Danny and Phantom walked into the atrium of the guest wing. The girls were talking in the sitting area with the Basalt women, while Wizard Basalt was busy eating over at the dining table.

Ivy saw the two enter the room and called over, but to Danny's chagrin, it was just to Phantom. Hearing the familiar voice the cat quickly ran over to greet Ivy. The rest of the females gathered around to lavish the ghost leopard with much affection.

Danny just stood there watching with a pained look until he heard a raucous laughter coming from the dining table. He turned to see the wizard watching and chuckling at Danny, while shaking his head. Bits of food flew out of his mouth as he failed to reign in his mirth at the dejected look on Danny's face.

Danny scowled at the older man, which only made him laugh harder. Danny sat down next to the man and grabbed a plate and started filling it from the abundance of food still left in the middle of the table.

Wizard Basalt swallowed the significant amount of food that was in his mouth, "Danny, I see you found the girls little kitten."

Danny smirked while taking a bite of some sort of pie that was filled with meat and a delicious tasting fruit, "Yes, she is quite the popular one with the ladies."

"Is that jealousy I hear there Danny?"

Danny turned to the wizard, "Yes. Yes it is."

The older man nodded, "Good! I was afraid with that with that princess around you would be forgetting about my little Jade."

Danny smiled and shook his head, "Never, sir."

The wizard slapped Danny on the back and then got back to work on the large bird he apparently was eating by himself.

"Wizard, I saw you fight that undead mountain troll during the battle in the forest. That was awesome! How did you train yourself to be so strong?"

The older man stopped eating and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his duster, "Danny, I only have one affinity, earth. Because of that I felt I would need to have something else to support my magic. I decided that strength was the way to go. My wives are all swift and deadly with their blades and bows, so I took up the heavy lifting to offset that.”

Looking around conspiratorially the wizard continued, “Now, this next part I didn't tell you because I was only able to get it out of my wives were young and easily swayed by my manly charms.”

Danny looked at the man in doubt of his supposed charms, but chose to keep silent so he would continue.

“Danny, there is something they don't tell wizards because they want us to focus only magic, even in the order. In Diadem, the men have their roles and the women theirs. What I discovered, was that the benefits of strength and agility attribute bonuses provided by the sanctuary are all dependent on the condition of one’s body.

After long years of study, the people of Diadem discovered that a person who has reached halfway to first threshold in strength has fifty percent more strength than they would normally. Those that reach their first threshold have one hundred percent more strength. Now, fifty percent more strength on my body verses yours, Danny, would have drastically different results. More muscle, more benefit."

Danny was ready with a question, "I noticed agility makes you taller, strength makes you more muscular, and intelligence makes you..."

The wizard smiled and batted his eyelashes, "Prettier?"

Danny laughed and nodded.

Wizard Basalt, "You are right on all cases, yet you don't have everything. Strength makes your muscles more efficient and take longer to start regressing. Agility makes you taller, but it also makes you more limber, and helps you store more energy in your body. The vanity of the Magi made sure intelligence made one more attractive, but it also increases the amount of information you can store in your head, and how quickly you can access it. All attribute bonuses are about increasing efficiency, well except the pretty part. It appears the first tier of every attribute raised some aspect by one hundred percent."

Danny shook his head, "Are there added benefits when you reach the thresholds?"

Wizard Basalt nodded, "Yes, for the strength threshold, we never lose muscle growth, which if one is not careful cause a person to get too large. For the agility threshold, we get an extraordinary sense of danger that allows us to instinctively respond to threats we normally wouldn't be aware of. Danny, I suspect you already know what happens when someone crosses the intelligence threshold."

Danny stared at the wizard before answering, "Yes, sir, I am."

Danny decided not to tell the older man about his knowledge of the other races. He didn't want to give up information provided by the elves. Especially when the guards were listening.

"I am surprised you haven't asked me about this before, Danny."

"Well, I was always focused on my magic till now, and instructor Meadow always just gave me more tasks when I bugged her with questions.”

“Yes, she is expected to reinforce the division of labor. Well, my wives and I were a special case, when they couldn’t dissuade me from training.”

“Wizard, I now find my physical abilities are sorely lacking. Could you give me some tips on how to increase my strength? It seems like that one is the hardest to raise. Most skills seem to have agility as well as strength."

"Yes, that is true. There are not many known skills that just raise strength. I can make you a list of skills to raise, but will you have time to train while you are helping the elves? I thought you were not finished."

"No, sir, I am not finished helping them, but I find myself not sleeping as much lately and I think the exercise will help."

"That would do it. But you might want to gain a bit more muscle before you try anything on my lists… Danny, let us know if you want to talk about something. I know I have had many a sleepless night from things I have seen and done in this line of work. Just come find me and I will be happy to speak with you."

Danny smiled at Wizard Basalt, "Thank you very much, sir, I appreciate that."

The two then tucked into the rest of the food left on the table.

Later that night when everyone else had gone to sleep, Danny and Phantom made their way down to one of the courtyards. Danny had gotten the promised list from Wizard Basalt and decided to spend his nights training his body. He was getting tired of people pointing out how skinny he was.

*Yeah, you are looking more lady man than lady’s man.*

*Shut up, Cranny!*

Danny didn't want to disturb the elven trainers this late at night and decided to try what he could on his own. At first he thought about using nature affinity, but he wanted to build strength. So he decided to try earth affinity, which then led to him to the decision that it was time to try his earth aspect.

Standing in one of the moonlit courtyards of the palace, Danny found a place that was set aside specifically for training. The area didn't have as much grass as the others and was in a corner out of the way. Danny cast a light spell that should last a few hours. Having all this excess mana was great. Phantom wandered over to a nearby tree and laid down in its shadow.

