A/N: Massive info-dump incoming.
September 8th, 342 CE
Aryn woke up and stretched his body immediately. If he wanted to start training it anytime soon, he would need to fix some of the damage it had accrued by being so still for eight years.
It was now a few days after he had woken up and he was finally caught up on the events that took place during his coma, as well as his parents' plans for him and his future.
His father would start teaching him about magic personally today, it seemed he rightfully didn't trust Aryn not to kill himself if left unattended anymore. It didn't feel good to know he wouldn't be able to read any books alone in his room anymore, but he understood that he brought this on himself.
'Alright, breakfast time!' Aryn finished his morning stretches and sauntered out of his room.
Having already come to peace with all the lost time he could've spent practicing his mana manipulation, Aryn started looking forward to the future.
In the dining room, Maros sat on one end of the table with his wife to his right, while his grandfather sat across from him in the seat of honor. The seat to his left was for Aryn.
As he took a seat at the dining table and was presented with sausage, cheese, and eggs, his outlook on the day improved further. He took a bite and turned his head up to look at his parents.
"Dad, when are we going to start?" He asked his dad with unhidden eagerness.
Maros swallowed a bite of sausage and replied with exasperation, "Shouldn't you be at least a little put off by the near-death experience, Aryn?"
Aryn didn't reply to the non-answer and simply stared a hole in his face.
*Sigh*
"Come to my office after breakfast." Maros said in defeat as his son's face split with a smile.
"Mom?" Aryn didn't elaborate on what he was asking. They had talked about it in the past few days whenever the topic of his weak body was brought up.
"Give your body the time it needs to adjust. It needs at least another month of proper mobility exercises before you start putting it though the wringer." Her face was stern and her voice firm.
"Fine..." Aryn pouted and continued scarfing down Dunn's cooking. It seemed he wouldn't be training with his mom for a while.
Everyone ate in silence for awhile before Elder Aryn finished his plate and spoke up as he set it aside. "I'll be heading back to Merris tomorrow morning. The Clan Head is throwing a hissy fit because I didn't let him know I left."
Aryn looked at his great-grandfather to his left, wondering what this was about a clan. Was he a part of a clan and he just didn't know?
"It was only a matter of time. I'm surprised it took them this long to realize you left." Maros nodded.
"Nah, they figured it out a couple years ago. I just ignored their letters." Aryn watched as his dad's face fell and Elder Aryn wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his robe, ignoring the cloth on the table just in front of him.
"Oh..." Maros let out as Emilia failed to hide a snicker and turned her head away from her husband.
"Dad, what are you two talking about?" Aryn asked. His father hadn't talked about a clan before.
It was Elder Aryn that answered in his grandson's stead. "We are a part of Clan Mayer. It's a clan of mostly mages and warriors formed way back in the Imperial Era. Clan Mayer owns pretty much all of Ellith nowadays."
'I really should've read a history book before I shattered my Conduit...' Aryn only knew that Ellith was one of the major cities in Merris, and that the Imperial Era was a long time ago.
"You don't need to worry about that for a few more years yet, Aryn. Your coming of age won't be until you're fifteen. That'll be when we need to go take a trip to uphold some old family traditions." His dad cut in as he was processing the information.
Aryn only nodded and returned to his food. He was more concerned with his upcoming magic lessons at the moment than some traditions he won't be apart of anytime soon.
***
In Maros' office, Aryn was patiently waiting on a chair in front of his father's desk while Maros fished around in his desk for a pen and paper. He placed them on the desk and looked at his son.
"Now, let's start with the classifications of mages and warriors. What do you know?" Maros asked as he wrote on the paper.
"I know that you start as an Apprentice Mage when you crystalize a Conduit. Then when you saturate it, you become a Mage. I don't know how you advance from there, but I know High Mage comes after that, then Archmage."
"Mostly right," Maros nodded. "But you don't become a Mage when you saturate your Conduit. You also need to choose a trait once it's saturated. I chose water for example."
Aryn thought for a moment before answering. "What do you mean exactly when you say trait? I thought Mages used elements?"
"It's just different terminology to make it easier to understand. Back when people first started reaching the rank of Mage, they only meditated on the basic elements as that was all they thought they were capable of doing."
Aryn leaned forward and his eyes lit up like stars, he was barely on the seat anymore.
"However, they soon got more ambitious and attempted to attune their Conduits to more abstract things like life or the trait of piercing. However, the difficulty of reaching High Mage and the combat effectiveness of a mage's chosen trait can greatly vary." Maros patiently explained.
Aryn's smile widened as he realized what his great-grandfather had meant when he told him to pick something interesting. Limitless options flashed through his mind as he wondered what he would end up choosing.
'Maybe something with high combat power like destruction? Or high utility like control?' Aryn liked the sound of those.
"Then how do you become a High Mage? And an Archmage too?"
