By the time he was finished with all the natural Prime human affinities, the fourteen Sapience followed by Endurance and Chase, he was dripping with sweat. He'd requested a towel to continuously dry himself off, but it was only a stopgap measure for now while he trained his Cycle of Sealing.

He felt gross, yes, but a little sweat was worth what Dei could sense was rapid growth from the spell. Twenty percent over its maximum threshold was all he could handle, but when he did that, it took about seven to twelve minutes per "Level."

Without the System, it was much more gradual and hard to gauge, but that was fine. The point was, in about six to eleven hours, he'd be due for another spell evolution if it didn't slow in its growth, which it definitely would.

As for the Chase and Endurance affinities, they were exactly what he expected to see. Chase spit into Tracking and Goal- which it shared with Patience. Endurance was a base-tier affinity, so it actually didn't split into anything.

Those didn't interest him though, no. What caught his eye was where they were going to now, the three foreign affinity users.

Matthew said foreign affinities were much rarer than natural affinities, but also had their own rules.

For one, they didn't overwhelm the person like natural affinities did. Humans did not normally produce a lot of mana for things outside of their mindset, so oftentimes people utilizing Foreign affinities had a much easier time containing their magic and preventing themselves from getting overwhelmed.

That being said, when one did get overwhelmed, the results were violent and inhuman. The person in question became something else entirely, likely being forcibly attuned to the latent will of the affinity. The reason there were four in this facility at all, including the Karma user, was because they simply could not be safely transported once the mana really kicked in. The people contained here had been in the area when they went mad, and had to be transported by car rather than plane, as the rampant mana within them caused severe damage to everything around them. Once it reached critical stages, there was no chance of the person getting moved to the proper facility used to house foreign affinities.

The Karma user was the most tame of them all, likely because he was barely overwhelmed by the mana- more by its potency than the amount- yet his soul was still getting utterly flayed and lashing out with curses left and right. He'd barely been in containment for a week, and he was already dying.

The one they came upon now though… this one was an old hand in the facility. He'd been there for seven years now, an incredible time to still survive under his affinity's onslaught, but as Matthew explained, Dei got a better picture.

"This one is dangerous, and if you can bring any of the foreign users under control, management wants this one to calm down. He has the Duplication affinity, and it has transformed him into the worst monstrosity of the foreign we have in house. His cell does not simply have a door either, but three consecutive airlocks. When you leave, there will be copious testing and sterilizing to ensure none of his cells escape. He is considered a tier six contained entity, and we really, really want to drop that down to tier one."

"Why not kill him at this point? If he's so dangerous and hard to contain, I'd just kill him. Especially now that seven years have passed. His family and friends have likely moved on enough to justify it."

Discomfort evident, Matthew said "I do not disagree with you, not only because it is clear the man is in pain, but that is not my decision to make."

'Yea, I suppose there are some things he can theorize about, but something like this even he won't talk about.'

His Soul contract was starting to act up though, so he needed to get these three under control soon. Without waiting any longer, he strode up to the door and let it open before entering the first airlock, seeing a second door in front of him. Doing this a second, then third time, an intercom cut in before the final door was opened.

"Sir, are you absolutely positive you wish to go into this cell? If you survive and fail to contain his mana, the exit process will be extensive and invasive."

"I am. Open the door please."

When the final barrier slid open, Dei got a good look at just how deformed a human could be when they weren't allowed to change Races or variants to better suite a particular affinity. With this particular thing in front of him, perhaps the cannibal was not all that bad.

He was… not human shaped. Not any longer. The far half of the room was coated in vines and webs of flesh, hanging down from the ceiling and merging with one another. The mass pulsed in rhythm of what he expected the man's heartbeat to be, and Dei's soul-sight encountered a most disturbing phenomena. Skin, hair, and teeth covered the entire body in random splotches, with the occasional vacant eye showing that he'd utterly lost all signs of intelligence.

Not only had his soul deformed to match his body, but the very air was suffused with tiny splotches of soul. The man had somehow become akin to a hive-colony of cells, even the airborne parts of him still attuned to the greater mass.

Dei held his breath. He was almost positive his naturally stronger body would be able to withstand anything Earth's mortals could throw at him, but even having parts of this man in his lungs would be utterly disgusting to him. Nonetheless, pieces of the patient's soul landed on Dei's skin, and he sensed it attempting to burrow deeper. It failed to do so, but as he walked into the room, some small parts got into his eyes as well, and legitimately made it deeper into his body, much to his own discomfort.

At this point, he was very happy to have Fortress of Denial up, as it reduced the magical efficacy of the man's fragments. His natural immune system, boosted by Homeostasis, kicked into gear, attacking and cleansing the foreign cells from his body.

'He isn't just a hive colony of molecules,' Dei realized, 'He's a fucking pathogen. Not a person any longer, he's transformed utterly into a mass clump of disease."

