Chapter 273: Chapter 261 – Third Traa Trial

Excerpt from the second draft of An Earthling’s Guide to the Larger Universe

Affinities and Concepts

The first interaction most people have with their Affinities is having them revealed. After that, they can help guide Path selection and even influence what Paths can be selected.

After that, many people ignore their Affinities. This is a mistake.

An Affinity is how well you resonate with a particular type of magic, while a Concept is how well you understand it. Your Concept limits what you can do, while your Affinity affects how powerful it is and how much it costs. This is the most obvious for non-Path spellcasting, but it affects Path skills as well, even stamina-based ones that are tied to an Affinity.

There are many Affinities; they are effectively infinite in number. For a fun example, ask an instructor about the Drinking Dragon, a type of dragon with an innate alcohol affinity - there’s an amusing drinking song about one. Some common affinities are fire, water, air, earth, metal, wood, light, darkness, blood, healing, life, and death. Many other affinities exist; I personally expect both plastic and technology to be far more common on Earth than elsewhere, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out there’s a chemistry Affinity.

There is a known characteristic beyond Affinity and Concept: Aspect. It requires a high Affinity and a high Concept and merges the two into something better. There are rumors of something beyond Aspect, but they are unsubstantiated.

No one is born with an Aspect. This is why ignoring your Affinities and Concepts is a mistake: they can be changed. Through your life and actions, you can increase them, add new ones, merge old ones, and even sometimes remove ones that no longer fit. While this is not commonly performed until …

“Why is he even wearing armor? I can understand the shield, but if his skin is better than the armor-?” Lord Widetail sounded puzzled.

The reason was obvious. “The armor slowed the strike. I also think I see scales on his chest; I’m not sure if there are any on his arm, but it looked like he was injured. He’s using the arm as if there’s no injury, so he probably has a healing ability of some sort. I’m impressed with his flexibility. He might well meet the normal minimum for a trade representative. Still, the real test is yet to come.” Longsight was happy with the results so far, and happier still with his plans for the future.

“You have something sneaky planned, don’t you?” Lord Widetail sounded amused.

“A decent showing against Deadbriar’s fluxwyrm is enough to qualify him normally. If he wins, I do have something special planned. After all, it’s better if we’re working from a position of power.” Longsight didn’t want to say what it was. The surprise would be so much better if it surprised his Lord, as well.

“I look forward to it.”

It was always annoying when Lord Widetail fell in line with Longsight’s plans without even asking what they were; sometimes, Longsight thought he didn’t ask simply to be annoying. Other times, he was certain the Lord knew more than he should, but Longsight had never been able to prove it.

Fortunately, he only used it in the Nest to amuse himself; it was probably part of why they’d survived the past few years. They needed to be in a better position before Longsight could justify trying to replace the Lord.

Serenity used the time while the winged firecat was healed and removed from the arena to rebuild his Quickness spell and re-infuse it. He had the feeling he was going to need it; the tiger was already fast enough that it was a problem and the monsters he had to face weren’t getting any easier.

He needed to make some more items to hold spells. Perhaps he should infuse them into his clothing? In his armor, it would conflict with the enchantments, but his clothing wasn’t enchanted. That would be easier than carrying other items, which was part of the reason he hadn’t done it yet.

He wished he’d thought of it earlier; the spells wouldn’t last forever, and he might need to remove the infusions before the clothes were washed, but it was certainly more convenient than anything else he’d thought of so far. At least, it would be if the clothing was strong enough; the “may damage items used” was the other reason he hadn’t tried yet. Clothing was cheap enough he could afford to replace it if it didn’t work out.

There wasn’t time right now, but it was something that simply needed to go into his daily schedule, along with more physical workout time. He’d thought he might not need to anymore, but even the few days away from the dungeon - where he had been working out in either chimera or dragon form for a couple of hours each day - had made him realize that it was necessary.

Serenity finished the Quickness spell and infused it as the next contestant slithered into the room. It seemed to be a snake, wending its way forward with its top half held up; the motion reminded him of a cobra, though the characteristic hood was missing. Instead, it had a pair of fins on either side of its head; were those actual ears?

Fluxwyrm

Although a wyrm appears similar to a worm or a snake, a wyrm is actually a limbless relative of the drake or wyvern and a distant cousin to the dragon.

The specific abilities of the fluxwyrm are undiscovered.

Well, shoot.

Serenity might not know exactly what a fluxwyrm was, but flux told him that it was somehow associated with change or movement. He went ahead and evoked the Quickness spell he’d just infused; he was going to need it.

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Without his shield, there was no longer a strong reason to use the ax; yes, it could be thrown, but if he was guessing correctly about what “flux” meant, he’d likely miss. Serenity put the ax away and pulled out his naginata.

