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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Quetzhal on 2025-11-04 17:35:24+00:00.

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Chapter 33: Certain Death Valley

Leo wasn't really sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't this. Everything Cale had said about attuning made sense. It explained why he was having so much difficulty trying to shift the base aspect of his mana core, and even before Cale said anything, it told him in no uncertain terms that his approach had been flawed. In rejecting his core aspect, he was making it even more difficult to attune it to anything else, and while there were records of that sort of permanent reattunement working...

Well, there was a reason all of those records had taken each mage decades. Leo had thought, perhaps rather foolishly, that he was willing to give up those decades if it meant he could be among his family and village once more.

He was a little less certain now, and not only because of everything he'd been through today. As much as Cale had tried to wave off the effects of his very, very long life, even Leo could see the way it wore on him. And minotaurs didn't live nearly as long—he couldn't simply waste decades of his life and... what, come back to live in a changed village, with no one left that he knew?

A second core, though? That was Cale's solution? Leo didn't know if he wanted to laugh incredulously or punch him.

Probably the former. Punching Cale seemed... ill-advised.

Cale was still beaming at him with that ever-present smile, so Leo forced himself to speak again. "What do you mean, building a second mana core?" he asked. It came out a little more desperate than he'd intended. "Can't I just—I don't know—get my hands on something like Damien's cloak? You could awaken a different artifact!"

At those words, Damien flinched slightly. Leo grimaced. He hadn't intended to bring that up, but the words had slipped out. It seemed like such a convenient solution.

"Nope," Cale said dismissively. "That cloak works well for Damien because his base aspect can't be fully attuned to a different aspect. It's a bit like water and oil—you can separate the oil pretty easily. Trying to do that with your mana would be like trying to separate water and... I don't know, milk? It's a lot harder, is my point. That cloak wouldn't be able to do it."

There went that idea. "There has to be something else," Leo argued. "Maybe in Orstrahl's vault. There's an artifact for practically everything. We have the credits, we could—"

"—Leo." Cale interrupted him, his expression turning into something a little more severe, and Leo felt his stomach drop in response. "Why don't you want to make a second core?"

"It's not a matter of whether I want to do it or not," Leo said, flustered. "Second cores are what archmages do. I can't just make one. I'm barely a novice! A second mana core is—it's the step between archmage and minor divinity!"

"Well, yeah." Cale's brows drew together, as if puzzled. "I'm teaching you. It's not like any of you are going to stop at archmage."

The room fell dead silent. Cale glanced around at the four of them, raising an eyebrow slightly.

"...Unless any of you don't want to be an apprentice?" he asked suddenly. "I don't think I ever asked any of you properly."

"I'm pretty sure if any of us said no to that we'd regret it for the rest of our lives." Flia was the first to speak, her tone dry.

"Do you... normally go around picking up apprentices like this?" Damien asked quietly.

Something indiscernible crossed Cale's expression. "I used to," he said.

He didn't elaborate, even in the silence that followed.

Leo broke the silence this time, somewhat awkwardly. "You really think I can build a second core?" he asked. "How long... how long would it take?"

Cale eyed him up and down, then nodded to himself. "Two months," he said. Leo tried not to flinch again. Two months?! Becoming an archmage was itself a task that took decades, it wasn't something that could just be done in a month or two—

"Two months to get the second core started and working well enough you won't need to worry about leaking labyrinth mana," Cale clarified. "It'll take you longer to become a full archmage, probably. Hard to say. Maybe a year or two before you're ready to step into minor divinity?"

"Let's just stick to the archmage thing." Leo exhaled, pulling off his glasses to rub at his eyes. He was starting to wonder if he was dreaming. "I have enough trouble with that."

"Sounds good to me," Cale said cheerfully. "Like I said, you need a second core. You can get started on that without getting all the way to archmage, but you do need to be fully synchronized with your labyrinth core first, and we have a rather convenient labyrinth available whenever you wish to do so."

His tone gentled a bit. "Though I know that might be hard for you," he said. "That's why I said we'll do the labyrinth when you're ready. It's your choice, alright?"

Leo felt his shoulders relax slightly at that reassurance. He couldn't remember when he'd tensed up, but apparently he had. "Right," he said, exhaling. "I'll do my best. It... it might take me a day or two. I'm sorry."

Cale shrugged, giving him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "I'm the one throwing you into the deep end," he said. "But your original plan is a lot riskier, especially since there's no guarantee you won't experience an aspect rebound. You'd never really be safe if you went with that."

"I... I know," Leo mumbled. It had been a nice thought, though. The idea that he could have a normal core had appealed to him.

"Mind you, I have no idea why Asterion would do something like this," Cale muttered, mostly to himself. "Doesn't seem like him."

Leo felt his skin prickle at that. Had Cale actually met and spoken to Asterion before? It seemed possible, now that he knew his background, and that meant...

No. It meant nothing. What was Leo going to do, find and kill a named mythology? He didn't even know if it would free his people from the Impetus.

"Once you get a second core, the goal will be to use it as your primary core," Cale explained, though there was something in his eyes that made Leo wonder if he knew what he was thinking. "You'll feed your labyrinth mana into it so that any mana you leak will be from the new core. Essentially, you'll be automating the attunement process. Any questions?"

Leo had so many questions, but his mouth was dry, and nothing was coming out. He shook his head.

"Good," Cale said. He gave Leo a friendly grin. "I suggest you start thinking about what you want as a second mana aspect, because it's going to shape who you are as a mage."

Right. He would have to think about that. Leo couldn't remember the last time he'd given serious thought as to what he wanted his base aspect to be. Fire, maybe? Fire was one of the more common, notoriously easy to attune aspects. Fire would be nice.

Fire also felt like it wouldn't be enough against anything they'd faced today. He didn't want anything too esoteric—the tradeoff with attunement just meant he'd be locked into a different set of spells—but maybe if he could find something that was just on the edge of that, something with both offensive and defensive potential without sacrificing too much in the way of utility...

Before he realized it, he'd pulled out a set of notebooks and begun muttering to himself, cross-referencing them and muttering to himself.

Cale grinned. "Looks like Leo's taking it seriously," he said cheerfully. "Your turn, Flia."

—

Flia felt, in spite of herself, kind of nervous when Cale turned his attention to her. She still didn't know what to think about what happened in the Inverted Spires—the idea that she'd just been wrong about her mana aspect this entire time was...

Not just her, but her family. Her people. Water elementals were known for their kindness and their ability to heal. Their presence alone could end droughts and famines, and as such they were a symbol of luck and good fortune in cultures all across Utelia. All across the Great Realms, really, if the records found within dungeons were any indication.

Flia had been different from the moment of her birth.

Variant elementals had been born before. Most of the time, it wasn't anything remarkable. A tempest elemental could control the winds and storms, ocean elementals handled more large-scale magic like the tides. Flia even had a cousin that was an acid elemental who had acquired a job with an alchemist. All of those mana aspects were well-known, and none of them were too difficult to attune when needed.

Flia's mana core, on the other hand, had been nearly impossible to reattune, and no one had any idea why. It felt like a normal water aspect core to anyone with a mana sense. It was only after long nights and deep dives into the archives that her family had eventually concluded that what she had was a deep-sea attunement, known also as the Leviathan's Curse, and that she was stuck with it for the rest of her life.

Except even that was wrong, according to Cale. Her mana aspect was, what, abyssal? She was connected to the literal ocean between the Great Realms. What did that mean for her? What was Cale, who had apparently lived through thousands of lives all across the Great Realms, going to tell her?

She stared at him in so...

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