Iris snorted, and resisted the urge to flick Nero even harder.
"What kind of dumb question is that?" she asked, feigning anger. In truth, she would have loved nothing more for Nero to try exactly that. Unfortunately, her role as Nero’s doctor required that she gave him sufficient warning against it. Honestly, the whole concept of ethical medical practices was quite distasteful to her, yet there was nothing she could do about it.
"To sustain the Arcanist state, your body needs to undergo the fundamental changes that come along with ascending from Initiate to Arcanist. It is not something that can be made up for by simply strengthening your body. I would like to remind you that your situation earlier was from ’ almost ’ entering the Arcanist state. If you really did enter it, I’d be dealing with your corpse right now.
"I would venture to say that if you wanted to somehow artificially enter the Arcanist state as an Initiate without dying, or at least severely poisoning yourself, you’d need to come up with some way to keep your body from suffering from aether poisoning. That would mean you’d need to enhance your aether resistance - something that would literally ruin your future potential, and the likelihood of ever becoming a Mystic.
"You would also need to do more research into the various stages of aether poisoning, as each stage presents differently. If it’s too severe, you won’t just feel some pain in your body - your body will directly start to break down!"
Nero looked at Dr. Iris oddly. Why did it seem like she was informing him of the hurdles he needed to overcome this predicament rather than seriously telling him not to attempt it.
"So what you’re saying is that I would need to attain temporary aetheric resistance - not to stop aether from entering my body but to prevent it from poisoning me - before I could theoretically attempt such a thing? And that since that’s impossible, I should not try it?" he asked, as if making sure what not to do.
"Aetheric resistance is not a flavour of juice for you to pick and choose from. If you attain it, how do you differentiate between aether resistance that’ll prevent aether from entering your body, to resistance that’ll help your body tolerate the higher concentration of aether?
"Only by properly ascending in rank can your body attain the necessary tolerance for higher concentrations of aether. Basically, you can consider it as creating the foundation upon which you will establish your Profession. To achieve such stability, there is no other known route.
"Do not experiment recklessly! Should you ever come up with any crazy ideas that could risk your future potential, you can find me so that I can tell you in all the ways it could possibly ruin your future! I’m only doing this for your own good so that you realise that for an Initiate to enter the Arcanist state is impossible !"
As an Ayurvedist, Iris was better aware of just how complex the human body was. That complexity would only grow with each ascension, making it near impossible to actually fully understand the human body! At least, as a Mystic, it was impossible for her. Maybe if she were an Ascendant, or a Sage, she would be able to. Unfortunately, like many others, she seemed unable to ascend further.
That was also one of the reasons she so passionately studied the human body. She hoped to discover some new way which could help her ascend. While nothing Nero did contributed to that directly, it did help her acquire a lot of new and experimental data.
Nero wanted to continue questioning her, but Iris instead handed him a book on the dangers of aether poisoning.
"You’re late for class. Hurry up and go. Also, I’m writing you a prescription - hand it to someone in your mess later. You need to eat a certain quality of food to recover your body. You should be fine to participate in noon drills, but just be conscious not to absorb aether into your body again while you exercise."
Nero grabbed the book and thanked Iris. Once again, she had proved to be tremendously helpful, in more ways than just one. Nero was greatly intrigued by the idea of being able to enter the Arcanist state in the Initiate level, and would naturally not give up on it so easily. After all, he predicted that he would be an Initiate for many more years. However, it was still not his first priority.
He would only need to enter the Arcanist state in an extremely dangerous situation, which was unlikely to occur inside KMA. That meant he could take his time to thoroughly research this possibility and leave it as a last resort if he ever needed it.
Directly becoming an Arcanist would still be a better option, which is why his focus on becoming an Arcanist would still be the first priority, but that was easier said than done!
To become an Initiate, he needed to complete 40% fusion with his Innate card. To become an Arcanist, he needed to complete the fusion. Yet after every 10% increase in fusion, the process became more difficult, as the increasing aether concentration in his body would start to resist fusing with his innate card.
This was the point where aetheric talent came into play. Better control over aether meant that not only would Nero be able to continue forcing the absorption, he could also somewhat reduce his internal resistance by forcibly controlling his internal aether.
For now, increasing his internal resistance would be difficult. Yet that difficulty would shoot up drastically in the last percentage or so, right before complete fusion, which is what stopped so many Initiates from becoming Arcanists.
All in all, it would be a tough and long journey. Yet while he was confident that he would be able to achieve it, he could not deny that without the assistance of Radix Augmentation it would take a while.
So in short, while the first priority was still aiming for the Arcanist rank, he would also create contingencies for himself in case he ran into trouble before then.