Chapter 38

[||||=LEVEL 38= ||||]

"What the hell do I even do?" I muttered. "I have my parallels training all the time since them doing nothing is counterproductive but Roman's having an outing with Raven and a friend of his, Weiss is still annoyed with me for some reason, Blake and Bella are on a trip with Ocean, Kerrigan is doing family stuff, Cesium is busy with a friend of his… who else? Poledina's teaching Penny speech and working on his things, which I have no interest in… Oh, and I've spent enough time with Ruby as is."

I was bored. Everyone was out doing something I didn't care to intrude in or didn't want to. I have a surprisingly large social circle actually for not being very outgoing. Sure Roman and Poledina are technically employees but I do visit Poledina from time to time and so does Ruby. Roman isn't too much of a prick since he has a healthy fear for me as Abyss or Mystic.

I could go see how the factories are coming. Jacques conceded a fair number of faunus rights to his workers and pulled off a legitimate audit of his company for abuses of authority and racism with Sienna making sure he doesn't cut corners. How Roman pulled that off I don't know. I wasn't paying attention. Probably a backroom deal.

In exchange for the audit we conceded for the factories for processing to be built in Atlas so that they're under the SDC's tax reductions by the kingdom however the crops themselves are going to grow on Patch primarily with secondary plantations on menagerie.

Nobody ever considered the shitty tropical islands to be worth anything since there's no dust deposits but the fire root will grow fantastically there since it's so hot and the water fruit grows fine in the saltwater and menagerie happens to have several still bodies of saltwater to grow the things. The water fruit is also growing in patch too and the light bulbs (damn it Yang) are only growing on patch because they need decent soil and the tropical storms in menagerie would ruin them.

The light bulbs are a little fragile as far as trees go. They have somewhat big leaves to collect sunlight and with intense wind they might get ripped off. The SDC doesn't get an in on those crops since they don't need processing. We can just attack a cable to the trees and siphon off power. Stretching a line of power across the strait to Vale is easy enough for us and there's even been talk of winding a cable down the coast to Vacuo through some villages.

The SDC with their side of the deal does the shipping and builds and maintains the factories while nature's bounty grows the crops and sells the actual products although the SDC gets a cut of the profits.

That's the basics of it anyways. There's a whole lot of legal fine print and such. Roman hired some of the best lawyers in the kingdoms so I'm not very worried. Jacques probably won't pull one over me. I got a very strongly worded letter and what could be called a threat for my invitation to Sienna but it's not too worrying. The white fang conceded that they won't attack the SDC factories associated with nature's bounty anyways.

Everyone profited off of the conference from the SDC to the fang. It was extremely successful. I was worried that a lot of useless people would be invited to make them feel important but that wasn't the case.

But with the SDC making the factories and all the skilled experienced workers Roman's cultivated building the new plantations I have nothing to do.

Considering that I was bored I grabbed my scroll and flipped through my contacts to call Qrow. His girlfriend's on another trip and we don't talk much. He's a lot closer to Ruby and Yang than me so I think it's a family thing. Bella also takes up a lot of his time. She likes the attention from him, which probably ties into her semblance making people not notice her.

I also personally think Qrow likes girls more than boys. Raven mentioned once that Qrow wasn't well liked around the tribe since he was so unlucky and when they figured out it was his semblance things didn't get much better. The same goes for Beacon where Taiyang was his only guy friend.

Either way we aren't too close as friends or family.

Wait a second… Yang. She's not busy, right?

Flipping away from Qrow I tapped her picture and waited for the call to connect. It barely took a second.

"Abyss! What's up?"

"I'm bored. Are you busy?"

"Nope! All my friends are on trips or something and Char moved to Mistral and transferred to sanctum."

"Wasn't Char your last boyfriend?" I remembered a guy with dark hair that got lighter as it neared the tips to a dark grey and a face that made me want to punch him and the attitude to go with it. Yang thought it was endearing and he treated her alright apparently.

"Yup. You remember him? I don't think you met him."

"Don't worry about it." Ocean sure could be creepy sometimes. Under the bed? Seriously? Weirdo. "Want to hang out?"

"Hell yeah! Wanna ride bumblebee?"

"I don't have a license for a motorbike. Only an airship. Isn't your bike unfinished?"

"I got the last piece delivered two months-wait you can fly airships?"

"I learned last summer."

"Do you HAVE and airship?"

"Of course I do. I do maintenance on it and everything. Ruby knows how to do emergency repairs and fly it too."

"Can we fly?" Yang sounded like a puppy dog that saw a new toy.

"Fine."

"YES!" I pulled my scroll away from my ears at the volume of Yang's voice. She noticed from the video and looked at least a little embarrassed.

"Yang pipe down!" I faintly heard Taiyang yell in the background.

"Okay dad! Sorry!" Yang turned back towards the scroll again, still grinning. "Can we turn up at a bar in an airship? That would be so cool! What color is it? Is it big?"

"I'll see you at your place."

"Sure! I'll see you soon. Can you send a pic?"

"Wouldn't it be more fun to see it with your own eyes not knowing what to expect?" In other words no. I can't be bothered to take ten pictures of the ship with my scroll. It's really easier to fly it there since I can lean back and read a book. Just now I'm realizing that going out on the town with a party animal like Yang may not be a good idea.

"Well yeah that's true. Kay, I'll see you in what, an hour?"

"More like forty minutes. I have a fast ship. Being rich is nice more often than not in my experience. I don't spend a lot though. The airship is actually the second most expensive thing I own."

