"Welcome bac—" The hell you mean welcome back!? You left me alone to deal with the chapter from two weeks ago!
"Sorry, I had other obligations that needed to be fulfilled, thus I couldn't attend the last chapter."
Ugh, whatever. So, how did it go?
"I did my job as usual, nothing messy occurred."
Oh, I doubt that. Whoever broke their vow probably got their head caved in.
"Come on, I'm never usually that violent. I'm very clean with my punishments."
Uh huh, sure. Whatever. Let's just move on and get to the last two Affinities.
The Librarian clasped his hands, nodding slightly as he said, "Yes, let's. Speaking of which, you did a decent job of explaining the Affinities last chapter."
Yeah, thanks. It took a lot out of me. Anyway—
With a snap of his fingers, a couple dozen rocks lifted off the ground, slowly floating around him. "I've already given you all a demonstration of what gravity magic can do," he said. He pointed at a practice dummy, and the rocks shot forward like bullets, tearing the wooden target to pieces in an instant.
"The thing is," he continued, his voice dropping into that familiar teaching tone, "gravity and time operate on different rules compared to the other Affinities. Unlike the others, they don't have a range of abilities. They really only have one."
As he spoke, he snapped his fingers again. The broken shards of the dummy began to float upwards, suspended in midair as though held together by invisible strings. Slowly, the pieces reassembled, fitting perfectly back into the shape of the dummy, all held together by nothing more than the force of gravity. The Librarian watched his work with a satisfied grin. "And that ability for gravity magic," he said, not breaking his gaze from the floating figure, "is, of course, the control and manipulation of gravitational forces."
He flexed his fingers slightly, as if testing the weight of the air. "So, with low to high Affinity, the only thing that really changes is the amount of gravity you can control. In other words, how much pressure you can exert on an object or being—or take away."
With a final gesture, the newly restored dummy dropped back to the ground with a soft thud. "At low levels, well, you already saw what Kaden can do, right? That's about it. But," he added with a slight shrug, "it's still a very useful Affinity, no matter how low your Affinity level is."
"Now!" The Librarian clasped his hands once again. "Let's move on to time. If you're surprised by how short the explanation was for gravity, well, sorry, there's not much else to it. Gravity magic is as good as you are smart," he said with a smirk.
So a black hole should be possible, right?
"Yes, with enough pressure. Now, Time magic... as I mentioned earlier, this Affinity, like gravity, has only one real ability, that being the control and manipulation of the flow of time."
He bent down, picked up a stone, and casually tossed it into the air. As it reached about eye height, he raised his hand, palm out, and the stone froze mid-air, stuck in time.
"Pretty nifty, eh?" He examined the stone, slowly circling it. "As The Narrator said, this rock is now stuck in time, unable to move until I let it or until I run out of mana. Let me tell you, though, this drains mana incredibly quickly, even for me. I could fire off nukes with the fire Affinity for days on end, but this? Freezing something so small? I could maybe keep it up for a day at most," he chuckled, still eyeing the suspended rock.
"So, with low Affinity for time magic, this wouldn't be frozen solid in time. It would only slow down the flow by about 25%. At medium Affinity, about 75%. But don't think you can only slow or freeze individual objects or beings. Oh no, no, no. If I wanted to, I could freeze everything—though only for a very short time, of course. It's much easier to stop time on a planetary scale, or even within a solar system or galaxy, rather than trying to freeze the entire fabric of reality. But, in theory, you could."
He snapped his fingers, and the stone immediately dropped to the ground with a dull thud. "However, objects or beings affected by time magic retain all their momentum, velocity... and heat. Someone found that out the hard way," he said with a sly grin.
You know, I've noticed something about these Affinities that I feel like you should talk about.
"More perceptive than I thought."
I-I'll take that as a compliment...
"Ha. Anyway, what The Narrator is getting at is how these Affinities, despite their raw power, can be... well, less effective against really strong opponents."
Yeah, knowing what I know It feels like they get completely shafted when facing higher-tier threats, unlike literally every other Affinities or magics.
"I'll give you an example. Let's say you have high enough time magic to stop time for 30 minutes. If you're up against a group of twenty or thirty soldiers, it's an easy win. Just stop time, go around slitting their throats and your done. But if you're facing something like a dragon, well..." He paused, raising an eyebrow for emphasis. "Unless you have a dragon-slaying weapon or enough physical strength to damage it, you're not winning that fight. You could run away, sure, but victory? Unlikely."
Same thing with gravity magic, right?
"Exactly. A lot of powerful beings can just hover or float sometimes using telekinesis, making gravity manipulation pretty ineffective. You can throw objects at them using gravity magic, but that won't help much if they can throw it back at you, dodge, or worse, snap your neck with the aforementioned telekinesis. So, while both time and gravity are immensely powerful in the right context, they're outright useless against someone who's just... too strong." He shrugged, as if to say, That's just how it is.
"Anyway, we've finally finished explaining all the Affinities! Next time, more magic! For now, goodbye and happy learning!"