Chương 50: Chapter 31: Rifts and Attunements

In the days following his father's disappearance, Ember hit the clan archive on a regular basis, trying to find any details he had missed about rifts and attunements. There were whole sections related to the topics, but even after perusing through a dozen collections, Ember found most of them were merely renditions of the same things. All of the authors seemed to agree that rifts were manifestations borne out of the Abyss.

One scholar had theorised that rifts were the Abyss's attempt to hollow out Zion's dimensions. After all, the continents were now divided, obstructed either by Chaos Seas or the realm walls, neither of which was easy to traverse, whereas the number of rift manifestations didn't seem to dwindle at all. Among all the rifts, perhaps not even one in a thousand ever implodes, dragging everything inside along with it. But over the centuries, enough implosions had occurred for people to investigate the phenomenon.

Many speculated that everything was dragged back to the abyssal realms from where the rifts had manifested, but that was merely speculation. Some of the reasoning was so absurd that Ember even doubted their scholarship. His bias had little to do with his father's plight. Besides, most of these were written by scholars with little to no practical understanding of actual dimension magic.

The clan might have notes and books written by actual dimension mages somewhere higher up in the archives, but Ember was not allowed to venture there. The information he got on attunements wasn't highly useful either. At least they weren't completely unhelpful, though they still kept much of the actual practicality shrouded in darkness.

He learned there were multiple levels of attunements, starting from Minor, Higher, Major, Greater, Ascended, to Pinnacle rank, with even the most talented people's progress stopping at Major or Greater rank. Unlike racial tiers, everyone started an attunement from the bottom rank, much to his delight. Of course, a high lineage could help with that.

A bloodline like House Oberon's would surely aid in gaining more proficiency in their wind attunements, whereas a common ascendant would have to work day and night just to gain a fraction of their attainment. Additionally, attunements were not limited to elements like fire, earth, wind, or mind. Some could be conceptual too, like those related to swords, crafting, alchemy, and the like. At a greater degree of mastery, one could even merge two or more attunements to form a new one.

For example, lightning and fire formed Thunderfire or Lightningblaze, or a more common example like Wood or Plant attunement, which came from the collective form of fire, earth, water, and life attunements. There was likely more information on attunements in the higher levels of the archive. Ember could perhaps get access to them if he were to ask his grandfather. But imagining that old bastard's face, Ember did not even consider it. He wasn't out of options yet. There was still his mana instructor.

Raven Blackstone was much easier to talk to, at least compared to all the boys and girls attending her classes with him. She was well over level 50, but with her actual combat strength being abysmal, her standing in the clan wasn't even as high as that of a knight of the same rank. She was well over forty, and appeared as such, having already squandered most of her potential. Unless some small miracle befell her, it was highly unlikely that she'd ever make it past level 100.

Still, she had a couple of attunements of her own. Instructor Raven had shown them off a number of times during her class, though when Ember got to ask his questions, she was reluctant to clear his doubts, despite all the goodwill he had built with her.

"You should focus on mana refining now," she said.

"Racking your mind over attunements and higher theories will only be detrimental to your growth." But Ember obviously didn't give up there. Every day after class, he would ambush her with questions until she finally agreed to spill some of the mystery. The matronly woman eyed her wristwatch before sparing him a glance.

"I'll give you five minutes." Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Instructor Raven, what exactly is attuned mana?" Ember asked without ceremony.

"As you know," she considered it for a moment before answering, "pure mana is pretty much harmless and of little use outside of helping us refine our bodies and prolong our longevity. It has little use in direct interference. An attunement, on the other hand, allows that mana to transform towards a specific element. For example," she raised her hand as radiant mana flowed out of her palm, slowly transforming into a ball of fire, "this would have been impossible without an attunement."

"But a fire wand can manage that without an attunement." Instructor Raven nodded.

"Those wands were specifically crafted to help those without attunements, but their efficiency is minute, which is why they cost so much mana. Unless you get yourself a staff or wand with a tier 7 enchantment or above, their effectiveness can barely hold up to a minor attunement." That left him with much to think about. The practical use of fire-attuned or other elemental-attuned mana seemed obvious. He wondered what it would do for mind mana.

