The Powerless Savior

Everything is going to be okay......I have more than done my homework......and I have read enough history books to know the stories of the previous three Saviors inside and out.....

With slow and steady breathes going in through her nose and out through her mouth, Lera steadied herself using a drill taught to her by her mother when she was easily scared by the lightning storm when she's small. Then, she looked at Wu who's looking at her with complete and total focus.

Why is he staring so intensely! Gosh!
At that moment, all of Lera's calmness was thrown out of the window.

"Ok. What do you want to know?"
Wow! I sound too harsh.....do I need to rephrase? Oh my god oh my god......

"Um......" Wu scratched his head, "Since none of us really knows what we are supposed to do, I think the most logical of steps would be to look at what's been done before......right? Did you say there were others?"
"Well actually, they are more like previous Guardians and Saviors." Lera said, picking up a branch as she started drawing lines on the ground, "To start from the beginning......since the dawn of humans around here, we have been interacting with the ever-present Wave. Initially, That was around......four thousand years ago."

Wu's eyes widened, and he held his face with both hands and listened on as Lera continued on her story.

"Before we get knees deep into histories......it might help to know how we use the Wave now. That will help me to figure you out too." Lera said, drawing a cross on the ground before, "there are mainly four categories of Wave users, and each of them uses it in vastly different ways."

Wu turned his head slightly as Lera scratched along the ground, drawing up various symbols of writings that looked nothing like any language that he has seen before. Yet, strangely so, he knew exactly what it's saying.
"Why could I understand you?" Wu asked.
"Maybe it's because I explain things well~" Lera tilted her head and looked back before realizing what Wu's actually saying. Trying to act naturally as if she didn't ironically misunderstand back, "I mean......when you first got here, I applied a standard cast of Comprehension for you. It was one of the oldest Casts out there. Ever since the age of the first savior is gone, that Cast has been used to erase language barriers."

Wow, an instantaneous and unilingual translator, all embedded in a single spell! Wu made an amused sound before looking down at the cross on the ground. That's when he realized that Lera's actually drawing up a table.

"The four categories of Wave users are the Casters, Channelers, Manifesters, and Outliers." Lera said, pointing to each of the spaces in the table, "And the two metrics that are used to determine the category of Wave usage most suitable for the specific users are Capacity and Affinity tests, which I also have in my Book."

"Ooooh......I like this." Wu rubbed his hands excitedly as Lera moved her branch around, "This is very scientific."
"You are saying those weird things again......" Lera sighed before continuing to point to the first corner labeled Casters.

"The Casters are those that directly construct and cast Casts using a variety of different tools. Most use a book of Casts of sorts in this country, but around the world, there are those that also uses ingrains casts into Weapons. Speaking of which, there are certainly individuals that exists in between, or outside of these four categories. The Casters have High Capacity and High Affinity for the Wave, meaning that are able to access a large amount of the Wave if required, and control them as desired."

Wu nodded along, and he couldn't help but notice how nuanced all of this already is compared to the isekai stories he has dropped before after two episodes, "Very cool."

Dragging the tip of the branch straight up, she made a stop at the Manifesters corner.

"The Manifesters have equal, if not usually higher capacity than the Casters, but in exchange for the extra access to the Wave, they are usually lacking in the ease of control. As a result, their powers often manifest in many different forms. One of the bad guys back there, Jiyu Satoru...... is a Manifester that has a manifestation in the form of a Serpent. Then, through the manifestation, the Manifesters are able to control their immense power."
"Makes sense. Like stands."

Now, Lera has already learned to ignore the strange blurbs from Wu.

"The third most common categories are the Channelers. They have the highest affinity out of everybody, and a comparatively low capacity, meaning that they are the ones that channel the Wave directly to enhance their physical attributes. Like brutes." Lera said, "Sounds simple, but the most adept of Channelers are ridiculously strong fighters."

"Quick question." Wu raised his hand as if he's still in the classroom, and much to his surprise, Lera pointed her hand towards him like all of the teachers he's had before, "Can Channelers and Manifesters use Casts too?"
"Depends on how the Cast was written, yes." Lera said immediately, "If all you need is a surge of energy through a pre-written Cast, then anyone that's able to manipulate the Wave should be able to do it, but that only encompasses the most basic of Casts."
"Wow......so you really know this stuff, right?" Wu smiled and looked towards the last corner of the table.
"Of course I do......" Lera muttered with moderate annoyance, puffing her cheeks before stabbing the branch into the last corner.

"The Outliers are to describe those with either low affinity and low capacity, the inconclusive individuals, or those that use completely unknown and unstudied techniques. It's like a throw-away category for when nobody knows how the individual might work." Lera said before tossing the branch to the side and reaching towards her book of Casts, "But don't worry! We can do the tests right now and figure out which category of Wave user you are!"

Like a personality test, but 10 times as cool! Wu taps his feet excitedly and waited as Lera went straight to the back of her book where the tests are stored, and she flipped the book around to reveal the lines of Casts written all over the book.'

