"Effort, perseverance, and hard work are the key to success. Even the most talented prodigy rarely amount to much unless they possessed those qualities as well, while even those without talents can rise high with them. Many claimed that talent is better than hard work. My existence disagrees with those claims." - Bernd Talhoff, grand champion of the colosseum in The Caerwoq Sultanate, circa 260 VA

Palace of Bones, Tohrmutgent, Ptolodecca, firstday of the first week of the thirteenth month, year 34 VA.

It has been three months since Aideen came to Tohrmutgent and lived in the Palace of Bones - one tidbit she still had difficulties wrapping her head around -, and also almost three month since grandpa Aarin had put her and Diarmuid under strict training.

The tutors they had were much harder on Diarmuid than her, but then again, their focus was utterly different to begin with. Diarmuid trained to fight in the frontlines with his troops, and his training reflected it. Her brother seemed most enthusiastic to learn from captain deVreys, who had taught him many new methodologies he managed to adapt for his own use.

On the other hand, by now both siblings had gained a sense of respect - and dread - for Drietven Edrunviel, their grandpa's elven butler. At first they had been skeptical when he said he would train Diarmuid in actual combat skills. That was before he left her brother in tatters with cuts all over within moments of their first clash.

Grandpa Aarin had apparently believed in the idea that harder training provided better results, and even when their mother sometimes winced as she watched, Drietven regularly chopped Diarmuid up until he was bloody all over, and at times even with a limb or two severed.

The injuries never stayed for long as healers were always on standby - and lately Aideen had also joined in on the healing as she understood her new affinity more -, but the pain inflicted definitely helped drive the lessons home for her brother.

It has only taken three months from Diarmuid being utterly bullied by the butler to him being able to defend himself well for the most part. It had also reduced the chances she had to practice her healing on him though.

As her own affinity goes, in the past three months she had been given ample time and resources to experiment with it. The Bone Lord himself had taken personal interest in the new affinity, and had informed her that apparently, more had awoken the same affinity she had in the recent days. Five such cases had been found in Ptolodecca alone, and they were shepherded to the Palace of Bones where they often joined Aideen in training and traded how each felt about their affinity.

According to the Bone Lord's words, this was not an odd occurrence. When the dwarven ancestor Helmut Aussedorf awakened the metal affinity close to a millenia ago, the Bone Lord had observed a similar case of awakenings in others shortly after the fact as well.

Mortality, as they had chosen to name the new affinity - only seemed fitting, as it was a derivative of life and death - seemed to be more similar to life as far as Aideen could tell. Her healing prowess when it comes to physical wounds seemed to have increased greatly, as she could weave the wounded flesh closed and reconnect the severed conduits with ease.

On the other hand, she found herself far less able to handle even simple diseases - things that she used to eradicate with ease when she had life affinity -, as all she could do was ensure the patient remained in perfect physical form while their body fought the illness on their own.

The other people who had awakened the affinity also reported the same, except one. Ariadne Vandorf was a young village girl who had awakened her magic power very early in life - and was known for exterminating pests in her village since she was seven -, and unlike the rest who awakened into Life-major Mortality, she was a Death-Major instead.

Much like Aideen and the rest she also gained the ability to heal, and to keep their physical bodies in peak condition, but hers was much less effective. Instead, she brought about a new discovery about the affinity, when she revealed that she could *read* the surface of other's thoughts as long as she was in their vicinity.

The little girl - only ten years of age - also quickly found another use for the affinity. She used to exterminate pests in her family's farm using death magic, and she found that she could replicate the feat using mortality. When it comes to creatures with simple minds like rats or insects, she could straight up eradicate their minds and kill them that way.

Further trials showed that it was also effective on simple undead beings, but when used against people, could at most give them an annoying headache. This new direction made the other experiment as well, and they found that while as life majors they couldn't perceive thoughts, if they really tried hard they managed to catch a whiff of another person's moods.

One other curious fact Aideen discovered over the past months, was how mortality's "healing" worked even on dead bodies. She had not thought about it then, but when she had just risen, she had instinctively healed her own tattered body back to an unblemished form. Her own dead body, that healing magic was powerless to fix.

When she reported it to her grandpa Aarin, he muttered that what she had done was less healing, and more the weaving of flesh. From that comment the moniker of "Fleshweaver" stuck to the life majors, while Ariadne they called a "Soulweaver".

As for her self defense training, Aideen took to those with a passion. Ren-Gui was a true expert in both unarmed and armed combat, and Aideen took his teachings head on with a passion that clearly delighted the old man. Oddly enough, the old Huan man had not disagreed about her focusing on the staff instead of other, more lethal weapons.

In the man's opinion, the staff itself was a formidable, flexible weapon, which he promptly proved to her while he smacked her around with one of his own. The fact that Aideen could very easily and quickly repair any damage to her body - and the Bone Lord's instruction not to hold back - allowed the old man to go all out on her.

As such, Aideen became quite intimately familiar with her body's muscular and skeletal structure, since torn muscles and broken bones were a constant thing during her training. The more she had to fix herself, the more familiarity she gained over the process.

She quickly also learned that her magic could be used to push her body beyond its peak physical state, not by a great margin, but maybe by another fifth or so. She made use of this physical boost during her training to accustom herself to it, and found that it did have its own drawbacks, as muscles easily tore when pushed beyond their peak. It was a minor issue when you could just fix it yourself, however.

One time, Aideen curiously asked Ren-Gui on what weapon he actually specialized in. The man had trained her while using all varieties of weapons himself, to allow her the experience of facing different types of fighting styles, and had seemed an expert in them all.

Ren-Gui had a rare smile on his face when she asked that, and slowly pulled out his personal weapon from his ring and showed it to her.

Aideen had never seen a weapon like that before. It had the shape of three short metal staves, linked into a long weapon by chains between their tips. Ren-Gui called it a Sānjiébiān, which in his language meant "Three Section Whip".

She then asked him for a demonstration, and the old man happily obliged.

Later that night, even long after she had healed all the bruises and broken bones and other injuries from the "demonstration" Ren-Gui gave her, Aideen swore her whole body still felt sore all over like never before.