Chapter 112 – Elental Understanding
Emily rejoins her friends, and they set off into the tunnel, following the river upstream.
“How are we going to find our way out from here?” Tom asks as they leave the underwater passage behind.
“Easy,” Emily responds, reaching into her belt and pulling out the first log pose they used to find The Waters. “With this. We just do the sa thing we did when following the Diver and try to go in as straight a line as possible in the direction this points. It may take a little while, but it shouldn’t be too hard.”
They trek on through the tunnels, killing anything that gets in their way and occasionally stopping to collect herbs and crystals. Every so often, Emily rewinds a day to save the group travelling down a long dead end, speeding up the journey but making it drag even longer for herself.
A week and a half later, halfway through the afternoon, Emily raises a hand and gestures for everyone to stop as they approach a new cavern.
“There’s a strong mana signature ahead,” she warns everyone, glancing back over her shoulder at them. “It’s almost certainly a third circle beast. Be careful.”
Dante grows excited at the prospect of a hard fight, a savage grin spreading across his face.
“What is it?” Hester asks as they slowly move forward, confusion in her tone. “Haven’t your scouts seen it?”
“Nope,” Emily says with a grin matching Dante’s. “I can feel it leaking mana from here. We aren’t close enough yet for my scouts. I think it’s already spotted us, though, but it’s not approaching.”
Her friends are surprised, their interest deepened by the reveal.
“What makes you think it spotted us?” Juliana asks.
“A few monts after we got close enough for
to feel it, its mana started fluctuating a lot,” Emily responds, feeling the faint bubbling mana swirling around them as if in excitent, getting stronger as they approach. “But I don’t feel any hostility.”
She watches through the eyes of the bird flying through the tunnel ahead of them as it arrives in a small cavern, only a dozen tres across, leaking the powerful presence. However, looking around through its thermal vision, she doesn’t spot a single creature in the room, nor a hint of heat near the surface of the large pool in the centre.
It must be underwater.
She keeps the bird focused on the water as they steadily grow closer, watching for any changes. They step into the cavern, Emily in the lead with her Claws drawn, and everyone else following behind her, muttering chants in preparation. They look around, their gazes a mix of caution and curiosity as everyone’s focus quickly gathers on the pool of water in the centre of the room, the only notable thing other than the three other connecting tunnels.
Emily approaches the water’s edge, feeling the mana pouring out from within, but stops and steps back as the surface begins bubbling. She prepares a defensive spell, a large silver magic circle forming behind her and hanging at the ready as the surface roils.
The bubbling pool shifts, as a mass of water and mist slowly starts to rise in the centre. Emily looks into it through her bird’s eyes, expecting to see the outline of a creature within, but she still sees no heat.
An attack?
She waits with bated breath, expecting the water to fly at them suddenly, but, instead, it continues rising, drawing in more mass until it breaks free of the surface. The floating water continues to bubble as it starts to shrink, the mist within flowing back into the pool below, revealing sothing glowing blue in the centre, as the rest of the form takes on the faint blue hue of pure water.
Emily’s eyes light up with recognition as the bubbling subsides, leaving a floating orb, no larger than Emily’s torso, of crystal-clear water with a fist-sized glowing blue core at the centre.
“An elental!” she mutters in surprise, sending a wave of shock through her friends.
“Seriously?” Enzo asks incredulously, staring at the floating orb in wonder. “To think we’d find a dungeon and an elental in one expedition.”
“Are they rare?” Tom asks, admiring the creature with caution still in his gaze. “Are they dangerous?”
“Possibly,” Emily says, stepping forward and holding her hand out palm up. “But I don’t think so.”
She gestures for her friends to stay still with her other hand as she slowly approaches the water’s edge.
“Elentals’ personalities depend heavily on what elent they are,” Enzo explains to Tom as Emily moves forward. “A water elental is unlikely to be outright hostile, but there’s still a chance it might be. The fact that it revealed itself peacefully is a good sign though. If it was hostile, it probably would have stayed in the water spewing attacks at us.”
Emily tunes them out and watches the elental for a reaction to her advance. It quivers, shaking almost excitedly before slowly floating closer to her. She pauses, becoming unnaturally still as she waits for the mass of elental mana to close the distance itself.
It approaches slowly, pausing a few centitres away from Emily, letting her get a good view of the glistening, gem-like core suspended in its centre. The creature’s surface shakes and bends as a small tendril of water reaches out for Emily’s hand, pressing down into her palm. The mont she makes contact with the elental, she feels a cool, calming sensation spread through her body.