"Okay then. Bye! I'm going to go get ready for a night on the town! We can talk more when you get here! We need to save some stuff to talk about here and I've only flown a few times before and only commercially. Bye!" I blinked at the scroll hanging up. That was a little sudden. But anyways…

You need to get ready for this sort of stuff? I thought you just had fun going to a club unless you were trying to impress someone. It must be a girl thing to look nice in public. I look nice almost all the time thanks to my vitality making me look fit and healthy all the time.

The closest thing I had to trying to look nice is just taking a shower and brushing my ears. My faunus ears I mean. Sometimes the fur and my hair get tangled up a little and I have to trim the hair. It's annoying since they're so irritatingly sensitive. It's still better to be able to listen to everything though.

I shrugged off Yang's preparations as a girl thing and picked out some nicer clothes and some casual ones. I'm not sure what she's planning but it's better to be prepared.

I teleported to a clearing outside of Vale at random and dropped the ship from my inventory before hanging the two clothing sets in the bedroom, where there's a tiny closet and a smaller than normal laundry machine built into the ship. It's only made to fit about five shirts rather than the laundry machine found in most homes.

About then I was more concerned with what book to read than flying. I guess I can be bored for about another half hour. Going out on the town with Yang should be the opposite of boring. I haven't brought her to the tropical island subI visits every week have I? We built a treehouse there this year since we visit the island so often for 'wilderness training'.

I wonder how many bars Yang and I are going to go to? Actually I'm more concerned with getting arrested. That would be bad and might tick Roman off since no way in hell Raven would bail out her daughter.

You know what? Lets just not get arrested. How about that. That sounds like a good low bar to set. Really how bad can it be?

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"Report?"

"Mavros is unaware of my observations. The items you provided have been more than sufficient to track him accordingly. The times I have lost him are few and never for more than a week or two. I have still been unable to follow him into his apartments. I do not know what sort of runes are responsible for this impediment but I've considered that they are likely hidden by more runes."

"Don't worry about entering his abode. Maintaining some privacy is fine. Keep your observations unobtrusive when it comes to heavily defended secrets."

"Of course. At the vytal festival, my most recent observations, he made a deal with general Ironwood for a scientist of his in exchange for his firearm he used in the mistralian regional tournament. Other than that he spent time with miss Nikos and threw popcorn at the students of signal through his false semblance."

"Amusing. I once did such things when I was a student. It's good to see some traditions hold throughout the ages. Ironwood likely won't find anything in the sidearm Abyss used. It was quite clearly a miniaturized railgun of some sort or runes and enchantments, though I don't know if he is an accomplished enchanter. I doubt it. The two fields are rather diverse and I don't believe Mavros to favor the short term solutions enchantment offers. Anything more?"

"No."

"Hmm… go spend time with your family Crimson. If I see any more activity from Abyss I'll inform you so you might begin tracking him."

"Thank you. Are you sure I shouldn't look for Raven Branwen?"

"She's unimportant. Strong but weak willed and too prideful to work for Salem. She won't be an issue. I'll have you checkup on the maidens during the school year I believe."

"Alright. Goodbye."

"Enjoy your break."

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"Holy shit." Yang said in some slight awe. "That's a big ship. I thought you had like a larger than average bullhead. This is like… an actual airship."

Well my ship wasn't huge by any means. There were plenty of bigger ones but it was owned solely by me so I suppose that is impressive by most standards.

"Yang what is - oh." Taiyang walked out in a T-shirt and shorts. House clothes.

"Hello Taiyang." I nodded at him. He blinked.

"Ah, hi." Taiyang said awkwardly. I still don't like him. I agree with Raven that he's weak willed. Yang eventually pushed herself to reconcile with Ruby and eventually me but Taiyang was still leaving things be. I don't hate him but it's better to face your mistakes than not. I'm content to leave him out of my life for good.

"Ready to go Yang?" I asked. She nodded, taking a glance at her dad.

"Bye dad! I'm off with bro for a night on the town." Yang waved and ran in with me right after her. The door closed as I pressed a switch at the doors and I came to terms with being called a bro. That feels weird. Nobody thinks of me as a 'bro'. "This place is big on the inside too." Yang muttered.

"You can stop admiring my big… thing now Yang." I teased slightly. Yang's face scrunched up for a moment before a playful grin emerged.

"Oh Abyss! You have such a big thing! I bet it feels great riding your big thing!"

I rolled my eyes. "I doubt we can get started. You're too heavy to get off the ground." Yang's hair bursted into flames and she glared at me with glowing eyes.

"What was that?" She growled. I chuckled slightly at her anger. She's more volatile than Raven I see. She really is her kid though. I doubt Taiyang would get so mad over quip like that. He'd probably crack a joke over a dad bod or something.

"Nothing sister dearest." I said in a less teasing tone of voice.

"Damn right I'm dear." She retorted. I hit the ignition and felt the little jolt as they fired up. "What was that?!"

"The engines firing up."

"Then why did the ship shake?!"

"They're powerful engines."

Yang looked at me suspiciously and I just shrugged. I went on another airship once before. Most of them shake a little when they start up except for the big ones that are mostly restricted to military or commercial use. Dust is stronger than gasoline and airships had to be light for the most part so they're a little weak to tremors.

As soon as Yang stepped forward she stumbled as I got to taking off. I flipped a few switches and the struts folded in and the gravity dust got ignited. Yang was quiet as we started rising quickly, going above the treetops easily and rising further above without a problem.

"This is really cool." Yang said. "Can we do this more often?"

"Lets focus on where we're going first. Vale?"

"A place called Junior's."

"Please no."

"I think you mean yes. Forwards!"