At least he still had most of his mana reserve and all of his stamina. It was time to use some of it for something other than being clever; he needed to actually use some of his Path Skills now. The time for conservation was past. Plasma seemed like a good choice; he didn’t want to outright kill the beast, but unlike the Flametouched Winged Tiger, there was no indication that heat wouldn’t hurt it.

The blade on his naginata began to glow as he channeled his Plasma Affinity into his Infused Strike ability. The stamina drain wasn’t bad at all.

The fluxwyrm started towards him right before Longsight called out to start. Serenity waited, watching. There was something odd about the way it moved. It didn’t move like a snake.

Or did it? If he ignored the top part, the lower portion did move like a snake, but the marks it left in the sand were too large for what he could see. It was like the fluxwyrm was larger than what he could see.

If that was the case, then-

Serenity condensed the power he’d pushed into his naginata’s blade into a Far Strike and tossed it at the fluxwyrm before immediately throwing himself into a frantic roll to the side. As he rose to his feet and looked back at the wyrm, it was clear he’d been right: it had just hit the range to launch itself at him. It was farther than he’d originally estimated, since the fluxwyrm itself was larger than expected.

There was a line of blackened scales along the top of the fluxwyrm’s head where the Far Strike connected, but the wyrm seemed small again. This was going to be a very different battle; there were no limbs he could take out to end the fight nonlethally. Serenity infused more plasma into his blade as he thought.

He’d just have to beat it up until it - or its handler - had enough, while avoiding taking a fatal attack. Maybe he could pin its head? That wouldn’t be easy with something that could shift its size, even if it couldn’t shift its position - and Serenity wasn’t certain yet if it could or not.

The next two attacks from the fluxwyrm played out the same way. It was a matter of split-second timing, but with the Quickness spell going, Serenity was fast enough. The problem was that it wasn’t effective enough. He could keep this up for a long time, but Far Strike was much more costly than Infused Strike, and he hadn’t yet managed to get past the wyrm’s scales. He was going to have to go for something more vulnerable than simply hitting the head.

On the wyrm’s fourth attack, Serenity concentrated on hitting at least one of the eyes. He had to wait for it to commit to the attack and its size to reliably target them, which meant he was too late diving out of the way.

As it lunged for him, the wyrm knocked his arms to the side, loosening his grip on the naginata. Serenity released the weapon and tried to continue his dive, but the wyrm’s heavy impact left him sprawled on the ground instead of rolling to his feet.

The wyrm’s toothy maw closed around his side, tearing through his armor and scales. As it clamped down, threatening to break his ribs, his spell tattoo triggered, encasing him in a momentary full-body shield. The shield broke the hold the wyrm had on Serenity and he was able to leap away before the shield faded.

It was strange; the tattoos were supposed to completely drain his mana, weren’t they? They’d taken a serious bite out of his mana - about half of his maximum - but it wasn’t gone. It was almost exactly as much mana as he’d have normally had based on his attributes. Serenity doubted that was a coincidence, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

Serenity was left weaponless and bleeding but not disabled. It was a better outcome than he’d expected until the tattoos triggered. Still, the damage told him his armor was inadequate and even his scales were not enough. Serenity tugged on a Path Skill he’d only used in practice and fed it both mana and essence.

Scale Hardening was one of the few skills he had that natively used essence; he’d have preferred to send it solely essence, but he’d found in practice that when he did that, it provided slightly better defenses but slowed his reaction speed down a little. Sometimes that was useful, but he couldn’t afford that here. Even a little mana eliminated the issue, so he put in the little that was required.

Weaponless was also easily dealt with. Serenity pulled his ax out of his Quick Belt as he concentrated on determining his opponent’s situation. He’d kept enough of an eye on it to know it wasn’t going to attack while he was reinforcing himself, but now he needed to plan his next move.

The fluxwyrm seemed oddly hesitant compared to its past actions. It took some maneuvering before Serenity was able to confirm that he had in fact gotten one of the eyes.

“Do you surrender?” A voice called down from the stands. It wasn’t Longsight’s, but that was all Serenity was certain of.

Surrender. Hah. Why would he surrender now? He wasn’t badly hurt; he’d be healed shortly. He was winning.

A glance at his side showed that it was covered in shadows; he felt some pain, but it wasn’t too bad. Moving felt strange, but he was certain it would be fine once he finished healing.

Serenity pulled another Infused Strike into his axeblade, carefully avoiding certain sections. It meant giving up the magic-draining properties of his attack, but the fluxwyrm seemed to only be using magic on its size and position. An ax was not the best way to deal with that, and he didn’t have the time to set up the spell that was.

Serenity headed towards the hesitating wyrm. He’d lost some blood and his side still hurt a bit, but he needed to keep the pressure of the fight going. This would be easier if the wyrm made a mistake; he’d prefer it if the wyrm attacked him. Once it was committed, its options were reduced.

The wyrm retreated.