The next Virtue type he gathered more information on was Fortitude, predictably showing him that these people were the walking tanks. They fought with bodies of stone and a stubborn mind, but when one was overwhelmed with Fortitude, it exhibited symptoms that reminded him of locked in syndrome; those with this non-magical illness would lose control over their body completely, unable to move yet fully conscious, able to watch the world move around them without doing so themselves.

Fortitude's derivative affinities were Bastion and Survival. Bastion focused more on being an unmoving stone soldier, weathering every attack unyieldingly. Survival on the other hand was a palm tree swaying in the storm, doing everything it could to simply continue existing while not capable of any singular act of power. He found himself actually really drawing closer to the Survival concept of Fortitude, as he'd never been one to be utterly unyielding. True, he was a tough bastard, but that was simply because he had a high Physical stat. Dei would do anything to simply keep living though, which included running, using guerilla warfare, or eating bugs if he had to.

His two current Fortitude spells, Solidity and Fortress of Denial, seemed to take on the two different sides of his affinity. Solidity involved being malleable, bending his mind and body towards each other so that each may slowly grow to accompany the other. That was what he wanted more from his Fortitude.

Fortress of Denial on the other hand was a Bastion type ability, and yes it was good, but he didn't use it much. There were rarely cases where he'd charged headfirst into spells and needed to negate their wills. If he had to face a spell, he'd use Null mana. Otherwise? He'd dodge.

'That settles it. As soon as I can, I think I'll alter my Fortitude affinity to a Survival affinity. I'll lose some variety, but the boost in power will be worth it.'

Abstinence seemed like a Vulnerable affinity on steroids. More than just gentle suggestions like his Kindness allowed, the Abstinence affinity users had the unique ability to be granted powerful benefits from Vows and Contracts.

For others, they were simple agreements but for Abstinence users the more their actions were restricted, the more abilities they gained, depending on how they were restricted.

For example, Dei's contract with Void gave him knowledge of the Void and removed the personality requirement. If he also held the Abstinence affinity, he'd gain something according to how Void limited his movements.

Since it required him to convert five people into Void attuned, he may become more persuasive to make such a task easier. The affinity itself was an all around power boost in this specific case, because he was always going to make such a contract, but he also couldn't find it in him to envy these people

Abstinence users apparently tended to cut too much of their lives away in favor of thirsting after power, and when they were overwhelmed, they lost the ability to do anything at all. Another case of locked in syndrome, like the Fortitude users.

If he wanted the affinity, he'd have to be the kind of person who would take Vows of Celibacy or Silence, and that just wasn't him.

The two derivatives of Abstinence were Omit and Sacrifice. If one leaned towards the Omit half, they tended to make more mental-based vows, which was about ninety percent of Abstinence users. Sacrifice, though, was all about cutting away pieces of yourself rather than adding chains and it was horrible. Sacrifice users would remove pieces of themselves either physically or mentally by removing limbs or intentionally forgetting important memories.

He wanted to ask why anyone would ever lean into this, but apparently the benefits were close to ten or twenty times more powerful than Omit.

Omit involved adding something to yourself that would be a limiter, such as a personal rule, and they could be broken. Sacrifice involved permanent destruction of something in your life, such as destroying your favorite belongings, parts of yourself, or even the people around you. Killing your lover could lead to immense boons from Sacrifice, as awful as that was.

Justice was like Kindness' stickler sibling. It cared about the objective good, being correct in general. Kindness was a hypocrite, and it didn't really care. It simply did what was good for the individual to reach happiness, because they loved their friends. Kindness said "Why should I worry about the person I've never met when I already have people around me to take care of?" Justice stepped forward and said "Because they need help more than those you love." Both were selfless, but Justice was, on a larger scale, morally correct.

In the same vein, Justice users also borrowed power, just like Kindness. Instead of borrowing it from friends though, it borrowed it from entire societies or worlds. When acting according to the letter of the law, the person was protected by it.

