“Are you sure, son?” My father looked a little surprised by my quick decision.

  “You don’t have to make decisions right now. I agree with your grandmother as well, I just want you to know that you can think about it for a few minutes and decide afterward.” My mother, on the other hand, looked a bit more worried.

  My parents were the only ones who spoke to me; my brothers just watched from behind.

  “Parents, don’t worry. I’ve already made my decision. I understand the difficulties of trying to master three affinities. I need to dedicate more time to mastering them at the same level. Awakening so young allows me to do that. My decision won’t change.”

  Both of them looked me straight in the eyes, smiled, hugged each other, and nodded.

  “So… how do I remove the other affinities?” I sounded a little desperate, and I could see small smiles on everyone’s faces.

  “Little one, I’ll do it. You’ll feel a small mana leak for a moment, don’t worry. When I’m done, your cube will refill itself with only the three chosen affinities.”

  My grandmother stepped toward the bracelets and began injecting her mana into them, carefully controlling the flow through the bracelets and the cups. Little by little, I lost mana until I could only feel the remaining affinities: ice, electricity, and gravity.

  The sensation was strange. I felt my mana as completely ‘white,’ without affinity, and at the same time containing those three affinities.

  “May I ask a question?” My grandmother narrowed her eyes suspiciously and gently nodded.

  “Why do I feel the mana in my cube as if it has no affinity, and at the same time I feel the three different affinities?” It was something very mysterious.

  “That’s a phenomenon that’s difficult to explain. Our cube constantly attracts mana to refill itself when we use it. Before this ceremony, your cube only absorbed mana from the ten elements. After the ceremony, that changed—now your cube absorbs pure mana from the environment.”

  I watched as my grandmother covered her lips with her index finger and thumb, something she always does when she needs to concentrate.

  “You can feel your three affinities fluttering throughout your cube, playing with the ambient mana, which is pure. From that, we can draw a general conclusion: mana is completely pure, and at the same time it is mixed with each person’s respective affinities.” A clear explanation.

  “That’s fascinating. So that means that no matter where I am, as long as there’s ambient mana, I’ll be able to use my three affinities, right?” It sounded convincing. I’d been worried for nothing.

  “Yes, Maki. Just remember this: absorbing mana during a fight is almost nonexistent. Never risk relying on refilling your cube during a fight to the death.” My grandmother’s voice turned very serious at the end. Personally, I don’t love fighting without a reason or self-defense, and I’ve never shown signs of being battle-crazed.

  I’ve never had a serious or life-or-death fight in this world. I don’t know what my emotions will be like in that moment of adrenaline. I hope I won’t hate myself after killing someone.

  I talked with my family for ten more minutes, and then everyone left. They can’t waste my brothers’ last day with us. Tomorrow they’ll return to school and to County Weri after lunch. I’ll miss them a lot.

  Now alone, I headed to my training room. I want to train my new magic. Now I can not only use pure mana, but three different affinities, each very different from the others.

  “Let’s start with electricity!”

  I focused on the pure mana in my cube, made it flow through my body until I managed to materialize it in my hand. A small ball of electricity formed. The difference compared to a pure mana sphere was obvious. Electricity felt dangerous, as if it wanted to destroy, break, electrocute, shatter—everything.

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  Very interesting. Electricity feels extremely strong for offense. Once I have sufficient control, I’ll try to apply it to short- and mid-range attacks.

  I remembered reading in some novel about certain uses of electricity: enhancing senses, improving brain response, devastating electric strikes capable of breaking any defense.

  “Next, ice!”

  I created the same sphere, but the affinity within it was different. Ice felt completely different compared to electricity. It gave me an impression of serenity, hardness, and flexibility.

  I suddenly remembered something. I’m almost certain about a property of ice: its density is lower than water because of the freezing of its molecules, which leaves empty spaces inside. Maybe, with meticulous control, I could infuse much more mana into it without altering its size. I need to keep that as a mental note for later.