Looking closer at the mass, a second epiphany struck him. 'It's not random. Duplication, disease, he isn't taking just any shape or the shape to better utilize the affinity, he's taking the shape of the original Ascender! Duplication… disease… the Ascender for Duplication must've been a microorganism or something along those lines. A bacteria, virus, prion, something. I know that affinities, when unregulated, can affect the person's mind. I never considered how foreign affinities might also affect their body. People will have a natural resistance to the affinities they are meant to have, their body and mind born with an innate connection to it that allows for more natural exchanges.

'Earth's laws of physics mean that people are mostly unaffected by affinities that aren't their own. It acts as a perfect vacuum to show what affinities will do, giving a much clearer, more perfect image to the affinity's intent and natural tendencies… These foreign affinity users… they will be able to give me a hint for how to Ascend. They are the closest thing to an Ascender's image I will find in the multiverse.'

He wanted- no, needed to study this image of Duplication, but he also knew he had a job to do. He wouldn't dedicate a long time to this, but with High Mind he could simply revisit these sensations at a later date. No, for now he would simply do a cursory study, then finish the job.

He didn't want to get closer yet, so he instead cast Identify, Kindness version first just to see if it would work.

Much to his surprise, it did. The spell didn't even need to ask for permission… the mass before him had less mental capacity than that of a bug.

'For that, the man is lucky. He may not be insane when he's brought back.'

When the Identify shot out, he was also startled to notice a major difference in it, and remembered that he'd now linked all his spells to the same Connection that permeated his entire soul.

He hadn't just slightly changed the spell either, the difference was stark. Rather than fly out like a cloud of mist, his Kindness Identify grew and branched out from his forehead, splitting hundreds of times like the limbs of a tree. He'd have to test out if the Wrath version did the same thing but if it did… this would be a genuine attack, piercing someone's soul in multiple places. Oftentimes when he poured more power in, the Identify would cleanly punch right through. It left a hole in their soulshape and hurt, but it wasn't lethal. If he hit them with the same power, dispersed over a hundred tiny Identifies? It would turn their soul into swiss cheese.

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For later though. His Kindness' new upgrade gave him a more information than it normally would, and he had to parse through it. He'd gone in with the intent to scan everything he could on the Duplication affinity's latent will and purpose, and he was not disappointed.

Exactly as he suspected, it's only goal was to duplicate and spread as much as possible, to become plentiful and ensure that its message was spread.

Most of that was the simple, natural process of illnesses, to infect as many as possible and reproduce itself endlessly, but he also found the subtle glint of something more deep within, in the form of its message.

Its purpose was greater than just its physical body or the affinity's power, it was to make others listen. It was to make them see it, it was a force of nature that wanted to be understood, to find the perfect avatar, but none were up to its standards.

'It's trying to recreate its master, its Ascender, by imbuing these people with all the ideals they stood for and everything they did in life. It wants its Ascender back, or at least someone exactly like them, but those beings are the pinnacle. They cannot simply be recreated, and its efforts are killing the mortals it interacts with. The ideals of an Ascender are so perfect, so solid, that even the echo of them are powerful enough to overpower the average mind. The affinity doesn't understand that if it rewrites the man's mind to put the message in place, there will be nothing left.

'It needs someone strong enough to retain their mind while carrying these ideals, then it needs to imbue that mind with its Ascender's mind, and its master will be resurrected once more… But if they were perfectly recreated, would they not also ascend immediately afterwards?'

He wasn't sure, but the message hinted at that fact. It was subtle and hidden in the mana quantitatively close to not existing at all, but qualitatively? It was unstoppable. Not a knock off of the Ascender's will, the real thing was in there.

If his hunch was correct, that would also explain why affinities tried to get Gods to attune with them, to bring them closer to the ideal Ascender because they were the closest thing to it.

But what would happen if one of these Gods ascended? Would their power simply be wasted? The System talked about the monstrous levels of Ascender energy released when they went a step above… would all of that be pushed into the affinity? To what end? What would an entire affinity do with an entire other affinity's worth of energy?

'Unless… Parent affinities, and Derivative affinities. What if, when a God ascends and they are already attuned to an affinity, their message instead becomes a branch, a derivative of the original? It can't be the exact process, as there are many affinities that link up with multiple others above and below them, but I'm positive I'm onto something.'

For now though, that was all he would get in a reasonable timeframe. Around two minutes had passed, and any other revelations would only come with in-depth study or, hopefully, other examples of foreign affinities.

The most immediate gain from this was the boost from his Profession. If he had to estimate it, he'd say it had grown by somewhere between three and four levels, a substantial amount. It was time to help the hapless victim of an uncontrollable affinity.

His new upgraded Identify shared the same trait of his Wrath version after upgrading it, where he could open a pathway to take control of someone else's mana while leaving an opening for them to do the same to him. He wasn't worried about such treatment now, simply grateful he didn't have to get closer to the thing to disassemble it.

'Since his body is different, I wonder if it'll kill him when I remove the mana? Frankly… it seems that would be an acceptable outcome to everyone involved. Even his family, if he still has any, would likely ask for him to be slain if they could see him now.'