I sighed in resignation. Tonight would be a night to remember at least…

Four hours later Juniors was booming with business as Yang had a dance-off with Junior himself, we met and fought with Roman as he was going on a robbery for publicity an hour after that (his face when I pretended to attack him with Yang was hilarious), and I woke up wearing my shirt as pants and my pants as a shirt on a rooftop snuggling a puppy with a collar that named her Maples and property of Yang Branwen as well as a legally binding paper allowing Yang to paint my airship yellow and black and naming it hornet.

"That was awesome! Let's do it again!"

"No Yang. Never again."

"Can I still paint your airship then? I want to do some color scheme matchups with bumblebee."

"I don't think I have a choice legal document or not."

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"Boss what the hell?!"

"Roman I barely remember what happened. I just know that I should never go partying with Yang again ever."

"But you made me look amazing!"

"What?!"

"Everyone is saying I fought off Abyss Mavros, prodigy huntsman. I mean sure you were utterly sloshed at the time and wearing your sister's bra but nobody recorded you so…"

"Never again Roman."

"We've all had those nights, boss."

"Never. Again."

"Also was that girl your sister? She called you 'little bro' before."

"She's Ruby's half sister. I was a part of the family for a few months and Ruby and her got attached. We reconciled a rather major problem a few months back."

"Ah… how old is your sister?"

"Ruby is almost thirteen. Yang is fifteen though she'll be sixteen in three weeks."

"Holy shit. Sixteen with those huge-… uh, that… those hugely horrible words coming out of her mouth! Why, she said 'screw you, Torchwick'! Really, when I was her age I had a far more varying vocabulary!"

"Roman."

"…"

"Don't bring up Yang's breasts again. We both knew what you meant."

"Yes boss."

"On a lighter note my uncle is happy with how you did with the negotiations. You have the summer mostly free."

"I have a lot more free time these days. Last night was one of them."

"You pull heists in your free time?!"

"Well yeah. I enjoy it and I don't want to just fade into the criminal background. I kind of like the spotlight."

"Heists just seem like a lot of work to me. Whatever. Enjoy your break. Now I have the whole summer off. On another note I recall you mentioned a slave running gang in vacuo?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Good. What's their name? I have some need for them and not in their business."

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"Test number two." I spoke into the scroll. "Infusion of affinity into living beings has so far been entirely unsuccessful with living beings. This test will attempt to infuse affinity into a living human's soul. Be aware that the subject has been convicted of the high crime of murder, assistance in kidnapping, and work in the slave trade. Admittedly the subject is one of the less terrible people collected from the raid and was drugged before her induction to the criminal underworld however she is still a rather shitty person and a detriment to society in general of no apparent use or skill other than cleaning up after human and faunus cargo, essentially an underworld maid."

"Mrrrf!" the woman protested, a slightly tanned girl of nineteen with dark red curly hair. I had her muffled because the stray birds I had used before screamed before they died. I'm not doing tests so intense this time but I have the habit.

"Prior testing on birds and mice resulted in multiple effects. In heat they accumulated spots of frostbite, burns of various degrees, and hypo and hyperthermia in differing portions of their body depending on amounts infused. The same result was observed on the least valuable of the captured criminals." The slaver started yelling into her rag and struggling again. I continued to ignore her.

"Storm resulted in oversaturation of water in the body, electrical shocks, and presumably air being dispersed throughout the body though most of these were weaker than direct affinity of a single element being infused. Tiny amounts of infused affinity resulted in survival yet pains from electrically induced cramps. Larger doses resulted in the stated effects at a more extreme level. For further detailed effects on affinity see the corresponding file."

The object of this experiment is on activated aura and infusal. Animals have weak souls incapable of holding an aura and are thus incapable of holding affinity. Plants, on the other hand, are strangely adaptable in that if accumulated slowly they may morph to a different species. This is presumably due to their lack of a soul, containing only traces of plant and nature affinities at any noticeably level. It is with this conclusion that I have determined that with an exceptionally strong aura and an affinity not opposed to a foreign affinity the foreign affinity may be assimilated into the host. With this in mind I have devised a way to test affinities of a being."

Semblances are clearly indicative of affinity, as shown in my sister, Raven, and other tested individuals. This indicates mana and attunement play a strong role in aura as well as mana. Not exactly shocking. By forcefully taking a sample of a subject's aura and presenting it with differing samples of affinities it will become more volatile near affinities closely related to it similar to cohesion in water."

Through this method I have determined the current subjects attunements to be light and fire. Only two attunement are present rather than the average three. The highest recorded natural attunements is eight in Weiss Schnee, all of which were significantly stronger than average and including two never before seen affinities all due to her bloodline. Again, see the corresponding file for details."

This subject has a semblance capable of intensifying light to extreme degrees. Light becomes far more intense in their activation of aura. These two attunements are extremely close to the heat affinity and thus will hopefully allow assimilation of the new affinity. Later testing will test the use of identical affinities on empowering semblances and auras. Beginning now."

I ignored the sudden increase in muffled screaming and begging once more and put my hand to the woman's face. She pulled herself back from my hand but I grabbed her forehead and began infusing heat affinity into her. When nothing happened she calmed down although her eyes were still wild and her pulse was pounding.

"Hm…" I thought for a moment. Then I formed a small dagger of ice. Maybe the affinity was inert if the aura wasn't activated?

I lightly poked the slaver and she yelped at it. Wimp. My eyes widened as I saw her aura shift and deplete slightly. "Fascinating. Her aura is depleting faster than usual. In the activity it ejected the foreign affinity similar to a body ejecting a toxin.

I pushed more affinity into the woman and observed her. "If you're polite I'll try to keep you alive more resolutely and ungag you." The woman hesitated before nodding jerkily. I removed the gag and she spat and licked her mouth for a moment. "How do you feel?"

