Excerpt from The Profound and Pretty Princess' Ultimate Guide to Cultivation, Captivation, Cuteness, and Carving Your Way to the Top, English Edition (the worst-selling guide in the history of Putijama)

On Essence Affinities

Essence affinities are funny. For most people, they matter very little. Everyone – unless they are a newborn – has an affinity based on what essence color they've been exposed to most throughout their life. Some even have two, or extremely rarely, three. So someone who lived their entire life in a heavily brown zone will almost always be a brown affinity – sometimes bodies just absorb more of another color despite exposure but it's rare.

Even for delvers, essence affinity is usually not that important. Their affinity will impact their Innate Capability about 50%-60% of the time – unless they are Ignited using affinity-less essence like fancy bigwigs in the big cities. So green generally means plant-related Capabilities more often. Brown is earth, blue is water, orange is fire, etc. For delving in rifts, the rift's essence affinity also isn't too important; people absorb other colored essence at a slight drop in efficiency, no harm done other than some minor discomfort.

But suck it up! I'm always uncomfortable!

There are even some superstitions about delvers with certain affinities and rifts with other affinities leading to either great or terrible rewards. Blue and orange are opposite so that is either really good or really bad depending who you ask. Same with white being regular light and yellow being sun/lightning; could harmonize well or be a disaster. Seems like hooey but people gonna superstich.

That's what's been so awful about null. In sufficient quantities, it damages essence channels. The body can't change the essence to match the person's affinity easily. That transformation causes null to scour the channels as it fights to nullify everything in them, reducing the capacity for any essence. Normally, delving in rifts with other affinities is like a finger prick. Null is more like a knife to the gut.

I swung by the inn to change and take a few calming minutes to center myself. I knew I would be stressed since it was the first time to speak with 'Councilor Illeva' – as I was calling her in my head. She lost being on a first name basis. I don't care if that's petulant – post discovering she had been deceiving me and 'The Crew'.

We decided that with Tiesa being the least politically incompetent of our group, she should accompany me.

As Tiesa opened the door, I realized we probably should have coordinated. She was dressed in a somewhat slinky evening dress of royal purple and turquoise waves with slits up both sides. Her greenish hair was made into a series of loose braids that hung magically – presumably not literally – behind her head. She had on a lovely simple necklace of silver with geometric patterns that fell into her plunging neckline.

I was stunned as I had never seen her dress quite so nicely.

"Eyes up here soldier," she said with a laugh.

"You look amazing! Not trying to pick you up or—" I stopped at her raised hand and she started laughing deeply, a sonorous noise that was almost like a musical donkey bray.

She gave me an appraising look and nodded her head to come inside.

Gabor took one look at my simple button down paired with essentially cargo shorts. He started to laugh and wasn't able to stop, going from a chuckle to guffaw to literal knee slapping in seconds. Then he took in Steve in a little vest and hat, causing him to start rolling on the floor while howling.

"Yes, yes, we should have checked in. I was thinking kill them with class and he was thinking… well, how do you say 'dressing like a slovenly commoner to show disrespect' without it actually sounding bad?"

I laughed, turning to her. "I mean, we could send them the most mixed of messages showing up like this. I don't really care how it comes across as long as we get some answers, prevent further lies, and reset the power imbalance."

She shrugged, bent to the floor to kiss Gabor on the cheek, and took my arm as we headed out the door. We strategized on the walk as she ignored the number of heads turning her way. As always, she was fun to chat with and threw in the right number of vicious barbs about Katarina to keep it light but still focused on our objectives.

As we reached the perimeter, I knew we were probably being watched so I put on a bit of a show. "Right, so our goals are to fully extract all the money she siphoned from the Council on our behalf and double it, secure a significant advantage in future deals, take Maksim as our joint concubine, and set the affinity altering procedure for tomorrow. Agreed?"

"Eh, Maksim isn't really my type but you do you," she deadpanned as we crossed the AAI restriction perimeter. Surprisingly, the only thing that it blocked was recording without express permission but even that was available to request.

