Being taught by an eidolon was a surreal experience.
Wisdom didn’t pause. It didn’t ask questions. It simply talked, never sticking to a topic longer than necessary, while making sure it left nothing out. And somehow, anything it said, Freddy instantly understood it as if he’d known it all along.
The concept of Wisdom, huh…?
Freddy had known that there were some benevolent eidola still around, but it was a rare sight to see in this era. Friendly eidola were all too happy to agree to enter someone’s soul, and throughout the years, there had been no shortage of greedy archs abusing this.
Wisdom was most likely not particularly eager to give itself up, despite its friendly nature. And from what Freddy felt, forcing it to do so would be… a very poor choice.
It was a bit of an apples to oranges comparison, but between Wisdom and the empress, it was hard to tell who had a greater presence. And that made sense. If its concept was built around gathering and disseminating wisdom, its role as a university professor was no doubt the best way to gather more power.
Hell, it might very well ascend into an asura one day.
“The entirety of etherology is built around two central laws.” Wisdom said, writing on the blackboard behind it.
It first wrote: THERE IS ALWAYS AN EXCEPTION, and then: NO VIOLATING ABSOLUTES.
Tapping the first sentence with the chalk, it then underlined it. “The properties of ether are built around hard rules. But those rules can always be bent to one’s will. If there is a rule, there is an exception to it. This property of ether is so fundamental that, paradoxically, it itself has an exception.” It underlined the second sentence. “There are some rules that are fundamentally inviolable.
“Creating any sort of internal combustion engine, for example, simply cannot be done. The same stands for firearms, and many such advanced technologies. A talent, no matter how powerful, is incapable of remotely causing instantaneous death.” Turning back to the first line, it said, “‘There is always an exception’ usually refers to talents. They are the premier rule violator, and in this property, they make the impossible possible.
“But there are other ways to break the rules. For example, an ascended being can only have a maximum of three affinities. But if one upgrades an ability with a unique sentient ether construct, that number goes up to four. A second one wouldn’t increase the limit to five, but a unique prime vestige would. From here on, talents can further increase the limit, but it is important to not assume that five is the maximum otherwise. Always keep in mind”—it underscored the first line again, slowly, making the chalk scrape the board—”there is always an exception.”
Perhaps it was the way Wisdom put it. Or maybe it was its supernatural concepts at play. But as it said these words, Freddy jolted upright, a thought crossing his mind. What exactly is my affinity limit? He tapped his lips with a scowl. Five, no?
For the longest time, he had presumed that, to increase his affinities further, he’d need either a unique to upgrade an ability, or a unique prime to get a second talent. He was at three. Without those, three was the limit.
But the way I got blood and perished water…
It wasn’t through any ordinary means, that was for sure. Now, it only left one question—was that an exception?
If it weren’t for Wisdom’s supernatural knowledge-granting powers, he probably wouldn’t have registered another second of that class. He barely waited until it finished, and then, despite the fact he had two overlapping classes waiting for him, he bolted for the library instead.
He combed through books for hours, and nowhere did he find any information on the way he acquired his spirit abilities. Frustrated, he buried his hand into his long hair, scratching his scalp aggressively. “The only way to know, then…”
Would be to buy an affinity shard and try using it.
If he was right in his guess, then his blood and perished water affinities were gained through an exception. They wouldn’t count towards his base maximum of three. That meant that he could easily get another two affinities. And in the future, if he was lucky, that could go all the way up to seven.
There were a number of reasons why this hadn’t crossed his mind before.
For starters, affinity shards weren’t exactly cheap, and he hadn’t been able to afford them before. Even if he got his hands on one, just adding more affinities wasn’t always a good idea. It was important to be careful, since they could easily mess up one’s talent evolution if handled improperly.
Freddy wasn’t particularly afraid of this. As long as he avoided certain pitfalls, there was a lot to gain. If for no other reason, getting access to a greater variety of tempering techniques alone was more than good enough of a justification to do it.
It was just a matter of deciding what he wanted.
Taking a deep breath, he took out his notebook and wrote down all the affinities that were on the table.
EARTHAIRFIRELIFEDEATHLIGHTDARKNATUREMETALCRYSTALLIGHTNINGICEPOISONHOLYUNHOLY
There were a few choices that seemed obvious enough, but he wanted to take his time to carefully consider every offer. He had learned some new things about affinities and abilities, so rather than rush in head first, he wanted to make sure he left no stone unturned.