"I, um, feel a little cold and hungry but isn't that normal?" the woman looked a little fearfully at me.

"Yes." I acknowledged, though I have no idea. I pushed more heat affinity into her. The foreign amount of affinity was nearing four hundred. "Affinity accumulated near four hundred… five hundred. Any effects felt?" I glanced at the woman.

"Um… no?"

"Be clear."

"No."

"Attempting to disturb aura." I stabbed my ice dagger at the woman's stomach and her aura flared. I noticed a slight shimmer around her stomach. The foreign affinity I inserted dropped once more. "Hm." I stabbed a few more times, depleting the woman's aura, and was on the cusp of breaking it.

"Oh… Oh I don't feel very good." The woman said. I noticed her eyes seem unfocused. I put my hand to her forehead and felt heat. A fever? Likely an artificial one caused from the heat rather than one induced by a sickness.

"Subject has accumulated a fever. Likely due to heat affinity warming internal body temperature." I ignored modesty and looked over the woman clothed only in bandages over her breasts and lady bits. Small patches of skin showed very minor frostbite and burns as though from hot water. "Frostbite patches have also appeared, though all this is in lower intensity than the prior auraless tests significantly. Infusing aura."

I pushed my aura into the subject and a little life mana. Instantly she perked up. "Whoa! What sort of drug was that!? I feel great!"

"My aura." I stated. "Along with a little life affinity. It heals people."

"Cool. What's affinity anyways?" This woman is probably the most chill person I've ever met. She doesn't even seem all that mad. I guess she's just happy she's not being sold into slavery like her sort-of-friends did.

I'm still ignoring her question though.

"Foreign attunement was likely too much to handle for subject two's aura and leakage began to appear as soon as her aura weakened. Breakage would have most certainly allowed the same effects as prior seen." The woman paled again.

"One hundred seven affinity has been ejected from the subject. I will be putting subject two aside for the moment to observe whether affinity passively drains from her." I glanced towards subject two - ah, the woman. "Do not agitate your aura."

"Can I get some pudding then?" She asked hopefully. "Since I'll probably die soon and I'm technically helping you?"

"If you don't agitate your aura." I said with a frown. She didn't seem to be taking me all that seriously.

"I won't use aura then."

"Good."

Two hours later it was confirmed. The affinity reduced by one point.

"You didn't use your aura?"

"No. When I focused on it it felt… uncomfortable. I didn't do anything other than feel it, which wasn't so much interacting with it as not ignoring it." I nodded. That was expected. It was like leaving a needle in your arm. You noticed it whether you wanted to or not.

"I see. I have a theory on why the affinity isn't activating. First, however, would you do something for me Vera?"

"Um, okay. Can I get more pudding or some sort of sweet?" Vera, who's name I hadn't bothered to learn until she became useful and shown she wasn't an ass, blinked slowly at me.

"I'll bake you some cookies and give you some milk."

"I'm up for anything."

"Attempt to use your semblance." Vera frowned and focused for a moment, closing her eyes in the process.

Suddenly the room became scorching hot. Blistering hot. Vera screamed. I felt the heat and countered it with water I produced with my storm affinity and mana. Soon the water's high heat capacity reduced the room to merely hot.

I narrowed my eyes and looked to Vera. She was mostly fine but her skin was red and sunburned. With the light as high as it was it should have harmed her a lot more. That light would probably have caused second degree burns on me had I not countered it immediately.

"Does your semblance normally harm you?" I asked. She stared at me with wide eyes.

"How are you alive?' She whispered. "So much power…"

"Does your semblance normally harm you?" I said slowed, adding a little darker tone to my voice. Vera snapped out of her stare.

"Uh, no."

"It did this time. Having affinity stored in your body appears to have drastically overpowered your semblance in exchange for making it extremely uncontrollable."

"It usually takes a second or two." Vera added. "It was instant this time. I felt something come… come out of me."

"Attempt to use your semblance." I ordered. Vera focused and frowned. Then she gasped.

"Nope! Nope! Can't do it."

"Pain?"

"It's like a… a soreness."

"Interesting." I muttered. I looked downwards. Could semblances be trained to be more potent? Like a muscle grows to be stronger but uses more ATP to fuel those muscle cells and more aura could be used to fuel a more powerful semblance that was trained to get stronger through strain. This could be a breakthrough.

"Good job Vera. You just became valuable. A shame no affinity stayed with you permanently. One more test before we're done." I pushed two fingers onto her skin and infused her with affinity. She looked scared.

"What?" I asked.

"I can feel it." She whimpered. "Like a tiny stream of fire and frost." I raised an eyebrow. That was indeed what heat affinity felt like. So she became sensitive to the affinity. Does exposure breed familiarity? Or was it like a body adapting to a virus?

"Is your aura rejecting it?"

"No… but it feels uncomfortable."

"Don't do anything with your aura."

As I was done infusing twenty heat affinity into her I then pushed in a little unattuned mana. Vera screamed in what sounded like fright more than pain.

"How do you feel?"

"That hurt you sadistic fucker!" Language geez. And I'm not sadistic. Just a bit amoral.

"It burned?"

"Hell yes it did! Like you dipped me in fire and ice!"

So the affinity became active when I infused mana into her. I theorized mana acted as a catalyst for affinities but this confirms it. I've added mana to a person's soul before but they just shrugged it off. I've never done it in large doses though.

If I were to infuse light affinity into Vera would her aura reject it as foreign? Would it alter her semblance to be more volatile or simply more powerful? If I continue to add heat attuned mana would her semblance change to help fit the new affinity? Would she gain the heat affinity with continued exposure?

"I have the next test planned out. We'll continue tomorrow."

"Fuck you."

"You really don't like pain do you?"

