From the knowledge that I had gathered recently it seems, there were pros and cons of being either a magi or award user.
Magis are extremely versatile being able to manipulate any elements as long as they studied and understood the spells.
There is no restriction to accumulating magi particles the only limiting factor being talent.
Not only that I had recently found out one of the reasons why Albert chose to be a magi instead of an award user.
Magis have extended lifespan.
How this is done I am not sure, but I bet it has something to do with the magi particles interacting with their body?
How long their life are extended needs further clarification as well, but one thing is for sure, if left alone magis will live longer than an award user and how long they live depends on their rank.
Albert being the one in control of intelligence of the whole empire requires him to deal with certain things in person. After all, I do not believe it is easy to find people like Albert in the whole empire-extremely talented as a magi and extremely good at psychological manipulation.
So, therefore, him being alive longer to deal with those things personally was the best-case scenario for the empire, not only to deal with certain scenarios (like me) but also to train a protégé(that too from his family itself).
Next advantage of a magi is that they cause almost no backlash with not properly wielding their spells. The only backlash they might face is losing their accumulation of their current rank and becoming a semi-soulless like me, but that only happens in extreme cases where the user is seriously dumb, beyond saving, to not properly wield his accumulation and let his accumulated magi particles damage him.
Semi-infinite amount of spells to cast is another advantage. A magi can always cast spells of lower rank almost infinitely due to their accumulation regenerating the lost magi particles, for that spell, close to instantly. The only limiting factor for this is that their current surroundings do not run out of magi particles for them to absorb.
Now for the problems of being a magi:
Although magis are versatile most tend to specialise into one aspect, such as focusing on fire element or water element, after all, no one likes to remain as a jack of all and lack attack power.
The main disadvantage of a magi is that although they lack power compared to an award user. For example, a fire award user of the same rank can easily overwhelm a water magi (even though fire is usually restrained by water).
Even though magis have extended lifespan, they still age like normal people to the point extremely old magis have deteriorated senses and their minds have turned senile(dementia etc) from old age(hence the reason why my food is desired by all magis due to it being able to return someone their youth.). Although they can temporarily alleviate this condition if they are a high-ranking magi with certain spells.
Also, once someone decides to transit to an award user from being a magi, they will lose all their accumulation, along with that all its benefit-such as their extended lifespan. This means if someone who is well beyond their life expectancy gave up magi for an award, that person will die as soon as magi particles leaves his body.
For award user their pros lies in having increased physical and mental capabilities which get enhanced each time they rank up.
Stemming from their increased physical ability is their unique ability of extreme healing. In a fight against award user, the only way to make sure that you definitely killed them is by decapitation. Otherwise, even if they have a single and weak heartbeat in them they will recover soon enough to their peak, given enough time. This is so potent that award users are extremely resilient against most poisons and diseases.
Similar to magi user, award user to have a quality of life treatment from being an award user that is having eternal youth. This came as a surprise to me after I noticed that most award users I met were in their late 50's yet they look as if they were in their prime of the late '20s or early '30s. It seems the award user can choose when to stop ageing or their ageing slows down and the rate it slows down depends on their rank.
To top it all off award users gain a single ability that the user can derive to any unpredictable form according to their wishes.
A major con of being an award user is that unlike magis their lifespan is not extended so they will still die once they reach the limit of their life expectancy. This means if they die after reaching an age of 80 years old, they will die looking young.
Although award users have extreme healing, it doesn't mean they have regeneration as well. So if someone chops of an award users limb then they will lose that limb forever, unless are put under an award ability or a magi spell that can regenerate or connect lost limbs together.
Another problem is that to be an award user requires a memorial stone. Everything related to memorial stone is kept in strict confidentiality, to the point that only those that swear oath of allegiance to the empire and those under certain nobles will have access to them.
If an award ability is not properly wielded then it will lead to a state known as corruption. All I know of corruption is that the user will go into an uncontrollable mindless state where it attempts to destroy everything. I am not too sure what happens after that.