It would surely give him more out of his mind-related skills like Split Focus, Keen Mind, or even Meditation Muse, no? Ember confirmed the thought with the instructor before asking, "How does one awaken an attunement? And how do we make progress in it?" He knew the answer to one of the questions, while his doubts were mostly related to the latter.

"Like skill stones, there are attunement stones that can help you acquire an attunement." She paused, forgetting they were closing in on the five-minute mark.

"Sometimes a life-and-death struggle could help awaken a latent attunement, but those are rarer instances. Most people just die before verifying the truth." Ember hid a smile.

"As for improving them, it's mostly related to your lineage, affinity, and skills. Of course, a higher-grade class can empower attunements, but you have to have decent attunements to even claim such classes." Ember thought of his father. His Life and Light attunement had both risen to Major and Higher rank, respectively, after his ascension to Dawn Marshal. Hopefully, that would keep him alive wherever he was now.

"Can a skill like Kinetic Release awaken an attunement related to it?" Raven Blackstone gave him a perceptive glance.

"Kinetic Attunement isn't the hardest one to awaken. Far from it, to be honest. Even I got it with little trouble. Why are you asking, though? Don't tell me, you have already acquired the skill?" Ember shook his head, bitter that he didn't have enough slots for all the skills. Kinetic Release would have been a good addition, as were the other skill prompts he had gotten through his confrontation with the monsters. He had checked his log and found prompts for two mana skills somehow.

According to Zephyr, Mana Skin was the easiest, yet Ember had gotten Mana Augmentation and the much rarer Mana Syphon. Both were at Iron rank and likely to be very significant to his future mana path. After all, Mana Shaping would require two more skills to merge into for its silver-rank ascent. It could be Mana Augmentation and Mana Syphon, or perhaps other skills like Mana Skin, Mana Craft, or something more obscure. There were countless variations of mana applications.

While the three copper-rank mana skills were elementary forms, their intermediary and advanced applications were far broader. Ember was of two minds about gaining those two mana skills next time. He was supposed to keep nine slots for the silver skill, but having those two skills sooner would allow his foundational mana skill to advance into silver grade more quickly. Then again, considering his experience in Desir, he felt he should prioritise defensive silver skills instead.

After his advancement, the instructor had allotted him the rest of the tier 4s in the clan for his physical and combat training. Everyone there was older than him, and half of the people were already close to their class ceremony. He had already attended mana classes with twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. It made little difference if the same became true in combat training as well. Their training, though, was also far more gruesome.

Every day, they pushed their bodies incessantly, only stopping a step or two before the limits, but his grandfather had already pushed him further than that for him to be too aggravated by it. At least the old man was now busy with his own plight to care about his training. For the next few weeks, Ember's practice largely revolved around academics. He soaked in any information he felt was important. Of course, he made sure it didn't hinder his mana practice either.

Split Focus allowed him to keep his mana skills running as long as his mental capacity allowed. With Mind Attunement, he found that even after dividing his focus, the gains in his Mana Foundation were not much slower at all. He might even recover his lost mana within a month or two instead of the four he had imagined. And all this nerve-jarring practice improved his mind attunement as well, already having gained a couple of per cent within a fortnight.

Decidedly, the progress would slow down as he approached completion. Even after weeks, there was still no news related to the rift incident. House Oberon was trying their best to extract Lady Evelyn, but all their resources and manpower resulted in vain, yielding no real news, much to his depression. Ember still held on to hope, despite many in the clan already giving up on him. Abyss blinded them; some even denounced Cliff for the failure and for creating the rift between House Blackstone and House Oberon.

If only he had the power to shut all their mouths. But even if he couldn't beat them, Ember seemed to find no shortage of challenges during the combat classes. Sometimes even after. On one such afternoon, Ember was keeping to himself when a group of boys and girls came to challenge him to a duel. ===============