“So how is magic spread? I assume there are ways to create or learn spells that go beyond the scope of the leveling system.” Kraant asked idly, several hours into their journey. Gina wasn’t moving quickly by any definition of the word, so Kraant had more than enough time to ponder some logistics. Frankly, they simply didn’t add up.

“I hear that Magisters can develop new spells, but it’s mostly done by Sages and Archmagi. Because of the power they can bring to bear, the spells tend to be fairly difficult and wide-ranging… anything from salting an entire field, to prevent the locals from growing crops during wartime, to erupting dormant volcanoes. At your level, it’s not really practical to try to learn customized spells. It’s better to find clever uses for the ones you have, and raise their levels. Especially since you can get custom classes, like my Arrow of Dawn, that’ll change your spell list. I figure Life Magus has to be pretty powerful, if you’re smart.”

“Sure, but it’s almost completely ineffective against both Wood and Dark aspects. Wood creatures just absorb it, way better than any normal animal could, and Dark magic seems to… well, if there was a Death aspect, it would turn it into that. It corrupts it, and makes it useless.”

“Yeah, sure, but how often are you going to fight rocks or plants? Most living things, tautologically, live. That means life mana for you to take away. Worst case, you cast Imbue Life on their weak aspect, like Pebl, and he turns the Life mana into Fire mana. You realize, by the way, that your familiar is crazy OP?”

“Over Powered or not, he’s still a rock. Don’t feed his ego. And I suppose that’s the whole point of partying up, isn’t it? I might not be too good against a Dark Goblin, but that’s your bread and butter. I guess we just need a Fire Paladin and we’ll be all set, really.”

“Well, no. My Light would still be weak against Void aspect, and the Fire would be weak against Water, so we’d need to round those out. The strong aspect against Void is Metal, which is only weak to Life so we’re good there, but Water aspect is also weak against Void, so our Metal expert would have to be able to defend both me and the Water user. And so on. Actually, I think I can draw you a chart…”

Read across, then down. O is positive, # is negative.

Light

Water

Wood

Metal

Fire

Dark

Life

Void

Light

x

-

-

-

-

#

-

O

Water

-

X

-

-

#

-

-

O

Wood

-

-

x

-

O

-

#

-

Metal

-

-

-

x

-

-

O

#

Fire

-

O

#

-

x

-

-

-

Dark

O

-

-

-

-

x

#

-

Life

-

-

O

#

-

O

x

-

Void

#

#

-

O

-

-

-

x

The chart itself was pretty simple to look at, but tough to follow. Each aspect had at least one weakness and one strength, but Light and Dark had two strengths, and Life had two weaknesses.

“And that’s to balance the difficult of accessing mana versus the amount of use you get?” Kraant asked when Gina had run through the basics with him.

“Essentially, yes. Life mana is everywhere, so it’s weak to more things and only strong against a Basic element. Light and Dark are much harder to access, and replenish more slowly, but they’re strong against two things and have Rare weaknesses. Light to Void, which is extremely hard to gather but is extremely effective against mana as a concept, and Dark to Light, which is both rare and hard to gather.”

“So, essentially, we need a balanced part that includes at least a damage dealer, a defender, and an offense expert from each aspect, plus some healers. That’s, what, 25 people if we only include one dedicated healer?”

“Right. That’s well beyond the administrative effort most people are willing to put forth, so it’s technically not even a party. Any group of more than seven members is a Guild, and has to pay taxes.”

“…Does Pebl count?” Kraant asked.

Gina burst into laughter, and couldn’t crutch her way forward while consumed by the giggles. “You just got a lecture on the strategic value of Aspected classes, the economic foundation of adventuring, and you want to know if your pet rock has to take the census?! God, I love you. You’re one of a kind, you know that?”

Kraant would’ve blushed if he’d been warm-blooded.

“Well, on the other hand, shut up. Did you think of that?”

“HAHAHAHahahahaHAHahahaHAh” Gina was useless for a few minutes, and Kraant had to do something while he waited for her to calm down, so he started looking at their resources. He had a decent supply of meat, both cured and fresh, but he had no idea what to do with it. They’d mostly been leaving it near a fire long enough for Gina’s Survivalist skill to tell her it was edible, but that meant dry, tasteless meat. He wondered if he could find some herbs that might add flavor, at least. Texture could wait.

It wasn’t long before he realized that, technically, everything had flavors. He’d sort of relied on Regeneration to get him through any trouble, and fallen back on the classic trick- eat everything until you know what it does. As it turned out, the grass tasted almost good, but the bark of that skinny and lopsided tree had caused him some… personal distress. That is, he’d needed to release a mudslide of terrible proportions… and when he was done, he was thirsty. This led him to discover that the stream really needed to be boiled before ingestion… by the time he was done polluting the local environment, he was quite sure that he would only eat burnt food that he had killed himself. Raw food was terrible.