First, he crossed off lightning, poison, and crystal off the list.
Technically, advanced affinities were on the table. He could take an affinity shard for their basic affinity before going up to the third star, and then, once he reached the third star, he could just discard the basic affinity in favor of its advanced variant.
But there was a problem.
Advanced affinities weren’t always a guarantee.
Lightning was uncommon. Poison was rare. Crystal was absurdly rare.
All three were great affinities he would love to have. But he simply wasn’t willing to gamble on whether he’d even get them in the first place. It was way too risky.
Next up, he crossed ice off the list as well. It wasn’t a bad affinity. Ice had all sorts of ties to sharpness and frictionlessness, which made it a hit among swordsmen. But if he was being honest, his “sword” was more of a bludgeon than a cutting tool, so there was little of use for him in that category. Resistance to ice was tempting, but too specific. He could do better.
Following that, he crossed life and death off the list.
Freddy’s talent was something called a “direct manipulation talent”. Effectively, his talent directly manipulated a substance, circumventing essence cost, and even needing to have the affinity in question.
It was in the exact same category as Sophia’s talent.
And yes, he could also, if he had the life affinity, hijack certain concepts from his talent and integrate them into his abilities. There were a few problems with this, however. For one, his talent was infinitely narrower in scope than Sophia’s. All he could really get out of it was a supreme-quality self-healing ability. This was still pretty incredible, but… well, he already had that, and it didn’t even cost him any essence.
There was an important thing to keep in mind. Freddy’s talent wasn’t actually a manipulation talent. It didn’t come with the life affinity by default, and there was probably a good reason for that. Mainly, if he did hijack those concepts to replace his talent with an ability, his talent would mutate into something completely different.
“No, thank you.”
The life affinity did have some other appealing aspects to it. But frankly? It was nothing he couldn’t just… buy with money. If he needed his body modified, there were plenty of professionals who would do it for him.
Then, the death affinity. There were only two things he wanted from it—miasma attacks and undeath. He was already undead. And miasma on its own just wasn’t enough to justify the whole affinity. Also, he had absolutely no desire to mess around with the undead.
Following that, he crossed off nature.
One, too complicated, two, he would actually rather die than grow plants and bugs inside his body.
He was about to cross air off the list, but he hesitated. It was a good affinity. He didn’t want to cross it off for no reason. The advantages to combat speed alone would be a big boon to his power, and adding Negative Pressure to his already insane javelin throw would be just straight up unfair.
It was the same situation with fire. It was a solid affinity, with plenty to give.
Light and dark, however, lost their spots. Neither fit his style.
That left the list with only six options.
EARTHAIRFIREMETALUNHOLYHOLY
The “obvious” choice was to get earth through an affinity shard and then metal when he went up to the third star. He was practically guaranteed to get metal, so there was no worry there.
This combo would allow him to turbocharge both his offense and defense. Adding metal bones and stone skin to his already immense durability would make him nearly indestructible.
But…
Being tough wasn’t all there was to defense.
Just adding more durability wouldn’t protect him from cold, heat, miasma attacks, poison, or lightning.
No matter how much he liked thinking of himself as a world-class juggernaut, he wasn’t actually that hard to kill. Hit him with a curse to slow him down, then blast him with a big fireball, and that would get most of the way there. Miasma melted through his flesh as easily as it did anyone else’s, and all he could say about poison was that he was lucky it was such a rare affinity.
He needed something more comprehensive than that.
His eyes slowly drifted down.
The holy affinity’s primary tempering technique was called the Sacred Temple tempering technique. Despite its many miraculous properties, holy essence was actually quite harsh on the user’s body, and by training resistance to it one could develop a universal resistance to hostile essence infiltration. But this was… limited in effect.
It wouldn’t stop fire from burning him, or ice from freezing him, or lightning from frying his ass, or miasma from fermenting him. But it would lessen the effects of concepts tied to the abilities in question.
For fire, a “conduction” upgrade was extremely common. It made it so that the heat conducted faster through anything it touched. Oftentimes, this was far more effective than just making the fire hotter. In this case, Sacred Temple would make the concept of conduction less effective on him. The fire would still conduct through his body faster, just… less faster.
