The [Mage] with no affinity

(It's been just over 4 months since mom died now… All of this still doesn't feel real.)

As those words passed through Tom's head, another sharp kick landed in his stomach, but for some reason it didn't hurt nearly as much as the ones which had followed before.

"Are you listening to me, maggot!? This is the Laurence mage academy, such a prestigious place isn't for you!"

As a fellow student continued to kick Tom right outside the male dormitory, he was entirely ignored by other students who just went on with their day as if this style of public beating was normal. As the evening rays starkly drew shadows and blinding sunlight formed by the nearby school buildings, the mostly ineffective beating seemed to continue on forever, luckily Tom knew that if he wouldn't give a reaction the other students would tire of it soon enough.

Born to a sickly mother with no father in the picture, it wasn't long before Tom became mostly independent as he would work most of the day to put food on the table and then take care of his mother whenever he had any free time. Most of Tom's childhood, his mother was in pretty good shape, but as he neared adulthood the preexisting condition she had always battled with started to win, and she was forced to quit her job as a barmaid at the local pub, a job which Tom immediately took over, even as his mother initially protested it. Working in a bar as a teenager surrounded by alcohol and adventures with a very short temper was tough at first, but Tom quickly adjusted and eventually settled into many different roles at the pub, as a result, he had gained numerous different [skills].

A [skill] was something the gods bestowed on those who put in the effort and ranged all the way from hand to hand techniques to housework and cooking, and it was the latter Tom quickly earned and improved working at the local pub. Starting from level 1, the highest a [skill] could reach was level 10, with level 3 being the average of a person who worked in a single profession for 10 years and anything over level 8 being mostly left to heroes and the stuff of myth. Of course, the amount of effort one put into training a [skill] wasn't the sole factor for improvement, it was also a question of aptitude. A person who the gods have decided should be a bowman can spend years training swordsmanship without seeing any improvement, but conversely, if they pick up a bow they would see rapid improvement.

The word 'aptitude' was something Tom had heard so many times he was sick of it to the core already, in fact, the very mention of it was almost enough to make him vomit. They say every person is blessed by the gods with some sort of aptitude they excel at, but being stuck at a mage academy for the past 3 months Tom had realized that he definitely wasn't suited to be a mage, yet he wasn't allowed to quit.

"A maggot like you should just stay as such! You have no place here, fucktard!"

In addition to [skills], the gods also bless each and every person with [stats], these defining traits such as dexterity, strength, agility and vitality was something mostly decided by one's body, the more you trained or worked out, the more these [stats] would increase. In addition to normal [stats] which were dependant on one's race, physical and mental capabilities, there were some [stats] which were fixed, no matter how much effort one put into raising or lowering them, such as luck, but the most important one to a [mage] was the single who stood somewhere in between the inflexible and vague luck [stat] and the ones based on one's effort like strength and intelligence, that value was mana.

Determined by bloodline it was possible to increase one's mana, but a person born to a family with no mages would find it extremely hard to raise it more than a marginal amount over their entire lifespan, therefore those who practised magic would marry and have children with other practitioners of magic, and over a long time, the amount of mana in these mage families would reach a level no normal person could ever compete with.

This was the reason for Tom's continued torment, at the mage academy.

"Hey! Are you even listening to me!? The great me is taking this time and effort to teach you something important, so you better listen to me maggot!"

As the group of students around him continued to kick him, the leader of the group who had shouted abuse at Tom for some time eventually started getting tired of his lack of response, in fact, Tom wouldn't even cry out in pain when he was getting kicked anymore, this irritated the bully greatly but eventually, he simply tired of the lack of a response from his victim.

"That's right maggot, if you just behave and keep in the dirt like this then the great me won't have to continue lecturing you like this!"

Getting one more good kick in, the bully stopped paying attention to Tom and turned to his entourage.

"This piece of shit is boring me, let's get out of here."

As the group of students left Tom didn't move for some time, rather he just continued lying face down in the dirt.

"Status."

Uttering the single word incantation which was proof of the gods blessing, a set of text and numbers appeared inside Tom's head.

Tom Laplace

Race: Human

Age: 19

Vitality: 57/150

Strength: 40/55

Dexterity: 32/122

Agility: 30/50

Intelligence: 127/127

Luck: 18

Mana: 25.400/25.400

This was the core of Tom's suffering, every time he looked at his status he prayed that that last [stat] would disappear, that way he wouldn't have to endure this amount of pain on a daily basis. The average ability of a 20 year old human male was about 100, with luck about 10, so in some area's Tom was above average. Having endured the harsh working environment of a pub filled with sometimes mentally unstable adventures, his vitality was 1 and a half times that of a normal person, while his time in the kitchen had strengthened his dexterity and memorizing meal and drink orders and the normal education he was receiving at the mage academy was starting to improve his intelligence.

