Finally, as I mused to myself about the nature of Alteration Essence, I heard the shaper’s voice rise in surprise, cutting me out of my thoughts. 

“Two?” said the shaper. “There are two students who passed the test this year?” I grinned , focusing all of my attention back on him. I could see him standing over Sallia’s table, grinning from ear to ear. “I can’t believe it! This year is really exceptional!” He looked at Sallia, before swiveling his gaze back towards me, and then grinning. “You two are friends, right? Sit next to each other and wait for the test to end. You can talk if you want to, but keep your voices down, or it wouldn’t be fair to the other children.” I resisted the urge to point out that the man was getting pretty excited and distractible whenever someone passed the test, and that probably wasn’t helping the other kids concentrate. Regardless of my thoughts, the man continued grinning as he hovered near our table. “If you talk, maybe exchange ideas about alteration and paint? It’s just a very simple exercise, meant to test whether you have any potential at all, but practicing basic things will still help you improve. Maybe if you exchange some ideas you’ll figure out how to get the orange back onto the paint instead of the cube.” I glanced at my orange cube, as well as my jar of gray paint, before shrugging. Even though Alteration was my extreme affinity, I still hadn’t succeeded in making the paint orange again, although I did think I was getting close. But I wanted to talk to Sallia more right now.

I grinned, and Sallia quickly hopped over to my table as the teacher focused his attention back on the other kids. He seemed almost eager to continue now, unlike the nearly resigned tone and expression he had when we first arrived.

“So your affinity is Alteration?” whispered Sallia, grinning from ear to ear as she looked at me.

I nodded.

“It’s just so… easy to do something if it’s your extreme affinity,” I said, taking another moment to process the surprise I had felt when manipulating alteration essence. “It’s completely different from messing with an essence you aren’t as talented in. I never knew how much easier it was to manipulate an essence with talent.”

Sallia nodded. “After trying to use alteration essence, I’ve finally learned how annoying it is to try to do use a magic system without an extreme affinity. I thought things were bad on the islands when my Stats were terrible, but goodness gracious.” Sallia snorted. “This is a huge pain in the neck as well, although in a very different way.”

I nodded.

“What do you make of Alteration magic?” I asked, curious to know if Sallia had observed the same feeling of ‘wrongness’ I had when trying to use shaping.

Sallia frowned. “It’s really hard to imagine ‘alternate timelines’ and then manifest parts of them as reality. I do also wonder how that works, in practice. Do alternate timelines actually exist, or are they purely in our imagination?” Sallia shrugged. “I’ve been thinking over the existential implications of this magic system for a while, and I have to admit I’m pretty baffled. I have no clue what to make of it.” I chuckled. I hadn’t thought about the meaning of the visualization method for alteration, but Sallia did raise an interesting question. Did alternate timelines exist? If so, were they limited to some dimensions, or did all of them have some sort of ‘cloud of possible futures’ that technically existed? I kind of wondered if the Market had any sort of research on the subject, although it would probably be a nightmare to locate now that the Market was ruined. I decided to see if we could find any information on time and space whenever we returned to the Market. 

“I’ve also been experimenting a little bit, and I’ve noticed something,” said Sallia.

“Oh?”

“The mana pool for each kind of essence is completely different. You know how every single rune from the island magic system also works as a storage for some amount of mana, and we can use that to temporarily boost our physical abilities or activate our fourth through sixth runes?”

I nodded. 

“Well, as it turns out, the mana storage granted by all of my ‘absorption essence’ spellcasting can’t be used for alteration, or vice-versa. Every single magic System has its own, completely unique storage. And each of those seems to be some mixture of the essence in question and the mana it interacts with.” Sallia shrugged. “Which is a bit of a shame, honestly. I was hoping I could turn all of the random mana floating around in my body into spells once we get manifestation essence figured out. I don’t know what manifestation essence can do in this world, but I’m actually pretty curious to mess with it. Alteration Essence feels a little more finicky to me, so I might focus less on it. We’ll see if I change my mind, though. Anyway.”

I grinned. I hadn’t actually thought to test how different magic systems interacted with mana, so I was glad that Sallia had tested it out for me. Once we ventured above ground, information like this could save our lives.

