He ordered his True Self to reveal the information to him—the pages shifted on their own.
The Only Shade
I have scoured every layer within these labyrinthine mind realms and found nothing. But it is through this nothing that I found sothing. The only other reflection of who I am. An affinity for misdirection, deception, and manipulation.
The srism Affinity.
“The srism Affinity?” He repeated to himself and frowned. Based on the description, one thing was clear—he only had one affinity.
According to Myrin, the number of affinities a person could have was dependent on the number of different ‘Shades of Self’ they had. Each shade could represent a dominant personality trait, but that didn’t an every side of a person’s personality was reflected this way. It was common for magi and sentinels to discover that so of the personality traits they thought they had didn’t manifest as shades of self.
“If you wear a mask long enough, you’ll start to believe it’s your face…” It was a saying he had heard from sowhere.
Not that it truly mattered anyway. A person with only one affinity was no different than a person with two, three, four or more affinities. The number never truly mattered. What mattered most was the magi’s grimoire and how they utilized the affinities they had. In fact, the more affinities a person holds, the less useful they could beco. This was due to the fact that no matter who the magi was, they will eventually need to prioritize one affinity over the others. Ti of course, will always be limited, and in most cases, magi do not spend that ti studying their affinities. They will most likely resort to purchasing grimoires from others depending on what their affinity was, which would make them highly dependent on the market.
If you have an affinity for Glassfire, but also a rare affinity for Camouflage, you’ll prioritize Glassfire since there are so grimoires out there for it.
Since his revelation speaks of “the only other reflection,” and that it was titled, “The Only Shade,” Soren rightfully assud that this was his ‘True Self’s’ way of telling him that this srism affinity was the only one he had. Still, the description for it intrigued him, since it sowhat went against that notion.
“Misdirection, deception, manipulation…” The more he thought about, the more it seed as if his affinity was in actuality three affinities packaged into one. And he did not for a second disagree with that notion.
The whole reason he was even able to discover this was because of what he had pieced together from his unsuccessful search the past four or so days. Not only was there not a single glimpse of his Shade of Self, but all of the oddities stacked against each other pointed at this one and only conclusion:
That the ‘True Self’ he was holding was a fake—it was in actuality his Shade of Self disguising itself as his True Self.
Even now, a part of him wanted to laugh at this conclusion. All that ti he had spent searching for it when in reality, it had always been with him the whole ti… Not even for a second did he doubt that this affinity was a result of one of his personality traits.
"God, I'm such an asshole—I couldn't even resist pulling a prank on myself.” He was indeed proud of this.
The first clue to this was the fact that he was able to move his ‘True Self’ out of the Heart’s Shroud in the first place. This had already struck him as odd, even though it was his idea to test it out in the first place.
Myrin had already told him previously that a person’s True Self will always reside at the deepest level of the Heart’s Shroud, far below all three layers. Moving it should have been inconceivable, but the idea intrigued him so he wanted to test it. Even if he couldn’t move it, simply being able to use his abilities within the boundaries of the Heart’s Shroud would have been seen as a net plus. The mont he was able to move it, a seed of suspicion grew.
Now that he’s able to read what his affinity was and what it represents, he finally was able to piece together everything. srism by definition was another way of saying deception and trickery. His Shade of Self had disguised itself as his True Self to fool him, and it worked for the most part—he didn’t realize he was carrying what he was searching for the whole ti until the very end.
But what truly amazed him was its connection to those illusions he had been seeing in the Heart’s Shroud as well as the attacks from the storms in his Echo of Mind. Ever since his arrival here, he had been wondering about why these changes were occurring—Myrin hadn’t warned him of such a thing happening and he refused to believe he knew and kept it a secret. He had been suspicious of them and kept wondering if they had anything to do with his Shade of Self to the point of even considering purposefully entering one of the storms to see if it may have been hidden inside the thunder clouds.