It seemed like a minor thing, and frankly, it was. But its universality wasn’t something to be looked down upon. And it was good against curses, which was a major concern. Also…
Freddy recalled his fight against that strange square-eyed woman back in Repentawa. She had been an immensely challenging opponent. Hell, he still wasn’t sure whether he would have beaten her if Nahar hadn’t interrupted their fight.
And the biggest reason why she was such a menace to him was the obvious presence of anti-heal in her attacks. Anti-heal was a niche concept, and few people used it due to how rare it was for an opponent's in-combat healing to be strong enough to warrant it.
But clearly, going up against someone who used it wasn’t off the table.
And if he did, he really wanted to have something like Sacred Temple to help keep him safe.
Other than that, the holy affinity was just kind of awesome. Expensive as absolute hell, yes, but awesome nevertheless. Being able to cast a Blessing on himself would be incredible, and having access to Heal wasn’t something to scoff at, either.
“So that’s one…”
Now, it was only a matter of deciding what the second affinity would be.
His eyes involuntarily drifted to the unholy affinity. “No.” He crossed it out. “Hell fucking no.”
He knew himself well enough. If he had an Unholy Blessing ready to go, there would come a day when he would use it again. And he really didn’t want to go through the hell that was recovering from a soul injury again.
But…
Groaning, he looked at the scribbled-over UNHOLY on the paper.
There were three things the unholy affinity could offer him.
Curses, Unholy Blessings, and the Shrine of Avarice tempering technique.
Curses were simply terrifying in combat. Even a very basic curse could turn the tides of a fight in the blink of an eye.
Unholy Blessings synergized unbelievably well with his build, even without sacking his soul for one.
And finally… There was arguably the most valuable thing it could offer him.
Shrine of Avarice was one of the most bizarre tempering techniques in existence. Basically, it was a kind of contract. A permanent Unholy Blessing, so to say. But while Unholy Blessings required pretty specific sacrifices, Shrine of Avarice could get a lot more abstract.
Lower speed, greater strength. Lower strength, but greater durability. Become dumber, but also, recover faster from fatigue. Ability power and essence discounts were gated behind the manipulation limit, but even then, there was plenty else to play with.
It could get quite abstract, and while many avoided it because of the immense weakness it inevitably created, it was undeniably the most potent direct increase to an entire category of power out of any tempering technique in existence.
Ever since he’d learned about this tempering technique, one thought hadn’t left his mind.
Theoretically, if he had it, he wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted to get from it. But he knew what he could give up. It was easy enough—he just had to sacrifice his health.
This would make it so that he would be in a perpetual state of gradually worsening health. But it would take days for him to really feel this effect. And if he, say, simply used his talent to indefinitely offset the deterioration…
He would basically pay no price at all.
Sighing, he slumped back, arms hanging to his sides as he pondered it. An Unholy Blessing was a dangerous thing to have constant access to. But it wasn’t like he wouldn’t have access to it even if he didn’t have the unholy affinity.
I’m just going to have to make it so that losing my soul is never worth it, I guess…
Technically, there was one more thing the unholy affinity could grant him. An Unholy Heal. Those were a bit freaky, but they could definitely be useful as well.
Shaking his head, he made his way home. He had a number of classes left for the day, but he just couldn’t be bothered. “I’m going to sleep.”
On his way back, he made a phone call. By the time he was home, he was welcomed by two salesmen, who handed him his freshly ordered affinity shards. One white, the other, pitch black.
It was the dark and light affinity shards. If he wanted to get Unholy and Holy affinities, he would have to take these while still at the second star.
He thanked the salespeople and headed inside.
Holding the light-affinity shard, he probed it with his essence, his breath catching in his throat. And just like that, he felt the connection establish. A smile split his face ear to ear. “I can get two more affinities.”
Stashing the shards away in the ring, he went to bed with a pleased grin. There was no rush to take them. He neither had space for new abilities, nor could he immediately replace light and dark with holy and unholy. This could wait until he was ready to go up a star.
Sprawled out in the bed, he felt a tiny, welcome headache set in.
If there was one thing his education was showing him, it was that he had plenty left to learn. And if he kept learning new things, one day, there might even be a whole class about learning the life and history of Overlord Stern.
Putting his infantile fantasies aside, he covered himself up.
All while failing to notice the churning, bubbling sensation deep within his soul.