16 Average Affinity

"Don't delude yourself! The reason all-rounders are considered weak is that they can't even begin to approach the top, even with a mountain of resources and help from others!" Kevin attempted to get into Al's skins by telling him how he'll never reach the top and thus diverting his focus so that he could get a powerful strike in.

It was something he believed as well, his philosophy like most others was that only when you devote everything into a single path would you be able to grow stronger and become one of the best.

"There are hundreds, thousands of examples of 'famous' all-rounders in history that failed to achieve it, and they either chose a single path late in life, gave up completely, or wasted their lives still walking that fruitless path!"

And it was the harshest of truths, there were countless accounts in history where people attempted to triumph over all others by devoting themselves to multiple paths.

But even those with powerful backgrounds, those with unending fortunes and even those who gifted and talented in many things couldn't succeed.

They had all been able to improve on every front they trained or studied in until their progress hit a wall, a wall that prevented them from growing stronger, prevented their abilities to improve, prevented them from achieving success.

Everyone hit this wall at multiple points in their lives, including all-rounders, it was only a matter of breaking through or surpassing the wall would they be able to grow.

But the wall that the most successful all-rounders had hit was the same one, it was just too hard to break through, too high to surpass.

Others were able to surpass it due to devoting themselves to one thing and even then it was difficult, hybrid specialists with great talent and ability could only barely pass this wall.

The difficulty for all-rounders is obviously much more pronounced.

Al had read dozens of history and magic books that informed him of the attempts of other all-rounders, how they all failed miserably, he decided to surpass every single one of them and surpass that wall that stood in their way.

"Then if i do fail in the end, I'd like to fail having achieved more than what my 'ancestors' had achieved. If that happens, will my name be engraved into history?"

The flames on Kevin's body started to grow smaller, parts of his body no longer covered in flames as his body started being exposed, his speed and strength of his attacks had grown even weaker.

His Vaes won't be able to hold on much longer, channeling all of the remaining power of his Flaming avatar spell into one arm as the scattered flames over his body converged onto his arm as he punched forward at Al.

he let the momentum of the punch carry him forward, his fist had nearly reached Al as it encountered some resistance, before breaking through and successfully hitting him.

Al skids backward from the force, his shirt slightly scorched but he was perfectly fine.

"Huh, broke through two shields…" Al recast the two shields that had been broken through, his defense becoming complete again.

"Fucker!" Kevin cursed out, he had dispelled Flaming avatar after that final strike, a moment longer and all of his Vaes would've been drained.

There was no such thing as magic exhaustion as those who used magic in this world could drain their Vaes until it was absolutely empty without repercussions, but it was common sense that you'd be more vulnerable if he had no Vaes to spare.

the Vaes usage of his spell had reached the point that every second consumed 3% of his total Vaes, and he only had 9% of his total Vaes left, which isn't much at all.

This was the outcome Al had wanted, acting immediately and dashing forward, striking Kevin's vulnerable body with his fists strengthen by spells.

Kevin had cast a low costing body strengthening spell that only mitigated the power of Al's strikes, as he was pushed back, he could've cast a fire shield but he knew it would just be a waste of Vaes.

Al was able to overpower an adult near his prime purely with his strength alone as he was had a high tier body strengthing spell active.

All the spell he had been using till this point had used about three times his bodies Vaes capacity and he had to pull more from his Vaes bar.

Most of the Vaes was consumed at Kevin's every strike, around 76% of it, proving how strong each strike really was.

Kevin at this point purely focused on defense as he knew trying to dodge would give him more openings, he knew that he was vulnerable to attribute attack spells and was confused on why Al hadn't finished him off with them.

Wanting to finish it, Al cast multiple spells onto his fist and arm that would strengthen his strike, and hitting Kevin right on the back from above.

Kevin slammed face first onto the roof of the building, small cracks could be seen forming on the surface of the roof.

Al went forward so as to restrain Kevin in case he had something else in store.

Before he reached him, he sensed an attack approaching from behind him, but decided to tank it.

A large fist landed on his back but had failed to punch through his defenses, his attacker cried out in pain as it would have felt like punching a wall.

He elbowed his attacker, sending him flying into another building's roof, another four people had appeared on the roof, the lackeys of Kevin.

They came forward, blocking Kevin's body as the strike had knocked him out, the one at the front had a metal rod and was spinning it like some martial artist while the three at the back were holding pistols of some sort, Jack the illusionist was among them.

"You'll have to beat us if you want to reach our boss!"

The metal rod user had shouted out, the three behind him started to shoot their guns, but the energy bolts did nothing to Al's defenses.

