Lassim started, glancing up at Eno. "Oh—I didn’t an to disturb anyone," he said quickly.
Eno waved a hand dismissively. "No need to worry. I sensed a change in the energy outside and thought I’d see what you were up to."
He studied the orb with a thoughtful expression. "You’re blending your elents, I see. And in a fairly familiar way, haha. Trying to bring them together the sa way I showed you with the tals?"
Lassim nodded, feeling a bit embarrassed, "Yes, I thought… if tals can blend in a way that complents each other, maybe elents can, too. But it’s harder than I expected."
Eno gave a nod of approval. "Well, no one else in the entire world can even imagine doing this as you’re the only one with two elents; as far as I’m aware at least. However, I think I agree that it would be difficult. Elents have their own nature, their own way of behaving. See, at least with tals, they’re the sa elental construct and base; ore from the ground dug up and heated and molded. Elents are not like tal, but you might be onto sothing..."
He paused, considering. "There is a technique I first used when I began lding tals back in the Spirit Growth stage that might help. It’s a breathing exercise that helps you sense the surrounding tals and their different energies to match the mana in your body. This helps attune yourself to the tal to more easily adjust its compounds. It’s not sothing we tal elentalists normally keep up once we get a sense for how to understand tals, or even see the compounds when our spirit sense advances in the higher stages, but it might be of use to you. Perhaps there’s a way to better sense the orb’s bonding and match it earlier in your body’s pathways like we do rather than outside your body."
Eno settled down cross-legged in front of him as Lassim mirrored the stance, halberd resting across his knees.
The older man closed his eyes, breathing deeply, his chest rising and falling in a slow, asured rhythm.
After a mont, Eno opened his eyes, his gaze steady and calm with his mind fully recalling the technique.
"Start by taking a deep breath," Eno instructed. "Draw the mana from the core of the inner heart world and let it spread through your pathways, following the natural rhythm of your breathing. But instead of keeping the elents separate, I want you to visualize each breath as a current—a single flow in which both water and lightning exist. Imagine them not as separate forces, but as two sides of the sa river. Normally, we tal spirit warriors imagine molten lava if that helps give you a basis."
Lassim closed his eyes and took a steady breath, reaching into his heart world and calling forth both his water and lightning mana.
He could feel the familiar tug of each elent, the surging intensity of lightning interwoven with the grounding calm of water.
But this ti, instead of directing them to just rotate through his body side by side, he tried to envision them as Eno had described: a single flow, with water guiding and lightning surging within it, like fish swimming through currents.
"Good," Eno said softly, sensing the shift in Lassim’s energy. "Now, as you continue to breathe, focus on bringing that ntal image of that current closer to your core—closer to your heart world. Don’t force them together yet either; allow the elents to co into alignnt on their own. Follow my breathing pace and keep your senses external as well. You can probably sense the mana in the air start to resonate with you as well. I can already see the surroundings start to vibrate."
Following Eno’s guidance, Lassim let his breath settle into a rhythm that matched Eno’s more and more. It was sharp inhales and long exhales in rapid succession. Each inhale drew his mana toward his heart world and each exhale sent it out in growingly chaotic streams.
He could feel the faint push and pull between water and lightning, their natures seemingly incompatible yet sohow complentary. He even felt a slight bit of pain throughout his body as the combination wasn’t going so smoothly.
As he maintained the visualization of them as a single current, that’s when he sensed a faint vibration from his actual heart, a strange resonance that began to build with each breath.
"Good." Eno’s voice was calm, encouraging. "Focus on the visualization more and the sensation of alignnt. Let the energies guide each other until they begin to rge naturally."
Lassim continued to breathe, focusing on the flow of mana within his pathways. Slowly, he felt the water and lightning energies drawing closer, their edges softening as they began to overlap.
It was subtle at first, a faint flicker of resonance within his heart, but as he continued the breathing exercise, the sensation grew stronger, the energies aligning more smoothly with each breath. The resonance of his heart kept building as his visualization beca more of a reality.
Suddenly, he felt a sharp, pulsing warmth radiate from his heart, the sa sensation he’d felt back when he’d first absorbed the Heart of the Elents reward at the Myriad Spirit Academy.
That reward for passing the test and coming in first place at the entrance exam had initially allowed him a 50% increased cultivation speed during the Spirit Incubation stage and had rged with his actual heart. It was a rare material that was said to boost the cultivation prowess of beginning Spirit Warriors and enhance them, but after the initial boost he’d completely forgotten about it.
