Chapter 137: Elemental Affinities

"And so, I appeared here, saw four beautiful ladies before fainting, and woke up in your room."

Damian finished his explanation with a light smile, his gaze drifting across the four women gathered around him as he reminisced about his previous life.

"Looking back, it was a ridiculous way to begin a second life, but I suppose I could have landed somewhere considerably worse."

He had expected laughter, perhaps a few teasing remarks about his terrible luck, or even Janet asking whether he had been handsome enough to deserve such a dramatic transmigration.

Instead, what he received was four women who looked as though he had personally reached into their chests and crushed their hearts.

Eunice was openly sobbing, tears running down her cheeks despite her attempts to wipe them away, while Paulina’s eyes had reddened and her lips curled back as a low, furious growl escaped her throat

Julia’s shoulders were shaking as she struggled to contain her emotions, and even Janet had bitten her lower lip, her usual mischievous expression replaced by something painfully vulnerable.

Damian stared at them in bewilderment.

"...Why are you all crying?"

That question only made matters worse.

"How can you say that so casually?!" Eunice demanded through her tears.

"You suffered so much, and you carried all those burdens alone for years! Your mother was dying, your father sacrificed himself for her, and you had to abandon your education just to survive!"

Paulina’s claws had emerged without her noticing, digging into the armrests of her chair as her tail lashed violently behind her. "Give me the names of those company executives! I’ll find every last one of those bastards and claw their faces off!"

Julia lowered her head, her voice trembling. "All this time, you’ve been fighting to restore your parents and bring them back to you, and I never knew\... I kept complaining about my own family while you were trying to save yours."

Janet’s lips trembled as she finally looked up at Damian. "I always thought my family was terrible, but now I feel like talking to Mom again."

Damian fell silent.

He was the person who had actually lived through all of it, yet somehow these four women seemed considerably more devastated by his past than he was at present.

It was simultaneously touching, bewildering and mildly inconvenient, because Damian had no idea how to comfort four crying women without accidentally saying something that made them cry even harder.

"Alright, alright, calm down," he said gently, rising to retrieve some tissues and passing them around.

"I’m not telling you this because I want everyone to spend the afternoon mourning my previous life, and I certainly don’t need anyone declaring war on an entire company because of me."

Paulina’s ears flattened. "I wasn’t going to declare war on the company."

Damian raised an eyebrow.

"...I was going to start with the executives," she amended.

"Pfft, that’s even worse!" Damian joked with a roll of his eyes.

A small, reluctant laugh escaped Janet, followed by Julia, while even Eunice managed to smile faintly through her tears.

Damian took advantage of the opening and gently reassured them that he was alright, that he had survived considerably worse than he once thought possible, and that he was no longer alone.

He had them now, and that was what mattered.

After giving the four women enough time to compose themselves, Damian finally returned to the subject that had prompted him to share his story in the first place. "There’s something else you should understand, because my arrival in Valoria wasn’t the only unusual thing that happened to me."

Their attention sharpened immediately.

"When I came here, I awakened a Special Power that allows me to travel between worlds," Damian explained.

"At the moment, I can access two worlds. The first is Valoria, the world you know, where mana, Classes, Skills and the Overworld System govern supernatural advancement." Damian began raising one finger.

He raised a second finger. "The other is called Shengyuan."

Damian proceeded to explain the differences between the two realms, beginning with their supernatural energy and the ways their inhabitants developed power.

Valoria’s mana was remarkably cooperative, responding smoothly to magical spells and allowing Mages to shape it into specific effects, while Shengyuan’s Spiritual Energy was more resistant to external manipulation but could be absorbed, refined and permanently incorporated into a cultivator’s foundation.

Shengyuan’s people did not rely upon the same Class system as Valorians, instead cultivating through distinct realms, beginning with Body Tempering before advancing into Qi Condensation and eventually reaching heights that most ordinary people could scarcely imagine.

Their techniques, medicines, Martial Arts, Daoist Arts and crafting professions were built around that progression, creating an entirely different civilization with its own strengths and limitations.

By the time Damian finished, all four women were staring at him with varying degrees of astonishment.

"Wait, wait, wait. You’re telling me that you can enter another world, acquire its cultivation techniques, and use them to strengthen yourself here?" Janet interrupted, suddenly sitting upright.

"Correct." Damian nodded.

"And the basic Body Tempering technique you mentioned gives half a point to four physical Attributes per level?" Janet pressed with wide eyes.

"Correct again." Damian chuckled and folded his arms.

