Affinity Adaptation

For the next three months, Every day after school, the boys would come home to practice using their affinities, where they quickly learned just how big of freaks they indeed were in their parent's eyes. Affinity training which was a process that took years and years was quickly shattered by the seemingly two in a lifetime geniuses named Brance and Cynrik.

They both quickly broke record after record in their parent's books with their manipulation and formation of their elements, and within two weeks, they were both showing the appearance of someone who had trained for eight-nine months. By the end of the second month, they couldn't believe how quickly the boys were learning. If they had to guess, they were showing the talent of someone who had trained for a year or two with their element, and now at the end of the 3rd month, they felt at a loss for what to teach their children.

The main reason wasn't that they lacked the knowledge but instead that the boys were now at a point where they couldn't learn anything else due to their physical limits. One must remember that Brance is only five years old, going on six, and Cynrik is only seven at the end of the day. In addition, the amount of Mana they can generate is on the low end of the spectrum, limiting them to only using Tier 0 skills or abilities. So the only advice they could give the two was to keep practicing and develop unique ways to utilize their Affinities.

Once they grew, Cinyah and Rikard would continue their training, but for now, the only thing they could advise their children was to gain more experience and get naturally used to using their powers.

During the day, they would train under their doting parents' supervision, and at night, the boys would step into uncharted territory and start shaping their other Affinities.

In the span of the last three months, Cynrik hadn't advanced much, but unlike his older brother, Brance had gone through many changes. Under the supervision of his insane brother Brance had gone through the exact hell Cynrik had and now had his third Affinity, the Basic Grade Earth Element.

Going through the same brutal process that had scared the hell out of him when watching Cynrik go through it, Brance advanced quickly. The Earth Orb had boosted his Vitality by 20 and Strength by 5, and his Codex and Circuits were raised to Tier 1, bringing his stats closer to Cynriks.

    : Level: 5 :

    : Essence(XP): 1500/25000:

    : Distribution: 1 Per All :

    : Mana Codex Tier: 1 (Proficiency= 13.0%) :

    : Mana Cycles: 230 (Proficiency= 13.0%) :

    : Mana Circuit Tier: 1 (Proficiency= 13.0%) :

     : STATS :

    : HP 310/310 :

    : Mana 125/125 :

    : Stamina 155/155 :

    : Stat Points- 48 :

    : Skill Points- 10 :

    : Strength- 15 :

    : Dexterity- 10 :

    : Agility- 21 :

    : Intelligence- 10 :

    : Vitality- 31 :

    : Mind- 20 :

     : Affinity- :

    :(SAG)Light-Tier 0 (Profiency= 0.0%):

    :(BG) Wind-Tier 0 (Profiency= 18.0%):

    :(BG) Earth-Tier 1 (Profiency= 10.0%):

While Brance sat there admiring his Stat display, Cynrik was casually snapping his fingers and conjuring a small fireball over the tip of his index finger, putting it out and then snapping it back into existence.

He had spent the last three months extensively completing experiment after experiment without telling Brance what exactly he was trying to achieve. In his eyes, it appeared that Cynrik had finally lost what remained of his sanity and had become a full-blown pyromaniac. He would just sit in one place for hours, repeatedly snapping fireballs off and on while staring at it, mesmerized.

Night after night, like an addict, he would position himself on his bed and keep snapping away until finally, after three months, Brance snapped. {WHY THE HELL DO YOU KEEP DOING THAT?} Brance's exasperated voice pulled Cynrik out of his daze.

{Hm?} Cynrik looked up from his hand and directly at Brance, who was sitting on his bed and giving him a look of annoyance.

{The snapping. Why do you keep doing it? What purpose could it possibly serve?}

Tilting his head to the side, Cynrik swiped his hand out and snapped his fingers again instead of answering the question. But, this time, instead of Fire, a tiny spark of electricity shot towards the floor in front of Brance, making him roll off the bed and take a defensive stance against his brother.

{What the hell, asshole? Wait...was that lightning?} His rage instantly quelled as he realized it wasn't a fireball that had been flung at him but instead a thin spark of electricity.

Wearing a creepy smile, Cynrik crossed his arms over his chest and snapped the fingers on both hands, simultaneously creating a spark of lighting that zipped around his right and a ball of Fire that danced above his left.

A short second later, both disappeared, and Cynrik dropped his arms and finally responded {For the last couple of months, I've been analyzing exactly how elements manifest. After several experiments and fundamental scientific theories, I proved that Lightning is the advanced state of Fire. So while I haven't obtained the Affinity, I'm still able to manifest small bits of electricity. Since Fire advances to Lightning, the process of creation isn't that different. I am channeling Mana from my Codex to the part of my body I want it to appear and forcing it into the open. The main difference is the cost; while a small fireball only takes one point of Mana to conjure and one point to maintain, a tiny spark takes five to manifest and then drains three per second to keep around.}

His words were stunned Brance, whose mouth dropped open in shock as his brother continued his explanation.

{Essentially, what it comes down to is the compatibility of the elements. Since lightning comes from the same Skill Tree as Fire, their mana type shares many similarities. In contrast, your Wind and Earth are entirely different. For example, let's say you had an Ice Affinity. Ice is a subset of Water, just like Lightning is a subset of Fire; if you had it, you most likely would have been able to generate small chunks of Ice, much like I do with Lightning.} Pushing off the wall and standing up, Cynrik walked to the center of the room and brought up his left hand.

{When using Fire, it gives off the feeling of destruction,} as he spoke, he lightly waved his left hand and snapped at the same time, generating another fireball. {To manipulate it, I have to activate my Codex with the mentality that I can destroy anything with my flames. As I'm sure Dads taught you, we need to attach meaning to our Affinity to manifest it.} Not skipping a beat, Cynrik snapped the index and thumb of his right hand. This motion generated a tiny bolt of lightning that crackled into existence. It moved around his hand like a small snake, weaving in between each of his fingers before resting above his palm.

{In that same regard, since I have the mentality of destroying with my flames if I just replace the meaning of the flames in my mind with lightning, well…} he waved his hand, and the bolt followed, {you get the rest.}

Cynrik's theory seemed simple enough, but to just replace a feeling strong enough to manifest an Element into existence was much more complicated than he was letting on. The main reason it wasn't an impossible task for Cynrik had to do with his mentality and lack of emotional understanding. To Cynrik, feelings were just words, so he could easily copy and paste other words into place. At the same time, someone like Brance, who had a moral compass and conscience, would have difficulty achieving this.

This wasn't to say that Cynrik was an emotionless sociopath. However, while he could feel and experience emotion, the majority of them were severely desensitized. In his previous life, he had a tough time relating to people and fitting in; this came from their Father's raising them to believe that certain emotions were useless.

While Brance was able to adapt, Cynrik wasn't. So as a coping mechanism, he had to attach meaning to emotions and had opted to use words and memories of how other people reacted when they felt these emotions.

This coping mechanism had led Cynrik to make advancements that in reality should have taken years to achieve.

Blinking several times he observed as the bolt of lightning danced around his brother's arm. In the end, Brance just shook his head and accepted that it would be difficult for him to pseudo-manifest the advanced form of his elements. Then, with a sigh, he did the only thing in response he could at the moment. He slashed out towards Cynriks legs with a Wind Strike which made contact with the area behind his knees and swept his brother off his feet, causing Cynrik to collapse on the ground in a heap.

{Show off.} Brance scoffed and went back to working on manipulating his Wind.