46: Apex Predator?

Vir dove to avoid the enormous log about to smash into him, but it was just too little too late. He found his footing and immediately jumped into the air, and sailed high above the ram, effortlessly bypassing the obstacle, albeit probably not in the way Riyan had planned.

He landed on the other side, his knee shuddering from the impact of falling ten paces down.

High Jump was the second Talent he’d learned, after Leap. It had come easily, as the ability was almost identical. After gathering prana within him—the hard part—instead of focusing his intent on darting forward, he merely focused on jumping up. Now, he could easily jump as high as most of the buildings in Brij.

In fact, they were so similar that Vir wondered why they even had different names. The underlying activation principle was identical, just that he shunted the prana into slightly different muscles, and crouched a bit differently. Apart from that, it was just a matter of ‘willing’ himself to either move up or forward, and altering the amount of prana used.

The light of the sun had long given way to darkness, and the Magic Lamps embedded into the walls had flickered to life hours ago. With a long day of effort done, he hopped onto the wooden pole that led down to the beginning of the course, landing softly on the sand.

Wiping the sweat off his brow, he departed the training dome for the warm bliss of the grotto, grimacing as he showered off and slipped into the tub. Grimacing not only due to pain and soreness, but because he’d been forced to use a Talent in the training dome.

While perfecting Leap, he’d run into a terrible problem. Consecutive usage of his Talents depleted the prana in that area. His recently honed Prana Vision only confirmed what he felt; there was hardly any black prana left within the dome, and from what he could tell, it did not return, at least not with any alacrity.

Which meant that Talents were far less reliable in the training dome now. He’d outright failed to activate Leap a few times on account of that… if the same happened when he needed High Jump to avoid a hazard, he’d be in serious trouble.

He’d even tried to draw on the prana within his body to power Talents instead of relying on ground prana, but that had proven impossible. The issue was that activating the Talent meant commanding his prana—and thus his blood—to move away from his leg. He then had to allow prana to come back to the leg, without also letting his blood return, or there would be no supersaturation effect.

But the bond between blood and prana was not so easily broken.

If he could’ve managed that, it would at least allow him to ‘precharge’ a Talent by consuming prana from his body.

As such, Vir had abandoned the use of Talents entirely while inside the dome. It hadn’t been an easy decision since Leap made the obstacle course far safer and easier to navigate. He now relied on his Talents only for emergencies.

This did not bode well for him—mejai rarely ever had to worry about depleting the prana of a region. Riyan had said it took entire armies to accomplish that feat. And if he could access any of the common affinities, that would be true for Vir as well.

Instead, he was stuck with a far more exotic and rarer affinity that he knew next to nothing about. Other than that it was nearly nonexistent.

Condensation gathered on the rock roof, forming droplets that plopped down onto the pool. It was the only sound in this serene slice of utopia.

Vir sunk deeper into the hot spring pool, allowing his worries to melt away. He couldn’t do anything to change the world’s prana composition, so there was little point in fretting over it. He’d simply have to adapt and overcome. That he could use magic at all shocked him even now; after spending his whole life without magic, he was grateful he could do at least that much.

And besides, his eyes had already turned to other Talents on the horizon. Light Step, Blade Projection, and Empower all called out to him.

Closing his eyes, he let his body float on the surface of the water and meditated. Clarity of mind came easily in the hot spring. Maybe it was the sense of weightlessness, or perhaps the soothing warmth.

Vir’s mind wandered to Riyan. The man claimed his Balar rank was 140, and while the Talents he’d shown off were impressive, they seemed incomparable to Tanya’s Blizzard spell. And Tanya had several other spells in her arsenal as well. There was something else about the man that had to give him that kind of rank. Was he hiding his more powerful Talents? Or was it something else entirely?

Alas, it wasn’t like the man would ever tell him, even if he asked. All he could do was concentrate on his own development.

With a bit of effort to send blood to his eyes, Prana Vision activated at its fullest. He turned his sight inward, trying to figure a way past his most recent dilemma. Talents that required anything to do with his legs came easily. He only wished Riyan had forewarned him about the backlash; his body did not appreciate being flung at high speed like that. Whenever he used his Talents, he ended up sore and aching for the rest of the day.

It turned out his proficiency didn’t translate to his upper body. Attempting to push the prana through his legs up into his arms failed—the supersaturated prana merely dissipated into his bloodstream as it traveled upward.

He’d soon learned that his blood had a saturation limit it liked to stay at. He could temporarily push more prana into his blood, supersaturating it, but it never wanted to stay at that level for very long. And with the limited prana reserves in the ground, he had to be strategic about how much he practiced with it, and where.

Vir left the bath a full hour later, refreshed, but no closer to breaking through his issues regarding arm-based Talents. All he could think about now was his bed, fully ready for sleep to take him. After drying off and donning his nightgown, he snuck through the door of the bedroom he shared with Maiya, careful not to wake her at this late hour.

