"Affinity, magical capacity, and Skills are all separate capacities that all grow from being used when there's real stakes on the line, stakes that matter to you somehow.  Arrogant and prideful people often become great and powerful, because it's easy to get yourself into situations where your pride is on the line, if that deeply fucking matters to you, like the fucking casters' tournament they have around here.  Sensible people like me have to risk our actual lives chasing unreasonably large bounties that will probably get us killed, if we want to grow the same way.  To start practicing a Tier-2 affinity you've got to level up two Tier-1 affinities to where you can aspect mana two ways at once.  But even a normal kid with Fire affinity, trying to learn a Fire-starting spell, will do better after a year channeling unstructured Fire mana to warm up lunches that don't taste as good cold."

"Affinity, magical capacity, and Skills are all separate capacities that all grow from being used when there's real stakes on the line, stakes that matter to you somehow.  Arrogant and prideful people often become great and powerful, because it's easy to get yourself into situations where your pride is on the line, if that deeply fucking matters to you, like the fucking casters' tournament they have around here.  Sensible people like me have to risk our actual lives chasing unreasonably large bounties that will probably get us killed, if we want to grow the same way."

"To start practicing a Tier-2 affinity, you've got to level up two Tier-1 affinities to where you can aspect mana two ways at once.  But even a normal kid with Fire affinity, trying to learn a Fire-starting spell, will do better after a year channeling unstructured Fire mana to warm up lunches that don't taste as good cold."

"Affinity, magical capacity, and Skills are all separate capacities that all grow from being used when there's real stakes on the line, stakes that matter to you somehow.  Arrogant and prideful people often become great and powerful, because it's easy to get yourself into situations where your pride is on the line, if that deeply fucking matters to you, like the fucking casters' tournament they have around here.  Sensible people like me have to risk our actual lives chasing unreasonably large bounties that will maybe get us killed, if we want to grow the same way."

"To start practicing a Tier-2 affinity, you've got to level up two Tier-1 affinities to where you can aspect mana two ways at once.  But even a normal kid with Fire affinity, trying to learn a Fire-starting spell, will do better after a year channeling unstructured Fire mana to warm up lunches that don't taste as good cold."