When the sensation reaches her heart, the circles of power surrounding it seem to resonate with the sensation, taking on the tint of water and flooding her system with water-attributed mana. Following her instincts, Emily lets the water mana bubble out of the skin on her arm, sending a stream of ethereal water back into the elental.
Her mana starts to drain as power flows out of her, but, in response, the elental pulses, a bright blue light flowing through its body from its core and connecting to her hand. She feels a powerful, pure water mana flow into her body, heading straight for her heart where her circles quickly pull it in, breaking it down and refilling her reserves instantly, a fraction larger than before.
It’s boosting my cultivation!
The elental ripples excitedly as they circulate their mana together, a feeling of joy spreading to Emily across their connection, bringing a smile to her lips.
“Thank you,” Emily says to the elental as it floats closer, its tendril retracting until its body rests on her palm. “Would you like to et my friends?”
She feels another burst of joy across their connection and takes it as a yes, turning and gesturing for her friends to approach.
“It’s safe,” she says to her friends, removing the last of their reservations. “Co say hi.”
They quickly walk over, curiosity and excitent plastered across their faces as they look at Emily, her arm wrapped in water, talking to the elental.
“Can it understand you?” Juliana asks as she stops beside Emily, her gaze locked on the orb of water.
“Yes,” Emily says, attempting to replicate the elental’s thod of communication by imbuing her mana with thoughts of encouragent. “I can feel its emotions through our link right now.”
The elental seems to understand her ssage, stretching out a tendril to offer to Juliana. Seeing the presented limb, Juliana reaches up and touches it. However, after a few seconds the elental ripples and retracts its tendril, sending disappointnt across its connection with Emily.
“It felt calming, but nothing else,” Juliana says, looking at Emily with concern in her eyes. “Did I do sothing wrong?”
Emily shakes her head, sending the elental reassurance.
“No, I don’t think so. It’s not angry or anything, just disappointed. I think it’s related to your elent. It's water mana that’s connecting us right now, so I think it can’t create a connection with you because you can’t send water back. Hester, how about you try?”
“Okay,” Hester says, stepping up to the orb and presenting her hand like Emily did, waiting for the elental to initiate.
Another tendril splits off from the orb, and this ti Hester has a similar reaction to Emily, water mana pouring out of her hand to join the orb.
“Woah,” she exclaims as the connection is made, and Emily feels another burst of joy from the elental, this one mixed with a hint of confusion as well.
The elental quivers for a mont, pulling up from Emily’s hand and keeping a tendril connected before dropping back down again a mont later. A more complicated mixture of emotions flows into Emily, and her spare cores quickly pick it apart, trying to unpick the aning.
“What does that an?” Hester asks, clearly confused by the mixed signals.
“I think,” Emily says, with a chuckle. “It can’t work out which one of us it likes more.”
The elental shakes frantically, and another pulse of emotions flows into Emily and Hester, with reassurance and affection mixed with a few more abstract signals, as if trying to communicate sothing beyond emotions. Emily quickly breaks down the signals, trying to understand their aning as the elental keeps changing them.
“What-“ Dante starts to ask, being silenced imdiately when Emily raises a finger to her lips and shuts her eyes.
After a few monts, Emily opens her eyes again and starts speaking.
“I think it’s trying to say that it likes both of us, but our connections are different.” A burst of happiness pushes Emily in the right direction as she continues her translation. “Hester’s closer to it? But I’m more connected to it? Hmm, no, that’s not quite right. Hester’s elent is closer to it, but it can still transmit to
more easily? Closer.”
Emily’s eyes widen slightly as the aning of the strange communication clicks in her mind.
“Hester’s elental affinity is more aligned with it, but my connection with mana is stronger.”
The elental bubbles excitedly, bobbing up and down on Emily’s hand in agreent.
“Wait, Hester’s more aligned with it?” Enzo says with confusion, turning a questioning gaze on Emily. “How is that possible? I understand she’s got a great affinity for water, but didn’t you complete a full manifestation for water on your first attempt? She only completed hers a few weeks ago. Surely you have a higher affinity.”
“Not quite,” Emily says, her friends curiously hanging on her every word. “My ability to manifest so many elents is due to a high elental comprehension, not affinity.”
“What’s the difference?” Dante questions.
“There’s a massive difference. One mont,” she says as an eager grin spreads across her face.
Emily turns her full attention back to the elental, relying on her analysis of the elental’s communication to try and transmit a ssage of comparable complexity herself.