Katarina stepped out dressed in a very conservative pantsuit of brown cotton, lacking the barest hint of her usual sparkles. Even her makeup and jewelry were muted.

"Yes, low AAI restrictions tonight. We are to dine with Melandra and her brother Melaxander. And my Maksim of course," Katarina said somberly though I detected a bit of mirth at specifically saying 'my Maksim'.

Maybe we can be friendly and still enjoy interacting even if I can't trust her much. I think that is something I can swing.

We entered the drawing room where it was only Maksim waiting for us. He did a little strut around the room though it was significantly less impactful than it would have been in his matching boring brown jumpsuit. He smiled at both of us, throwing a rather large and obvious wink.

While it was funny, both Tiesa's and my smile were more strained than I would have liked.

For once, Maksim started the conversation. "Looks like we were caught with our hand in the town pot and, well, that means we simultaneously lost face but more importantly your trust. I apologize for, shall we say, not informing you and causing you to lose faith in our dealings."

Tiesa snorted and I decided to not hold back my eyeroll.

Isekonsultant Tip to Thriving #33: Sometimes you need to let people see how you really feel in the moment. Not everything has to be a game to play and people need to know that when they've messed up, it has consequences. Hold people to account and let them actually know you will. Trying to play everything close to the vest makes people think it's a game, not your life and your trust.

He sighed and sat down heavily with an air of a very tired man. "Okay, political bullshit language aside, I was the one who suggested we leverage your situation for some additional profits. We had a few bad breaks on our insurance contracts and needed to pay out quickly. Rather than borrow at heavily inflated rates, I made a bad call."

Maksim ran his fingers through his carefully coifed hair, utterly destroying his look. "We at least should have informed you and cut you in because making money by using your friends is the exact kind of noble shitstain behavior we say we despise. But I was concerned you might refuse. Though Katarina believed you'd be more reasonable."

Not sure what my answer would have been had they asked me to be part of their scheme. Probably no though…

"Yeah, you really screwed that up, didn't you?" Tiesa said, following our general plan to just keep them on the back foot.

None of The Crew thought we should agree to anything that night and the plan was mostly to just press our disappointment and see what they'd offer. It wasn't the nicest action but essentially treating me as a piggybank wasn't either. Jasna especially argued it was far better than they deserved.

Steve started making angry chittering noises; whether that was from feeling something through our connection or merely because he was in a room that usually provided a lot of food and wasn't currently living up to expectations was hard to say.

A servant entered quickly with a plate of some of his favorites and we continued with awkward small talk.

Katarina kept bringing up how Ocrid, a city about twice the size of Velez to the southeast, had lost a lot of lives recently to a series of rift breaks and a very large dungeon break. She harped on about how it was such a shame because they really needed to pay out quickly to 'help those poor souls' recover, especially since their farmland was decimated. It was a bit too transparent and fell on deaf ears.

While dinner was usually set at six bells after midday – what would be about 7:15pm on Earth –it seemed Katarina and Maksim thought better of it and we were bid to enter the dining room twenty minutes early.

The same beautiful table sat in the middle of the spartan room but it had shrunk in length, now the perfect size for the more intimate setting of six people rather than the previous ten. It was still glowing merrily with its myriad enchantments.

There we met Melandra and her brother, a squat man that looked even more toad-like than his sister with wide, protruding brown eyes and a flat face. Both seemed a bit confused and threw an askew glance towards Katarina who gave a small shake of her head.

I half expected Melaxander to croak in some way but his voice was actually quite nice. "Hello, it is you that have brought us such an… interesting opportunity; my thanks. Though I was misinformed as to timing, I thought we'd already be out of your… fair city by now." I guessed he was trying to be diplomatic but still sounded arrogant.

"Yes well, you were apparently not dealing with the decision maker and that has caused delays. I hope you are compensated as such," I said and Tiesa kicked my leg lightly under the table. I wasn't sure if that was encouragement or a press to rein it in but I didn't care too much.

Maybe I am having a bit more fun at their expense than I should be. It's not like it was some epic betrayal, just being greedy dicks.

