As Arica located and measured each plate, Damion kept a lookout for random Ferocious Beasts. Occasionally, Damion thought he caught a glimpse of a beast, but either Damion’s eyes were playing tricks on him, or there was something driving the beasts off. Damion suspected it was the later, he thought that perhaps the beasts could sense Arica’s power or perhaps she had some artifact that kept them away.
By late afternoon the pair had managed to survey 60 of the plates. Considering they had to turn around and head back to the road after they surveyed the 100 along this end to do the 100 heading in the other direction from the road, Damion figured this put them about a quarter of the way done.
“We’ll camp here for the night,” Arica announced after picking up her compass when it finished its measurement of the last plate.
“Sounds good to me,” Damion answered and headed to the ground car to take his backpack out.
As Damion pulled his new tent from his bag and took it from its packaging he realized something he had not thought about before. Damion had no idea how to put a tent together. In this life, or his previous one, he had never been camping. Luckily, on the side of the bag holding the tent stakes was a diagram showing step by step instructions on how to put it together.
Arica watched with curiosity as Damion put his tent up. As Damion put the tent together, he was thankful he was patient and good at following directions. Arica did not seem the type to laugh at him if he screwed up, but he still did not want to screw up in front of the young woman.
Once Damion had his tent assembled, he looked around to see what kind of tent Arica was putting together. To Damion’s shock, Arica just pulled out a thick blanket and a pillow from her spatial artifact and laid it on the ground.
Not wanting to show that he did not have a pillow, or even a decent blanket, Damion moved his bag into his tent. From his bag he took a ration pack for dinner and the fire starter from this basic survival kit and headed back out of his tent.
In the few moments Damion was in his tent, Arica had produced a chair and was sitting with a ration pack of her own. Damion took a seat on the ground and opened his ration pack. While Arica’s pack smelled of delicious hot stew, Damion’s was a cold dry rectangle of compressed foodstuff. Damion was fairly confident his was nutritious, but after the first bite he knew he would never buy the cheapest rations again.
‘Just a couple of days,’ Damion thought to himself as he swallowed the tasteless lump in his mouth. ‘Once I have the pay from this mission I’m buying good rations.’
Surprisingly, Arica did not comment on Damion’s rations. Though she did give them a suspiciously long look. While the two ate their respective dinners, a silence settled between them and before it became the new status quo, Damion decided to break it.
“Do you have an enchantment going or some sort of Ferocious Beast repellent? I was sure we would encounter at least a few beasts.”
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“Hmmm…” Arica was startled at first when Damion started up a conversation, unsure what to think for a moment before she answered. “I have a charm given by my master. It keeps beasts below A Rank away.”
“If you have such a powerful charm why even put the mission in for an escort?” Damion could not help but ask.
“It is standard procedure. You see if a strong beast shows up… well… if a strong beast does show up the escort is supposed to delay it so I can get away.”
“Well, it is good to know what is expected of me,” Damion joked.
“The last time an A Rank beast was seen in this Green Zone was almost ten years ago during the last Saung beast wave.”
“I guess that is good news for me, I’m just an F Rank after all.”
Arica let out a chuckle at Damion’s joke.
“You said before that you had not been on a lot of missions. How many have you been on?”
“This is my fourth mission,” Damion answered. “What about you? My teacher told me that mages at the academy have to go through a survival course before they can get their adventurer license. Have you been on a lot of missions?”
“Just a couple to show I was capable. I applied for a research position before I even graduated and considering my affinity I was pretty much guaranteed to get it.”
“Oh, so you have graduated already. Why were you so interested in a research job if you have a good affinity?”
“Do you know what the real difference between a mage and a knight is?”
“I’ve never really thought about it. Magic affinity I guess?”
“Right in one. Any mage can be a knight, though it would be a waste of a mage to be a knight.”
“You lost me,” Damion said confused.
“A knight is usually a person with a higher than average mana capacity, but they were unfortunate to not form a magic core or their core did not form properly so they have no affinity.”
No one had ever explained to Damion the physiological difference between mages and knights. Now that he heard it from Arica, he understood why Ms. Teft had never explained it to him. Damion knew from the Magic System that he would get an affinity when he turned eighteen. But Ms. Teft just had to take Damion’s word that he would get an affinity, so he suspected she did not tell him to avoid dashing his hopes at being able to be a mage.
“I still don’t understand what you meant, any mage can be a knight?”
“All a knight needs is a higher mana capacity than average. Without an affinity, a knight can’t learn magic seals to be able to do spells since you need an affinity to learn magic seals. A mage with a poor affinity or low magic talent, can do more as a knight than as a mage, since a mage is usually better at growing their mana capacity than knights because mages have a proper core. A mage that follows the knight’s path is usually a first-class knight, but still only a knight.”
“Are you saying your magic affinity is not very good for fighting, so you could either be a researcher or train to be a knight?”
“Sort of,” Arica said. “My affinity is Spatial. If I were to be a knight, every mage in the world would be outraged.”
A few things clicked in Damion’s mind with what Arica said. How she was using a spatial artifact when she was only a low rank. She could make her own, so of course she could use spatial artifacts.
“I was wondering how you could afford a spatial artifact when you are still a low Ranker like me.”
“Well, I could make a spatial artifact, but the materials needed are worth more than the quality of artifact I can make. That’s why I am working as a researcher. I need time and money to grow my magic core and increase my rank. Then I can make spatial artifacts and retire early.”
“If you aren’t using a spatial artifact, then…”
“Then how did I pull my things from nowhere? I’m a Spatial mage, that is our specialty. I can’t enchant an artifact with high enough grade Spatial properties to act as a storage item. But I can still store things in my own personal space. Perk of being a Spatial mage.”