Initially he thought this would lead to corrupt governments getting thoughtless soldiers, but it seemed even Justice was subjective to a degree. If a person thought the law was not truly beneficial, they would break it. The difference then came in how rigid they were in their actions, and how they could and would act against their own personal interests.

In a personal example, if Dei had gotten the Justice affinity rather than the Kindness affinity, Fendrascora would likely have been handed over to Edward. She'd killed hundreds and only gotten a single year of imprisonment as punishment, that was simply unfair, especially considering Edward lost his entire family.

True, she felt bad, and true, he liked her, but she was objectively in the wrong, and Dei could acknowledge that. If he was a more objective person, he might've bent and realized Edward was justified in his rage. Good thing he wasn't a Justice affinity user, because he'd be a hypocrite any day of the week. He loved his friends, and he didn't care how wrong they were. They were his friends.

Justice's two derivatives were Order and Good. It was weird to think of "Good" as an affinity, but it seemed that anyone who strived to be objectively morally correct could earn such a thing, and draw power from their own morals. Order was the rigid aspect of Justice, without any of the emotional qualms. A corrupt enforcer that was "just doing his job" for a tyrant could easily earn the Order affinity rather than Justice, if he himself internally acknowledged he was an awful person.

The people overwhelmed with Justice mana apparently turned themselves in, because they could no longer properly do their jobs. As they were dying.

Their overabundance of power could easily end in accidents, so they cut the middle part out entirely and deemed themselves guilty, happily waiting their sentences out even if it meant less time living freely with their loved ones.

Patience was one he already knew, they used their abilities to "Wait with intent." On Earth, this took the form of making convoluted plans, as their own magical abilities were somewhat limited. The two derivatives were Longevity and Goal.

Longevity made things that would take a while more effective, such as meticulous planning. Goal rewarded one for reaching benchmarks, earning more power based on how difficult the goal was or how unlikely it was to complete it.

An odd side effect Matthew told him about Patience users was that they, surprisingly, had a longer natural lifespan than others. They weren't immortal by any means, but it was theorized that Longevity added some time to their lives. Rather than dying around 70-85, they tended to die around 110-120. Certainly not a small amount in the slightest.

That being said, Patience users generally did not die of old age. Elite in general didn't live long. Either they fell in combat, or lost themselves to their mana, as tragic as that was.

When Dei asked Matthew what the life expectancy was for an Elite, the man got evasive. He could assume that it wasn't good. Especially since none of the people he was helping were older than fifty. His dad was by far the oldest, and he was forty seven, likely only with the help of his mom to keep the Wrath down. Aside from his dad? The oldest was only thirty two.

'I might need to try and figure out a way for these people to fight off the mana overload on their own before I leave Earth.'

Finally, last of all the big forteen, was the Virtue affinity Love.

Love was discerning, and intense. If Kindness was a blanket over everyone Dei met, Love was a rope between only a single person and themselves. It was more narrow with how few it affected, but burned far hotter and with less qualms.

Justice stuck to morals closely, Kindness was a bit iffy on them and generally a hypocrite, while Love departed from what was good entirely.

Its two derivatives were Obsession and Guardian. Obsession rewarded the user for dedication to the person of their choosing. It couldn't be a group of people or friends either, it had to be one person, and the only exceptions to be found were if someone was by association. In Dei's case, his Avium mother loved him because he was the child of Fou and Gor, so he could guess his mothers chosen love was, predictably, his father.

'I don't really know how to feel that my mom only loves me because I'm Gor's son, but I suppose it's more of an instinctual thing than a conscious thing. She definitely loves me, it just comes more naturally because I'm her "Obsession's" kid.

"I just won't think about it too hard."

If Obsession was part of the emotional response, Guardian was the logical part of being a lover and parent. It meant to act as a bulwark to those you shield under your wings. In a way, Dei himself was tied very closely with the Guardian affinity, though he'd apparently not done anything specific enough to gain its active recognition. He'd have to find a way to remedy that if at all possible. It wasn't exactly required to have as many affinities as possible, but each one he earned seemed to give him multiple passive bonuses.

As he was helping the Love affinity users and questioning Matthew about their behaviors, he found out a rather funny tidbit.