"So, have you worked with an Affinity Alteration Amaryllis before?" I asked to both siblings.

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"No but I've worked with similar ingredients and made similar treatments for many other reasons. It's all pretty much the same when you get down to following the general guidelines of a recipe. Of course, there is artistry involved; you still must focus on feeling how the magic is flowing in the moment to make the right minute adjustments," Melaxander said with a tone bordering on reverence.

"Yeah, this dork loves that stuff. I just like plants but I have to prepare the ingredients and my knowledge and skills – and my Cap – are all focused on getting those perfect," Melandra replied before slurping at her soup happily; deciding to focus more on her enjoyment than manners, she picked up the bowl to a chuckle from Tiesa and drained the last bits into her mouth, then swapped her bowl with her brother.

At my questioning look, he smiled. "She's like this with most things, better to just let her have her way when I don't mind much. Anyway, I think you were trying to question my competency?" He didn't even look or sound upset, just a little bored.

"More I'm a concerned guardian," I replied with a bit of exasperation, looking to Steve who had his own small high chair and was happily on his second plate of food. About 70% had gone in his mouth rather than his fur and I was reasonably happy with that ratio, probably a new record for him. "I want to hear more about why you believe you can use a less concentrated dosage to give people dual affinity. Is that a different recipe or procedure from a full affinity change?"

After a ten-minute explanation by the siblings, often cutting each other off and disagreeing loudly and with a general policy of ignoring all questions that didn't come from Katarina, I had way more than the gist I was looking for.

"Got it. So once the Affinity Alteration Amaryllis starts to be harvested, there's a ticking clock. And there will be two separate cauldrons for the potion-paste but it's essentially the same concoction, just with a bit different of ratios of ingredients. At least that's good. And how confident are you that the dual affinity will take?" I asked, trying to make sure I understood everything.

"About 80%," Melaxander said.

"100%," Melandra replied forcefully, throwing an elbow into her brother's side to no reaction as he brought a bite of roast rift beast – some kind of lamb-like creature but with a subtle herb flavor that Katarina's chef brought out perfectly – to his mouth.

"We're already contracted so why lie? I am not positive it will work or especially will work as intended. But your delay actually makes my job a bit easier as tomorrow is a full moon, when the treatment has the highest efficacy. When can we have the Amaryllis delivered?" He turned to Tiesa with that question.

"Now," she said tossing the storage ring to Melaxander who fumbled it to the ground and almost dove to grab it before regaining his composure, carefully retrieving it from the floor. He brought the flower out momentarily to examine and show to his sister, quickly storing it after less than a minute of admiring.

[Say something about how it's impressive there is a ring for only one specimen.] I sent to Melaxander; he gave me a confused head tilt but I nodded.

"Quite impressive that you have a ring this magnificent just for this single flower," he said woodenly and I was left wondering why Tiesa was the only person around who could act their way out of a wet paper bag.

Katarina's eyes narrowed, snapping and holding her hand out to examine the ring. The Councilor's eyes narrowed even further, almost to the point of being closed, when she found the ring still had most of her plants intact – Tiesa had grabbed a few of the simple herbs and other edible flora to plant in her garden after Katarina's dealings were revealed in full but we'd not touched any of the expensive and/or rare plants.

I chuckled at her annoyed eyeroll but the rest of the dinner was occupied with rather stilted conversation as I tried to learn more about the alchemy business and was rebuffed every time by the siblings.

***

"You two go in here. Please. I want to chat with you but need to speak with my husband for a bit first." Katarina was basically pleading with us by this point. Instead of the usual well-appointed drawing room, we were in a far more comfortable room with squishy leather furniture and a large-screen tablet on the wall. "There, granted you access to the tablet, watch whatever you want."

She shut the door in my face, although slow enough that it was more me being petulant to not move than a rebuke of some kind.

"I mean we're still almost assuredly under surveillance here but eh," I said, flopping down. Tiesa's beautiful hairstyle was currently being demolished more and more by the second as Steve made a nest to nap but she didn't seem to care. As I tried to figure out the tablet, Tiesa circled behind the couch momentarily and then swam back into view in her normal clothes.

