I tilted my head to the side. “Arbiter? Is that the title for this attunement?”
Researcher replied without raising her head. “It is.”
I waved a hand upward, uncomfortable with her reaction. “No need to be so formal. You can stand, er, float, back up?”
Researcher raised her head, then stood and floated back above her pedestal as before. “If I would better serve you in that way, Arbiter.”
I’d been raised in a noble household, so I understood the kind of behavior she was demonstrating, but it still felt wrong. Unearned. “Can you explain to me what this attunement does, and why you’re reacting the way that you are?”
“Certainly, Arbiter. Your attunement is only granted to one who has successfully completed a diplomatic task for one of the visages. Typically, it involves assisting in a political matter between visages and human cultures. Arbiters have demonstrated that they can be trusted with delicate matters, and thus, they are often employed by visages for additional assignments.”
Researcher paused, gesturing to herself with both hands. “As a spire elemental, I am bound to assist an Arbiter in any way possible, since their tasks are often of great importance to the visages.”
Well, that’s good and bad. It means I might be able to ask other elementals for help, but it also means Katashi or other visages might come calling for more help in the future. And I certainly can’t say “no” to one of their requests.
I considered that for a moment, raising a hand to my chin. I didn’t scratch it. I was trying to cut back on that habit. “Okay, but you’re a summoned elemental, right? What happens if I ask you to do something that conflicts with your Summoner’s instructions?”
“I cannot directly go against my Summoner’s commands, even at an Arbiter’s request.” She grinned, showing a hint of mischief glimmering in her eyes. “But…if it wasn’t directly against my Summoner’s orders…”
Huh, she’s got a mischievous streak. Wouldn’t have guessed that.
“Got it.” I smiled in return. “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you. Do you know exactly what I can do with this? I mean, like, what abilities does the attunement confer?”
She nodded once. “Ah, yes. The Arbiter attunement specializes in transferring mana into others. Its primary mana generation type is transference. Its secondary type is life.”
I blinked. “Wait, transferring mana into others? Isn’t that extremely dangerous?”
“Humans typically are unable to transfer mana into other humans because of impurities. The Arbiter attunement purifies mana that is sent through that specific attunement, allowing for safe transfer into other humans. This is its core function. It can be used to both restore lost mana and to temporarily increase the power of an ally over their normal maximum limits.”
My eyes widened as I considered the possibilities this created.
“Temporarily? Is there any permanent benefit to using the attunement on someone?”
She held up two fingers in a sign for “little”. “A slight one. Anything that pushes an attuned’s mana beyond their capacity has the potential to increase that capacity permanently — but usually just a bit, and doing it too frequently or with too high of a volume of mana all at once can cause damage. For example, an Emerald-level attuned pushing as much mana as possible into a Quartz-level attuned could potentially cause them permanent harm.”
I processed that.
There was a lot of potential in this new attunement.
Could I use the purification function as a way to create enhancement elixirs without distilling them?
Or maybe just transfer enough energy into someone to permanently increase their power a little bit, gradually over time?
Could I combine this with my other attunement to put enchantments on people?
…Maybe that’s how artificial attunements are made?
I had some more direct questions to ask, too.
“Could I use this on myself to enhance my Enchanter attunement?”
Researcher frowned at that. “It isn’t meant to be used like that…but I suppose it might work? I haven’t heard of any cases of it being used in that way, but the restricted attunements are obscure, even by my standards. I don’t have a lot of data to work with.”
I’d have to save that as a last resort, then. I would have been more tempted if my other attunement had a direct combat application, but trying to enhance my own Enchanter attunement was a great deal of risk for the potential of a minimal benefit.
I was getting a little bit better about using my mental mana without the watch, but the idea of flooding my brain with enough mana that it could potentially cause scars was…
I shuddered a little bit just thinking about it, quickly changing the trajectory of my thoughts to something more palatable.
“If I gave someone enough mana to push them over the threshold to the next attunement level, would their attunement’s level increase?”
Researcher nodded. “That is a standard way of using the attunement, however, it would be temporary. They would gain the benefits of the higher attunement level, but only until that additional mana is used, after which the attunement would most likely revert to its previous state.”
“Most likely?”
“As I noted previously, there is a small permanent benefit from receiving an infusion of mana. It’s possible that your ability could be used as the catalyst for a permanent change, but only if they were already at the cusp of reaching the next attunement level on their own.”
“What kind of scale of permanent benefit are we talking about?”
She made a ‘hmm’ noise. “I would expect it to translate to being able to stretch the person’s capacity to about two percent higher than their previous maximum, provided you supplied them with mana equal to their current maximum safe value. I would never give someone more extra mana than their current maximum value, nor would I advise using this on the same person more than once per week.”
That was interesting, particularly because it implied that whatever had happened to Sera when she drank the potion I’d given her wasn’t the same as transferring mana into her directly. She’d checked in the morning and her mark still hadn’t returned to its previous appearance, in spite of her maximum mana apparently decreasing, rather than increasing.
It was possible that her attunement would have reverted if not for the scarring, but I suspected something else was at work. I hadn’t just been giving her pure mana, after all — that potion was some sort of catalyst for attunements.
I’d procrastinated long enough on analyzing the potion. I planned to do that within the next few days.
Beyond that, knowing some of the safety limits of my attunement was extremely useful. I’d need to know everyone’s safe mana levels, then I could transfer an equal amount into them…provided I had enough mana to do that. Marissa already had more mana than I did, but maybe I could use this as a tool to help Patrick catch up to us. And if I only needed to infuse him once a week, I could safely do the same thing for a few other people, too.
“Can I give people mana more than once per week if it’s in smaller amounts?”
“The more important part is that you don’t want them to exceed their maximum more than once per week. You can safely recharge their mana as many times as you need to.”
Good to know. That’s probably enough on that subject for now.