Danny looked around the courtyard and remembered his guards that were always there. Sighing he resigned himself to this fate and stripped off all his clothing. He paused with his boxers around his ankles.

*Wait, why didn't I just go to my research room in the elder's wing?*

*Did you say something closet exhibitionist?*

Danny let a frustrated growl and finished undressing. He was in a secluded corner of the courtyard and his guards would just follow him to the research room anyway.

*Danny, we only have level six in earth affinity so the change shouldn't be as drastic as nature, more like fire’s.*

*Alright Cranny, let’s do it.*

After a few moments Danny's skin started to darken. Smooth skin bulged to be replaced with rough craggy rock like striations. Danny noticed that his flesh also felt denser, heavier.

*Once again, no aura with this one. Danny, this stuff almost seems like a natural armor. Do you think you could add another layer to your body?*

Danny focused on his skin and imagined an inch layer of stone covering his body like a knight’s armor.

The earth bulged below his feet and started to undulate. It was but a few seconds before stone rose out of the ground and swelled around his feet. It only started at his feet like a large tumor then slowly thinned out as it moved upwards. Once it had covered his entire body from the neck down.

"Ahhhhh!"

There was a large crack as the rock still connected with the earth broke and Danny fell sideways under the weight of the rock covering his body. The rock didn't shatter like he thought it would and still clung to his flesh. Once the stone had formed over him, Danny realized there was no way for him to move. Even though he imagined individual armor pieces, the stone seemed to fuse.

Danny could just manage to see Phantom out of the corner of his eye. Obviously alarmed, she stood up and her ears were pointed as high in the air as they could go. Padding over to him slowly she sniffed his hair and face for a bit as her harmony aura flowed out of her body to inspect Danny.

After a few seconds the cat's aura retreated and she blew out all the air in her lungs in a huff. Danny's stone, noodle like, hair fell, partially covering his eyes. Danny could just barely make out Phantoms retreating backside, as she exited the courtyard.

Danny did his best to not be offended, while focusing on his joints and imagining gaps forming. It didn't take long for the stone at these locations to break up and slough off.

Danny then tried to get up but found the weight was still too much for his scrawny self. Danny struggled for a bit longer before admitting defeat and removing the stone from everywhere but small bands on his arms, legs, and waist. He wasn't ready to completely give up and knew he just needed to increase his muscle mass. In fact, this is what Wizard Basalt suggested.

Danny began going through a basic calisthenics workout. It didn't take long for his muscles to burn. He wasn't physically tired, his muscles had just been damaged enough he knew he needed to stop. Danny was thinking about using harmony affinity, but hesitated.

*Cranny, do you think I have eaten enough to repair my body with harmony affinity? I don't want it to start eating my muscles to repair the damage I have done."

*I was thinking about that too and I want to try something. Switch to nature aspect and tap into the palace’s nutrient feed.*

Danny could see where this was going and, quickly used the rest of his earth aspect, switching to nature aspect. Extending his roots out to the sacred tree, Danny tapped into it and waited.

*Yep, that confirms it, Danny. Nature aspect boosts regeneration. Harmony affinity definitely wins out though for use during emergency situations.*

*How fast is it, though?*

*Looks like you will be good to go in an hour.*

*Wow, really?*

*Yeah, though I suspect that's an effect of you being tied into a sacred tree.*

Danny waited for the aspect to run out before heading for the elder’s wing and his research room. He might as well study what books he could while he was resting between workouts.

Danny hadn't had much of a chance to read the day before, while testing different propagation methods. Now he stood there in his sacred tree form, reading an elven tome, detailing their understandings in nature magic. He was learning a great deal.

As he knew, nature affinity could bridge a mental connection between the caster and a target. Telepathic communication between people was possible as well. Danny couldn't wait to try that one out, though it depended on how open a person was to the caster. Sentient races were harder to do this with.

Nature affinity could also speed up any process that occurred naturally, like healing. He started looking for a way to grow his muscles magically but that wasn't a natural process as the muscles had to be stimulated in some way first. Danny did stumble upon something even better.

Danny was excited to find that one could also speed up aging, but bummed it couldn't reverse it. Due, to its significantly high mana cost, this was usually used to speed up the growth of mounts or livestock during times of war. Though the author noted that the immaturity of the animal was quite apparent when doing this, and there was definite psychological aspects to consider.

*Hey, Cranny? What do you think about making ourselves physically older? I doubt they know if we will actually ever physically age older than a thirteen year old.*

*I want to say yes, but not too much older.*

*So... twenty five?*

*Danny, Jade is only fourteen...*

*Uhhhh... alright how about eighteen.*

*Still sounds creepy...*

*Cranny, what do you think I plan to be doing with a fourteen year old? Plus, I'm mentally somewhere in my forties now. It has been officially "creepy" for quite a while now.*

*True, alright. Eighteen... wait! Do you think the book means a calendar year or the time it takes to make an elf look a year older?*

*I will look for a spell book so we can be as accurate as possible.*

Danny followed a reference in the text to another book he was provided on nature affinity spells. These runic spells were similar to what wizards would use, as their mana was too chaotic and hard to freely manipulate on their own. Apparently, even the druids found need to develop runic spells to control the amount of magic used. Especially in extremely delicate magic. He found the spell would age an elf by a single year. It was scalable by changing one of the layers of the rune.

*Danny, now that I think about it, maybe we should ask one of the elders about this before we try anything.*

Danny didn't respond and spoke out loud to the seemingly empty room, “Here goes nothing.”