"…"

I like her. Sure she's a little bitchy but that's alright. She's tolerable and useful. Good enough.

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"Eh… how'd you get those?"

"I asked."

"All the kid fed us was soup. Really damn good soup but it was just soup. How did you get cookies? And I saw you with pudding earlier."

"I was today's test subject. It was… well scary but I didn't die."

"I heard Irrie's screams from in here. We all did. Then he got gagged or his vocal cords cut."

"A gag. He had one on me before I agreed to be… polite."

"Is Mavros a dick? I heard nothing but good things in Vacuo, being practically a saint, but I know some high society folk that bought from us."

"He's… sort of a bastard but he took us shitty people and not innocent people so I guess he's still better than us. He mentioned that he didn't hurt innocents on purpose."

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"So I was wondering… how long will we be here?" Vera asked as I infused the smoothie with light attunement.

"Until you die or we work something out." I said easily.

"Oh."

"You're a shitty person. More so than me by far. At least I give back for the shitty things I do. Now drink this and this. Tell me which tastes better." I handed Vera the berry smoothie with light attunement and another one from the same batch from the blender. They were both in tiny cups like you would see at a water cooler but slightly larger.

I had stuffed as much light attunement into the attuned smoothie as possible. I had three thousand seven hundred affinity to infuse. Using Poledina's affinity compressor helped make infusing affinity seventy five times more efficient roughly. So she was drinking about two thousand eight hundred light affinity.

"Okay." Vera took the smoothie without attunement into her hands and drank, not questioning whether this had a purpose. I waited a moment to let her savor it. I knew she loved sweet things.

She stopped drinking with a small sigh. "It's good. Sweet." I nodded and handed her the second cup with the light attunement. She took a small sip before her eyes widened. She downed the whole thing like a shot and then began vigorously licking the sides of the cup. After a few seconds of this there was nothing left and she ran a finger along the edge. She swallowed and her eyes shined with a desperate desire.

They were also literally shining a little.

I observed her and saw, right under her light affinity, an innate light affinity in her body with steadily rising numbers. Her actual light affinity in her soul was rising too at a much slower pace of about one point every four seconds compared to the twenty points per second the innate affinity seemed to be gaining at.

"Wait." I commanded. Vera hesitated.

"What was in that?" She asked hungrily. There was something off with her.

"Distilled light affinity."

"Can I have more."

"No."

Vera was silent and I considered giving her more. I'll test adding small doses to her food. It probably made her semblance stronger. The heat affinity hadn't taken yet. I had a feeling it would soon though. The reactions with her semblance were getting less intense and more controllable as the days passed.

The problem with giving Vera more light affinity was how addictive it might be to her. It was vastly more light affinity than her meagre, ah, fifty five right now, could handle. Her affinity would almost certainly act as a tolerance that grows as she has more. I don't want to turn her into an addict and then have to deprive her because she grew too tolerant.

Vera's eyes changed a little and her aura changed with it. Something seemed to break a little in it. I felt a little aura emanate off of her as well that seemed involuntarily. Vera was too out of it and not at all skilled in use of her aura. For one thing it became more attuned to light and not temporarily either. But of more immediate interest was the emotion coming from her.

A crapton of lust.

"Um… Abyss." Vera seemed to be almost physically restraining herself. "Uhm…" I frowned at Vera.

This is problematic at the very least.

"I don't mean to… Did you slip aphrodisiacs into the smoothie?"

"As it turns out large amounts of affinity you are attuned to act as a… hm." I glanced towards the door to the other prisoners. "Follow me." I walked calmly towards the door and Vera followed eagerly. I opened it up to the other prisoners clothed somewhat decently. "Do you feel lust towards them?" Vera looked towards them and squinted.

"Uhm… no… no I don't." She seemed puzzled by that. Then she glanced towards me. "But I really… REALLY want to, um… can we?"

Something clicked in my mind and I zoned out for a moment as the pieces fell into place. Essentially I was a magical beast but in a human body. Magical beast auras could be awakened pretty easily. They were natural users of mana and aura like I was. It made sense from an evolutionary perspective to breed with a strong mate. Magical beasts thrived with strong affinities. It made sense theoretically that affinities acted as signals for mates in the magical beasts.

Huntsmen and huntresses almost exclusively dated and had children with each other. Most people attributed that to people with supermodel looks, extreme strength, and deadly skill all preferring someone who can relate to their lifestyle and profession as well as their social sphere. However, what if aura acted as a lure for mates based on affinity? It was plausible at least. It also explained why none of the other prisoners appealed to Vera even as desperate as she was. None of them had a strong light affinity. On the other hand, I might as well shine like the sun to her.

I can use a straight male and see if he's attracted to me after having the same process as Vera. that should confirm my theory. For now I only have Vera though.

"Can you sense aura?" I asked. I glanced towards her to

This thought process ground to a halt as Vera's lips crashed into mine. The jaws of prisoners dropped. I grabbed Vera and pushed her to the right and shut the door before turning back to her. Then I narrowed my eyes and not because of the kiss. That was mostly my fault.

Vera looked more appealing than she did before. Much more appealing. What the-?

"Wait." I commanded. I ran over to the smoothies and made another one from the light affinity and the actual smoothie. I turned to Vera and handed it to her. Her eyes widened and she gulped it down. I closely looked at her and then turned my eyes and waited two minutes. Then I looked back.

Holy shit she looked way hotter.

Vera grabbed me and kissed me again and my mind went blank.

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"Who's this?"

"This is Vera. My assistant."

"Nice to meet you miss Raven."

"Just Raven. Why do you need an assistant?"