Some affinities were more gender specific, such as Wrath being more male-oriented while Faith was more female-oriented, but Love was a good fifty/fifty split. That being said, most of the people who'd been contained were men, so Dei asked where the rest of the women were.

"It's harder to find out that a female Love user is overwhelmed because their obsessions are quite slow to ask for help. Husbands think they're silly for requesting help from an overly loving spouse, or boyfriends only seeming flattered when the woman breaks into their house. Even men getting stalked by women don't call for police because they don't consider it the biggest deal. About half of the women here are lesbians, because it took another woman to realize the Love user was going crazy. The remaining half were mostly found in an annual checkup."

'That makes a lot of sense honestly' Dei thought with a laugh. "Isn't that a bit dangerous though? If they're harder to discover?"

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Hence the annual checkup. Generally speaking, women don't suffer as much, as it's easier for them to relieve the pressure placed on them by their affinity"

'Completely believable.'

* * *

Generally speaking, each person had around 1,000-2,000 usable affinity mana loose within them, followed by an equal or slightly greater amount of Null mana. It wasn't enough mana to have taken entire lives to culminate, so figured they were getting rid of it somehow. Because of their chosen line of work, each and every Elite must've had some way to push their mana into enemies, then kill them, in order to buy themselves a few more months or years.

So the question now was, why didn't they do this more? Why were they always overwhelmed? And he had to guess that it got harder as time went on. Not only would their affinity strengthen, leading to them producing more mana, but each fight would also partially replenish what they lost. In order to fight magical threats, they needed to use their magic, which only worked it like a muscle and led it to becoming stronger.

Each time they fought and cleansed themselves of mana buildup, it would just make it harder down the line. The only way to really avoid making it worse would be to push mana into someone restrained or who couldn't fight back, civilians. He didn't want to entertain that idea just yet, so he asked Matthew "I don't mean to sound cruel, but why not use enemies, terrorists, or scum of this planet soon to be executed as ways of offloading mana?"

"That would not be unreasonable at all, and you wouldn't be the first to ask that, but technically the legal issues of doing so don't allow that to happen. Functionally? It's never been confirmed but a lot of people still think it does happen behind closed doors. Not everyone can do this because for one, someone without magic dies almost instantly when foreign magic runs rampant within them, so we would need to offload mana into enemies of the country who are also magic users. Since magic users are so rare, I personally think politically important magic users monopolize that kind of… service. I don't think I've ever met someone who underwent such a process but I can't say our government has disregarded the possibility, so it either happens with secret operatives or important figures."

Dei didn't think he'd somehow stumbled upon an easily accessible solution that the government themselves didn't think of, but it was good to confirm what was and wasn't possible, as he'd just technically run out of space and he would need to make room for more.

The area upon his Leviathans back was overfull, he was even a few hundred over the edge with some of the glowing figures nearly falling off, but he'd just discovered how his new spell made it impossible for any magic to escape.

Pandora's Box strained against its own bounds to level up when filled with mana, but it seemed that Cycle of Sealing had more of a… suggested maximum, which was exactly around where he thought it would be, right around fifty five thousand was the soft-cap.

Every point over that though was painful in another way. If Wild Chains, his little manifestation, couldn't fit the mana on its back? It would send a shackle out to tie the mana up, trailing it behind the Leviathan.

Since it was swimming around in his soul, these trailing bits of barely-controlled mana scraped against his soul, leading to a rather itchy sensation emanating from within him. All around unpleasant, but he could see Wild Chains itself struggle against the effort of carrying this mana, and growing larger for it.

True, he could compress the mana, but decided to train instead. He wouldn't take it too far, but even Aloran had mentioned his spell's incredible potential. What if he was somehow able to make Cycle of Sealing reach level five hundred, before he'd ever left Earth?

To that end he did a slight mental calculation for exactly how much mana he'd need to store to reach levels 400 and 500, as he was currently at 346.