"You didn't want to go anywhere to change?" I asked, a bit bewildered.

"Terry, don't be such a prude," she said with a laugh. "If you saw something, the only one that would care would be you. And I'm guessing they have some kind of visual monitoring in here too. Again, don't care." With a flop on the couch next to me that threatened to fling me off like a particularly well-timed trampoline counter jump, she took over the tablet.

At her processing speeds, she figured out if she wanted to watch something before I could even understand what I was seeing.

Tiesa stopped briefly on a channel with a couple quickly going from fighting to kissing and not looking like they'd stop there. I gave her a questioning glance.

"Took a picture, inside joke with Gabor," she responded and then rolled her eyes. "Fine, let's watch boring dude stuff; there's history programs or the arena fights channel."

As I only responded by crossing my arms, she laughed and put on the arena fights channel to immediately start avidly cheering on the female contestant.

The woman was down one arm – it was magicked out of the arena and was on a table, being seen to by healers – but was still using her remaining one to wear down the defenses of a man in spiked armor wielding an enormous axe. Her fencer's sword flitted in and out, causing a cavalcade of injuries while she easily dodged his heavy and highly-telegraphed moves. Every step the man took left a massive bootprint of crimson behind.

Tiesa explained why it wasn't like the arena in town where the injuries were only simulated in between randomly shouting for the woman on screen. "There's not only the loss-of-use factor from something like cutting off an arm – even the pits can do that; it feels really weird to not be able to move your arm – but these arenas can't simulate genuine blood-loss so they allow real injuries. Killing blows mean you lose the fight – and often lead to fighter's murder – but otherwise, you're encouraged to go pretty hard. Gabor wanted to compete in an official tournament but I talked the lug head out of it."

Just as Tiesa's champion slashed three times into her opponent's arm, causing him to drop the axe and presumably sealing the fight, Katarina dramatically opened the doors and the tablet shut off automatically to a small grumpy noise from Tiesa.

Katarina and Maksim were both in comfortable clothes as well and suddenly the guy in the cargo shorts was the best dressed in the room by dint of wearing a moderately nice shirt.

"I know you're mad but did you have to embarrass me in front of our esteemed guests from out of town? They will inevitably talk in Pitola about us and the entire city will suffer because of it. I thought you cared about Velez if not me," Katarina whined as she sat in one of the cushy chairs. The chair retaliated with a rather undignified noise to my amusement.

"You're right, I didn't need to do that. But I wanted to so I did. The wounds are still fresh. And I'm sick of playing passive here – it's led to two assassination attempts and not a heck of a lot of actual support from the Council, including you."

As it became clear she was about to offer an indignant rebuttal, I laughed. "Rude but true. We all needed to discuss our go-forward relationship and the plans for the affinity alteration treatment but I don't think that dinner will change anything. Melandra was badmouthing the city from the second she arrived. Sent me an AAI message while we were in session." I relaxed back into the couch but it was too accommodating and I slightly flailed momentarily to regain my balance lest it fully eat me.

"Look, did I make some mistakes? Yes. But do I want to prevent you from making further mistakes? Also, yes. I know you met with Uros. I don't think I have to tell you how dangerous that man can be. Just ask your friend Jasn—" Katarina sputtered to a halt as Tiesa rose from her chair ominously.

Regaining her composure, Katarina continued, "You're right, that was over the line. I too feel the fresh wounds. I thought you'd see that I was continuing to ensure you'd have financial support and a strong ally. I guess everything I've done for you, we've done for you, we've provided, didn't mean much on your end."

"Well, it feels like it was mostly built on lies and to your benefit well above our own. Not to mention your financial support was very rarely your money. Was the ability to help us also built on lies? Seems like the Council was willing to do everything 'you provided' anyway. So, what are you going to do to help us advance our aims?" I was still hot under the collar and being more blunt than I wanted but it felt good.