“How about you, Miria? Any tips from the extreme essence user?” Asked Sallia, giving me a little nudge and a grin. “Right now Alteration Essence is pretty hard for me to use, but if you have an extreme affinity for it, maybe you have some insights that can make it easier to understand?”

“Hmm… I don’t know if this is in my head or not, but I think the visualization method for using alteration essence is wrong. The idea that we’re reaching into alternate timelines or something and then manifesting parts of those timelines in reality is just… weird to me. It doesn’t feel right. I don’t know if alternate timelines exist at all, and they could, but that doesn’t really fit the idea of alteration, you know? So far, Absorption Essence lets you absorb mana and add it to your body, and while I haven’t gotten a good grasp of manifestation essence yet, it sounds like it manifests stuff, right? Alteration Essence, as it was described to us… feels like it’s trying to manifest alternate timelines. Which isn’t really in-theme with the name of the essence. I could be overthinking things, but I imagine the Market named it ‘Alteration’ essence for a reason.”

Sallia frowned. “Huh. All right. What’s the correct way to visualize this magic system then?”

“I have no idea.”

Sallia’s frown grew deeper. “I guess that means we know what kind of research and knowledge we’re looking for once we go above ground, at least. Still, it would have been nice if we had access to that information now. It might stunt your growth a bit if you only grow up learning to use your primary magic system incorrectly. We need to make sure you get a keyword ability that matches you before we leave, after all.”

I nodded. “Once I get a grasp on what ways I can hurt myself, and what I need to be cautious of, I’ll experiment some.” I paused. “Do you not get the sense that the timeline visualization method is wrong?”

Sallia shrugged. “Honestly? It just feels like a visualization method to me.” she frowned. “Maybe it’s another aspect of having an extreme affinity for an essence? When I was using absorption essence, I always had really good instincts for the ‘best’ way to use every single drop of essence I had available. It’s what lets me avoid wasting mana when I make runes. Perhaps this is another way ‘good instincts’ manifest themselves?”

“Seems reasonable to me,” I said. “If that's the case, I’ll try to rely on my instincts a bit more and see how it goes. But I’ll still listen to the safety precautions for shapers first. I don’t want to accidentally kill myself in a magic experiment, after all.” Sallia nodded, grinning.

A few moments later, the shaper in charge of our test began laughing madly. “Three! This year is really exceptional!” I turned back towards him, and saw him standing over Felix’s table.

Just like Sallia and I, Felix’s cube was now bright orange.

“Sit with the girls, lad. I’ll get your names after the test is over. All three of you are casters and shapers.” The man laughed a few times, sounding nearly giddy with excitement. “I’m going to be able to brag for years about running this year’s test.” I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to hear the last part, but I did chuckle as I heard it.

After that, Felix quickly joined our table. Sallia and I quickly glanced at him.

“Extreme affinity?” I asked. I was pretty sure I already knew what the answer was, since it had taken him so long to finish his test, but I still felt it was worth asking. Just in case.

“Nope,” said Felix, sighing. “I do not have an extreme affinity for manifestation or Alteration Essence.” I sighed, and patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. At least now we know what your extreme affinity is. Since it’s not any of the three we’ve encountered so far, we know for sure it’s Binding.”

Felix nodded. “I wonder what Binding Essence actually does. The name makes me think of ropes and knots, and keeping prisoners. I hope it’s not that basic.”

“It could be related to making magic items,” said Sallia as she closed her eyes in thought. “Binding mana to an item or something. I could see it making sense.”

Felix seemed to brighten up considerably at the thought. “Really? That sounds much more interesting.”

“It could also be related to binding mana to people, as well,” I said. “Or it could do both, depending on the local rules. It’s hard to say what is or isn’t possible, since we just don’t know much about the multiverse as a whole yet.” I grinned. “Honestly, depending on what dimension we live in, anything is probably possible. I hope the next world we go to has Binding Essence though. All three of us would have our primary magic system at that point, and we would have two lives left to upgrade them before we fight to buy more lives.”

“Be careful not to get too overconfident, Miria,” said Felix. “We haven’t gotten you a keyword Ability for Alteration yet. Don’t get overconfident and accidentally get killed because of it. We need to stay cautious until we succeed.”

I nodded, properly chastised. We still had a lot of hard work in front of us before I got my keyword ability.