The metal rod user didn't come forward and had obviously wanted him to strike first, but he didn't move an inch.

He only raised his hand up, palm open and pointing up, as four orbs the size of a basketball had started to form above his open palm.

They were actually orbs made from the four original attributes and were cast by a basic attribute attack spell that formed an orb of the attribute you chose and was to be launched at their target.

There was earth, water, air, and fire orb each floating above his hand.

Though it was only a basic attack spell, most people in this age have very little talent towards the four basic attributes mainly used the derivative attributes.

People called the four original attributes the four elements, like in the past, as spells in the past always had an element attached to it.

The Four Elements had the simplest and most powerful spells and were more powerful depending on one's talent and affinity with them.

Al wasn't particularly talented with them, he actually had an average talent with all of them, together with every other attribute and spell he had learned and mastered.

The reason why Al had not mentioned his affinity with certain attributes was that he had no relative affinity to speak of, usually one would be able to easily find out which attributes they are good or bad at by comparing their initial proficiency in them.

But for Al, every single attribute and spell he had cast and used didn't feel particularly hard or easy to do, they all felt the same to him.

Even the attributes which required an immense amount of talent and great affinities such as space or healing magic weren't any different to him, learning and mastering it at the same rate as other attributes.

This wasn't normal in the slightest, usually, people would have differing talents and affinity with certain spells and attributes.

For example, someone would be particularly talented in offensive spells or had high affinity with water magic, or had such an abysmal affinity with earth magic that they couldn't even cast the most basic of its spells.

Even those with an average affinity with an attribute would still choose to focus on the attribute they had the best affinity with, as people typically figured out their talents and affinities at a young age with the help of others and would never touch other attributes or types of spells from that point on.

An example would be if two people had the same average affinity for water magic, but one person had a higher affinity for wind air magic than water magic.

That person would focus on training their wind magic and totally ignore their water magic. The person with no better affinities with other attributes would train in water magic.

After a period of training, the person who had trained in wind magic would be much much stronger than the person who trained in water magic as they had a higher affinity with their best attribute.

But if we compare their strengths based on water magic alone, the person who totally ignored training it would be immensely beaten by the one who focused on training it despite both of them having the same amount of affinity.

In school, they evaluated students on magic based on their strengths, though your evaluation would increase if you studied multiple attributes, the evaluation of a student that was very good at one attribute would be higher than a student that was decent at multiple attributes.

There were also people who had good affinities with multiple attributes and spells, those with who had an awful affinity with every attribute.

Someone who has a great affinity with all four elements would be considered extremely gifted.

Those who had no attributes where their affinity reached at least average would always do badly on their magic evaluations, there was no such thing as failing the magic evaluations, as everyone knew there were those with no talent at all and magic really depended on talent.

In the same way, there was no upper limit during the evaluations either and this encouraged students to beat the records set by their seniors and gain recognition.

Having an average affinity did not mean the average of the general populace, but was actually the neutral affinity range, where there were no advantages or disadvantages when using the relevant attribute.

Some disadvantages and advantages included, ease of forming a mental image, differing Vaes usage, differing cast times, and most importantly the power of spells cast.

The actual average affinity the general populace had regarding most of the attributes would actually give them disadvantages when casting the spell.

They would cast it longer, learn it slower, use more Vaes and have less power overall, of course, this didn't demotivate them as the majority of the populace had at least one or two attributes they had an average and above affinity in.

Even the talented ones would have a great affinity with one attribute and only a few others that were at Average affinity, the rest would be at an affinity that would give them disadvantages when learning and using them.

Now imagine Al who had an average affinity with possibly every single attribute in existence, if anyone found out about it they would hail him as being blessed by heavens and that he was chosen by the god of magic to master every single attribute.

It may be due to the fact that affinities were theorized to be formed when someone was conceived, as affinities were greatly related to bloodlines as well.

It was the reason nobles exist in the first place as most nobles have become risen into power due to a specific attribute or set of attributes that they mastered and passed down to their children.

While your affinity with an attribute can never grow in your lifetime, your proficiency will grow when you train in it specifically and that is able to be transferred onto your children by increasing their affinity with that attribute.

For example, someone who's had an average affinity with fire magic and trained in for their whole life and thus became very proficient in it would most likely have their children's affinity with fire magic increase past average.

Affinities can also randomly pop-up in people like in genes. The founders of noble families most likely were lucky enough to receive an amazing affinity with a certain attribute when they were born and built up their legacy using it.

As Al was not born in this world, it may be the case that his affinities with all attributes became the default setting which was an average affinity for everything.

It seems like his goal to surpass all other all-rounders in the present and the past was more achievable than he had assumed.