Carefully Cynrik sifted through the multitude of colored stones housed in the chest, and after several minutes much to his joy, had found not only one or two affinity orbs but instead more than a dozen orbs.

There were several duplicate elements, but that didn’t bother him one bit. In theory, if he could secure all of them, he could make a fortune.

[Brance, get over here. I need to borrow some Skill points; we’ve hit the motherload. I don’t know where the hell this guy lives, but I’m willing to bet there is either a vein or mine that these things are coming from, and his daughter just happens to be the luckiest girl on the planet.]

[How many are we talking about, and what elements?] While his older brother was doing something extremely unethical, he couldn’t help but feel the excitement rush inside himself. Brance quickly made his way back to the stall Cynrik was located.

Noticing Brance’s arrival, Cynrik quickly came up with a story for his brother to play along with.

“AH, Brother, I see you’ve found some more stones for Little Lina,” The shopkeeper noticed that the man he had been talking to and the new arrival looked similar, and were brothers. Still, he continued to help out other customers while the two brothers sifted through all the stones in the chest, looking for the colors they required.

When Cynrik and Brance pulled out every Elemental Orb hiding in the chest, they called out to the Shopkeep again and paid for all 19 of the stones.

“I’m glad you were able to find so many; good luck in the future. Daughters can be a handful, but you seem like a strapping young and responsible father.” After some more lip service, the brothers left the shopping area and returned to their bodies in the real world full of glee.

Unable to contain themselves, they huddled together in the center of the room, and Cynrik pulled out every Orb currently residing inside his inventory.

Stacked in a pile in front of the two were 20 Glimmering smooth stones. While some were the same color, there was a multitude of different ones.

In total, the haul was quite grand. They had acquired four Fire orbs, one Lightning, two Earth, one Wood, four Water, two Wind, one Poison, one Ice, one Sand, one Metal, and two Sound orbs. While the majority of them only had a 35% chance of obtaining the element, the Fire and Water orbs boasted a 50 percent chance which was massive considering there were 4 of each that meant there was a pretty good chance that both of them could get both elements.

[So I assume you’re going after Lightning first, aren’t you?] Brance causally put out there, knowing exactly what was going on in Cynriks head.

Nodding slightly, Cynrik reached for the shiny purple and yellow Orb.

-Elemental Affinity Orb (Lightning)-

-By absorbing this Orb, a system host has a 15% chance of developing an Affinity for the Element of Lightning. Furthermore, ambient Lightning mana will be steadily drawn towards the Orb during absorption, allowing the Host a chance to awaken the element within their Codex.

-This is considered a Special Advanced-Grade Element and is extremely unstable; this element is difficult to assimilate into one’s Codex.-

Cynrik stared at the Orb resting in his palm for several minutes without moving.

[We’ve only got one of these, so what are you going to go for first?] Cynrik looked over at his brother and saw Brance had already chosen his Orb and stared daggers into it.

Placing the Lightning orb in his lap gently and pulling the remaining spheres back into his inventory, Cynrik examined the absorption process that his brother was going through currently. The Orb was slowly bobbing up and down in the air just in front of Brance’s chest; the light green Wind Element orb was gradually losing its luster as it hovered just above his brother’s chest.

Closing his eyes and activating Mana Sight, Cynrik was able to see the surrounding Mana, which seemed to be rushing towards the Orb. He noticed a fragile deep green trail of Mana connecting Brance’s chest to the Orb.

‘I see, so it works like a filter, pulling the ambient Mana from the surroundings and purifying it before delivering the elemental Mana directly to the Codex.’ Finally, after only a couple of minutes of observation, Cynrik held up his Orb, with eyes closed and Mana Sight active; he gave the command to Tobs to start the absorption process, causing multiple notifications to ring in his head.