  “Finally… gravity. I’m scared…”

  When I chose it, I already knew how dangerous gravity was. Just hearing that word makes me think immediately of a black hole—the definition of death in space. Gravity is immeasurably strong inside one, trapping even light with no chance of escape.

  I was afraid to create a small sphere like with my other affinities. What if it tries to absorb or pull me in without me being able to do anything? What if I lose control and it grows exponentially, absorbing everything?

  I had an ability in mind that I assumed was less risky. It didn’t require delicate control and was the first ability that came to mind when I heard ‘gravity.’

  “WHO DARES, WINS!”

  I dropped some leaves from the wooden structures around me so I could measure the radius if the ability worked. I put all my concentration into this. I want to create a field around me where gravity is stronger, affecting only my enemies and not me.

  I don’t have extensive knowledge about gravity, and my control over mana is still very basic. Even with all that against me, I decided to give it everything.

  For the first few seconds, nothing happened. I thought about giving up, and then I felt a small change. Some leaves stopped in midair, as if an external force were holding them there.

  It’s an ability with enormous future potential, but many current limitations: my head hurts after focusing my entire brain on it; the applied force is almost nonexistent right now; the radius is only about fifty centimeters; and it consumes an enormous amount of mana. I might be able to maintain it for about five continuous minutes. It’s garbage if you think about the radius and the pressure applied.

  In the future, it could become one of my trump cards. For now, it’s just a rough project that needs a lot of polishing.

  Lying on the floor, I entered a dilemma. Should I practice my abilities at short or long range? My strength lies in fighting close to the enemy, where I can use my twin swords. Polishing my best weapon would be wonderful. On the other hand, I could practice long-range attacks with ice or electricity magic. Doing so would create a new weapon for my repertoire and help me practice magic. It’s hard…

  After thinking for a few minutes, I came to the conclusion that I should practice long-range magic. I leaned toward it because magic is something new and fascinating.

  It’s time to plan my schedule in these twenty-six-hour days. Wake up at 4:20 a.m., train with my grandmother from 4:30 to 6:30, continue training alone until 8:30 and go have breakfast, return at 9:30 to practice magic until 13:00, have lunch and resume training at 14:00, continue training for eight hours with a one-hour break in the middle to eat something, return home, have dinner to recover my energy, take a shower, and sleep around 23:00 to 23:30.

  Only six hours of sleep sounds discouraging. If I notice any fatigue in the future, I’ll have to improve my sleep quality and increase my sleeping hours.

  I began forming ice spheres until I ran out of magic. After a few hours, it took me less time to form them, make them bigger, and control a larger amount. It still requires all my mental ability just to control three slightly larger ice spheres.

  When I felt my mind grow a bit more stable while controlling three ice spheres, I decided to try pushing more mana into one of them.

  “It’s impossible… they keep exploding because I’m splitting my concentration between two tasks.” Maintaining two spheres at the same size and control, while gradually adding mana to the third, is extremely difficult at my current level.

  “Maybe I should try with just one for now.”

  I canceled two ice spheres and kept the remaining one. Mana began filling the empty spaces inside the ice, making it much heavier and denser.

  I got so excited by my achievement that I stopped measuring how much mana I was injecting into the sphere. When I realized it, the spell felt very unstable. In a bit of panic, I stopped increasing the mana and tried to stabilize it before the worst happened—an explosion.

  Little by little, I calmed the spell. At first, I thought about canceling it outright or gradually removing mana, but I discarded those ideas for one simple reason: I need to feel some adrenaline to push myself to 120%. After a few seconds, the spell was under control. It required considerable mental strain. I played with the sphere for a few seconds and then canceled it.

  I repeated the same planned training circuit throughout the day until I was exhausted. Another day concluded in a satisfying way.

  I gained some juicy levels. The most noticeable growth was in mana control—playing with so many ice spells really paid off.

  Maki: 8 years old. – Basic Amethyst.

  SKILLS:

  Sword Mastery – level 12 – level 13

  Enhanced Senses – level 8 – level 9

  Quick Step – level 10 – level 11

  Mana Control – level 10 – level 13