Wu's instincts are that the Book of Casts are actually filled with various written words that lit up whenever Lera channels the Wave, however, as he took a closer look at the page, there were actually multiple lines that looked more like what engineers call block diagrams, and the Cast flows from one isolated segments to another, guiding the flow of the Wave before all combining to a pair of empty boxes at the bottom of the page.

For the Test Cast itself, there was a drawing of the hand, and Wu reached ahead and placed his hand over it.

"To start, I will run an initial surge of the Wave through this," Lera said as her hands glowed slightly. Then, she tapped her fingertips at the corner of the page before a small white blob of light was dissolved into the page. Like water being sucked into cloth, the blob shifted into white lines before running along the lines on the page. He felt a buzz and a strange warmth crawling from his fingertips down to the base of his palm before the white lines went right through and underneath his wrists.

Then, the white lines converge and disappeared into the two empty boxes at the bottom of the page before the results of his tests finally started to show.

Lera swallowed nervously, and Wu watched excitedly as the numbers that indicate his results slowly emerge. Next to the boxes, a hand-written note said that the Capacities and Affinities are measured from 1 to 10. And the result that he got was:

(0,0)

Ironically, this actually describes the reactions of the two.

"Hah! Wow!" Lera laughed nervously before she wiped away the two eggs at the bottom of the page, "It has been a little while since I last did this. Maybe I didn't give it enough of a kick."
"Right." Wu nodded along, "Maybe I moved my hand unnecessarily too."

With a brighter and bigger orb of Wave energy released into the page, Lera and Wu bunched their heads together once again. This time, the same results just appeared quicker.

"Is 0 supposed to mean high affinity?" Wu asked, and Lera straight up said no.
"Well.....on my world, when we try things, we try three times. That's science." Wu suggested, and Lera nodded before sending an even larger orb of Wave energy into the Cast.

This time, the two eggs showed almost immediately.

Lera's eyes were so wide that she became at risk of popping her eyes onto the book, and as Wu slowly pulled his hand back from the book, she nearly dropped the book on the ground.

So her instincts earlier were correct.......somehow, Wu Li, the fourth savior brought here by the Tablet is completely impervious to the wave. There is not a hint of capacity, nor affinity. No......this isn't right......

Sitting back down onto the piece of a fallen tree, Lera stared into the ground as lines of cold sweat formed over her forehead.

"The first Savior of this world was a martial arts master, and he was retroactively classified as the first Channeler......" Lera said, her voice shaking and quiet, "When channeling the Wave, his kicks flattened mountains and his steps create lakes......"
"Right."
"The second Savior was the most mysterious Manifester, to the point that he referred to his manifestation as the System, and yet nobody has seen it with their eyes as he commanded the flow of the Wave over the battlefield......"
"Right."
"The third Savior was also a Manifester, but he carried along with a manifestation of demonic creations......" Lera said, scratching her hair as she has accidentally torn off a few of those white (Silver!!) strands from her head, "He appeared powerless at first, but his access to Anti-Wave allowed him to quickly rise through the ranks and eventually defeat an armada of devils....."
"Right."
"And the fourth savior......is powerless?" Lera's eyes were greyer than before, and when she looked up, it was as if her soul has left her bodies already. Rather than looking like beautiful gemstones, and it simply looked like a pair of lifeless blobs.

"That's......unlucky......" Wu sighed, "Maybe I should have stuck with the track and field club......"
"Unlucky?" Lera looked back at him, "I don't even think that begins to describe it......This was obviously unprecedented......"

Lera looked so genuinely disappointed and upset that it's also starting to rile Wu up already.

"So, there must be something I can do, right?" Wu said, his voice slightly raised, "Why the heck am I here otherwise?"
"I don't know....." Lera said, her face hidden behind her hands, "Maybe my meddling with the Tablet has cause it to make a mistake......This world runs on the Wave......if you couldn't interact with it.......then how we supposed to change, let alone save the world......"

Wu lowered his head, and he couldn't help to agree. It would be as if a human on earth couldn't interact with gravity, or breath the air without dying of allergies, or drink water with it all leaking through a gaping hole in their throats......

But.....

The sounds of rustling footsteps suddenly came from all around them, and Lera's body immediately shot up before she swung her hand out wide and activated her Book of Casts, "Scout."

A pair of nearly transparent spheres that has the exact same colors as her eyes formed in mid-air and Lera sent the two of them flying straight up into the air, gaining immediate vision of the forests.

"There are people coming......But they looked to be the Sonne Security forces!" Lera said, a smile rising up her face, "We are saved!"

Wu lets out a hum before standing up and asking, "If the bad guys are defeated, then why would the security forces bother with us? Why are they here, and how do they know we are here......why do they even care......do they know that I am the fourth savior?"

Lera's body froze up, and then sudden realization dawned upon her.

"Shit!"