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However, both of these supernatural occurrences make sense now. These were simply illusions manifested by this Shade of Self that tricked him into believing they were real. This was collaborated by the fact that they all dissipated the mont he discovered where his Shade of Self was.
And this finally led him to the final clue: the icons on his map. It was now fairly simple to explain why these indicators were there even though he hadn’t used [Record] for them—the copy of The Records that the Shade of Self was mimicking didn’t need to use abilities to showcase what it, itself, has created. If all the storms and illusionary mories of Phantasms he had seen before were all fabricated by it, there would be no need to keep track of their locations since the Shade of Self already knows where they are at all tis to begin with.
“As I thought, this is not a normal affinity…” All the information he had learned about Soul Searches never ntioned anything about the Shades of Self he needed to locate fighting against the magi or sentinel. They only tend to hide themselves since they are reflections of a person’s subconscious mind—personality traits that make up who a person was. And yet, the affinity before him clearly exhibited signs of going against this inactive nature, not to ntion, the thods it employed were far more closer into the territory of Mysteries rather than Magecraft.
“Since The Records I am currently holding isn’t my True Self, where is it actually? Is it still at the bottom of the Heart’s Shroud? How co I didn’t see it…”
He considered going back down there to explore but decided against it. He had already obtained what he wanted—there was no need to risk things, especially not with raging rune tentacles looking to invade his mind and corrupt his existence roaming around down there. Nope.
He glanced down at his Soul Weapon (Shade of Self) and smiled. “Since you are mimicking my True Self, you should be able to mimic its effect right?” He imdiately thought of leaving the three layers, and much to his relief, it had worked. His body slowly turned translucent as he vanished from the Echo of Mind followed by the Veil of Perception.
He was now back in reality.
Myrin sat plainly before a desk with a bored expression drooping off his face. Ti truly does have an effect on one’s psyche. Even with being able to stay in his room and draw for hours, the need to leave and go elsewhere had grown on him in the past few hours.
Crumbling another drawing and tossing it to the floor to be picked up by one of his Leafling Minions, he glanced back at where Soren was sitting and frowned.
“Why did I agree to this again…” His shoulders lowered in defeat as he sighed.
All of a sudden, the door to his room swung open slowly, the familiar ginger-haired warrior he knows stepped inside. Tina was holding two cups of coffee, one that she was sipping from while the other she handed off to Myrin.
“Thanks a lot.” He smiled.
Tina nodded, “Don’t sweat it. How’s Soren doing?”
“To be honest, I am not sure… I considered doing another divination to see if it could tell an outco, but I saw no point in it. Even if I knew sothing bad was going to happen, there’s no way for us to interfere in what happens within his three layers.” He took a sip from the coffee and set it on the table.
“Speaking of which, what do you think his affinity is going to be if he succeeds? Any guesses?”
Tina frowned and crossed her arms. “Maybe an affinity for sweet talking?”
“I can definitely see that,” he laughed. “Honestly, sothing sly would probably fit him best. Sothing with deception or trickery. An affinity to make people distrust themselves and their surroundings.”
“So basically his paranoia and stubbornness personified into an affinity?” Tina chuckled. “If only affinities were this straightforward.”
The conversation shifted for a while, until a change in the anima was felt coming from behind them. They shifted their attention to where Soren was ditating. His eyes had finally opened.
“How… How long was I out for?” He asked Myrin. His legs felt oddly numb.
“Two days.” He said with a look of relief.
“Two days?!” Soren’s eyes widened. It was honestly a long period of ti, but it was still shorter than what he had originally assud. To him, about 4 and a half or so days had passed while exploring his three layers.
I guess that’s a good thing actually… It ant more ti to study before his report.
“Let’s get to the main question,” Tina said. “Now that your Soul Search ended, is it fair to assu you discovered your affinity? What is it?”
Soren thought for a second before answering. “srism. It has to do with deception and trickery. I think I can use it to cast elaborate illusions and whatnot. But it also seems to be more than that.”
They both glanced at each other for a second before bursting into laughter. Myrin almost spilled his coffee.
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