The Wandering Fairy Chapter 126: Affinity Fusion

Silence reigned over the enigmatic space. The Fignt of his Imagination couldn’t say anything. No, it simply had nothing to say.

Seeing this, Soren nodded and shifted the space back toward the marble canopy. Finding his familiar seat, he rested for the first ti in a while. His eyes felt heavy, as if a mountain rested upon them. And yet, sleep remained elusive.

“What did you do…” The fla finally had the courage to ask.

Soren didn’t answer imdiately. He simply stayed silent—even forming sentences had beco hard… He needed so ti to calm himself.

“I can see that a certain change occurred within your soul,” the fla continued, “That spell you casted… It wasn't just a normal trial, was it?...”

Soren’s lips curled up into a smile. A part of him wanted to tease the fla—just monts ago, it arrogantly declared itself the winner before him and that he should give up and let it take over imdiately. And now, here it was begging for an answer to its question. Its tone of voice had also changed—was it fear he was sensing?

“Forget all that for a second,” he said, “bring up my status page—I want to check sothing.”

The fla didn’t move. Soren frowned as he glanced up at its flickering light. “Did you not hear ?”

The fla hesitated for a mont then answered dejectedly. “I can’t.”

“What?” Soren knit his brows.

“I can’t bring up your status page. Because my current understanding of you isn’t complete.”

The words left him stunned for a mont. What is it talking about? After all, The Records was intertwined with his very soul. Even the most minute of changes should have been easily detectable. But now, it was saying it had no way to evaluate what he looks like on the inside?

Soren’s frown deepened. “That’s strange. What exactly are you missing from your data?”

It answered coldly, “Everything… is jumbled…”

And that was when he finally realized what had happened. Soren burst into laughter—laughter he hadn’t seen from himself in ages. The answer—it was so outlandish, that not even he expected it from himself.

The fla watched this display of madness nervously as its flas flickered and spun ruggedly. It suppressed its emotions as it waited for the outburst to end.

Eventually, Soren stopped. His mind—it was still a ss. But that final outburst set a few things back into their original places. He glanced up at the now shriveling fla and sighed.

“Our hypothesis was wrong. Affinity Mixing—it was impossible from the start.”

“What?” The fla couldn’t understand this at all. Was it not his plan to assimilate the affinities into cooperating with each other? Was it not him that theorized that the similarities between the affinities would allow for such a thing to happen?

If everything they had been operating under was wrong, why did he say he succeeded?

Noticing the fla’s confusion, Soren’s smile widened even more. “Affinity Mixing—this concept essentially theorizes that opposing wills have the power to co together to form sothing greater than the sum of their numbers. That one could twist reality through the rging of opposing forces of nature.

“And yet, even the Axiom Codex that presented this theory to oh so long ago spoke of its consequences on the mind…”

The Fignt of his Imagination flickered impatiently, “All of this is common knowledge, what’s your point…”

Soren chuckled, “The point is within the wording—opposing wills! You see, after all these trials, I realized just how foolish we were. Our plan—although it had so concrete evidence to back it up—still operated under an assumption: that the opposing wills could find a way to cooperate if they were at least similar enough in nature…”

He leaned back against his seat. “You said it yourself, didn’t you? While I was struggling to survive earlier, you said sothing very interesting.

“That even perfect twins will have fights from ti to ti…”

The fla shined brightly, “Indeed…”

“It was our arrogance all along that tried to change how nature operated.” Soren sighed. “So I decided to change up my plan at the last minute—a gamble, per se.”

“A gamble?” The word made its fla’s rise higher for a mont.

Soren nodded. “Indeed. It was a bit outlandish, but it was sothing I theorized last minute. Sothing I decided to na ‘Affinity Fusion.’ You see, since Affinity Mixing was impossible due to the opposing nature of each affinity vying for dominance, I decided to let them decide the winner from the start.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“What?!” The fla quivered intensely.

Soren grinned, “Yes, it’s a bit crazy, isn’t it? srism and Wards… Two affinities that seem so alike, yet every ti I tried to wield them together, all they did was bicker, clash, squabble… After three thousand trials, I felt less like a magus and more like a nanny dealing with children! They drove insane, you know?!”

He let out a soft chuckle, “Such immature little things, these Shades of Self… In the end, I relented. I gave them what they wanted.”

His eyes glead—half delirium, half mad. “A fight to the death. Winner consus the loser.”

The fla danced and wavered. Even its colors shifted. It truly had no way to process what he was saying. Seeing this, Soren simply laughed—his face half covered by the brim of his cone hat.

“Ah, but of course, I needed to play favorites… I couldn’t just let them fight by themselves—if I did, they would have simply destroyed each other and I would have died… Well, the clash of wills was enough to almost kill but I resisted that.

“To make sure there was a clear winner, I changed the anima ratios on that magecraft spell in favor of srism. At the end of the day, Wards might have had a more decisive authority over controlling space, but it was still not completely mine. Tazzith’s will had clear influences on its behavior, which ans its Shade of Self was tainted.”

The Records finally spoke again, “So you used this as an opportunity to deal with it?”