"To handle trivial things with nature's bounty and help me in the lab. Vera managed some records in her earlier employment and she isn't stupid so she can help in my workshop., which I'm using more now because I'm bored and have some ideas that might as well be tested. I'm refining an alternate way to make mages at the moment."

"What?!"

"I've already discovered a way to massively improve the potency of a semblance rather than training. They get more efficient and more powerful as you undergo the treatment. It also unlocks a sort of sense for sensing affinities and auras. It's quite convenient."

"Would this work with the tribe?"

"Well there's a complication. You see, a side-effect of the treatment is what I'm calling the mate effect. After a large increase in innate affinity, which is directly related to semblance power, the soul has evolved to encourage mingling with another soul to stabilize itself and further strengthen itself. It's more complicated than just that but the end result is that after the treatment boosting your innate affinity you get extraordinarily horny and have to sleep with somebody. Drugs are flushed from your system by your aura as it's sent into overdrive to compensate for the new recognized affinity to assimilate and abstaining from the soul mingling is that almost all of the formerly gained innate affinity doesn't stick and you lose most of the effectiveness of the treatment. It's also somewhat excruciating."

"I… I see. The treatment doesn't work if the side effect isn't sated?"

"Not really at all."

"So it wouldn't work with me."

"Well… I have a significantly greater affinity than you. If I slept with you-"

"No."

"Yes I was getting to that. So there's no way. You can't just open your soul to another either. Soul hearth causes death sadly. My soul has mana in it and mana would ignite all that spare affinity, which is extremely unpleasant and normally deadly."

"There is truly no way? I believe I can resist the effect. I'm more strong willed than the average person."

"You have a powerful aura. More aura means it affects you more."

"I shudder to think what would happen if you underwent the… treatment."

"I did try it. I went four rounds with Vera right after. I just have to use a weak affinity. I have a fire affinity now by the way. It was the only affinity I could properly test with."

"Ah. Alright then. How did you meet Vera?"

"Lets not talk about that."

"Fine. Are you dating?"

"No."

"Nope. We agreed that as his assistant I'll be assisting him with this before I learn the basics of how to defend myself during his school year. We don't like-like each other. We both just like the sex and power of it. It's kind of addicting but it doesn't breed depandance. We tested. There aren't any withdrawal effects other than being kind of pissed off for a while."

"I believe you'll excel at beacon's romantic side with that attitude."

"Of course I will. I would measure beacon not by how well I can do in it but rather how irritating it is."

[|||| =+= ||||]

So I got rid of my virgin problem. Vera agreed to act as my lab assistant and the summer has progressed mostly smoothly. I learned a lot about aura and affinities and even a bit about mana but nothing beyond the immense enhancement of semblances. About three quarters of the tribe has someone they take the treatment with. It caused some strife among the current couples since they didn't have compatible affinities but people worked it out eventually.

For most people they couldn't have a fire affinity and just get a water affinity super soon. You had to have in-between elements to bridge the gap. You would need to go to heat then steam than finally water. I'm exempt from this rule since I'm a wizard though.

Affinities also couldn't grow too fast. More than two cups a day of the stuff between two people of vaguely equivalent affinities let them stabilize enough to go about their business and have another cup about six or seven hours later. With me and Vera it was different in that my affinities and aura were both far larger than hers. I could also have as many cups a day as I like. I blame it on my grand soul. Sadly the effects became exponentially weaker as the affinities went past two hundred as a base.

Stronger doses worked better and bypassed this cap but Poledina's affinity compressor worked based on my space affinity. I had all of my parallels meditating on it at all hours of the day now but it always was a slow to increase affinity. I got to seven hundred fifty two and it increased all of my affinities in parallel with it, leading to impressive improvement.

Sadly all my other advances were minor in comparison to my breakthrough with affinities and semblances. For those who didn't know their semblances the quickly discovered them. Increased affinities seemed to help with the activation of semblances. It made me a little pissed that my affinities were so high but I hadn't found my semblance.

Then it hit me.

"-Similarly to how the FATE system runs off of the fate affinity you naturally had before it was repurposed before your rebirth."

I couldn't activate my semblance because the primary component of it was missing… activating my semblance was impossible unless I gained a fate affinity.

But the message from Angel, who was probably Althea, warned me to not use higher affinities. But then again I apparently had a fate affinity that was made into the system somehow so it's probably okay, right? I mean, Weiss has a dimension affinity that seems pretty high up on the list of things to never use so it's likely perfectly fine albeit rather useless… unless I decide to become a dimensional traveller but I like remnant a lot so I think I'll stay here, although dimensional travelling sounds like an excellent plan for summer travels. I'll consider getting the affinity.

If I took a sample of Weiss' aura I could get the affinity easily. Just absorb and assimilate her aura like I did with the mimic. With unity and consumption it gets easier and easier to do that. However, it's a shortcut that seems too good to be true. Abusing the assimilation likely has side-effects I'd rather not know about.

I don't know about the fate affinity really. I have no idea if getting a fate affinity is a good idea or not. Getting rejected by origin shook me. My own affinity nearly killed me. I made that thing from scratch and nearly died from it. Only because some gods had a use for it I was saved. Could fate be the same? What could I even do with a fate affinity? Bend around things that are supposed to happen? It sounds untrustworthy as far as affinities go. I prefer my power rather than a gamble like fate.

But is fate my power that was turned into the system? The name and crafting of my origin affinity into the ORIGIN engine, whatever that is, would indicate so.

Or maybe taking my fate affinity from me was a way to gain a warrior of power and bind him to fate and the gods rather than whatever fate I had before. It might explain reincarnation. My fate changed and so too did my body…

Or maybe I'm thinking about this too hard. The naming scheme seems pretty obvious actually.