The dormant power embedded within his physical heart from the Heart of the Elents’ enhancent seed to stir, as though recognizing the attempt to blend his elents. The odd and rare esoteric material had this surprising effect that caused the pulsing warmth to intensify, spreading through his pathways and suffusing his mana with a newfound clarity.
As the warmth grew, Lassim felt a shift deep within his heart world, a powerful surge of energy that seed to resonate with the external rhythm of his heartbeat and the resonance that had been growing.
The sensation was both exhilarating and grounding, a steady pulse that seed to harmonize the flow of his mana, drawing his water and lightning elents into a smoother, more cohesive alignnt.
It was like a sudden burst of clarity, an opening of an additional eye, as the bonds between the elents seed oddly more compatible and he could begin to see how they should connect at the base compound level.
Not only that, but the faint connection that had been created the night before between Mari and Zaphy suddenly flared, the bond widening and shortening as though sothing fundantal had shifted between the two of them. They both imdiately closed their eyes as if a suddenly large amount of information was beginning to transfer between the two of them.
"Keep going," Eno murmured, sensing the change in the surrounding mana in the air. "I’ve never seen the technique behave so strongly, but can you see a difference in the mana’s elents or compounds like I do with tals?!"
The changes Lassim were experiencing was so overwhelming that he felt like he couldn’t even reply as his enhanced Spirit Ascension 2 brain absorbed the additional information and sensations that he was able to witness clearly now.
His brain worked to keep up as continued the breathing technique, letting the warmth within his heart guide the alignnt of his mana.
He could feel the bond between his elents strengthening, the energies intertwining more naturally than they ever had before.
The lightning seed to pulse within the flow of water now, its energy tempered yet intensified, each spark flowing seamlessly within the currents of water.
The image in his mind adjusted and changed form a current to sothing more optimal as it grew clearer: a deep, swirling wave, like a whirlpool, with flashes of lightning weaving through it like living spark fish.
Gradually, he began to sense a deeper connection between the elents, as though the water were guiding the lightning, grounding it while enhancing its power.
He also felt, an odd sensation of love and romance between the two elents that he’d never recognized before. Like, as if they were husband and wife from ti immorial and the love they shared was boundless.
~~~
In that mont, on the pantheon, both Famthar and Ava had been watching Lassim from their personal study room within the center of the universe’s Heavenly Palace.
"What a remarkable idea!" Famthar Cheered.
Ava coquettishly smiled with a suggestive tone, "I too wouldn’t mind having your lightning so deep inside ..."
The rest of the residents of the heavenly palace seed to ignore the duo’s heaven shaking ’play’ that lasted for the next several days…
~~~
Back to the mont with Lassim’s efforts, the fusion felt more complete, with each elent supporting the other in a balanced, harmonious flow. The energy was both intense and much more stable, a power that felt like it could shatter mountains or bring life to parched lands.
Not only that, but with the next slow exhale he had the instinctive reaction to take it a step further, focusing on the sensation of the energies blending within his heart world and not just his mana pathways.
The inside of his inner heart world was just a small patch of land with storm clouds present and the one hole at the very top of the space all experienced a sudden change. Thankfully Zaphy and Mari were in their closed eye states floating on the landmass in this mont.
The clouds of dense mana maintained their stormy nature but they began to pour rain down to fall below the small, but growing landmass. The ambient void energy that traveled through the hole to the constellation and filled the space’s void seed to take that as a cue to beco a foundation below the landmass.
The water fell and lightning struck. The clouds across the entire heart world reduced their size and density to about half before the transformation had ended. Yet, what was left below was now a giant swirling whirlpool, not unlike his visualization, beneath the landmass. Additionally, there was a sparkling and ethereal star dust that swirled within the whirlpool. It didn’t tear or rip the whirlpool in any way Lassim could see; leaving it very stable.
Yet, for so reason, this combination of the space and void energy had an odd reaction to the lightning mana within the whirlpool. The lightning "fish" he’d pictured, which were realistically just bolts of lightning that snaked through the water mana, sohow beca more like actual fish creatures.
They were a bit strange as the expected fish tail fins were absent from these strange pure lightning entities. Instead, they were replaced by odd tentacles and each of them had three "eyes", or really orbs with no pupils. There didn’t appear to be any ounce of intelligence in these lightning sprites but they were fully rged with the water and spatial elents, so he decided to move on to the next step.
Wanting to test the change and seeing as he felt that he no longer needed to do anything to maintain the fusion, he channeled the fused mana into his hands.
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