“I’m sorry, Elliot,” Beth said with a sincere frown. “Sir Belethier has cancelled today’s lessons as well. He told me that the council will be meeting today making him unavailable for your lessons.”

The high council was meeting today? Sir Aborisey hadn’t said anything about that. Well, why would he. It was none of my business.

“I see,” I said. “Thank you for letting me know Beth.”

At least it wasn’t because he was upset with me. Although he might still be. Was there any way I could win Perceval back? I wondered. Maybe I could entice him with some kind of information from Earth. It would have to be something big. Maybe flight or efficiency in weapons?

Oh well, for now I would have to find something else to occupy my time.

I thought about returning to the courtyard to train my affinities some more, but I was honestly still quite drained from the previous session.

‘Perhaps I could explore the library a bit,’ I thought.

My reading definitely wasn’t fluent, but I had been able to pick up a good deal in my time reading with Fiena.

“Are there any books or scrolls on different abilities?” I asked Beth. “Bella told me about an ability called [mana sight] and I was curious about the various abilities people from Praecantio might receive.”

It wasn’t technically a lie.

“Why of course,” Bethany smiled. “There are many tomes listing and describing traits, abilities, skills and even spells. Are you interested in [mana sight] specifically or just abilities in general?”

Well of course I wanted to know about my apparent ability.

“I think I would be interested in starting with [mana sight], but I am interested in abilities and skills in general.”

I wondered what kinds of skills these tomes might describe and how detailed they would be. Would they be like the fire-based tome Perceval had me translate? With my traits I could easily memorize them for when I developed more mana affinities. That would be awesome.

“Very well,” Bethany said, walking to the large reference books.

She searched for a few minutes before listing three texts for me to look at. Then she even helped me locate the three texts. Two scrolls and a book.

She really was an immense help.

I thanked her before bringing the three texts to an open table. Amongst the stares and glares of the library patrons I began to read the first scroll: Baron Druet’s Collection of Known Abilities from Ulla, Goddess of Light.

A rather long title, but it did appear to be what I was looking for.

The text contained a list of abilities in what appeared to be alphabetic order. At least the Aconean alphabet.

I found the reading of the scroll to be very cumbersome. Unfortunately [mana sight]’s translation, Praecant rellio, was toward the end of the Acone language. Meaning I had to unroll and reroll a good portion of the scroll.

It did, however, give me the excuse to read through several interesting ability entries. For example, [Boost Eyesight].

[Boost Eyesight]: An ability granted by the goddess Ulla which allows a person to funnel mana into their eyes and increase the clarity of their sight by an amount proportional to the physical mana utilized.

It appeared that each sense had some form of boosting ability. Including non-traditional senses. But I wondered if the ability was creating some physical distortion in the light or in the organ itself.

Additionally there were abilities which could increase physical strength like [Boost Physique] or produce mana-based substances like [Boost Flame].

[Boost Physique]: An ability granted by the goddess Ulla which allows a person to funnel mana into their body’s muscles and increase the level of physical strength producible by those muscles by an amount proportional to the physical mana utilized.

[Boost Flame]: An ability granted by the goddess Ulla which allows a person to improve the flow and utilization of fire-based mana.

Interestingly many of the abilities appeared to be boosting abilities which supported the learning of particular mana skills. Some, like [Boost Eyesight], even seemed like they could be reproduced by mana manipulation and training. Perhaps abilities really could be improved upon.

Finally I made my way to the entry I was looking for:

[Mana Sight]: An ability granted by the goddess Ulla which allows a person to funnel mana into their eyes and develop the temporary ability to observe the motion of various mana flows. The distance perceivable is proportional to the amount of mana utilized in the desired mana affinity.

Wait. That doesn’t sound like my [mana sight]. At least not exactly. I definitely had the mana sight active all the time and I saw several mana affinities at once without applying mana.

‘This is strange,’ I thought. ‘Maybe it’s because this was something given to me by Thoth instead of Ulla.’

It was certainly possible that different gods would give different kinds of abilities. But then would a further description of the ability given by Ulla help me?

What I really wanted to have was a list of the colors perceived and the affinities they represented. Something about improving the ability would also be nice.

Having found the entry I wanted, I moved to the next scroll: Earl Destrian’s Compendium of Enhancement Abilities.

This compendium contained abilities bestowed by both Ulla and other gods as well. From a cursory look I saw the names of gods like Rellia, Ellatorro, Pration, and of course Ulla. It made me wonder if I could get a grasp on the differences of similar abilities granted by different Praecantian gods and goddesses.

I immediately began looking for [Mana Sight]. Unfortunately, I received no added information. In fact, this text had even less of a description than the previous one.

Turning to the book, I maintained high hopes. The book was a thick leather-bound volume of affinities and their related abilities.

In other words, there might just be some description of the mana affinity colors. If I was lucky.

‘This would be my lucky book,’ I thought, trying to will the information I sought into existence.

This text, an anthology of affinities grouped the affinities into twenty categories. Odd given that Ulla told me there were only sixteen affinity types. Added types included: Electricity, Sound, Ice and Crystal Magics. Strange. Perhaps that was a misunderstanding in the world’s view of affinities? No, Perceval described only sixteen affinity types as well. Then maybe this was a poor reference book. Written by someone who didn’t understand the affinities themselves.

In any case, I flipped through the book. Each section began with a description of the affinity and the mana it utilized. There was a description of the quality of mana, locations the mana’s were most abundant and a description of the mana affinities’ various religious implications.

Apparently, each mana affinity was associated with particular gods, personality types and various fortunes.

Closing the book, I let out an exhausted sigh. Maybe I was missing some subtlety in the language, but after hours of research I hadn’t found what I was looking for. How I missed internet search engines…

Well, there was nothing more to do here. Returning the texts, I once again thanked Beth for her assistance and made my way to my room, only slightly early for my reading practice with Fiena. Today we would be wrapping up the book on Acone history.