Heaven's Fall

Act 9: A Higher League

"Hey Naia! What plans do you have this afternoon? Do you want to go with me and go to the magic lab?"

A girl in brown uniform with a blue ribbon on the neck and pure black skirt asked the person in front of her.

"Oh, I apologize Your Princess Highness but I have to reject your offer. I'm busy with the homework piling up due to my constant absences and in addition to that I still have to help my family earn enough money to pay the rent."

Naia Dee Leal who is wearing the same uniform as the Princess bowed apologetically.

"Are you sure you don't want to come? I've heard you are researching a weird magic formation and discovered a new type of stigma. I would like to see them too so please tell me when you are free as soon as possible."

Naia raised her head following the Princess' words. Indeed, she is currently observing a magic formation that no one saw in the history of humanity. Maybe due to her luck or some strange circumstance, Naia also made a new type of stigma that could further improve the capabilities of a mage.

Stigma, a mark of various shapes and sizes that contains a powerful magic with a very mysterious mana markings in the center. Compared to magic formations that are placed on objects and do various jobs such as summoning, hardening, spatial transfer and such, stigmas are different that instead of solely doing one specific task, a stigma improves, sometimes changes, a person's ability and capabilities as a whole.
For example, a normal 7 year old can only lift an average maximum of less than 10 kilograms with two hands. If the said child, has however, a stigma that increases strength, the maximum weight he/she can lift will greatly increase depending on the stigma.

One of the special reasons why stigmas are different from magic formations is that they can only be put into living organisms. As such, a stone golem can't inherit a stigma but they are given magical formations instead.
The rarity of stigmas vary, depending on their overall efficiency level and attribute.

There are 6 different attributes: strength, ability potential, physical defense, magical resistance, agility and vitality.
As each represents physical power, magical offence, physical defense, magical defense, speed/accuracy and recovery/stamina respectively.
Each attribute is shown by the symbol of the logo surrounding the mysterious lines of a stigma.
Strength is triangle, Ability Potential is diamond, Physical Defense is square, Magic Resistance is circle, Agility is rectangle and Vitality is pentagon in shape.

The size of the overall of stigma doesn't change anything, as it is purely for cosmetic reasons in which the user can change at will. The main difference would be the type of a stigma. A double attribute type stigma means that a stigma has two attributes in the form of one, the second attribute's corresponding shape would either envelop the first shape or be inside the first shape beside the mana marking.

Another type classification would be the level of rarity, which is separated into common, rare and legendary classes. Stigmas are obtained from stigma synthesizers making them from scratch or as a heirloom passed down in a family. More prevalent stigmas are also found from ancient ruins, though they are extremely hard to find. This classification is made based on performance of the stigma. The name of a stigma is located right below the symbol.
The Empire for example has a Legendary stigma called "Thousand Arms" which greatly increases the wielder's overall strength. It unfortunately contains no elemental affix but the raw power it contains makes up for the absence of an affix.

The main difference between the 3 classifications is the difficulty in obtaining one. A common stigma would obviously be an easy find, and a Legendary class would be as rare as finding a golden egg. Most users can determine the class of a stigma just by the aura they release, and once equipped they can feel a huge disparity between what they had and what they currently have.