"... It's still the same shitty value as always."

Tom's problem was his mana. With absurdly high mana of over 25000 he was far from normal, in fact, he had neared the level of a court mage without even putting in any effort to improve it. The amount of mana a person had could be improved like a muscle, by emptying one's mana on a near daily basis it not only would start regenerating faster, but the maximum value would also slowly start to improve, to a point anyway. With such an absurd amount of mana, Tom would normally be considered a prodigy without peer, if not for one single but glaring issue.

Looking further down his status, Tom reached the section where his [skills] where displayed.

[Cooking 4/10] [Housework 4/10] [Memorization 2/10] [Pain resistance 2/10] [etiquette 1/10]

Tom couldn't complain about these [skill]'s, in fact reaching level 4 in cooking and housework at his age was a feat which demanded respect, but it was the last bit of text at the very bottom which he had a serious problem with.

Magic affinity:

Although Tom dearly wished this was some sort of mistake born out of his own limitations to read his [status], this wasn't the case, Tom had no magic affinity. A [mage] with no magic affinity was like a swordsman with no sword, no, it was way worse than that.

A mage without something as basic and essential as a magic affinity was like a fish with no gills, a wyvern without wings, a gourmet without a sense of taste and smell. If mana was the power which enabled magic, then a person's affinity was the only way to manifest such power.

With 25400 mana and no magic affinity, Tom was like an ornamental sword made out of soft metal, although he looked like a [mage] in function, in reality, he was worthless.

(At least my pain resistance went up a level, thanks to that I hardly felt the last of that guy's kicks…)

Finally having summoned the willpower to pick himself up from the ground, Tom rose to his feet and lightly dusted off his once white blazer before heading to his dorm room.

On the way there most other people simply ignored Tom, while others simply viewed him with outright disdain, but at least this was way better than the treatment he had just gotten. Entering the lone 2 person room which he was the only student assigned to, Tom stripped off his blazer and hung it up on a coat hanger before taking off his brown leather shoes and leaving them by the door side. Normally all students of the mage academy would live in 2 person dorm rooms with a roommate, having a room to oneself was a luxury, but the reason Tom had his room for himself was anything but that. When he started at the academy he had gotten relatively well of with his then-roommate, but about a week into classes the fact that Tom had no magic affinity had been leaked to the entire academy, and his roommate promptly used his personal wealth and connections to get a new room for himself on the grounds of not wanting to 'be affected by whatever curse Tom was clearly affected by'.

"No good, I can't afford to get depressed by this!"

Perhaps to cheer himself up, or at least distract himself from his current hopeless situation, Tom slapped himself a few times to get his mind straight.

"Ah…"

The first thing he focused on after getting his head back in the game was his uniform, the formerly white blazer was now anything but white after getting kicked and thrown around in the dirt. He would need to clean that before he started classes again tomorrow, but after looking at his own hands, Tom realized he needed to clean himself up before he could clean anything else.

Luckily each dorm room came with a toilet and shower combo, so Tom quickly entered and cleaned up his hands and face before taking a look in the mirror. Although he had a large bruise on his cheek from the earlier encounter with the bullies, Tom's steadfast blue eyes nevertheless shone clearly and contrasted his dark skin and the almost pure white, silver coloured hair he had inherited from his late mother.

(Let's get to it.)

Changing out of the rest of his dirty uniform, Tom put on a casual set of pants and a white shirt before grabbing his uniform and some soap before leaving his dorm. His destination was a small plaza behind the dorm building, in the centre of it were a well and a washing board that the wealthy student's servants normally used to clean their master's clothes. As Tom had the place to himself for the time being he quickly got to work, showing the effect of his level 4 [housework], Tom easily got rid of all the dirt and small bloodstains, returning his blazer to its former glory in just a few minutes. On the way back to his room Tom passed a maid he felt like had been observing him for the last few weeks, the maid in question always wore a long black dress with a hefty white apron on top and short curled black hair, although she never seemed to speak, her pair of gem like green eyes always seemed to want to say something to Tom. But as they passed each other, the maid did nothing other than offering a slight bow before she went on with her evening.

By the time Tom had stitched up his uniform and made sure it was entirely spotless, the sun had long since set, normally this is when Tom would go to sleep in preparation for his classes early next morning he had still yet to revise the day's lectures, so it would be long into the night before rest finally found him.