Alvara sat still for a long time waiting for Felix to remember the story. Once his eyes cleared and his focus returned to her, she smiled at him.

  “You’re saying that A’Tuin really existed? That a turtle really created everything?”

  Alvara shrugged.

  “If you ever meet a Starfarer, you might find it easier to believe. If you really want to know if it's true, you’ll need to find some of the creatures that are still around from back then. Most people trust the Sphinx enough to believe the story.

  “This is all besides the point, though. My question still stands, do you know what a path is?”

  Felix rubbed his temples. Every time he spoke to Alvara, she would casually reveal things that upended his entire understanding of reality.

  “No, if anything, I’m even more confused.”

  “Understandable.” The little smile that flashed across her features told Felix that she was probably fully aware of what she was doing.

  “Well, you can probably guess where the term Traveller came from. If A’Tuin left his understanding of mana scattered all throughout creation, then Travellers are those who go around trying to learn from it. Your path is less clear. No one really knows where it came from or how it works.

  “All we know is it serves as a guide of sorts, taking you where you need to go so you can learn from the lessons A’Tuin left behind. Maybe even beyond that. It could be something A’Turin left behind, a sort of index for creation, a guide to his library. It could also be something inherent to mana. A guide from the mana within you, if you will.”

  After pondering what he’d learned, he realised something.

  “Wait, what does any of this have to do with why my path is so difficult?”

  Alvara looked a little surprised, then broke eye contact. Felix got the distinct impression she’d forgotten what they were talking about.

  “Ah, yes, I was getting to that, well, you see it all comes back to the Origin river.”

  Felix looked at her in confusion.

  “The River?”

  She seemed to have thought of a way to get the conversation back on track without admitting her mistake.

  “Water from the Origin River isn’t water as you think of it. It’s mana.”

  She looked at Felix like he would be surprised at the revelation.

  “We’ve already covered the whole ‘everything is mana’ topic. What else would it be?”

  “No, no, you don’t understand, it’s mana in its purest form, mana with no affinity or structure, just raw potential. That same potential makes it dangerous, so dangerous in fact that the only people who can interact with it are beings on the level of Starfarers.”

  Felix nearly jumped up from his seat, but Alvara pinning him with her glare got him to calm down. She immediately held up her hand to forestall any questions.

  “No, let’s not derail the conversation any more. I want to get to the point, and this topic is so far beyond you that there's no point in telling you more.

  “For now, let’s try to imagine what you’d need to do to cast a spell using origin mana. You know that to cast a spell, you need to understand the mana you’re trying to use for the spell. Otherwise, you can’t phrase your intent in a way that mana will understand.

  “That means you need to understand origin mana, but how can you do that? How can you understand literally everything? How can someone with a fire affinity begin to understand water mana if they can’t even connect to it?”

  “If all mana comes from origin mana, can they just understand fire mana so well that they turn it back into origin mana?”

  Alvara looked surprised. She’d clearly meant it as a rhetorical question.

  “That’s… right, well, it’s one of two ways, you can deepen your understanding of your affinity so much that you eventually get all the way to origin mana. That’s the method you mentioned, understand fire so well that you understand the origin mana it comes from. The other way is to widen your understanding, learning about so many types of mana that you begin to see the origin that links them all.”

  “Wait, so you can learn affinities other than your own?”

  Alvara nodded.

  “There are very few pure affinities. Take fire, for instance, a fire mage might try to better understand heat and light. Once they understand heat, they might try to understand its effect on metal, developing a weak affinity for it. Then they can strengthen their affinity for metal until they can use it to learn about earth, and from earth they may learn about plants.

  “The more affinities you pick up, the easier it becomes to pick up even more. It results in a snowballing effect until you can eventually see through the thread of understanding connecting the mana types to glimpse a deeper truth. By understanding what makes all the types different and all the types the same, you can begin to see the origin beneath it.

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  “Don’t underestimate either path. While it sounds simple, actually getting to that point is one of the qualifications you need to become a Starfarer. Most people end up using a combination of the two, understanding heat and light can deepen your understanding of fire, just like a deeper understanding of fire can make it easier to understand its constituent parts.”

  “Then that means if I can broaden my understanding of life mana, I can eventually learn plant magic? Or healing magic?” Felix asked with stars in his eyes. Finally, a path was opening up for him. It would be difficult. He knew he’d probably need to deepen his understanding of life mana before he could start branching out, but at least he had a path towards learning some spells he could actually use in combat.

  “Or maybe I can focus on my mind magic? What would that branch out into? I don’t really want to go into mind-reading or anything like that. Is telepathy—”

  “No.”

  Felix looked up.

  “Sorry, what was that?”

  “I said no, you can’t learn plant magic.”

  Felix looked at her, confused.

  “What do you mean? Didn’t you just say that’s how it worked?”