His concern was unwarranted. His friend sat in a lotus position on the floor, eyes closed, her face scrunched in intense concentration as a glowing orb sat in front of her.

Such dedication, he thought. He couldn’t recall a single time she’d shown this much dedication to anything before.

It was after he’d taken a seat opposite her that he noticed her breathing pattern—irregular, and downright weird. She’d inhale sharply through her nose, sucking in her stomach, then inhale again in quick succession before exhaling and repeating the process.

It was especially interesting because whatever she was doing seemed to move the prana within her body in unusual ways. He couldn’t quite place what was different, only that her technique was doing something to her prana.

He continued to stare at her, mesmerized by the flow of her prana, completely failing to notice her twitching eyebrows.

“Vir,” she said, keeping her eyes closed.

“Hi Maiya.”

“What are you doing?”

“Watching you.”

She exhaled and opened her eyes, staring at him. “And do you seriously think I can concentrate like that?”

“Consider it practice,” he replied, unwilling to move away. The closer he was, the more details Prana Vision picked up.

But his friend’s expression told him he wasn’t going to win this battle. “Alright, fine. I’ll give you a little space,” he said, moving exactly one pace back.

She was not amused.

“Look, if Riyan and Tanya refuse to teach me magic, I’ll have to learn it on my own. I have to take every edge I can get.”

“Fine,” she said, returning to her weird breathing exercises. Whatever it was she was doing, it didn’t seem to work out for her, and Vir couldn’t see what the point of it all was.

“Is that fun?” he asked, after a while.

“Does this look fun?” Maiya said, eyes fluttering open. “I hate this. I hate it so much! I’m supposed to be learning how to hurl fireballs, not sit here snorting!”

Vir chuckled. She really did sound like a pig doing that.

“Don’t laugh!”

“Sorry, sorry. Still hung up on fire magic, huh? Even after Tanya’s demonstration?” He said, expertly changing the topic.

“I mean, I gotta admit Ice magic’s pretty darn impressive. I may have been, uh… a bit premature, obsessing over fire like that. I dunno.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is immature, Maiya. You’d be a fool to pass up power like that.”

Power he could only dream of, even with his newfound Talents.

If there aren’t any orbs made for black prana, how will I ever rival that kind of magic? he thought as his fingers brushed unconsciously against his chest tattoo.

She sighed. “You’re right. I oughta be happy with whatever affinities I end up with. But a girl can hope, can’t she?”

“Maiya, you have a greater Ice affinity and a lesser Wind affinity. I told you before, didn’t I?”

“You did. I know. I just… I believe you Vir, I guess I just didn’t want to accept it. Anyway, none of that matters until I can sense prana, and that’s been going hopelessly.”

“Is that what you were trying to do with your breathing exercise?”

She nodded. “Tanya says it’s supposed to help me attune to prana more easily, whatever that means. Something to do with sucking in prana to get it to jingle.”

“Uh, Jingle?” Vir asked.

“Don’t ask me! That’s what Tanya said!”

“So, you’re trying to bring the outside prana into your body?” Vir asked. Maybe it was a similar process to how he sucked prana through the ground.

“No, that’s impossible. Prana just passes through your body as you breathe in, but it goes right back out when you exhale. You can’t control the prana inside you. But you can control the prana outside, in the air… if you’re good enough. This technique’s just supposed to make it easier to sense, but I can’t sense a thing.”

So it was basically the opposite of Vir’s own situation. He found himself to have a great deal of control over the prana within his own body, but was completely unable to affect the prana outside. Was it a quirk of the black affinity prana?

His fingers grazed the tattoo on his chest. Perhaps it was something to do with his own body. Or… or maybe mejai were wrong about this, too.

“I’d… take whatever Tanya tells you with a grain of salt, Maiya.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? You think she’s lying to me?”

“No. Not lying, but… okay, hear me out. I can see eight affinities, Maiya. Possibly nine, depending on whether ‘black’ is actually an affinity or not.”

“Nine? There’s only supposed to be six, Vir!”

“I know! And that’s what I’m saying. Earth and Shadow affinity prana exists, Maiya. I can see it as clearly as I see all the others. And the craziest part is that Talents are just another application of magic! Earth magic.”

Maiya waited, hoping for a punchline. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“I am. I wish I could prove it to you… It’s how I picked up my Talents so quickly. I watched what Riyan did and copied him. Apparently, the black prana in my body can do Talents too. You don’t believe me, do you?” He said after a pause.

Maiya held his gaze. “I believe you, Vir.” There wasn’t a shred of hesitation in her voice.

“You… do? You don’t think I’m making this up?”

