A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

Chapter 263: Chapter 263 - Affnity ranking

A few hours later, Erik was once again sitting inside a black dome with only Elora as his company.

Just before, he had given a training schedule to Emma as well, before impressing upon Emily and Astrid the need to focus on their foundation before they continued pushing for the next rank.

There was no need to create a schedule for them, as they were both second rankers who had created a routine that worked for them. So long as they didn't get lost in the push for third rank, they would be fine.

His meeting with Emily was a little strange, however. She clearly needed some time to settle into the revelations she had admitted to last night.

Luckily, she would have that time, now that Erik would stay secluded for a while. In the next month, he would likely only come out once a week to stretch his legs and give his mind some rest.

"Ready?" Elora's voice sounded in his head.

"As I'll ever be," Erik answered with a sigh and closed his eyes in preparation for what was to come.

Suddenly, he cried out and grabbed his head. A splitting headache crashed through his brain as if every single brain cell was screaming in terror while they were getting ripped apart and put back together again. But with that headache came an immense amount of information, burning itself into his brain.

When the flow of information stopped, he stayed still for a moment as the headache slowly ebbed away. He remained hunched over and grabbing his head while softly groaning. "Ugh, that never gets old…"

"Sorry," Elora chuckled sympathetically. "But it's over now! I've given you everything I know and read about affinity fusion in general, and of thundersnow fusion specifically."

Their bond allowed for many things, and this was one of them. Elora could essentially 'upload' anything she knew into Erik's brain. This was far faster and easier than explaining it.

The only danger, or benefit, depending on the situation, was that at least some of her understanding of these concepts would also transfer over unconsciously, and since it was far better for Erik to come to his own conclusions about affinities, she couldn't share her own insights on actual affinities.

But when transferring technical information like she did this time, it was definitely a benefit, as it removed the need for explanations.

Luckily, the focus increasing sigils helped alleviate the strain. Soon, the last of the pain disappeared and he sat back up again.

He took a deep breath, stretched his back, and found his focus again. "Alright, let me just go through all that," he mumbled to Elora and himself, before beginning the process of sifting through everything that his partner had sent him.

Among the information were some things that he already knew. For example, affinities were divided in ranks, much like most other things were. Usually, the higher an affinity's rank, the rarer and more powerful it was.

Rank one affinities were all those that could be considered basic, like water, fire, earth, rock, wind, etc. The pair had encountered these plenty of times, both on Earth and on Söl.

Rank two affinities are all fusions of those in rank one, like steam (water + fire), scorch (fire + air), etc. While slightly rarer, these also occurred in nature; Erik and Elora had seen them relatively often.

Rank three affinities were slightly rarer and more powerful, These included ice, lightning, nature, magma, shadow, etc.

Third rank affinities could also be formed from fusing second rank affinities. For example, mist (water + air) and frost (water + rock) would create ice. In the same way, Alice's frostfire was created by combining the scorch and frost affinities.

Next up, rank four affinities were, naturally, the fusion of rank three affinities. Among these was the thundersnow affinity that Erik was currently trying to create, by fusing lightning and ice. Astrid's sun affinity is also a rank four affinity, being a fusion of the rank three affinities, plasma and radiance.

Rank five affinities were very rare and usually extremely powerful. These included darkness, light, and space. The chances for one of these affinities to appear in nature were astronomical, but not unheard of.

Of course, it became easier if some powerful being tossed affinity seeds into the mix, but the chances of that happening were perhaps even smaller.

Rank five was different, however in that many of its affinities could not be fused from rank four. Or at least, no one had figured out which affinities could be fused to create them. But that didn't mean fusing rank four affinities was impossible.

Finally, we reach the theoretical ranks. Most everyone assumed rank six affinities existed. After all, all other ranks could be fused, so why not rank five into rank six? Unfortunately, finding someone who had two rank five affinities was hard enough, let alone someone with the ability to fuse them.

Rank seven, on the other hand, was entirely theoretical. Many people didn't even believe these existed. In fact, according to Elora, even the research oriented race of fairies didn't dare speculate on rank seven affinities. And those that did, would usually spent their entire life trying to either prove or disprove their existence.

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If they did exist, however, they would likely begin to transcend affinities and be more like existence defining concepts like time. Either way, Elora knew nothing of anyone even rumored to possess a rank seven affinity, either on Söl or outside of it.

Having reviewed his knowledge on affinities in general, Erik now moved on to the fusion part.

Fusions were only possible between affinities of the same rank, and they could only ever create an affinity that was one rank higher. Furthermore, some affinities simply couldn't be fused at all, while others were only harder to do, and some were easier.

Of course, the process also became exponentially harder as the ranks climbed up.

Luckily, rank three affinities were still considered to be relatively easy to fuse. In fact, one could even say that it was far harder to actually end up with two third-rank affinities, than it was to fuse them.

After all, while absorbing bloodlines to improve one's physique or compatibility with an affinity were not unheard of, actually gaining an affinity from it was extremely rare, though not impossible.

Elora's ability to so perfectly combine bloodlines that even the bloodline's affinity is consistently transfered, was a previously unheard of mutation caused by her mother's experimenting on her father's blood dragon genes.

Of course, currently, Elora could still only apply the practice to Erik, who was strangely compatible with her ability. A fact that once again raised the question of coincidence vs planning of Erik's teleportation to Söl, even though Eira seemed to suggest that Audumla was surprised by his disappearance.

Erik felt his thoughts stray from the goal. Such was another consequence of Elora's information sharing: Erik would quickly lose track of his thoughts while he sifted through the data.

He quickly refocused on the actual process of affinity fusion.