Reborn With a Magic System

Affinity.

Everything always kept coming down to affinity.

Damion did not know what he would do if, when the Magic System finally fully unlocked, he ended up with an affinity that was useless. Would he continue on as a knight? Would he be forced to learn some useless magic seals just to make a living?

As the day continued, Damion became more and more lost in the what ifs of his mind. Unsure of the path ahead of him and unclear on how to face his choices later when everything he was doing now might be useless. After a while, Arica noticed Damion's brooding and sought to pull him out of it.

"Almost all day you've been brooding on something. What's going on?"

"I'm just worried that I might get a useless affinity or have crappy talent or both when my seal lifts."

"What makes you think that?"

"I don't know. Just seems like it would be my luck to wait and get my hopes up for something only to be crushed in the end. I'm not even sure if I should keep going as I have been and keep training to fight like a knight or not."

"Being able to fight like a knight will be quite useful as a mage."

"What makes you say that?" Damion asked.

"Most people that attack mages expect them to stand back and cast spells. But you can get up close and strike them, that will take those people by surprise. Your sword has a glyph for a magic attack right, what type of attack is it?"

"Fire."

"Let me see it," Arica asked.

Damion passed his sword to her without a second thought and only after it left his hand did he think there should have been some hesitation on his part before handing over his weapon. The two were searching for the next marker plate on the edge of the Benault Forest, but now Damion was without his weapon. Even if the escort part of his job was pretty much just being a driver for Arica, he still thought he should stay ready just in case.

"This fire attack glyph is quite good. It can actually allow you to control the type and size of your attack. How does your attack normally appear?"

"I activate it when I swing and send out a fire slash."

Arica swung the sword and a fire slash much stronger than any Damion had ever produced shot into the air. Then she just pointed the blade straight up and a column of fire shot into the sky. For a brief moment the entire area was bright with the fire's light and the temperature jumped up several degrees.

"How did you do that?" Damion asked when the column of fire vanished.

"Simple, the glyph did what I willed it to."

"Ms. Teft said something similar too. That the magic language responds to our will or something like that," Damion said trying to remember exactly what his teacher had told him.

"Magic responds to and is shaped by the person who wields it. The stronger you become, the more mana you have and the greater the power of your mana the easier it is to impose your will on the weave of magic in the world."

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"You are trying to tell me that even if I have a lousy affinity, as long as I still have magic there is a lot I can do with it."

"Precisely," Arica said with a smile as she handed Damion his sword back. She did not think it was her place to instruct an A Ranker's student, but she figured a little push in the right direction would be enough for Damion to figure things out on his own.

"Work on channeling and controlling the magic through your sword into different types of attacks. Even if you end up with a poor affinity or talent, as long as you have versatile artifacts and the knowledge to wield them, nothing can hold you back."

Damion took Arica's lesson to heart and began trying to manipulate his fire attack in different ways. He recalled being told by a Justiciar Knight once that his sword could do more, being told the same by Arica made him want to experiment.

Whenever they stopped to locate a new plate, Damion had his sword out and was sending fire into the sky. By the time they found the last plate and were driving back towards the road to camp before their next day of plate hunting, Damion had managed to shoot a column of fire into the sky comparable to Arica's.

"Don't tire yourself out too much," Arica warned after seeing Damion practice virtually nonstop all afternoon. Even the most talented mage needed breaks to recover their mana, but Damion seemed to be a bottomless pit.

Hearing Arica's suggestion, Damion realized he had been over doing it. With his Mana Absorption skill, he could practice nearly endlessly simply refilling his core as he spent mana by keeping the skill active. However, that led to the inevitable question of, how could he use that much mana without resting.

"I guess you are right," Damion said sheathing his sword and scratching his nose. "That one almost drained me. I should make sure to keep enough mana in reserve to charge up the ground car."

Despite what Damion claimed, Arica's trained eye could see that Damion was not almost drained. In fact, if she had not seen him practicing, she would doubt if he had used any magic at all throughout the day. When she had performed the pillar of fire attack with Damion's sword, it had used up half of her mana, yet Damion's had been just as impressive as hers, but he seemed to still be brimming with energy.

Arica decided not to pry as she felt she might have just discovered why the famed Helga Teft was interested in this boy. If he had unnaturally high mana or a crazy high mana regeneration rate, he might turn out to be the next S+ Rank candidate.

After the pair stopped for the evening and set up their camp near the road into Benault Forest, they ate their respective dinner rations and headed to bed. Damion, climbed into his tent, but left the flap open in case he needed to exit the tent quickly.

The night passed uneventfully, except for the insects that found their way into Damion's tent. As Damion was packing up camp he noticed on the road was a group of people traveling towards the Benault Forest on foot.

Damion had never seen anyone travel on foot through the forest. The great advantage of ground cars was not just the speed of travel, but the noise and size of them. Most Ferocious Beasts would hear the ground cars and move away, or when they saw them, would either avoid them since they did not look like prey or thought they could not catch such a fast-moving target. Walking through the Benault Forest was like being on a conveyor belt for hungry Ferocious Beasts.

"What do you think they are doing?" Damion asked Arica regarding the people, who Damion could now see where not all adventurers. Some were children or elderly. Damion even spotted a mother carrying an infant.

"Come, let's get moving before they decide our ground car will be better off under their care. I don't feel like fighting a group of civilians."

"Do you think something happened in Saung that all these people are walking into the forest?" Damion asked worried for his parents.

"Well, something did happen, but not anything you need to worry about."

"What?" Damion asked quickly.

"My master sent me another message last night, some Falks Guild members not long ago were caught red handed as bandits. And the Justiciar Order doled out two punishments. One was that they lost their exclusive rights to their C Rank Dungeon in Bufort. The other is that they have to consolidate their members and their members families."

"What does that mean?"

"It means all the people related to the Falks Guild, have to move to the guild headquarters in Bufort."