Janet’s freckled face became blank, then she abruptly stood up on her chair!

"That’s five free points in every physical attribute after ten levels?! What the heck?!"

Damian grinned. "Indeed. All free!"

Janet stared at him as though he had just announced that money grew on trees, then began counting on her fingers with an expression of profound indignation.

"I’ve spent years training, fighting, practicing my Skills and nearly dying in forests, and you’re telling me there’s a completely separate way to make my body stronger just by circulating energy?!"

"Well, you still have to cultivate properly, and the technique isn’t suitable for everyone in every circumstance," Damian pointed out.

"But yes, the potential is there." Damian conceded.

Janet slowly sank back into her seat.

"...I hate how much I want to learn it."

Paulina was having the opposite reaction, her tail wagging with such enthusiasm that it nearly knocked a cushion off the sofa. "With strength like that, someone could become a great warrior who spans entire continents! Who cares if cultivation consumes a little of the world’s energy? We’ll just give it back when we die!"

Julia’s head snapped toward her. "You cannot possibly be serious!"

Paulina blinked. "What? It’s a reasonable arrangement!"

"No, it isn’t!" Julia retorted, her pointed ears standing upright.

"Spiritual Energy and Mana are part of the world’s natural cycle, and this cultivation stuff permanently absorbs and refines portions of it into the cultivator’s foundation. If everyone starts consuming it without considering the consequences, then the environment could eventually be depleted!" She argued vehemently.

Paulina folded her arms. "And if we refuse to cultivate because the world might someday become slightly less convenient, what happens when an enemy arrives and kills us? Does the world reward us for dying politely?"

Julia’s expression tightened. "That isn’t what I said!"

Damian watched the argument develop with a thoughtful expression, because he understood both positions better than either woman probably realized.

Julia’s elven heritage made her particularly sensitive to the balance between living beings and their environment, while Paulina’s Beastwoman upbringing treated nature less as something sacred that must remain untouched and more as a provider and ally that deserved respect without being placed above the people depending upon it.

Neither perspective was entirely unreasonable.

Eunice finally intervened, raising one hand before the argument became an actual competition. "Regardless of how we feel about the long-term consequences, can we even practice these techniques in Valoria?"

That immediately returned everyone’s attention to Damian.

He smiled. "That’s why I brought you here. Let’s find out what each of you is compatible with before we decide how to proceed."

Damian reached into his Storage Ring and retrieved the Spirit Root Testing Orb he had previously obtained from the Evergreen Sect.

The crystal sphere was slightly larger than a fist, almost colorless at first glance, with faint mist drifting inside its depths.

"Place both hands around it and remain still," Damian instructed.

"It measures elemental compatibility, which in your cases means how well your existing mana sensitivity and other natural characteristics correspond to Shengyuan’s cultivation system." He explained.

The first volunteer was Eunice.

She approached with considerably more composure than the others, though her eyes remained curious as she placed both hands around the orb.

For several seconds, nothing happened, then five colors gradually appeared inside the crystal, each representing one of the foundational elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water.

None was particularly overwhelming, and together they formed a relatively balanced pattern.

Then a pale golden light emerged from the center.

It brightened rapidly, spreading through the sphere until the five elemental colors appeared almost insignificant beside it.

Damian’s eyebrows rose.

"Interesting. Your five foundational affinities are fairly balanced, but your Light affinity is considerably stronger than any of them."

Eunice looked down at her hands. "Is that because of my connection to Orpheus?"

"Probably. I can’t prove the exact cause from this test alone, but your Cleric Class and divine blessing are the most obvious explanations."

That made sense to Damian, because the orb was not simply measuring an ordinary person’s elemental compatibility.

It was interpreting the characteristics of a Valorian whose Class, Feats, accumulated development and divine influence had already shaped her supernatural nature.

Eunice possessed a perfectly respectable foundation for Five Elements cultivation, and her exceptional Light affinity provided something considerably more unusual that Damian would need to investigate separately.

Paulina went next.

The moment her hands touched the orb, metallic silver radiance surged through the crystal, forming sharp, angular patterns that reminded Damian of polished blades.

Almost immediately afterward, a deep crimson glow emerged beneath it, spreading through the silver light like blood flowing through veins.

Damian leaned closer. "Well, that’s unusual. Your Metal affinity is extremely strong, but there’s also a powerful Blood affinity."

Paulina grinned. "Sounds excellent!"

