“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 raining destruction everywhere.”
“That’s true. But wouldn’t your surroundings make a difference, too? Like, wouldn’t a 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.
Miaya yawned. “Are you done, Vir? Can I go sleep now?”
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. 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. 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 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…
47OF GODS AND MAGIC
Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. That was what Maiya’s life had become—a monotonous series of breathing exercises that yielded not even an ounce of progress.
“Is there anything else I can do?” Maiya asked from where she sat on the floor of Tanya’s bedroom. Both she and Vir had been on house arrest ever since they got back from Saran weeks ago, and it was honestly driving her crazy. Grotto soaks only did so much to cure cabin fever.
Her mejai mentor paced around her in circles, which of course, did absolutely nothing for her concentration.
“Some Praniks naturally attune to the surrounding prana,” Tanya lectured. “Those who live in prana dense regions manifest affinities far more easily than villagers like you, growing up in gods-forsaken lands.”
“Gee, thanks. Trust me, if I could’ve gone back and chosen my place of birth, I’d have done it already. Anything I can actually do that’ll help me out?”
“Keep practicing,” Tanya said.
Maiya let out a sigh, returning to her breathing exercises. Pranayam, Tanya called it. If she really concentrated, she could just barely feel a hint of something as she breathed in and out. But then it was gone. Her progress felt agonizingly slow to her.
Unlike Vir.
The irony was not lost upon her. Someone who was supposed to be incapable of using prana was leaping past her, while she—the one with two affinities—lagged. And one of those was a Greater Affinity! Not to mention she had a mejai teacher, while Vir was out figuring things on his own.
At a startling rate, too. How the heck had he picked up not just one, but two Talents in a single week? She knew the answer, of course. Prana Vision was far more precious than her friend probably realized. If only he knew how much she struggled to sense even the tiniest bit of prana. To be able to see it? That felt like cheating.
Maiya shook her head, ashamed of those thoughts. She couldn’t possibly complain. Vir had been ridiculed and ostracized for most of his life. His inability to use orbs hobbled him daily, making his everyday life a chore.
Riyan had called him a prodigy, but that wasn’t true. He just worked hard. Absurdly hard. On every single thing he did. What right did she have to mope when she hadn’t even given magic a fraction of the effort? She practically had a seric spoon.
It’d just be nice if I had some progress to show for my efforts. Is that really too much to ask, you stingy gods and goddesses?
But alas, fate was not so kind. She needed a distraction.
Clearing her throat, she spoke up. “So, can people ever improve their affinities?”
“Distracting me with questions will not speed up your mastery over magic, girl.”
“Look, I’m still doing my breathing exercises, aren’t I? Not like it’ll kill you to humor me.”
The woman glared at her for a moment before answering. “You can, though it is difficult. Quite difficult. Refining one’s affinity to Apex is a requirement to progress from Mejai of Ash to Mejai of Realms. A challenge I will have to overcome someday.”
Maiya burned Tanya’s response into her memory. “Okay, then what about arrows? Do people enchant arrows?” she asked, firing off her next question without pause. “These are very peculiar questions. How are you coming up with these?”