Chapter 12 — Elements

Ria ended up sleeping late after staying up late drying the jerky, but her body felt refreshed. She slipped out of bed, and began stretching and moving about, checking for soreness.

“Heh. It worked.” Ria grinned at her success.

Her ankle was almost completely healed, and she barely had any soreness in her arms, or anywhere else for that matter.

Before falling asleep, Ria had used one of the control exercises described in the book to move her energy all around her body, paying particular attention to any sore areas. The exercise was difficult and frustrating at first, but as she improved her understanding of the process, moving her energy around became much easier, though still slow and tiring.

Her next goal was to be able to move her energy into and back from her staff. If she could get good enough at that, then she could move on to the ‘glowing crystal’ exercise, which she could use to make her staff’s crystal glow and surprise Jarrel.

At the moment, actually learning the technique well enough before Jarrel got back seemed doubtful since she wasn’t at all confident about the energy transformation process to convert her energy into light. Especially, when she still didn’t know what type her inner energy was… though there were some exercises to test that.

Maybe she should just go with the haunted house idea after all and paint creepy wards all over the place…

Ria shook her head. No, that would be a waste of paint and time that could be better spent practicing.

Might as well get her day started. With no physical training or messy chores planned for the day, Ria put on her usual white summer dress that she hadn’t worn since everyone was taken away.

When she made her way downstairs and entered the kitchen, with a groan, she realized that the pots used to salt-cure the venison hadn’t been washed yet.

“Don’t want to get my dress all gross. Guess, I’ll take care of it tomorrow,” Ria convinced herself and shrugged.

First order of business was taking breakfast to Ranger. The deer soup was all gone, so she hoped Ranger liked her fox stew.

While enjoying the morning sun, she practiced pushing her energy into her staff and drawing it back out. The process was a lot easier than she expected it to be. In some ways, the staff felt almost like an extension of herself. Was that because the staff was a ‘focus tool’?

Ranger greeted her at the gate. He had been less sulky each time she visited, but she was still surprised at the sudden change and spent a few extra minutes with him after he finished eating.

By the time Ria had arrived back at her house, she had confirmed that she could now walk on her ankle without any problem. Running or heavy lifting was almost certainly still no good, and she wasn’t about to test it out either.

The only other chore for the day was freshening up the water bucket in the kitchen, and once that was done, Ria sat down in the kitchen with the beginner tome and prepared the tests to figure out her elemental affinity.

Ice was the easiest. She placed her hand in a bowl of water and pushed her energy into it, watching to see if ice would form. The process was a lot harder than when she practiced with the staff, but after about ten minutes, she was pretty sure she didn’t have ice affinity. The test also meant she probably didn’t have water affinity since the water stayed completely placid and didn’t swirl about. The taste of the water didn’t change, so not poison affinity either.

So, she continued testing. For 'nature', she pushed her energy into a seed to see if it would sprout. For fire, she used dried grass to see if it would combust. For air, she used a straw with one end in water to see if bubbles would come out. For shadow and light, she used a glass bead to see if it brightened or darkened.

That basically left ‘earth’, unless she had a rare affinity like ‘illusion’ or ‘spirit’. She left this test for last because it required her to use a fair amount of the salt they needed to preserve meats, and because the test itself was difficult.

After adding enough salt to the bowl of water that it started collecting on the bottom, Ria placed her hand in the water and tried again. She concentrated and watched to see if crystals would form, consciously trying to push the energy into the salt more so than the water. When her head started to hurt, she stopped and there was no sign of crystals.

All failed. That meant that she most likely didn’t have an affinity. Unfortunately, it also meant that she didn’t have any element to practice with until she figured out the energy transformation needed to create it.

Well, of course it would be too easy if she had an element…

But, on the bright side, it didn’t stop her from her ‘crystal glow’ plan like having shadow affinity would have.

Ria was a little confused that her ‘warm’ energy wasn’t fire-type, but that was undoubtedly something that wouldn’t become any clearer until she started figuring out what the other energy types felt like.

At least for light-type, she had a tool that might help. She needed something to do until her energy refilled anyway. ...Unless she wanted to wash the gross pots.

Plan in mind, Ria grabbed a bowl of fox stew and returned to her room to again try to figure out what the glowstone she borrowed from Jeni’s cellar felt like to her energy perception.

This time, since she knew her ability to perceive energy used her sense of touch, Ria held the stone in her hand and concentrated on its feel. Immediately, she could tell there was… something. And it was different from the warmth of her own energy. When she pushed deeper, there was a slight heat and a vibrant pressure… it was strange and indistinct, almost like pushing against the softest gauze.

Ria’s heart sank. Recreating that feeling using her inner energy would be insanely difficult. She seriously wondered if she should give up on light magic… but she didn’t have any other magic items she could use for sensing.

Wait. That wasn’t true. Jeni’s house had firestones in the oven and waterstones in the kitchen and bathroom. She should be able to use those now that she could control her inner energy. The defensive wands too. Though those were more dangerous.

Strapping on her dagger and grabbing the borrowed traveling pack, Ria decided that the time had come to retrieve the rest of Jeni’s inheritance. She had left most of it in the secret room because it would be safer there if she had to hide, but if she could use the wands now, then defending herself was possible.

And if she got better at wards, then she could plausibly defend her house or flee as necessary.

Jeni’s house turned out to have more than just firestones and waterstones. The bedrooms also had heatstones, coolingstones, and lightstones that worked when filled with energy and stopped when the energy was withdrawn. The kitchen even had an icestone that froze things. Odd for such valuable magic items not to have been taken, but maybe that Ria had to work them out of their mountings with her magic dagger had something to do with it.

From the secret room, Ria took the rest of the items from Jeni’s grandmother, plus another ham and cheese wheel, in case Jarrel didn’t return soon.

When she got back, she arranged the stones on the kitchen table.

Ria was ecstatic about her haul for more than just magic practice. The firestone had her excited because it meant she could have warm meals again. The icestone would chase off the rats and keep her food from going bad. The waterstone and heatstone hopefully meant she could take a real bath using the washbasin. And the coolingstone was going to be her new best friend when it came to staving off the awful summer heat.

But that was for later. Right now, she was going to learn what the different elements felt like. With a big grin, Ria touched them each in order, reaching out with her rapidly improving energy sensing.

Fire. Burning, unstable, chaotic.

Heat. Hot, steady, simple.

Water. Cool, cloying, resilient.

Ice. Cold, sharp, encroaching.

Cooling. Cool, lazy, numbing.

Light. Warm, vibrant, gauzy.

Light was the same, of course. Which was good to confirm. What surprised Ria the most was that, with ‘fire’ and ‘heat’, ‘ice’ and ‘cooling’, the greaters and lessers were completely different. ‘Fire’ and ‘ice’ were aggressively active things, whereas ‘heat’ and ‘cooling’ were more passive. She thought ‘cooling’ was particularly weird because it seemed to absorb sensation in a way that deadened the feeling.

Next were the wands.

…And surprisingly each was the same. Cool, flowing, insubstantial.

Ria was almost certain they were ‘air’ element. A supposition she easily verified by putting her hand on the enchanted robes.

That still left her without ‘earth’, ‘nature’, and ‘shadow’, but that was just being greedy. Her quick gathering outing had gained her the ability to discern most of the common elements and even two lessers! Additionally, her chances of successfully performing an energy transformation with each of those elements were greatly increased.

She had good reason to be pleased with herself.