“You wouldn’t lie to me about something like this. I know you, Vir. I trust you.”

“T-thanks, Maiya,” he murmured, looking away. “Wasn’t expecting you to say that.”

“You do realize this is kind of thing could change the world, right? If you’re right… I don’t even know what it’d mean. But it’d mean the mejai are wrong. And I’m pretty sure they don’t like being wrong.”

“Right. I know. Which is why I haven’t told Riyan or Tanya. And I’d appreciate it if you did the same. I see nothing good coming out of this if people learn about it. Least of all them.”

“Don’t worry, Vir. Your secret’s safe with me. I… I’ll need to give this more thought. But, well, I don’t think this revelation’s gonna help me learn magic any faster, sadly.”

“Doubt it,” Vir said. “There’s definitely more here than meets the eye, but I don’t know enough about all of this yet to say any more. I’ll let you know when I learn more. And speaking of, time for you to share what you’ve learned from Tanya.”

“Hmm. She’s been teaching me about affinities and compatibility stuff lately, and how all that affects orbs.”

“The higher your affinity, the faster you can cast magic, right?” Vir said, recalling Riyan’s words months ago, but the man hadn’t gone into any detail at the time.

“Yep. The higher your affinity, the greater your potential to charge higher tier orbs. Doesn’t mean you’ll live up to the potential though. The affinity ranks go from Scorned, to None, Lesser, Greater, and Apex. Only the strongest mejai in the world possess Apex affinities.”

That was a lot of information to unpack. “Scorned?” He asked. “Surprised to see that show up here.”

“Me too. Apparently some mejai physically can’t use prana of particular affinities. No one really knows why. Anyway, it turns out the Order of Mejai Sorcar bases their mejai ranks on how quickly you can charge orbs. Praniks can charge between one to nine C grade orbs within one minute. Mejai Sorcars can do one to nine B grade orbs, and so on.”

“And I think Riyan said that B grades need ten times the amount of prana that C grades do, right?”

Maiya nodded. “Right. C grades use a hundred times the prana of D grade utility orbs, but from then on, it’s a tenfold increase between grades.”

“Wait. Hang on,” Vir said. Something didn’t add up. “Doesn’t that mean a Pranik who can charge a single C grade orb in a minute would only take ten minutes to charge a B grade of the same affinity?”

“Actually, no. I asked Tanya the same thing. Turns out each grade of orb has a minimum charging speed. If you can’t meet that rate, you can’t charge it at all. Which is why higher tier magics are so rare. I mean, if all you needed was time, you’d see A Grade spells reigning destruction everywhere.”

“That’s true. But wouldn’t your surroundings make a difference, too? Like wouldn’t mejai be able to charge orbs quicker if the prana density in the region’s greater?”

“That’s right. It takes longer to charge spells in prana deficient areas. Tanya says the Order of Mejai Sorcar has a way of taking the environment into account when testing mejai for that very reason.”

Vir soaked up every word she said. The secret to progressing his own magic may very well lie in one of the lessons Tanya had taught her.

“Are you done, Vir? Can I go to sleep now?” She said with a yawn.

He smiled. Few things could separate his friend from her bed. “Last thing. What about people with multiple affinities? I’m guessing they’re stronger than single-affinity mejai?”

Vir always lamented the fact that he only had a single affinity in his body. If he’d had another, he wouldn’t have been prana scorned. Which was why Maiya’s answer came as a surprise to him.

“Actually, no. The more affinities you have, the weaker each of your affinities are, apparently.”

“How’s that figure? Wouldn’t more affinities mean you could cast more spells at once?”

Each spell used prana of its own element, after all. Even if the air was depleted of one, it’d still have the other.

“You can cast more spells at once, yeah. But Tanya told me to think of it like a bucket full of water, with the water being your overall magic potential. Each affinity takes a scoop out of that bucket. So if you have a bunch of affinities, the scoops are all tiny. That’s why you never see four or five affinity mejai—the strength of each affinity’s just too diluted to be useful.”

The more Vir thought about it, the more it made sense. His own body possessed only a certain amount of prana. If he had to fit multiple affinities within him, naturally the amount of each would be less. But that’s where his understanding broke down. Orbs consumed prana from the air, not the body, so what difference did the amount of prana in your body make? He was still missing something—a piece to this puzzle that left a glaring hole.

But he felt he was close. And he couldn’t shake the sensation that when he found out, he’d unlock the next step to his own mastery.

Besides, he suspected that he was scorned of every affinity because his body didn’t have a single mote of any other affinity. But didn’t that same logic also mean that he possessed Apex affinity for black prana?

Tanya said it herself: Only the world’s strongest mejai possess an Apex affinity.

A grin sneaked up on his face.

Perhaps this prana-scorned would grow some fangs, after all…

Next time: 47 - Of Gods and Magic