Killian stared at the lights coming from his mana. The countless shades and colors, intertwining, layering or melting into others. It would have made kids with epilepsy have a seizure.

Not that Killian would ever do something so cruel.

Unless they did something to deserve it.

The lights were turned off right now in order for Killian to better observe his own mana. But it also made it harder for him to write down his notes.

"Red is almost always anger...would hatred be this darker shade then? While rage or frustration seems to be this lighter shade..."

The sounds of him muttering and the pen scratching on paper was all that could be heard.

It was extremely difficult, each different shade represented a different emotion, one that Killian had to deduce the identity of through observation and speculation. It wouldn’t just tell him what they were after all, so he was running on a lot of assumptions here.

It was hard to assume one color could mean only thing after all, red for hatred, violence, irritation all made sense. But passion, love, madness were all likely possible answers as well.

Except for maybe the middle one, he was unsure still whether love would be an intense, rose-like red or a soft pink.

Even when the shade was just the slightest bit off, it meant a completely different thing. As evidenced by how two colors refused to mix together despite looking almost the same.

In fact, he wouldn’t even have noticed it was a different shade at all if not for his Arts.

His eyes glimmered briefly, his black pupils seemingly shifting colors. Rotating through the rainbow until it paused at red.

Feeling his frustration arise, he could visibly see several splatches of color turn slightly redder, and more red color emotions appearing on the grey canvas. The current state of his Art letting him differentiate between red colors better.

These red colors were what made him stronger, compared to enhancing his body with what he dubbed sunflower yellow. Which made him much faster instead.

Green seemed to be a bit of a strange zone. The darker it got the worser it made him actually. But too bright was also bad. Something like swampy green and acid green as he named them. With the in between being relatively normal.

Despite the extreme difficulties in deciphering the emotions contained in his mana. Killian felt extremely happy right now, which was also probably why there was a lot of yellow surrounding him.

Some attunements were just better then others, good techniques and Arts might reduce the gap. But the gap still existed on the first place.

Yet his emotions-attunement was shaping up to be quite possibly the most versatile attunement ever.

He could buff himself with rage emotions to make himself stronger, he could debuff enemies by essentially dousing them in the negative emotions. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Which meant he could also buff allies if needed, and if his theories were correct. Killian would also be able to manipulate emotions within others. Inspiring willpower and increasing morale for friendlies, while intensifying any despair and decreasing morale for enemies. He could force others to feel sad, angry, happy, causing their mental state to go crazy as their emotions wildly fluctuated from one end of the spectrum to another.

But that was exactly the problem as well.

Even if he used whatever the yellow emotion to make himself faster. He didn’t match up to Casper in terms of speed. Even if he used the red emotions to make himself stronger. He was still weaker then Aveline.

His mana was also less pure and refined compared to Viviana’s, and his ability to control the emotions of others. Even if he was capable of doing so, it was merely a useful side effect at most.

After all, if he was fighting against an S-rank foe. Increasing morale for friendly troops wasn’t really useful when they would all die in one attack.

A jack of all trades, master of none.

The full saying was that a jack of all trades would beat a master of one. But that wasn’t really true when considering Killian was beaten in every single category by such a wide margin, that even if he did use the versatility of it, he was still weaker then them.

But there was also a saving grace.

So far, the effects of the earlier emotions were only what Killian called the simple emotions. Things like anger, joy, sadness.

But emotions were much more complex then just those.

Envy, calmness, obsession, grief, hope, willpower and regret. Weren’t these all emotions as well?

As complex emotions, their effects would definitely be different from the rest. He just needed to figure out what they were and what they did.

He also needed to deal with another pressing matter.

"Why do I keep emanating this pink color?"

The grey indicated no emotion, a blank canvas.

Looking at himself, he could see splatches of grey, yellow, blue, green and of course, pink.

In fact, the pink was overwhelming. Outnumbering the other colors by nearly three-fold. It also seemed to just increase more and more even when he himself wasn’t doing anything.

His best method for determining emotions was just by seeing what colors appeared based on how he currently felt. So why was there so much pink? He wasn’t feeling any particular emotion strong right now. None that he was aware of at least.

Perhaps it was just one of those emotions that didn’t come off strongly. When someone was lost in thought or daydreaming, they wouldn’t exactly notice that they were lost in thought or daydreaming after all.

"I should ask Vivi...she might know more."

She was the smartest one in their group by far after all. Her grades were leagues above theirs. Surely she would know something to help.

It was also a good opportunity to get to talk to her more.

Because being with her strangely uplifted his mood. Alone with those beautiful eyes of hers, listening to her talk for hours on end about random topics he barely even understood...

At that moment, even more of the pink color appeared. As well as red and even purple colors. Dyeing his entire body in the color.

Seeing the colors on him, he let out a sigh.

It seemed like he wasn’t going to be figuring it out anytime soon.

---

"So pink is love then?"

"Seems so. I feel like red would match it better though."

Pink and red were suitable colors for love sure, but wasn’t red more suitable?

"Red is for love!"

A little voice chimed in while they discussed the brief color scene. Prompting them both to turn to her for her input on this matter.

"Why do you think red is for love Erin?"

"Because I’m red."

"...okay."

Faced with that indisputable logic, they wisely chose to retreat from this discussion.

"Ellen has Killian’s inheritance. So it’s probably correct right? She would correct it if it was wrong."

"Well, has she actually seen it though?"

In the current timeline, Ellen seldom used any of Killian’s Arts from his inheritance. Mainly because they weren’t all that useful now with her new attunement.

But one of the main Arts was the Emotion Determining Eyes. An Art that let her ’see’ the emotions of an individual.

Despite possessing this Art. She actually hadn’t used it at all ever since she regressed. Mainly because it was a bit of an invasion of privacy, and because she didn’t want to make Raymond feel uncomfortable by revealing any of his emotions. Which was part of the first reason again.

It was a bit awkward to use it and see (as an example) the emotions her father had towards her own mom...

Raymond already showed all his emotions on his face easily anyways. Even if he tried to hide it.

"She just says she doesn’t use it because of Raymond. What if she used it on others?"

"If she says she doesn’t use it, then she doesn’t use it."

"You have a lot of trust in her. Weren’t you two rivals?"

Noelle clenched her fist at that last question.

"We have honor and standards."

Despite basically half the group being nobles. The only one that actually acted like a noble was Noelle. Still talking about honor and glory in the present day and age like she was an old grandma.

Well, Lucy and Ellen could also act pretty refined when they wanted to...

The last four words there were doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

Arthur tilted his head. "By the way, where’s Cador?"

Your horse, Vesper is here. Your snake, Sparky is here. But why is your Shadow, the one that is supposed to follow you everywhere not here?

Although it seemed like the other master, Shadow pair didn’t really follow along to that rule either.

Lucy pursed her lips, remembering the sight of Ashfield laying on his back with his paws up in the air. Tongue hanging out of his mouth. In his wolf form not his human form.

"He’s...asleep right now."

This was to save the dignity of Ashfield.