“Any idea what ‘affinities’ are?” I said. “The Shaper mentioned something about affinities earlier. It’s probably related to shaping somehow.”

“Nope,” said Felix. “My parents don’t know much about shapers. They’re too rare. Everyone has stories about what they might be able to do, but my parents have no clue which ones are true and which ones aren’t. So I have no reliable information.”

“Oh well,” I said, sighing. “I guess we’ll find out sooner or late-”

“Four? Amazing, amazing!” said the shaper. “The white dragon has truly blessed us this year!”

Huh? I whirled around, completely baffled, as I saw the shaper… standing over the desk of another girl. She had pink hair, and four eyes. I vaguely recognized her as one of the people who had been more vocal earlier today, and she was also one of the kids who had passed the spellcaster test.

I resisted the urge to chuckle. This year would have been truly exceptional for the town, with or without the three of us. However, with the addition of the pink-haired girl, the town had just received four new children who were talented in both spellcasting and shaping. Previously, the number of townsfolk who had talent in both magic systems had been three. In one year, we had just gone from three witch-shapers to seven. Even if none of us were trained yet, that was still incredible. 

Granted, without Sallia, Felix and I rigging the odds in our favor, the number would have gone from three to four instead. Which still sounded like a pretty luck year. However, when the number of shaper-witches doubled in a single year, it did look pretty weird.

“Sit with the other three! I’m sure the four of you have all sorts of things to talk about!” said the shaper, now brimming with enthusiasm.

The little girl with pink hair and four eyes quickly hopped up and ran over to our table, before giving us a huge smile.

“Hi! I’m Anise! Let’s be friends!” She said.

I hesitated for a moment.

On the islands, the three of us had been our own group. We were always together, and we were much closer to each other than with other children. Sure, the three of us weren’t mean to other children, but we didn’t interact with them much, either. After all, we were mentally much older than them, and we had experienced traveling to the Market. It made it feel pretty natural for the three of us to stick together.

On the other hand, the kids on the islands had mostly formed their own little circles as well. It wasn’t unusual for a group of two to five children to form their own little circle of friends and then ignore the other children for the most part. It was just considered the normal way children of the islands grouped together.

Adding a fourth person to our trio felt weird. But at the same time, Anise did genuinely seem excited to get to know us, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Her smile looked genuine when she talked to us, and since we were shaper-spellcasters, I imagined we would interact with each other a lot in the future. 

But the idea of getting close to someone, growing to care for someone, and then losing them…

I thought of my mother and father from my first life. I would never see them again. Olav, the fishermen who had taught me to fly a boat, was dead. Claus, my father’s friend who had worked the same boat as me, had died during the final battle with the outsiders. The village chief, who I had fond memories of, was lost to me forever.

Did I want to keep forming connections with people, even though I knew I would lose them?

On the other hand, could I possibly live without forming connections?

I thought of my three siblings in this life, as well as my parents. My parents clearly loved me, and loved the rest of my siblings as well. I had nothing but good feelings towards them. My older brother, Jonathan, loved his swordsmanship, and kind of reminded me of Sallia. He was a bit rambunctious, but as he got older, he was starting to mature, and he was becoming a fine young man. He liked looking out for me, and I also cared about him. My other older brother, Ruman, still had a sort of hero-worship attitude towards Jonathan, but he was nice enough when he wasn’t following Jonathan like a shadow. My sister, Laura, was a little bratty sometimes, but she also clearly showed me that she loved me sometimes, even if she was annoying the rest of the time.

I couldn’t live without making connections. I would still put my foot down in a few places; I didn’t want a husband or kids until I could take them back to the Market with me. But I would inevitably make friends that I would lose at the end of each world, and I needed to accept that.

Before I realized what I was doing, I gave her a big smile of my own. “Hi Anise! I’m Miria! Nice to meet you! I’d love to be friends!”

acaswell

I had a pretty bad headache and what might have been a mild fever yesterday? I nearly posted an announcement saying I might miss some chapters this week, but I decided to hold off for a day and see if I felt better today.

As of today, I definitely feel much better. But fair warning: if I have a bad fever or headache again tomorrow, some chapters might be cancelled for this week. I do think I’m past the worst of it… probably. But you know, just in case.

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