Joysaleen removed her angry eyes from Ryuzio, bringing them down to the paper on the floor that she drew a pentagram on. "Oh, this? It's a diagram called a Stylestar. It's used to find out the Style of an Etherbright."
"But you haven't told us about Styles, Joy," Ryuzio said, not bothering to get up from the floor.
"Well," she said. "If you remember the Second Principle, Harnessing, you know that Etherbrights use their Amassed Ether. However, not every Etherbright Harnesses the same way or can do so. There are limits to how an Etherbright can Harness their Amassed Ether. And Styles are what define those limits. Put simply, Styles define HOW you Harness your Amassed Ether."
"I see…" Ryuzio got up, pointing at the paper. "So this drawing is going to tell me my Style?"
"Positively," Joysaleen said with a nod, writing a letter at the end of each of the five points of the pentagram. "Knowing your Style can be very useful, since after being aware of where you excel, you can design all your Etherskills according to your affinity."
"Etherskills?" Hitryel said. "Moves?"
"Much more than that," Joysaleen said. "But let's not get too ahead of ourselves." She picked up the bottle of ink beside the sheet of paper…then dumped a blob in the middle of the diagram. "Ryuzio, try moving the ink without touching it." She turned the diagram toward him.
"Heh?" Ryuzio said, putting a palm toward it. "Is than even possible?" Ryuzio could now see the letters written at the end of each point of the star. Clockwise they were written as, "C," "S," "P," "B," and "F."
"Positively," Joysaleen said with a nod. "Just imagine touching the ink with your Ether. You must do it without the activation of any Etherskill at all. Just simple Amassed Ether. Fix your sight onto it. Focus."
Ryuzio strained his palm. "Like this—?"
The ink burst out, splattering on the page, making a mess of the diagram. But somehow, there was uniformity to the design that the ink formed, as if it were trying to tell something. The longest spike of ink pointed away from Ryuzio, the splatter reaching the point marked as "C" on the pentagram.
"Not surprising," Joysaleen said, looking at the diagram. "Ryuzio, your Style is Ethercasting, which means you're a Castbright—or simply, Caster."
"Awesome!" Ryuzio said with a smile.
"You don't even know what it means," Hitryel said pointedly, eyes half shut.
"But it's me," Ryuzio said, thumbing to his headband. "So I know it's going to be that way." He turned to Joysaleen. "Being a Castbright means I'm awesome, yeah?"
"Castbrights are proficient in Ether propulsion," Joysaleen said, putting her palms to the front and extending them away, as if pushing air, "which basically means that you are good at shooting your Ether away from yourself. I'm not surprised to find this out since both Dragon Bullet and Dragon Chase are Etherskills that require a high level of affinity to Casting."
"That's strange," Hitryel said, pointing at Ryuzio's shoulder. "I thought his Etherskill was to create those Scales of his. They don't seem to require shooting Ether."
"That has more to do with his Trueshard ability—or Shardskill—I'd say, and we can all have more than a single Etherskill," Joysaleen said, then pointed at the messy diagram. "But to create those Scales of his with such ease, he has to have a high level of affinity to Forging, and as you can see, Etherforging is the left neighbor of Ethercasting on the Stylestar, so even though Ryuzio is a Castbright, he has affinity to Etherforging, allowing him to maintain the shape of his Scales."
Hitryel paused for a second, and then pointed at the diagram. "Does that apply to the right neighbor as well?"
"Positively," Joysaleen said with a nod. "The Style you have the most affinity to is called your Primary Style, and its neighboring Styles automatically become your Secondary Styles, ignoring how much or how little affinity you have toward them. The remaining two are called Tertiary Styles, but they are so inefficient that I'll just ignore them. So realistically, you can be proficient in three Styles, just by having affinity toward a single one."
"Interesting," Hitryel said, finally joining the others on the floor. "Now it's my turn."
Ryuzio picked up his paper as Joysaleen drew another Stylestar on a new one. "Yours isn't going to be as awesome, Hit."
Hitryel smiled, pulling up his right sleeve. "We'll see about that."
"Here you go," Joysaleen said, turning the clean paper with a Stylestar drawn on it toward Hitryel. "Don't go overboard. Try to do it with as little Ether as possible."
Hitryel nodded, putting his right palm toward the ink blob on the paper, imitating Ryuzio, trying to move the ink by touching it with his Ether.
Moments passed but the ink did not budge.
"I'm getting bored, Hit," Ryuzio said with a yawn. "Should I help?"
Hitryel gritted his teeth, straining his palm, trying to push the ink without moving his right hand. "Let…me…focus…!" But the ink did not move.
"I think you're limiting your Ether output too much," Joysaleen said. "Let a little bit more flow out."
"Trust me," Hitryel said through gritted teeth. "You're thinking wrong." His hard work finally paid off as the ink rippled. But only a single line of ink left the center, going to the point on the pentagram marked with an "S."
"Again, not surprised," Joysaleen said. "Hitryel, your Style is Ethersurging, which means you're a Surgebright—or simply, Surger."
Hitryel exhaled, sweat on his forehead. "Tell me more."