Isekonsultant Tip to Thriving #34: Maintain your composure when tempers flare. You can leverage your anger but never let your anger leverage you.

Isekonsultant Tip to Thriving #35: Sometimes it just feels good to be fully honest and tell someone off. Don't do it too often but it's okay to indulge from time to time. Always making the smartest decision is the dumbest move. It's about building a good life and that includes living it.

Katarina sighed heavily, fixing me with a pleading look. "Well, right now, I need to rebuild my political capital. You must understand, you were doing that consulting job. You couldn't come in and start changing things on day one. After some mistakes were made… well, I have to focus on the foundation right now, building trust and influence again across the Council. Our family has never been the richest or most powerful, even in Velez. I can't stick my neck out, that would be foolish to everything I've built." She went from sounding apologetic to almost angry at my audacity to suggest she actually follow through on what she'd promised.

Okay, gloves truly off.

"Katarina, let's be straight. I trusted you. We trusted you." I pointed to Tiesa with a fashionable Steve hat and then all around, trying to indicate my other friends. "The relationship we built was one based on three things: I liked you, I trusted you, and you had connections and power to help us achieve our goals and keep me – and now Steve too – safe while I amassed my own power. So, tell me how much of that still exists."

At her gasp and faux pearl clutching, I knew I'd hit home. "What are you doing to help sort out the two assassination plots? What are you doing relative to my bank? Not to mention you literally haven't asked about Steve and how he's doing once. So the trust pillar is in shambles, the friendship pillar is looking shaky. A two-legged stool doesn't work but do we even have a single leg? If you don't have any power and I don't like or trust you, why should I work with you?"

Maksim stepped forward. "That's quite enough. I won't have you talking to my wife like that." He looked ready to throw something but I just affixed Katarina with a stare.

The Councilor had a slightly manic look in her eye. "I just want to keep you safe. Yes, I of course want to ride your coattails and make some money. Is that really such a bad thing? Why am I the bad guy here? That's Uros!"

"Uros essentially told me not to trust him. There's a saying on Earth about the knife you see in front of you versus the one your friend plunges in your back. It's poorly stated but you get it. I know not to trust him. He knows I don't trust him. My relationship with him is transactional. But our relationship," I made an emphatic gesture between her and me, "that… that wasn't supposed to be transactional. But you used it in a slimy way. In a way that put me – that put Steve – in danger. So I repeat, what legs of the stool do we have?" I let the heat out of my voice to show how weary I was from having to deal with her betrayal.

Maksim went to speak but Tiesa cut him off. "Terry's right and you know it. That said, stools can be repaired. Start with showing us you can do some work on our behalf and we'll go from there."

My friend stood up and I quickly followed. I heard Katarina muttering under her breath but not loud enough for my AAI to translate. I half expected some of my AAI privileges to cut out before we could leave but nothing happened.

Tiesa and I walked back to the inn in silence, both thinking.

I invited her in for a drink but she declined, handing over a sleepy Steve and giving me a goodbye hug.

As I was heading upstairs, Vana caught up to me and walked side by side, occasionally throwing a hip check my way. I gave her a side eye.

"Boy, I am having fun. I had to toss out two people too drunk to continue and had to put two more into rooms. I'm hoping the cleaning won't be too bad. I need some light entertainment."

As I got to my room and opened the door, she swept inside and grabbed Steve from my arms, spinning to sit on the bed. I gave her an awkward look and she rolled her eyes and indicated for me to shut the door.

As I did, she smiled. "Okay, been doing my research. I have a few good locations, sending Jasna out to scout them tomorrow and see how everything looks. That's it." She sprung to her feet and shot past me in the blink of an eye, throwing a wink and a tap on my backside with her foot as she bounded out the door laughing.

"Is everyone here weird Steve?" I asked, shutting the door and flopping onto the bed.

Completed Tasks

[Talk with Vana about good locations for Gabby and any updates]

[Meet with Katarina Illeva]

[Task Added: Talk with Jasna and Vana about locations for Gabby and any updates]

[Task Added: Assess future relationship with Katarina]

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