"To become a High Mage you have to reach a high enough understanding of your trait, completely attune your mana to it, and begin attuning your soul to it as well." Maros finally finished writing on the piece of paper and turned it around on his desk for Aryn to see.
On it there was written a checklist of sorts on what one needed to achieve to reach each stage not only for a mage, but also for a warrior. With the visual aid of the paper, Maros continued his explanation to his son.
"After that, it can get a bit complicated. A High Mage will first fully attune their soul to their trait, then they will have a choice... I'll try my best to explain, but keep in mind I'm not entirely sure of the specifics of this next part either." Aryn nodded in understanding.
"To become an Archmage, a High Mage will have to create a 'Concept' using their trait. For example a Mage that attunes to fire could become an Archmage with the Concept of something like incineration or explosiveness." His dad paused again to ensure he was following along.
Satisfied he was paying attention, Maros continued again. "Alternatively, a High Mage with a soul fully attuned to their trait can choose to form another Conduit and start along the path of a second trait."
Aryn thought for a moment on the implications of such a choice.
"Then what if they want to become an Archmage after fully attuning their soul with two or more traits?" Aryn considered.
"They would have to form a Concept that encompasses both."
"So if they attuned their soul to both fire and water they would have to form a Concept like steam for example?"
"Exactly." His father nodded, satisfied with his son's understanding.
"What if they don't?" He asked.
"Their soul would would destabilize and detonate, killing them and anything else in a massive radius around them." Aryn's father stressed the severity of the destruction he was describing.
'I'll have to choose carefully then. I don't want to screw myself over later or die of old age after fully attuning my soul just because I attuned to too many things to form a Concept.'
At that thought, his great-grandfather's casual figure appeared in his mind. The man looked no more than 30, yet Aryn was sure he was in his hundreds at least. It reminded him that he still hadn't asked a very important question.
"How long do Mages live?"
His dad scratched at his beard for a moment before answering.
"On average an Apprentice Mage will live about as long as the average person, a Mage will live to be somewhere around 200, a High Mage will live about 350 years for every trait they've attuned their souls to, and an Archmage's lifespan depends entirely on the concept they form."
Maros let the words sink in for a while before pointing to the other half of the piece of paper, where only the names of the four levels of a warrior were written.
"Warriors are much simpler. If you have killed something on the level of an Apprentice Mage — otherwise referred to as a 'class two being' — in melee combat, then you are called an Aspirant."
"Class two being?" Aryn cut in, but Maros held up to let him finish.
"Next would be a Warrior. Following the same trend, you would need to kill something on the level of a Mage — a class three being. Followed by a Great Warrior — class four or a High Mage level being. And finally, a Grand Warrior would need to have killed an Archmage level being."
"So an Archmage would be a class six being then?" Aryn had caught on.
"Yes. There is also a class zero being — which would be stuff like insects and the like — and a class one being. Class one would include humans as well as any animals not enhanced by ambient mana." Maros took a breath after the long-winded lesson.
"Would dragons be class six then?" Aryn guessed.
"No, actually. They are the only things considered class seven." He leaned back in his chair behind his desk and stretched out his arms. "That's it for today. You should go work on saturating your weird Mage Heart-Conduit."
"I call it a Crystal Heart." Aryn slid out of the chair and made his way to the door while his father gave a nod to his comment, clearly tired from all the speaking.
***
Now in his room, Aryn thought of how he could achieve what his dad had suggested. Because his Crystal Heart acted as both a Mage Heart and a Conduit at the same time, he couldn't saturate it as he could a normal Conduit.
'I guess I'll just try to stuff it full until it absorbs the excess?'
And so he gave it a shot. He pulled in the ambient mana in his range, which had been reduced to 15 meters after he Shattered his original conduit.
When he pushed the ambient mana past the outer layer of his heart, it was changed into the more manageable form that rested in its chambers.
As the special mana flowing into his heart's chambers exceeded the amount it pumped through his body, it overflowed into the crystalline walls that surrounded it.
'Good. I don't want to know how long it would take to saturate my Crystal Heart if I had to let it happen naturally.'
The rest of the day, bar daily necessities like eating or using the bathroom was spent focusing on saturating his Crystal Heart and pondering on the choice of a trait to attune to.
When it came time to sleep for the night, Aryn was ecstatic to find that in only one day of practice, he had increased the range of his senses by one entire meter. Considering it took longer to increase the higher your range, this was far more than he had expected.
He wasn't certain if this was because of his Crystal Heart, his experience with previously having a higher range, the altered mana producing a better effect than its ambient counterpart, or a combination of these three. It could even be something else entirely.
Regardless, he was excited to continue practicing tomorrow too.
Quickly doing some stretches before hopping in bed, Aryn closed his eyes and dreamed of slaying a dragon with the use of all sorts of traits.