"Surgebrights are proficient in Ether enhancement, which basically means that you are good at manipulating the flow of your Amassed Ether to make yourself physically stronger. I'm not surprised this time as well since most brawlers are Surgebrights. Surgers always have higher durability, endurance, stamina, and you get the idea."
Hitryel smiled demonically. "Perfect for a warrior." But then he pointed at his paper. "That means Ryuzio and I share Styles."
"You're half-right," Joysaleen said. "Casting is Ryuzio's Primary Style while it's a Secondary for you. Same for Surging but with your places switched."
"That explains why it was so difficult for me to move the ink," Hitryel said, looking at his palm. "I'm not a good Castbright, even after having affinity to Ethercasting."
"Or maybe you're just not awesome enough, Hit," Ryuzio said then laughed. He returned to Joysaleen after that. "What about you, Joy? Which Style do you have?"
She tapped on the point marked with a "P" of the Stylestar on Hitryel's paper. "My Style is Etherpacting, which means I'm a Pactbright—or simply, Pacter. It does not have a simple explanation like the other Styles due to its nuanced nature, but if I try to do it any justice, it basically allows me to create self-imposed rules—or limits—upon myself and my Etherskills to add to them."
"Boring!" Ryuzio said, cupping his mouth with both hands. "Even Hitryel's Style is more exciting than that."
"If it weren't for my Etherskill that healed him," Joysaleen said slyly, "he wouldn't even be here. And what made my Etherskill possible? Oh, that's right, Etherpacting!"
"It's still boring," Ryuzio said with his tongue out. "Only lame people use Etherpacting."
Joy's eyebrows furrowed as she smiled. "You know you use it too, don't you?"
"I'm not falling for that," Ryuzio said, pointing to his Stylestar on the paper. "I don't have any affinity to Pacting at all."
"But that does not mean you don't use it," Joysaleen said simply. "Having an affinity to a Style just means you're good at it. A swordsman and cook are both good at their own fields, but that doesn't mean a swordsman can't cook and a cook can't use a sword. How well they can do it doesn't matter. So even though your Primary Style is Ethercasting, and your Secondary Styles are Ethersurging and Etherforging, you can still use—and you do—Etherpacting."
"Liar!" Ryuzio said, not accepting that he used something as lame as Etherpacting.
"Your stance of Dragon Bullet," Joysaleen continued, "and you calling the name of your Etherskill, these are nothing but self-imposed rules you've put on it under your own will. The Pact here would be something like: I can't use Dragon Bullet unless I stay in THIS stance for THIS time and at the end say THIS."
"If something so simple can be considered 'limits,'" Hitryel asked, raising a brow, "Ryuzio can just put more limits to increase the power of his Etherskill."
"The limits are simple only because Ryuzio made them so," Joysaleen said with a shake of her head. "But even if he wanted to put stricter limitations, he'd most likely fail because he's not a Pacter. The more affinity you have to Pacting, the MORE and STRICTER limits you can put on your Skills."
Hitryel tapped on the point of his Stylestar with a "P" at its end, the one rightnext to his own "S" point—one the other side of the "C" point. "Does that mean that I can put more limits than Ryuzio, since it seems one of my Secondary Styles in Etherpacting?"
"You have to find that out on your own," Joysaleen said with a shrug. "Did you not see that your Ethercasting—even after being your Secondary Style—was so dogspit that it could barely move the ink?"
Hitryel flushed, trying to ignore Ryuzio's laughter. "Alright…"
"But at least you're a Fullbright," Joysaleen said with a soft exhale. "I can't even Harness my Ether directly."
"That makes you a Halfbright, huh?" Hitryel said as Ryuzio's laughter faded and he finally sat upright. "But then how did you heal me?"
Joysaleen pulled out her hammer, showing it to them. "I can't Harness my Ether directly, so I have to do it with tools. I chose this hammer because it fits my needs." She showed its base, the side shaped like a "+." "This is the side I use for healing." She then turned it to show the actual faces of the hammer, both shaped like an "X." "This is the side I use for hurting."
Ryuzio asked for the hammer off her hands, and she did so, albeit with a pinch of hesitation. With the hammer in his hands, Ryuzio examined it, rubbing his chin while doing so. Then he smiled, bonking the hammer on Hitryel's head.
Hitryel smacked him back on the head while rubbing his own. "What's wrong with you!"
Joysaleen took the hammer back before Ryuzio could continue his stupidity.
"Joy, when you healed Hit," Ryuzio said, looking at her while lying on the floor, "you did it completely differently from when you healed one of Baru's squadmates…"
"I did," Joysaleen said with a nod. "That's a mechanic of my Etherskill. Once my blood has been stamped on someone—to heal them—I don't need to stamp them again with it. After that I just need to fulfill the other conditions to activate my Etherskill, like contact with my hammer and calling for its name. However, I can only put my Cross on three subjects at one time. If I stamp a fourth one with my blood, the first one automatically disappears."
"That'll come in handy," Hitryel said, but then paused as he saw Ryuzio in deep thought.
"But that also means you can also hurt anyone you heal," Ryuzio said with a flat expression. "Just like you hurt Balloonru." There was no implication to anything by Ryuzio's end. He was simply curious about Joysaleen's Etherskill. But it seemed she didn't take it the way it was meant to be, for her face paled.
Anyone she healed…she could hurt.