‘Break… Connection… Small… Ti… Stay… With… Other… Please?’
She forms a blend of ntal signals into a simple ssage and sends it to the elental. The orb of water doesn’t react for a few monts, deciphering Emily’s ssage, before it suddenly droops around her hand while sending back a simple mix of understanding and sadness.
A mont later, it returns to normal and lifts off of Emily’s hand, breaking their connection and dissipating the flow of water around her arm, moving to sit on Hester’s instead.
“So,” Emily says, taking a few steps away and turning to face all of her friends at once. “Affinity and comprehension. To start with, what do you think these two terms an?”
“How connected you are to an elent, and how you understand it?” Ivor signs with a questioning tilt of his head.
“Exactly! These are the two things you need to use an elent. You use your comprehension to form a solid ntal image of the elent, and your affinity to innately connect with it. The higher your affinity, the easier comprehension will co naturally, and the easier it will be for you to control the elent. But, and here’s the point most of The Covenant’s mages seem to forget, you don’t need a high affinity to use an elent. Practically everyone has a connection with fire, water, air, and earth, hence them being called the common elents, and most people also have so affinity with either light or darkness as well. Just think back to when you first tried to manifest elents, how many of you got so reaction from sothing other than the elent you use now? No matter how small.”
All of her friends seem surprised by her words, taking pause to think back to their first attempts at finding their elent. After a mont, they slowly start raising their hands until everyone has.
“See. All of you would be able to cast spells with a multitude of elents if you studied them and built up your comprehension, but a single specialisation makes it easier to go further so most people don’t. My initial manifestations just followed that to the extre. I do have a high affinity for a lot more elents than most, but the main cause was my mind being very good at forming ntal images, and my understanding of the elents being very high to start with, so I ended up with a lot of successful manifestations. However, I still have my natural alignnts. Look.”
Emily raises both of her hands before her, pouring mana from them with a different elent in each. Above her left hand, a flickering orange fla with glistening white sparks forms, growing to the size of her fist. Above her right, streams of lightning form, violently crackling as they form into a single bolt that grows to the sa size as her forearm.
“I’m using the sa amount of mana to form each of these,” she explains. “But do you see the difference?”
“The lightning is bigger,” Tom says, receiving an approving nod from Emily as her gaze sweeps across everyone else, still waiting for another answer.
“It’s more violent?” Dante questions, looking between the two elents with his eyes narrowed in concentration.
“No,” Hester says, noticing how Emily doesn’t react to his question. “It’s more controlled.”
Emily’s mouth breaks into a wide smile as she nods.
“Correct. It looks more violent, but it’s actually more controlled since lightning itself is a harder elent to handle than fire. And yes, it’s larger. See, my affinity for fire is my third strongest, whereas lightning is my strongest. You’ve probably noticed I tend to use more lightning spells than anything else, and that’s because, for the sa mana cost, I can create and control stronger spells.”
“Is water your second highest?” Enzo asks as she releases the two manifestations.
“No, it’s tal. Water’s probably my fourth or fifth? I’m not sure exactly since it’s harder to tell the difference between my lower affinities, but it’s definitely not my strongest. But, for Hester it is, so it’s no wonder that the elental likes her so much. As for why it likes
even though my water affinity isn’t that high? It’s probably because I’m a higher circle, so my mana is denser and purer. Also, I have a high connection with mana itself.”
“You can have an affinity for mana?” Juliana asks, taken aback by the statent.
“Yep! Have you ever heard stories of the first mages?” Emily asks, noticing Tom’s eyes light up with excitent.
“I have!” he says. “I read about them. The first mages discovered magic when they found an oasis in the desert that passed over a mana vein. They said that the mana spoke to them and revealed its secrets, allowing them to awaken.”
“Exactly. So people have a high connection with mana itself, and that’s the base requirent for becoming a mage. Even normal unawakened mortals have elental affinities, but it’s the connection with mana that allows us to realise them.”
As her friends are processing the revelation, Emily approaches the elental again and places her hand against it, recreating their connection instantly.
“Is that how you know all this? Neither our teachers nor families have ever ntioned this before. In fact, I was always told stories of the first mages were fairytales,” Enzo questions with a raised brow.
“Partially. And I’ve read a lot, including an account from a fourth circle mage,” Emily says, using Gaius’ notes as an excuse for her system knowledge. “I also don’t know if the stories about the first mages are true, so take my words with a grain of salt if you want. What you gain from what I say is your choice, I just enjoy sharing my knowledge.”
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