-Elemental Affinity Orb (Lighting) has been found-

-Lightning is a Special Advanced-Grade Affinity chance of assimilation 15%-

-Initialization Failed, Host’s Codex is only Tier 0 and is unable to acquire a Special Advanced Affinity.-

-Due to the Host already owning a Special Advanced-Grade Affinity, they can only Learn A single Basic Affinity-

‘WHAT!!!’ The information just dropped on Cynrik hit like a bombshell. Of course, he and Brance had already known about how their Light and Dark elements were considered Special Advanced-Grade affinities. Still, now he was learning that Due to his Codex being low level, he had restrictions on what elements he could acquire.

Looking over at Brance, who was in the process of absorbing his Orb, Cynrik got a bitter taste in his mouth. ‘This little shit, he knew, HE HAD TO KNOW, but he didn’t even give me a heads up before I tried.’

Cynrik was right; the prompt Tobs had given him when he picked up The Wind Affinity Orb was similar to what Cynrik had received, but since he wasn’t too worried about the first element, he had gone for the Basic Grade Wind first.

Clicking his tongue, Cynrik swapped out The Lightning Orb for A Fire one and began the absorption process.

-Elemental Affinity Orb (Fire) has been found-

-Fire is a Basic-Grade Affinity, the chance of assimilation 50%-

-Confirming Absorption process-

-Assimilation process confirmed beginning Absorption-

Cynrik carefully watched as reddish-orange Mana started swirling around him. Finally, the unrefined Mana gathered at a focused point directly in front of his Codex and began swirling in a tight circular pattern. As he watched this process, a sudden thought came to him. He activated Mana Manipulation and began to focus intensely on the ball of swirling fire mana just above his chest.

He had noticed how quickly the Mana was churning inside of Brance’s Wind orb. Comparatively, the difference between his ball of Mana and his brothers was the equivalent of a snail trying to race an Airplane. So Cynrik decided to try forcefully spinning the Mana to emulate the same speed he was seeing from the other side of the room to mitigate this slow rotation.

‘If my assumption is correct, the Stone-like Orb is not only a filter but also a blender of sorts; the faster the setting you have it on, the less chunky its contents. By that principle, if I can speed up the rotation with Mana manipulation, I can bypass the recorded success rate and force its completion.’

Exhaling deeply, Cynrik took control of the flow of Mana within the Affinity Orb and forcefully added pressure causing the little swirling Orb of fire to turn it into a violent storm.

Across the house, Cinyah and Rikard were both asleep in bed, when upon feeling the mana fluctuations coming from the other side of the house, Rikard’s eyes shot open. Not wanting to wake his sleeping wife, he effortlessly surrounded her with a thin Wind Barrier. He knew very well just how she would react to what he was feeling coming from the boy’s rooms.

It wasn’t surprising to him that his boys seemed to be awakening their Affinities so early. After all, they carried the Jetlensr bloodline, which was renowned for their Mana Manipulation and Sight abilities.

Not worried about the fluctuating Mana, he extended his Wind Barrier to cover himself, then quickly fell back asleep. He was aware of how long the awakening process could take and was quite excited to see if his children Received the Wind Element like himself or if they awakened the Fire Element that his wife carried.

Back in the boy’s bedroom, over an hour had passed before Brance finally opened his eyes.

– You have Successfully Assimilated an Elemental Affinity Orb (Wind)-

-Your Agility Stat has increased by 10-

-Your Mana has increased by 30-

-You have awakened an Affinity for the Basic Grade: Wind Element Tier 0-

His joy was short-lived as he noticed the Cynriks situation. With just a glance, he could see how much his brother had been struggling with his assimilation. Gone was the calm demeanor he usually presented as in its place was the signs of effort, frustration, exhaustion, and pain. His dark purplish-black hair and clothing were both drenched with sweat.

Blocking out the typical sights and sounds around him, Brance quickly activated Mana Sight and was instantly rendered speechless at what he was viewing.

It looked as if his brother was in the eye of a hurricane. A storm of violent Mana and fire swirled around Cynrik while he slowly directed it towards a floating spinning ball of pure condensed reddish-orange-tinted Mana. Unfortunately, unlike what he had felt and seen earlier, the Mana within the Orb wasn’t being transferred to Cynriks Codex. Brance took notice of this as he continued to watch over his brother.