The room turned a dark gray-green.
"Oh, incredible!"
Seeing Maya impressed, I felt a little pride in having a rare element!
"You have no elemental affinity!"
"… Why are you excited then? I thought I had a rare talent, but in the end, I'm really useless!"
I felt like crying; I must be an extremely bad magician with no talent. No, can I even become a magician? Maybe Maya saw my disappointment, but she comforted me.
"You don't have to be disappointed, Mina. For other categories of magicians, it might be a small problem, but for maskomancers, and even craftomancers in general, it can even be a good thing."
"Why?"
"Because you can have countless masks of all types! Having no affinity allows you to have masks with multiple elements or, conversely, unique-type masks to handle all kinds of situations!"
"For me, as a craftomancer, having no element is the best element!"
Hearing this made me feel a bit better. With a sigh of relief, I asked what to do next.
"So how can I make a heart without an element?"
"Don't worry; I've had ten years to find the best heart without an element."
Maya explained that to create a non-elemental heart, there are several ways that essentially boil down to one method: merging elements into one. There are six primary elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, Gold, and Wind. By merging these elements into one, a heart can become a non-elemental heart, but the heart can be powerful or weak. The more elements there are, the stronger the heart, but the more elements added, the harder it is.
"But don't worry! I've read a ton of scrolls and books on all possible hearts, and for all of them, I've created a perfect heart."
"For your heart, you need to have all six elements at the same level: 14.29%. Once that's done, you must merge all six elements into one, which will yield a fusion to become a non-elemental."
"The six elements must be at 2.39% for the seventh to be created."
I was taken aback; who would have thought math would be so important here? Sure, to be a good game programmer, I had to learn at least a bit of math, but this… Luckily, I didn't have to do the calculations myself; I just needed to follow the instructions!
I read the scroll for this non-elemental heart that Maya created. After understanding how it worked, I positioned myself in a meditation pose. Legs crossed, hands forming an O, eyes closed, I tried to feel the mana, with Maya helping me understand how to do it. Once I sensed it, I began to do as the scroll instructed, with Maya assisting me at every step in case I made a mistake.
It took us a lot of time; I had to restart several times if the exact percentage wasn't reached or if the elemental rune was created incorrectly. I must say Maya's help was invaluable; without her, maybe even if I had succeeded, my non-elemental heart wouldn't have been as perfect.
[Congratulations! You have created a superior non-elemental heart! You gain 1000 star points for this superior personal achievement!]
My eyes lit up! The star points allow me to do quite a few things. The first is to increase my unique skill level. The second lets me buy skills from the list, and the last lets me purchase stat points! It's up to the traveler to spend the points among the three choices.
I looked online with my phone, and returning travelers ranked their priorities as follows: Unique skill, stats, and skills. The unique skill allows you to increase your power, which will be central to your improvement, and being unique allows you to do things others can't. Stats, well, increase your body's power. Attack increases your physical strength while giving 1% of your total stats in attack with weapons. Defense allows you to enhance endurance and recovery, providing 1% of your total stats in defense from your armor. Mental power increases your defense, attack, and everything related to magic, the supernatural, etc. Finally, agility boosts your speed, vision, and reflexes. Everyone starts at a point of stats.
As for skills, they are for your personal choices. Do you take something that complements your unique skill? Or one that passively boosts your stats? Or simply an attack skill? In short, it's up to the traveler to enhance whatever they feel is right. As for me? Well, with characters I can send to other worlds, I can easily boost everything! And the more characters I have, the faster I'll accumulate points! For now, I only know that my unique skill and stats are added to my characters, but not my skills; I don't mind; I'll see when the time comes, especially since I already have an idea for the first skill I'm going to buy.
Returning to the 1000 points I earned, I'll deposit them directly into my stat, mental power (MP). Why? Simple, my unique skill seems to be related to that. How do I know? My damn headache! I struggle to move my real body when controlling Mina with my thoughts, and conversely, when I move my real body, I can hardly move Mina! So without further ado—
[You spend 1000 star points to increase your stat: Mental Power +1. Mental Power: 2]
At that moment, my headache seemed more bearable. It seems I was right! Additionally, Mina's magic will now be stronger; after all, Mina receives 50% of my stats. I opened Mina's panel.
[Character: Mina,
Unique Talent: {I love masks},
Unique Skill: Persona: The character gains 50% of the stats from your main body.
Skill: Superior non-elemental heart: Your magic power increases by 20%.]
Not bad for a start. With enthusiasm, I got up from my meditation position, ran to Maya, picked her up in my arms, spun around with her several times, before giving her a kiss on the cheek!
"I did it! It's all thanks to you, Maya!"
As I calmed down, I realized what I had done, and my face turned a bit red. And it wasn't just mine; Maya's face was a little red too.
"Sorry, I got a bit too excited."
"No, no, it's fine. In fact… I kind of liked it."
We looked at each other, our faces flushed, the ambiguous tension in the air; we moved closer to share a gentle kiss before separating, looking shyly in different directions.