Diving into the Sea of Souls

The midterm results were out. Maya stood in front of the public notice board at the academy hall, plastered with large sheets of paper listing up students and their scores. Finding her name on the list, she was quite satisfied.

Her scores were overall quite high. Maya was top-ranked within the Zeta group and within the top ten for the entire year.

'Not too shabby.'

Although she did feel a slight pang of guilt knowing one of those subjects was a result of cheating.

"I'm quite smart, aren't I?" Leo cheekily framed his chin with his fingers, feeling proud of that particular score as if it was entirely his.

Maya chuckled. If she thought of it that way, instead of cheating, it was a small way of letting her friend have an impact on the living world and feel gratified. She could let Leo have that one.

Curious, she began searching for her friend's names on the list. Unsurprisingly, Elena was the last within the Zeta class, and overall barely above the line in the ranking. No doubt her warrior practice, contributing to the art culture, and being a key figure in the monster attack, gave her a couple of points in the overall ranking and pushed her forward despite her grades.

For freshmen, the results were only the result of theoretical mock exams that wouldn't carry serious consequences. It was for students to gauge their bearings and get motivated to work harder, so Elena didn't have to worry. Maya was there to worry for her. 

'I'll have to think of a way to make her study that she doesn't perceive as studying.'

Maya's thoughts were firm. They had a deal, and to keep Elena as an ally, Maya had to make sure an outside force wouldn't separate them.

The top spot of the first-year overall ranking was taken by the year rep. Maya was impressed Kasper still found time to study aside from all of his other duties. But merits contribute to that score so it was only natural.

Those were the ones easy to find. Now to search for the rest of her friends in the sea of names. Isaac and Linda were of similar rankings. Quite high, but not enough to make their names stand out. Andrea was surprisingly low, placed within the lower half.

'She wasn't kidding when she claimed to struggle with studying.'

"Ugh!" Andrea groaned seeing her score. "Look how far apart we are," she was depressed at how far her name was removed from the year rep. Not because she wanted to be at the top, but because she wanted to be near him.

Maya chuckled inwardly. If Kasper was at the bottom, she would strive to reach it as well.

Andrea and Maya were sitting in the hall, hanging out during their break. Andrea was rambling about recent events while Maya was trying out cultivation exercises to strengthen her sensitivity to magic learned from Lady Anastasia.

Maya was determined to become stronger. The instructions she received were vague, but she inferred that this was to encourage her to develop her powers independently. Although Anastasia didn't mention it directly, Maya's practice led her to develop a sense of intuition that enabled her to guess other people's elements.

Right now, with Andrea talking in the background, Maya was playing with her senses, studying presences to categorize students' affinities. Looking into their souls. Occasionally she would ask Andrea, who knew everyone, about passer-by's elements to test her theories. Quickly they became immersed in Maya's game of guessing and Andrea was impressed with her accuracy.

'It feels like my mind is diving underwater, submerging myself into a sea of souls. The logic and reality of this are beyond my understanding, yet I feel as if I can glimpse into people's souls. I've noticed that everyone seems to have something like a magical core that I am glimpsing into. Although, I can't definitively say it's a core as I can't see souls in their entirety. I am only able to peek into a tiny part of a soul, not even the entirety of what I call the Elemental Core, which is an integral part of every soul. However, there is a pattern in its structure.'

It was like staring at specimens through a microscope. Maya had only a close glimpse at a small part. If the samples were unlabelled, a layman could still tell there was a difference between staring at plant cells and flesh cells, noticing patterns and categorising them.

So although each soul was unique like a fingerprint, there were some things in common within the same affinity. So that was how Maya was able to recognize the patterns characteristic of each element. Through careful observation, she could begin to guess which Element's affinity a person has.

'I am like an embodiment of an appraisal ritual,' she thought jokingly.

However, Maya found out her guesses weren't accurate enough. There was a strange feeling about some students for whom it was harder to guess. Linda was one of them.

Maya didn't get the same feeling from Linda as she did from the other Children of Earth. There must be shades. After all, Linda had a unique ability that didn't repeat in others.

To test her theory, Maya went to look at Elena and found herself confused. With her unique ice powers, she expected Elena to have a unique constitution of soul as well, but it was within the line of the other Children of Water. The difference wasn't as pronounced as it was with Linda.

There were even more intricacies within each element that would repeat through some individuals. For example, Maya could tell Burcu's elemental makeup was different from Adam's even though they were within the same element. Certain patterns would be predominant and even have something in common within cross-elements. Maya began to call them types.

In an empty notebook, she had begun to categorize her friends by what she was able to see. Deciding to name the types by alphabetical order of what was most common.

Andrea: Earth, type A

Isaac: Water, type A

Elena: Water, type C

Linda: Earth(?), type ??

Keith: Water, type A

Adam: Air, type A

Burcu: Air, type B

Sarah: Fire, type A+X

Kasper: Fire, type C

Tanya: Air, type A; Fire, type B+X

Amanda: Air, type C+D

For fire, she had noticed there would often be a second common type paired with the first one which kept confusing her. She would have thought it was the part of the type A if it weren't absent for some. But all of the most talented Fire mages had it.

She had also noticed that students who weren't type A were the ones who would struggle the most during Elemetal Practices. Except for Elena who had a unique type C, but also the pattern of type A was somewhat discernible. Almost like duality common in Fire element.

The most confusing ones were Linda and a couple of other students, mostly of Fire, who had no common patterns. There was some echo of the pattern appropriate to their element, but it was simply too different to be able to tell for certain which Element. However, they had a common pattern between each other which should be impossible considering they were of different affinities. 

It made Maya question if her theory was right.

When she presented her findings to Anastasia, she pondered for a moment while Maya waited in anticipation for her to confirm if she was on the right track.

"What about you and me? What do you see there?"

Maya gathered her thoughts. "Well, it's not something that shows up in a mirror, so it's hard to tell," Maya confessed. "I am simply too close to my person to be able to see the picture. You, however, I don't know. I can't do it for spirits. Ghosts aren't a whole. So either that part I am looking at is missing, or it looks different and I simply can't tell."

When Maya looked back at Anastasia, she smiled.

"Alright, you seem to be ready for the next stage. However, you'll have to get the study materials yourself."

"Study materials?! There's something of sorts?!"

Maya began to question whether she simply didn't look hard enough through the library to find books relevant to herself.

"Yes, of sorts. It would be quite risky and I can't foresee what awaits you if you get caught. Do you still wish to proceed?"

Maya nodded eagerly.

"I will alert you when the opportunity arises."