  Alvara looked at him with something that looked suspiciously like pity.

  “Well, that’s how it works for normal affinities, but you have both a pure mind and life affinity. It’s something that’s only possible with esoteric affinities. A normal life mana user would have traces of other affinities mixed into their affinity. Life supports plants, so they might have a bit of plant affinity mixed in that serves as a bridge to start developing it, and from there, they can branch out further into water or earth.

  “More common is having traces of themselves mixed in. You’d need that to start going down the path of a healer.

  “You have a pure life affinity. There’s nothing else mixed in, same for your mind affinity. It’s incredibly rare to even have one of them, and it’s normally seen as a good thing. Just like having a life or mind affinity is seen as a good thing. A pure affinity will let you follow the path of deep understanding with much greater ease”

  “Pure affinities, life and mind affinities, these are all excellent long term. A mind affinity will help with spell casting, a life affinity will make sure you live long enough to go far.”

  Felix frowned. “So what’s the problem?”

  “Well, it’s normally a bit of a dud until you get much further along your path. Normally, you’d focus on your other affinity until you catch up. It’s easier to deepen a pure affinity, but without at least some understanding of mana, you probably won’t get very far. It’s like asking a toddler to run a merchant empire or asking a brand new mage to understand magic cast by Starfarers.”

  Felix blinked. “So what should I do then?”

  “I uhm… don’t know.”

  They stared at each other. Eventually, Felix just let out a sigh.

  “I guess I’ll just need to hope my path leads me to something.” Alvara’s wince didn’t go unnoticed.

  “For now, I should focus on the problem in front of me. I need to find a way to clear the final gate. I still don’t have any offensive spells, and I don’t think I can do much more about my body. I can still improve a bit in terms of combat skill, but that won’t be enough.”

  Alvara didn’t say anything. Felix got the impression she was just stalling for time while making more tea, but he soon noticed her growing discomfort.

  “You can’t be serious?”

  “Well, the problem is your affinities. You can only use life and mind spells. To cast a spell on someone else, you’d ask a favour of the mana that makes up the core of their being. It’s like stopping in the middle of a sword fight and asking your opponent to politely drop dead.”

  “Then what about spells to make me stronger or faster?”

  “...”

  “What?”

  “Well, your life affinity is too pure to really affect your body in any real sense. Your wounds may heal faster, you might recover better from injury or require less sleep and food, and your lifespan will be longer. But that’s just making your body work to its maximum potential. There’s no way to go beyond that without having a physical affinity.”

  “Then what about mind?”

  Alvara thought for a while before shaking her head.

  “I don’t know, you’ll probably have a similar limit, but I can’t even know what the limit of a mind is, or what it would look like for you to push to that limit. You’d need to ask a mind mage, but they’re incredibly rare. I don’t think I’ve met more than one or two in my life.”

  “So to pass the final gate…”

  “My honest advice? Give up.”

  “What?”

  Alvara let out a sigh.

  “Look, I don’t think there’s any way you can pass it. This isn’t like your first gate. Even with your absurd first gate, it was still just your first, not to mention there are no second tries. It’s do or die. You lose some rights if you don't pass it. You can’t go to any of the universities or join the military, but those wouldn’t help you much anyway.

  You won’t get a grimoire, so preparing spells will be harder, but right now, you don’t even have any prepared spells. There’s no guarantee you’ll get any since your magic isn’t focused on combat. If you do, you can always buy one.

  “The only thing that will really hurt you is the fact that you won’t officially be considered a Traveller. That means you won’t get a stipend, and you’ll have a hard time getting access to some traveller-specific repositories of knowledge, and you’ll have a hard time joining the explorers' guild. All told it should only set you back a couple of centuries.

  “With a life affinity like yours, you probably have a lifespan nearing an elf’s. It’s not a big deal to take a bit longer.”

  Felix’s face turned white. Alvara was so caught up in her brilliant plan that she didn’t even notice.

  “You have a mind affinity, too. It will be really useful later in your path. It's great for mages in general, not just spell casting. You can hoard knowledge, you can train your will to far surpass the average mage, and your lifespan means you have all the time in the world to hone what you're good at. In a few millennia, you’ll probably be the greatest mage of your generation.”

  Alvara had so obviously gotten caught up in her own narration that she’d even stopped looking at Felix, instead staring off into the distance with a vacant look while she thought.

  “Until then, maybe pick up bookkeeping, tutoring, something like that, your mind affinity will help, I’m sure you can figure it out. It will keep you afloat while you grind away at the problem.”

  That was the final straw for Felix. He quickly stood up.

  “Sorry, Alvara, I need to think about this.”

  Not waiting for a response, he quickly left. He felt sick at the thought of listening any longer.

  “Felix! Wait!”

  He didn’t stop, he couldn’t. He barely caught her last sentence.

  “Ashes, I forgot how young he is, still too impatient.”

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