Chapter 14: Intermediate water magic

Hearing the words come from Alex’s mouth brought Trip to tears. They had been travelling through forests and mountains for weeks. During that entire time Alex never said anything. These weeks were incomparably tough for Trip, he had spent these weeks having to take care of Alex, he ran until he could no longer walk, he trained until he collapsed from exhaustion, and yet it was all worth it. Trip never had a friend before Alex, but with what the two had gone through together and had done together the two had become more than friends. They were brothers of the strongest bonds. While the blood which flowed through their veins was different they were more like brothers than any other brothers on the planet.

Because of this Trip had such an emotional reaction to Alex’s words. It hurts to see your friend in pain, especially when you knew the pain that is experiencing, but that made it so much more special to see your friend smile and to hear the emotion behind his voice. Alex and Trip both felt a deep connection to the moment. This would be engrained in their memories forever.

They cried through the entire day. Only after the sun set did Alex start to speak again.

“Trip, I don’t know why, but I gained a lot of insight into Hyuru and I have started to learn fire magic.” Alex said

Trip’s eyes widened. He knew that Alex was talented, but this was much earlier than he was expecting. He felt excited and happy as well, he would feel much more at ease if Alex was able to protect himself.

Trip said “Ok then, show me!”

Alex smiled as he felt the nostalgic feeling of the childish discussions that they used to have. He felt happy that they would be able to be like this again. Even though Alex had experienced terrible pain and guilt did not mean that he never wanted to feel happiness again.

Alex cockily smiled as he led Trip outside of the tent. He stood on a tree stump and closed his eyes. Focusing as hard as he could he conjured a tiny flame in front of his hand. Trip laughed at this, as he remembered the times when he himself would struggle with such trivial magic. Seeing Trip laughed Alex got slightly angry as he continued to force as much strength out of himself to try and impress Trip.

Trip saw this and immediately extinguished the fire with some water magic as he scolded Alex “If you try to force more power out than you have then you will get injured. It seems I will need to teach you!”

Alex snorted at Trip and said “Pfff, A water mage teaching a fire mage, inconceivable!”

They both burst out laughing. It was nice for the both of them to partake in some childlike banter. Trip knew that Alex was still hurting inside, so it was good for him to take things slow and slowly let Alex go back to his normal self.

During the time that Alex was depressed Trip had become much stronger. Under the guidance of Grelin he had understood much more about water magic. Grelin confused Trip, for some reason it seemed that he had good understanding over all the types of magic. He even knew some light magic, but refused to teach Trip in that until Trip became capable of performing high level water magic.

Trip had started to learn intermediate water magic. There was a fundamental difference between elementary water magic and intermediate water magic. It was a difference of understanding. In elementary water magic you find the water particles in the world around you and from that you create water, but in intermediate water magic you can create water out of seemingly nothing. In reality it was not that you could make water out of nothing, but instead you found water particles out of other places.

In elementary water magic you rely on your senses to find the water particles in your surroundings, but in intermediate water magic you use the water particles that you found using your senses to find other water particles. You create one large bubble of water, which then attracts the other less visible water particles to itself, like a magnet. It was very complicated, and this was also the reason why intermediate magic takes much longer to perform than elementary water magic, which one could perform almost instantly.

When learning intermediate water magic one cannot simply start attempting to pull off the techniques that you see in a book, but you have to spend a long time trying to understand how to attract more water particles before you can attempt anything.

This was the reason why even though Trip had been practicing for weeks he had still not been able to pull off a single spell so far. Every time he would train he would cross his legs and close his eyes. Entering a state of Hyuru, he would then listen to Grelin’s instructions.

“Free yourself from the world of the physical. Feel only the water. Bring it together and create a sphere. Unchanging and tranquil. That is what water is. Water exists for thousands of years. The water you use now could have been used to quench the thirst of great beasts and kings. Therefore you must respect the water and never use it for evil.”

When Trip first heard these words he was confused. Water has no consciousness, so why would it care if you disrespected the water. Trip now understood the truth behind those words. It was not that the water had a consciousness, but rather that you have a consciousness. When you use water it becomes a part of you, just like it was a part of kings and great beasts before you. Water follows your consciousness and commands, but also that of what came before you. If you did not respect the water, then you would never be able to control it more than at a basic level. This was something that Trip now understood; meaning that he now understood the meaning behind higher levels of water magic, the execution of this understanding was the second step, which Grelin would then start to explain.

“If you understand the water, then you must trust the water to find the other water hidden away. Think of that water as shy, afraid of you. Therefore you cannot force that water to come towards you, but instead let it come towards you as you show that you mean no harm. Water attracts other water, so simply holding a sphere in the air and demonstrating your understanding would allow you to attract the hidden water.”

While this step sounded simpler than the previous step, it certainly wasn’t. It required so much patience and frustrating practice in order to pull this off. This was one of the reasons that many very talented people were unable to use intermediate level magic until they were already an adult. The earliest recorded case for a person that could use intermediate level magic was someone at the age of 14, and that child became an emperor who conquered the entire continent.

Trip had been training for weeks, and he kept slowly being able to pull off techniques that were slightly more powerful than the last. While Grelin did not mention it, he was utterly shocked by Trip’s ability. Grelin was not a human, and he came from a race which was generally more proficient in magic than humans, but he could not think of a single person from his homeland that could compare to Trip. It made him feel happy; he had no idea if he would forever be stuck within Trip, so he was happy that he was at least inside someone capable, and not just any other annoying child.

Since Trip had developed quite much recently Grelin decided that the Trip and Alex needed a place where they could stay for a while and just train without having to worry about anything else. This way they would not have to walk very long every day and that would mean that they would get more time to train. Grelin decided that he would inform Trip of this once he saw a good place to settle. At this point Trip and Alex were going through a mountain range. This would be a good place to find a cave and a small body of water. Thus Grelin informed Trip of his plans.

“Trip. I think it would be best if we were to settle down somewhere for now.” Grelin mentally said

Trip had been expecting this and he too thought it was a good idea. “I agree, should I investigate for a good place to settle?”

Grelin liked how quickly Trip caught on and said “Yes. We’ll be staying until you master intermediate level magic, so find a nice place.”

After Trip informed Alex of the matter the pair started search for a place to live. Eventually they found a cave which rested in front of a rather large body of water. The cave was not too large, but not too small either. There were a lot of trees around and the cave was indented into the side of a mountain. Trip and Alex smiled at the place, it looked really very nice.

They both thought simultaneously “This is our new home.”