Worrying over my own semblance, which was most likely broken, was a waste of time. I do, however, have a solution. I could replace the core fate affinity of my affinity with something else. I was able to do so with my storm affinity before. If I acquire an affinity of similar power I could assimilate it with my broken affinity… probably.

It was as good a plan as any assuming I'm correct, whic I probably am. It's a better theory than any other. Now which affinity to go after…

How about… an energy affinity? From motion, heat, and force… but I don't have a title to go with that. I recall the title made the augmentation and my secondary semblance possible.

Oh? Now that I consider it air and water were my natural starting affinities and merged together they might be more potent. Not to mention that electricity was at the top of the list of affinities. It was almost a fifth affinity but not quite there yet.

So that leaves light and space. What can I compound light into because all I could compound space into is time and I don't want to stumble onto a higher power.

Hey hold on a damned second… I had shadow third on the list past what affinities I didn't have, didn't I? And then I have void and so on…

Like the void of space? Emptiness? Or maybe the void as in termination. It might serve as a weak anti-origin then. I should look into that.

Then there's shadow and light. That can be nothing but good considering shadow is the absence of light. Opposites attract, right?

Do I have a fate affinity? Because I see a lot of magic in my future!

I've been hanging out with Yang too much.

[|||| =+= ||||]

"Oh shit."

"Ozpin!"

"The language is certainly warranted, Glynda. My potential protege and problem student just acquired something he most certainly shouldn't have."

"A relic?"

"Not that serious. Only his own life is in danger-and it's gone. Strange. There's no trace of it any more… what could have taken that particular affinity away?"

"What?!"

"He acquired a truly dangerous affinity closely tied with creation. I wonder what drove him to acquire it? So few wizard's have survived what he just did. I don't believe him foolish enough to work towards an unknown result."

"He's fifteen Ozpin."

"Sixteen. I see your point, however. I don't believe checking on him would earn his gratitude, however."

"Nothing you do will earn that child's gratitude from what you've told me."

"He cannot be stubborn forever. I will show him I truly mean no harm. In fact, I know just the person to assist me in this."

"Who?"

"Mister Arc."

[|||| =+= ||||]

*Ding!* Light and shadow affinities melded. Void affinity unlocked.

"That's the opposite of what I wanted." I growled. A void. A place where nothing existed. An empty space. I'm sure I'll have a blast being the first wizard in space. I know light and darkness paired together make…

Hold on. Shadow is the absence of light. So when they combine naturally they would make… nothing. They cancelled out. I got a whole pile of nothing. Literally nothing. An affinity geared towards nothing.

"Mister Mavros is something the matter?" Miss… you know what I don't even remember this lady's name. More teachers after such a short Summer. Those months blitzed past really.

"I'm fine." I grumbled. "I just realized that I forgot to do some chores. Uncle Mystic's going to be annoyed." Miss something looked curiously at me for a moment longer before turning back to the board and droning onwards about… wait what class is this? Ah, politics. I forget about this class sometimes. It's okay but it's always so technical and the teacher always drones on about modern politics rather than general politics. I asked for some books she's recommend a while back and read all of them in a week. Now I just suffer through the class.

But that's all moot. I have more important things to do right now.

Abyss Mavros

Title: Wizard; The Storm

Level – 475

HP – 16,456 (41.14/min)

AP – 137,540 (6877/min)

MP - 2,760,780 (138,039/min)

STR - 247 (+555%)= 1,617.85

VIT - 242 (+580%)= 1,645.6

DEX - 299 (+585%)= 2,048.15

INT - 534 (+450%)= 2,937

WIS - 529 (+550%) = 3,438.5

LUK - 153 (+0%)=

POINTS - 1655

Semblances -

[Locked]

Storm of souls - Emit your aura as a field and mimic the components of a storm. While this consumes no aura you my not partially use this semblance and its use takes away any possibility of barriers during its use. Intensity of storm and control over it depends on affinity for storm and is controllable.

Affinities:

Storm: 2654 (+800) (x64) (240%)= 530,534.4

Space: 752 (+400) (x16) (140%)= 74,188.8

Heat: 358 (+300) (x16) (140%)= 14,739.2

Ice: 346 (+100) (x8) (140%)= 4995.2

Consumption: 314 (+100) (x8) (140%)= 4636.8

Motion: 288 (+100) (x8) (140%)= 4345.6

Light: 274 (+100) (x8) (140%)= 4188.8

Unity: 268 (+100) (x8) (140%)= 4121.6

Purity: 239 (+100) (x8) (140%)= 3796.8

Life: 232 (+100) (x8) (140%)= 3718.4

Metal: 157 (x8) (140%)= 1758.4

Nature: 134 (+23) (x8)(140%)= 1758.4

Fire: 134 (x8) (140%)= 1500.8

Shadow: 51 (x8) (140%)= 571.2

Void: 1 (x8) (140%)= 11.2

Now I feel better. Purity was still too low for my taste but I don't really need it to deal with grimm, most grimm being too weak to even bother with, but I still needed it up into my top three to deal with Salem or corrupted humans. I don't want to be caught with my pants down.

Seriously what can I use void for? Teleporting? Already done easily. Especially since I was grinding my space affinity with my purity affinity. Maybe eliminating things? That sounds like the most likely solution. Like a vacuum of space. I'll try infusing the affinity to some things and work it out.

[|||| =+= ||||]

"And then we found out… it wasn't a sloth! It was a koala!"

"How terrible!"

"Please don't encourage her."

"Be quiet betrayer! We went all the way down into those awesome islands and we didn't see a single sloth! You promised!"

"You want more pancakes."

"You really have to ask?"

"I made her breakfast every morning for a month."