Its disgusting effects on its user made him preemptively compress his existing mana further, because he wanted no chance of it distorting him as well. There would always be other mana types to help train his spell, and he couldn't risk this kind of mana entering overflow and being dragged along through his soul behind Cycle of Sealing.

With space for approximately five thousand mana open in his storage, he turned his sight to his patient's mana… then immediately turned right back around and compressed mana to accommodate another five thousand. He didn't just have one or two thousand affinity mana, but nearly eight thousand, and no Null mana.

Observing the man's entire mana pool, he caught sight of a particular section of mana becoming expended to cast a spell, turning into null mana. He didn't see a visible effect for the spell, but he did see the surrounding Duplication mana jump into action- consuming the new Null mana, then promptly splitting itself into two more diluted points of Duplication mana.

'It devours his Null mana to fuel itself further. I wonder, has he ever been able to rid himself of even a single point of Duplication? I don't think he has, because Matthew said foreign affinity users gain mana very, very slowly, and this is no small amount.

'There is no way this was accidental. He must've been ordered to continuously take advantage of his own affinity for testing purposes, then it promptly got out of hand. Now, the poor guy is stuck because humans aren't actually supposed to use this kind of affinity. Without pushing it into someone else, and without the ability to turn it into null mana, he's hopeless. Or was, until now.'

Grabbing hold of the entire cloud of Duplication, he pulled, suppressing its desire to stay within the man and continue its job of destroying everything.

For the first time since he'd started this job… he actually felt something pull back. Perhaps it was something about the affinity and its desire to attack other mana types, perhaps the patient's mind was so warped that he genuinely believed Dei was doing something bad, but it was not the one-sided win he was used to. With the haphazard force he exerted, he wasn't even able to move the Duplication mana.

Getting serious, he focused his entire mind, his entire will, and leveraged his increased mana manipulation within himself and other beings to drag the cloud of mana out of its victim. His efforts, while extreme, yielded little results. For once, he was genuinely shocked that something on Earth had him beat. He could not cleanse the mana in a reasonable time frame. True, he could likely wiggle it free piece by piece, but he didn't have the days or weeks it would take to do so.

He needed Cycle of Sealing to suppress its efforts before ever entering his body, and he now found himself quite satisfied with one particular upgrade to his spell.

He couldn't truly summon Wild Chains, there was simply not enough space, but he didn't need to. Instead, he called only a portion of it out of his soul, and watched the main body swim closer to the surface- though at a much more reasonable pace.

This time, the Leviathan did not breach into the air, but the ends of the red and pink chains pierced the surface and flew forth from his chest, punching into the mass in front of him with nary a sound.

Grabbing onto the chain, he worked in tandem with his magical influence, adding his strength to the process as well. This time, there was a visible effect on the Duplication mana.

While the man's body didn't move, there was suddenly a bright, lime-green light slowly separating from him.

At first he thought he was somehow pulling the mana into the open air, until the blurry image started to refine and clarify itself.

An emotionless face sat at the end of his chains, both of them punching into one of its cheeks and burrowing further down the body as it was pulled from the fleshy mass. Dei watched, stone-faced, as a human figure was speared, then pulled towards him.

Any regret over his course of actions disappeared when the rest of it came into view though. This was not a human, not even close. While its face was humanoid, the body was almost snake-like, except for the hundreds of tendrils blooming out from it. They attempted to lash out, but his own chains seemed to fray, piercing the smaller pieces and bringing them in line with the rest until the mass had no agency at all, only able to watch its demise approach in the form of entering Dei's chest and becoming absorbed into Cycle of Sealing.

He didn't want to allow such a thing into his soul, but at this point he had little choice in stopping the process. If he did, the results would likely be… catastrophic.

'I didn't pull out the mana, I pulled out the idea behind it. The concept. I've somehow managed to create an echo in the open air, and if I release it now, it will simply run rampant in the facility.'

The ability to interact with the very idea of something was an ability usually reserved for Void Beasts, but he'd somehow forgotten that Cycle of Sealing was a Kindness, Wrath, Void Confluence Skill now. Ever since he'd upgraded it in the Void, the ability to contain not just mana, but the concepts behind them was hidden somewhere within it. Only now was he seeing the results of that fortuitous agreement with Void.

Exposed and suppressed, the echo was finally pulled into his chest. Internally, Dei watched the Leviathan yank the figure below the waves, lunging forward and snapping its head off.

That effectively killed it, and the rest of its body went limp, allowing him to absorb it with no fight at all. Wild Chains clearly enjoyed devouring the foe, and when it was done, dove further down into the recesses of his soul to digest its meal.

Dei glanced at the camera in the room, curious as to what they would think, but put that aside as he finally saw a humanoid mass of soul energy in the heart of the, now dead, flesh.

Striding forward over it, he punched through the body Duplication had created, grabbing the figure and pulling them out from their fleshy prison.

A squelch and several snaps later, Dei held up a naked gasping man, covered head to toe in fluids.

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