“Hitting two birds with one stone,” Soren replied with a nod. “Isn’t it brilliant? Now, srism has the capacity to invoke the sa material runes as Wards naturally. And, the tainted anima from Tazzith has also been disposed of.”

“But I don’t understand,” the fla replied. “How were you able to control this chaotic clash in your favor… Even with less anima, the damage the two Shades of Self invoked upon each other would still have been deadly… And why is it that I cannot read the information about your True Self… This is illogical!” It flickered wildly.

Soren smirked. “Don’t you already know the answer?”

“What… do you an…”

“I already stated this earlier—combining two opposing forces of anima goes against nature. By definition, magecraft is the manipulation of nature—the physical world. When a magus invokes a spellform made of material runes, they are simply altering reality within the scope of their Soul Realm based on the already existing rules those material runes govern. But by combining two affinities, you are essentially rejecting reality—flas that are cold or ice that is hot—these are not things that exist in the world naturally. You are creating a new rule—a new affinity that doesn’t exist.

“But Mysteries are different! Mysteries are phenona that go against nature on their own! They utilize Abstract Runes that govern over immaterial ideas and concepts—things that don’t really exist in reality from the start! That is what separates a Phantasm from a Magus. The skills granted to us by our Soul Weapons ignore causality and the way this world operates.” He glanced up at the fla fervently, “Do you get it now?”

The Fignt of his Imagination took a mont, but it finally understood what he was saying…

“You… Your True Self… It’s different.”

“Bingo.” Soren smiled. “Unlike everyone else, my circumstances are strange. My True Self isn’t just a reflection of who I am—it has also rged directly with the Fairy Witness rune that grants my Soul Weapon. In a sense, my existence itself is a Mystery. And logically, by extension, my Shades of Self should also contain a Mystery within their existence.

“Think about it—isn’t it strange how realistic the illusions my srism affinity manifests? That beca really clear to when you conducted that Consciousness Training thod last ti. You used the knowledge I had chronicled about the Naless Mist to reconstruct an illusion based on it to use against . And yet, that illusion followed the sa principles the Naless Mist is governed by—it managed to erase my mories. How can a simple illusion do that?”

“Are you saying…”

“Yes,” he interrupted. “srism is a reflection of [Fictionalization]. In the sa way I can manifest any idea within this space as long as I hold so understanding of it, srism follows the sa principles. It might even be that the Faerie Court is the reason why my Abstract Runes and my own Existence have beco intertwined. How could sothing fueled by a concept this profound lose to a foreign affinity like Wards?”

There were other examples of this too—like the mind storms he had to face inside his Echo of Mind during his Soul Search. Back then, when he was trying to find his Shade of Self, it had disguised itself as The Records and created countless illusory storms that could cause damage if he wasn’t careful enough. And then there was the fact that his disguises whenever he turned invisible in the Beyond were solid enough to fool the spirits there, even though he had never even utilized a single material rune to manifest them.

But by far the biggest piece of evidence was what had transpired at the very end of the Crimson Ritual… The hallucinatory spell he had casted subconsciously… It not only put the civilians to sleep, but also manifested dreams regarding his true identity as ‘The Wandering Fairy.’ This was knowledge embedded deeply within his True Self…

After that event, he had foolishly assud that this was due to him subconsciously casting a magecraft spell using Affinity Mixing, but that couldn’t have been more from the truth. In reality, Wards had nothing to do with it from the start.

It was srism alone and the deeply rooted Mysteries that govern its existence that allowed such a miracle to occur… This affinity of his, it was never about simply creating illusions. It was about creating illusions so real, they beco reality from that belief alone.

And now that it has consud Wards, its powers will be far more accessible to him. However, what excited him more was what this revelation implied.

If the existence of his forgotten rune fragnt—and the abstract rune tied to his Soul Weapon—played such a pivotal role in shaping how his Shade of Self manifested… Then wouldn’t that suggest sothing more?

That as his Soul Weapon evolved—gaining new Abstract Runes—he might unlock entirely new affinities, each one drawn from the hidden truths encoded within those concepts?

When he was passing through his Three Layers during the Soul Search, he did find it odd that only a single Shade of Self manifested. Although such cases were docunted, they were still sowhat rare. Most people tend to be born with multiple Shades of Self, and the experiences that shape and mold their lives also impacts this process.

But if his hypothesis held true… then it all made perfect sense.

Right now, he has rged with only one Abstract Rune—Fairy Witness.

If he were to acquire another…

“As for your other question,” Soren yawned—the conversation was boring him. “You couldn’t detect my True Self because you never actually found it.”

He leaned against the table with the support of his wrist. “My srism affinity has been weaving illusions across all Three Layers—masking my presence. No, it would be more accurate to say that the signals you rely on to interpret are being rewritten.”

He grinned playfully, “It’s not like I am hidden. It’s just that I made you forget how to look.”

The fla for once stopped moving for a mont’s length. “I can read your True Self again…”

Soren nodded, “That’s cause I am allowing it. Now hurry up and show my status page, Mr. Better-Version-Than-. Oh, and don’t forget our bet!”