"But don't you do that anyways?"

"Hey P is right…"

"You had to bring it up."

"I'm sorry!"

"It's fine."

"I've been tricked! Manipulated! Connived against! Betrayed by my own Rennie-bear!"

"How many pancakes?"

"A lifetime supply!"

"Actually I have a better option."

"You don't-"

"I brought it up. Besides, I'll never manage to get rid of the white sap I h-"

"WHITE SAP?!"

"Nora please be a little more-"

"WHERE IS IT?!"

"In the wagon!"

"AHAHAHAHA! SYRUP OF THE FINEST QUALITY FOR THE QUEEN OF THE ROADS! COME SERVANT! PANCAKES OF THE DIVINE AWAIT!"

"Where did you get the sap?"

"Oh Abyss sent some. He called us at the right time and we talked a little. He pointed us towards a post office and we stopped by to get a package. He thought I might be able to use it well. I have a jar of red sap too but it's too sweet for me."

"Thankfully Nora prefers white sap. She gets hyper on red sap. She's always calmer after eating it strangely."

"I know. Everyone feels calm and happy after eating it. Nobody really knows what makes it work so well but it works more potently on people with unlocked auras. I've heard some theories that it's infused with aura somehow but the company doesn't say and Abyss just said that it wasn't aura and that it was harmless. It is quite delicious though."

"Very much so. I would use a dash of it in my herbal mixes but it's far too expensive."

"You can have a jar for your veggie smoothies if you like. I have five and no idea what to do with it."

"Lets not let Nora eat it all. I believe there are better uses than eating it all in one sitting."

[|||| =+= ||||]

The void was weird… and extremely terrifying.

The metal ingot in front of me was nothing. It was empty. A shell. Nothing but empty atoms devoid of purpose and identity.

To mage sight it was invisible. To my mana sense it was invisible. To every magical sense in my body the object wasn't there. Yet I looked with my eyes and saw what seemed to be a perfectly normal ingot of metal. A copper/aluminum alloy specifically.

I tentatively poked the ingot. It was normal metal. I scowled and focused on my void affinity, minute as it may be. Suddenly the ingot seemed to light up. Void affinity was sparsely infused in the ingot. I could faintly see the metal affinity the ingot SHOULD have try to appear again. Just being an ingot naturally made the ingot collect affinity for metal. Well, and the slew of other trace affinities that made the ingot what it was. It would have the ingot affinity, the copper affinity, the aluminium affinity, and so on. Instead it's like it doesn't exist except for it's little physical shell.

With a grim pit in my stomach I collected void affinity, not an easy task with how tiny my affinity for it was. I spread out the affinity in the air in front of me and shuddered at the sensory input.

The affinities in the air disappeared. Mana fled from the unnatural absence of anything, leaving a barren spot of air in front of me that could only be sensed through my connection to void.

So to summarize, void was the anti-magic. It consumed affinities, repelled mana - and maybe consumed it if it came into conflict with it - and made a hole in my senses.

This was frightening for more than one reason. For one thing, affinities were something like a cosmic identity. They made an object what it is to my understanding. Everything had an affinity. Sure void was technically an affinity but it felt thin. Normal affinities were like fire or wind. Things you could touch. Feel. See. Perceive. Space could be felt and walked through. Time could be perceived. Even origin was a concept you could wrap your head around. Void wasn't something. It was the idea of the lack of it.

Weird…

The only thing I could see to not be affected by the void was matter. In that sense that void was purely a magical void, which made some sense considering it was immaterial. But I haven't added mana yet…

Tentatively I pushed my mana towards the collection of void in my control. I was shocked when it actually resisted. My own mana, my own soul, was actively fighting against me.

That's… I should probably stop. Probably.

I stripped the mana I was controlling of aura. I want to keep my soul out of this. The mana seemed to fight even more strongly against me without my aura. With a more pure concentration of mana rather than my mixture of mana and aura the resistance increased. So aura was perfectly capable of going near void with less if any resistance. Mana was the one fighting me.

I forced my mana to go towards the void and felt it buck against me just like the opposite end of a magnet going towards another. Void, rather than fight against me, seemed slightly attracted to the mana I was funneling towards it.

I watched closely as the mana came barely touching the void. Sparks seemed to fly between the void and the mana. Fascinating. I gave the mana the final push towards the conglomeration of void.

In under a twentieth of a second the void imploded with the mana in a chain reaction where mana coursed through the void affinity. Ambient affinity from all over surged towards the center in that time. Mana fled the scene at greatly increased speeds. That twentieth of a second was enough time for everything to jerk towards the void for just a moment. Sans mana at least.

I blinked at the new appearance of the lab. It was barren. Affinity was gone from near everywhere. Not completely, I mean, but the Room was certainly less filled with ambient affinity than before.

So that's how you make a magical black hole.

Having anti-magic will be immensely useful. If I can learn to control it… i could clear out the thick ambient affinity at the magical hotspots and emergency teleport out. Ozpin would be at a disadvantage. Grimm would fall before the void like cardboard to fire. I'll run some tests to see if purity is better than void at anti-magic but it certainly seems to be a suitable replacement in theory.

I suppose I just found myself a side-project. I'll stick to the animagus thing first. How the hell does Raven turn into a raven anyways? It's clearly using nature affinity…

I felt a little shiver in the back of my mind at the room as it so slowly turned to a more natural state. It took four hours before the marks left by such a brief time of the void returned to normal and that was with only about twenty affinity.

How long would it take before a larger black hole's area of effect returned to normal? Hmm…

This needs more testing. It's nice to stretch my inner scientist, though I'll bet people would scream at my lack of scientific method. Well it works for me. Trial and error works fine so far.

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