"It could be, but Blood cultivation is often associated with demonic or forbidden paths in Shengyuan, but an affinity isn’t inherently evil. Your Beastwoman bloodline could be responsible for the result, and we’d need to examine the available techniques before deciding what to do with it." Damian replied cautiously.

Paulina nodded, apparently satisfied by the possibility of becoming stronger through either route.

Her Metal affinity alone made her a natural candidate for a cultivation method that emphasized bones, tendons and explosive physical force, while the Blood affinity might eventually open a completely different path.

Julia approached with considerably greater curiosity than she had displayed during the earlier argument.

The orb barely reacted to her touch before the first color appeared.

First was green, then a pale cyan current swept through it, followed by silver-white arcs of lightning that repeatedly branched between the other two colors.

The three affinities did not merely coexist. They seemed to reinforce one another, creating an intricate pattern that made the entire sphere glow.

Damian’s expression changed.

"Wind, Wood and Lightning, huh? And all three are exceptionally strong." he murmured.

Julia stared at the orb with surprise. "Is that unusual?"

"Very. You possess what Shengyuan would probably classify as a high-grade tri-mutated affinity, although the exact classification depends upon how the three interact during actual cultivation."

Wind, Wood and Lightning.

A combination that offered enormous versatility, from movement and evasion to plant-based techniques and devastating elemental attacks.

Julia had always been an exceptional Ranger, but her potential within Shengyuan’s system appeared considerably broader than Damian had initially expected.

Janet was the final volunteer.

She placed her hands against the orb with an expression that suggested she expected the universe to personally apologize if the result proved disappointing.

The crystal immediately erupted in the scarlet light of fire!

The radiance was strong enough that Damian briefly wondered whether the orb might crack, but before he could intervene, another current emerged from within the flames... darkness!

The two affinities twisted together, the scarlet light illuminating the edges of a deep violet shadow that seemed to absorb the surrounding glow rather than reflect it.

Janet stared, then she slowly grinned.

"Fire and Darkness. That’s pretty cool, right?"

Damian nodded and rubbed his chin. "Very much so. Your Fire affinity is powerful, and your Darkness affinity is unusually strong as well. Considering your bloodline and your evil nature, neither result is particularly surprising, but the combination could become extremely dangerous with the right technique."

Janet’s grin widened. "Excellent. I can already imagine several ways to make people regret being born."

"Please don’t say that in front of the Holy Church Saintess!" Damian advised seriously.

Eunice sighed. "I already heard that!"

"Of course you did." Janet snickered meanly.

With the testing complete, Damian collected the orb and considered the four results.

Each woman possessed a distinctly different affinity profile, and none of them could simply be handed an arbitrary cultivation technique without considering the consequences.

Unfortunately, the number of suitable Body Tempering methods he currently possessed was limited.

The Evergreen Sect’s catalogue had offered five foundational techniques commonly practiced throughout the Azure Water Sector, each emphasizing one of the five elements.

The Evergreen Life Sutra favored Wood, the Crimson Furnace Art specialized in Fire, the Blackwater Circulation Art focused on Water, the Golden Edge Tempering Art emphasized Metal, and the Mountain Root Foundation Art cultivated Earth.

Those five methods were useful, but they were designed around narrower elemental affinities.

Eunice’s Light affinity, Paulina’s Blood affinity, Julia’s Wind-Wood-Lightning combination and Janet’s Fire-Darkness alignment could not all be accommodated perfectly by assigning each woman a different elemental technique.

Fortunately, Damian possessed another option.

"The Five Elements Harmonization Art," he announced, retrieving the familiar manual.

"It’s slower and more demanding than the specialized methods, but it provides a balanced foundation across all five elements. It should be the most practical starting point for all four of you, especially since Valoria’s abundant mana may compensate for some of the compatibility issues." Damian explained.

Julia studied the manual thoughtfully while Paulina looked ready to begin immediately, Janet was already imagining how many enemies she could eventually set on fire, and Eunice remained focused on the possibility that cultivation might allow her to protect the people she cared about more effectively.

Damian opened the manual and placed it on the table between them.

"Alright, ladies. Let’s start with the basics."

He pointed to the opening circulation diagram and began explaining how Wood nourished Fire, Fire generated Earth, Earth bore Metal, Metal collected Water, and Water nourished Wood, carefully guiding them through the first sequence before allowing any of them to attempt the circulation themselves.

For the first time, the Four Valkyries of Grayfen were about to begin a path of cultivation that belonged to neither their Classes nor their divine blessings, but to a world beyond their own.

And Damian Baines intended to make sure they learned it properly!