowed. With Mind Attunement, he found that even after dividing his focus, the gains in his Mana Foundation were not much slower at all.
He might even recover his lost mana within a month or two instead of the four he had imagined.
And all this nerve-jarring practice improved his mind attunement as well, already having gained a couple of per cent within a fortnight. Decidedly, the progress would slow down as he approached completion.
Even after weeks, there was still no news related to the rift incident. House Oberon was trying their best to extract Lady Evelyn, but all their resources and manpower resulted in vain, yielding no real news, much to his depression. Ember still held on to hope, despite many in the clan already giving up on him. Abyss blinded them; some even denounced Cliff for the failure and for creating the rift between House Blackstone and House Oberon.
If only he had the power to shut all their mouths.
But even if he couldn’t beat them, Ember seemed to find no shortage of challenges during the combat classes. Sometimes even after.
On one such afternoon, Ember was keeping to himself when a group of boys and girls came to challenge him to a duel.
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