'To reach level 400, I'll need 64,000 mana if I adjust for my new upgrade from the Leviathan imbuement. For 500, I'll need 80,000… What if I can go higher? 600? 700? Aloran hadn't reached 700 in Class level before he died. What If I manage to hit 1000? How strong would that be? Best of all, it's all doable. Especially in this section of the multiverse. True, I'm going to use up all the mana when I use the Void Beast aspect of Cycle of Sealing but… so what? There are other countries! I can travel the world for a bit, collect up all the mana, and have a crazy mana storage! I don't exactly know how that would help me but honestly, more power is better.'

He was sure there'd be complications somewhere along the way and it likely wouldn't be a straight shot, but where would he get if he didn't try?

That in mind, he didn't compress any of the mana just yet, heading to the next person.

* * *

"Are you… Okay?" Matthew asked hesitantly.

Dei was red in the face, straining for every footstep as though his entire body was heavy as lead. He could see Growing Rage trying to empower him to give him more Physical stats, but his Potential was already spent. 'I never did ask how to raise that.'

He was around twenty percent over the maximum for his mana storage, and something told him this was as far as he should push it, because he'd discovered a niche little side effect of being a Union. Since his body was also his soul, there were some intangible things he could lift physically within his soul to take the pressure off it. Using spells would still tire him spiritually, but while excess mana should, he could put that duty on his muscles instead.

This meant that he wouldn't have to subject himself to soul-strain, which was important because he was ninety percent sure the government was looking for a moment of weakness. They should wait until after he was in their other facility, but if he made it too easy on them, they might find the early opening too good to pass up.

"Just fine," he grunted out in response, "Training. Though, now that you mention it, could you tell me how to raise my Potential while in your universe?"

"Potential?"

"Yea, that little bismuth rock in the soul. Like, how to continue growing stronger according to your physics?"

"I… do not believe I am at liberty to discuss such a thing, I'm afraid. You would need to talk to one of my higher ups."

'Fat chance they'll tell me. I wonder when Luke is gonna come through, because I really wanted that info before my government confrontation. I was hoping to have some more time with my family after this ordeal, but I may just have to flat out flee. Might stop by before leaving the universe though, I'll just have to see.'

"Dei" Perumah abruptly cut in, getting his attention.

"Yea?"

"Where is Loretta?"

"Hm?" looking around, he saw the woman was gone. She hadn't spoken up much since letting Matthew take the lead, but he hadn't thought it was noteworthy.

"I don't know, she probably slipped away, why?"

"Because… I can't remember when she did that. I have an excellent memory, but it seems I just stopped paying attention abruptly, and she was gone."

He raised his eyebrows, activating his eidetic memory from High Mind to scan himself over for influence and gaps, finding none.

Replaying his memories, he subconsciously heard her get an order through her earpiece to be somewhere else, then simply walk off about fifteen minutes ago. A few of the soldier glanced at her, but nobody moved to stop her. It wasn't the strangest interaction, and nothing flagged him as suspicious.

Sending Perumah the packet of his memories, he felt her mentally frown. "There is nothing wrong with this memory, and I do not detect any tampering… Still, I feel the need to be careful. We have proven that I have the passive Kindness affinity, even if it did not appear on my Interface and I cannot actively manipulate it, yes?"

"Yes…?"

"Then would you believe me if I said I considered you a friend now, and trust you?"

Blushing slightly, he said "Yes?"

"May I request a spot of trust as well?"

"Er… Yes. what for?"

"You are able to strengthen your connection to others, supposedly your karmic connection from what we now know of Meditation. You did so with Clever, and you did so with Fendrascora. I would like for you to do so with me as well, and intentionally strengthen your vulnerability using your Kindness affinity. Same as how Fendrascora is able to move through your blood unimpeded by natural defenses, I wish to move through your soul unimpeded."

"That's a big ask, Perumah, and incredibly dangerous to me, why?"

"We both know that my natural spiritual defenses are weak. Ever since you brought this to my attention, I have been wary of mental attacks, and I am now suspicious of one. It may be unfounded, but I wish to store my mind within your soul's natural defenses. In return, I will keep an active vigil for influence. If you manage to exempt me from your defenses in the same way as Fendrascora, I even want you to activate Domain of Denial to suppress even the passive effects of mana."