From all this advantage and disadvantage, it might seem award users have extremely huge risks associated with wielding it when compared to magi.
However, people still prefer choosing an award over being a magi. The reason being simple. No one wants to die old and frail.
Any award user of the same rank can easily take down and overwhelm a magi user of the same rank, just by relying on their physical capabilities itself, not to mention their unique abilities along with their capabilities when dealing with beast ingredients.
Beast ingredients are plants or creatures that have somehow managed to accumulate magi particles inside them. Beast ingredients can be referring to plants, animals, fish etc since calling them beast animal or beast plant as a collective term is bothersome.
These creatures or plants are extremely dangerous once they have successfully managed to accumulate magi particles and turn into a beast ingredient.
This is to the point that even an infant beast ingredient of similar accumulation rank as a rank 1 magi, can cause devastating destruction similar to a rank 2 magi. This is including the fact that this beast is not in its natural habitat and is in a place that restricts its abilities.
In order to differentiate between beast ingredients, they are categorised into 10 levels depending on their rank.
For a rank 1 beast ingredient (similar to a rank 1 magi in accumulation level), they are categorised into levels from 0 to 9.
Rank 2 beast ingredients have levels ranging from 10 to 19.
Rank 3 beast ingredients have levels ranging from 20 to 29.
Rank 4 beast ingredients have levels ranging from 30 to 39.
Rank 5 beast ingredients have levels ranging from 40 to 49.
The 10 levels in each rank (0 to 9 for rank 1 or 20 to 29 for rank 3), is there as a scale to represent the difficulty of their capture.
These levels are arranged for each beast depending on many factors: the location of where the best ingredient is found(e.g. edge of a cliff or inside a volcano etc), its environment(e.g. poisonous, heavy mist, extremely cold etc), is it found in groups or not, how adaptable is it with its magi ability, if the beast ingredient is guarded or hunted by even stronger beast ingredients etc.
In simple terms, these scales of levels are there to denote how extremely dangerous the creature of that rank is.
So a beast ingredient of level 29, will be extremely dangerous to kill or capture than a beast ingredient of level 20, despite both beast ingredient having the same accumulation level as a rank 3 magi.
This is all excluding the factor that the people hunting for these beast ingredients have to travel through a long journey through treacherous location, as most beast ingredients have been pushed out of the empire into the danger zones(Zones that is too dangerous for people to live in or occupy).
Most beast ingredients are close to impossible to capture for a magi of the same rank due to their weak physique and abilities. This is to the point magis sometimes even find it difficult to capture ingredients that are even 2 or 3 ranks below them, even if they are in a group.
While award users have no such problem due to their extreme healing and high physique. Award users are even able to sometimes capture beast ingredients of 20 levels above them, depending on their unique ability.
Now, here was a way for all magis to grow in devastating power and gain an advantage over beast ingredients, yet everyone ignored that method. There had to be a more reasonable answer other than it takes too long, and I am quite curious as to why.
If my guess is right that reason is probably one of the reasons why Albert, Merlin and other powerful magis probably do not regret rejecting the gain of an award ability.
Along with that, from all the books I have read and everything I have been taught it excludes any information pertaining to beast ingredients of level 50 and above(Beast ingredients of rank 6 and above).
From what I just concluded from Merlin's theory, something happens to a magi at rank 6, some kind of qualitative change, that causes them to ignore the benefit of grooming a high capacity user as a low capacity user along with having a strict control of the flow of information pertaining to level 50 beast ingredients and higher.
"Well?..." I asked through the mental connection after seeing that both of them were silent for a while.
"Fine, brat. But do not tell anyone I told you. If anyone asks you say his name." Albert cheekily smiled while pointing towards Merlin secretly.
Both Merlin and I sighed seeing his antics at work again.
I nodded while Albert multitasked in commenting on the fight while talking to me at the same time through the mental link.