Narrick continued his explanation as Gunnar did his best with his tired mind to take in what he could, the nap Gunnar took on the flight back helping greatly.
"There are five basic elements right? Fire, water, earth, air and metal. Combinations of these mana types give you secondary elements. Water and air give you ice for example, or water and earth elemental mana give you wood mana."
He paused to make sure Gunnar was following. "You understand so far?" When Gunnar nodded he continued.
"If you wanted to use both fire and ice elements for refinement and later external use, it is possible to do so. But to do it you have to introduce an element in between that doesn't weaken or interfere with either fire or ice. One way to do it would be to use the air elemental mana to build the buffer between the veins."
He reached into his coat and pulled the disk from earlier out and set it down between them on a table. He then typed on the screen it pulled up for a minute and then it popped up a holographic diagram.
The diagram showed to tube integrated together with a a wall splitting them. He pointed to one then the other and said "The first is a fire and the second is ice. The ice mana vein is made by funneling air and water mana together to gather the ice mana then once the vein is completed it will make the mana, ice mana automatically. It then can put to gather with a fire mana vein if air mana is used to build the wall separating them. Air both fuels fire and strengthens ice, so it is. A good way to strengthen both. But if you wanted to you could use metal to separate them, what do you think would happen then?"
Gunnar pondered that for a moment. "Wouldn't the wall be broken relatively easily? The extremes of hot and cold would make the mana wall brittle. Any type of surge or pressure on it would break it. If earth was used it would be turned to magma then obsidian glass and broken. Or at least something like it right?"
The great figure smiled slightly. "That's right. You have to balance everything, but can theoretically add one element every time you advance a rank and begin reforging your body and mana circuit. If you wanted to use lava elemental energy from the beginning you could mix earth,metal and fire mana to get different strengths of lava and use that. Or you could slowly build the three separate mana veins together to be able to use each type individually or throw it all together and make lava."
The man shifted slightly in his chair. "Everything has its costs and benefits. You have to decide a course and follow it, someone with every basic elemental type will never have defense of someone who focuses on earth or metal mana body refining. But on the other hand, the earth or metal specialists will never have to versatility of full elemental refiner."
Gunnar thought for a moment about all he was learning. There was a lot and he was struggling a bit to retain it all but he felt he understood the theory of it all. He looked up at the older man as he put forward a question.
"If my first refinement was done with fire, earth and metal, does that lock me in to those three elements? Or does it matter what you use for the initial awakening?"
"That's a good question kid. For the awakening or rather the initial refinement it doesn't matter what mana is used, at least in the way that it will not block any path forward. It is helpful to use a mana type that the person has an affinity with though. It makes it easier on the body in a way, and can sometimes enhance the bodies affinities or latent talent for those elements."
About the time Gunnar began to get another question to the tip of his toungue, a rough bang came from the door as someone ran into it as if they expected it to be unlocked. They both looked towards the door and heard a low curse before the slightly melodic voice of a woman yelled through the door.
"Damnit, Narrick why'd you lock the door! You send for me to haul my ass all the way here from my den on Spelltree, and when I get here you've just run off for some damn reason." The door began to shake as the woman rattled it from the other side. "Now your back and when I finally find you, you lock the door?!"
Narrick laughed a bit and waved his hand, using mana to unlock the door. When the woman enter the room, Gunnar noticed she was about 5'4" and had the same brown hair that Gunnar himself had.
As she continued cursing Narrick she seemed to catch both sight and scent of Gunnar at the same time.
She immediately quieted then nodded and spoke. "I see. This is one of my cousin's grandkids ain't it. This is why you sent for me, you had a good bet this one would awaken our blood instead of yours."
Narrick nodded and pointed toward the third chair in the room against the wall. "Pull that chair up, Athelina, I was just walking the boy through the early stages of refinement and affinities."
She grabbed the seat and dragged it to the other side of the low table in the middle of the room, before taking a seat.
"Does he know anything about what we are or about the affinities it might give him?"
"No." The man shook his head. "I didin't want to get into that quite yet. We will have to go through the Couincil meeting when everyone gets here and he will have to testify at some point. I will go first and give my report, then the other teachers will give theirs. So until I get that call or until his mom and grandma get here, we will continue to give him the information he needs."