"Perumah… That will make it difficult to contain the extra mana within me, maybe even impossible, considering it will make my control slip."

"Indeed, and I will help where I can to make up for your loss of fine manipulation. I apologize, I know this requires immense trust in me and my kind are naturally parasitic, but I am… very afraid. Afraid of being puppeteered."

He sighed.

"Damn. How could I say no to that? Fine, let me Identify your intentions really quick. Not because I don't trust you just… I want peace of mind."

"I understand."

She opened her soul to his perception, and he could see the fear within her. She meant well, she truly did just want to be safe and, unspoken to him, she wanted him to be safe too. She would watch dutifully.

"Okay Perumah, I agree."

Stopping Matthew, he asked for a moment to compress some of the excess mana, and the man agreed.

Sitting down, he dove into Meditation, bringing his link to Perumah up. It was incredibly strong, and probably his most stable of anyone he knew, because there was a time when he'd wanted a way to share his Spiritual stat with her for her defenses.

He could do that now because of Fendrascora, but it required him to surrender his own and the conversion rate was abysmal. If Perumah was right, he'd need all the Spiritual he could get.

Focusing, asked himself what Perumah was to him, parsing through the twisting meanings of his connection to land at the truth.

From his point of view, she was… the pure manifestation of Avium's brutality, everything he lacked. Dei was learning to adjust his thinking into a more lethal mindset, but Perumah achieved that as easily as he breathed. True, he was never fragile, but there had always been a bite to her that he could never reach. Despite that, and despite her cold and calculating mentality, he trusted her to watch his back even before she'd gained a passive Kindness affinity. As illogical as it was, he couldn't internalize the fact that she was incapable of liking him before that point. He'd personified her before she herself had gained such an identity.

She was not only the most brutal of the people in his group, but she was the one who'd changed the most as well. Though her level remained stagnant, and she did not insist they go one way or the other, she was constantly trying to hone her mind and had a logical, inquisitive way of thinking. She could break down the pros and cons of the new emotions she was feeling, then casually accept it to be overall beneficial and allow for such changes to happen; the machine efficiency with which she processed and understood her own emotions told him exactly how she'd gained a Heart affinity, which specialized in manipulating emotions.

Looking this over, he got the sense that this connection had the potential to end up being parasitic in nature. Perumah already naturally opposed his decisions, so if she wanted to take this opening a particular direction, it would not be so easy to simply stop her from harming him some time within the next twenty four hours, when he might be able to use his spell again and sever such influence.

Despite the risk though, he knew he would go through with it. She was his friend, she trusted him and he trusted her. She was asking him for help, to assuage her fears, and he was not the kind of person to ignore such a thing for his own convenience.

Grabbing hold of the karmic strand, he not only strengthened it but deepened the burden he would receive. He wanted to be weak to her. In response, he felt the boon increase as well, their karmic connection flaring and growing in tandem with the trust he was showing her.

Watching it unfold, he got a sense of what direction the powers would take. For the burden, she got everything she wanted from it- his magics could no longer harm her passively, and if he ever tried to pour in active effort, she would be far more resistant to such a thing.

For the boon he received, it was a far more tangible power than any of the others, nearly an entirely unique spell on its own. There was now a gap in his soul where he could store the minds and souls of one other being.

Initially he thought it was simply a place for her to shield her mind, and it was, but as he looked closer he saw that he could also seal the entrance shut, completely locking someone inside.

She could find refuge within him, and this place would only be good for her, but it came at the risk of her trusting him. Just as he believed she wouldn't tear his soul asunder from within, she had to trust he wouldn't completely close the entrance when she went away to hide.

Without hesitation, Perumah threw herself into the gap presented, nestling into the space like she was always meant to be there.

He knew she trusted him, but to be shown such a thing brought a wide smile to his face.

"Don't look so happy about it. I'm just more afraid of other enemies than whatever kind of threat you pose," she grumbled.

To him it sounded like a feeble excuse, but he didn't call her out on it.

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