Chapter 5

The elements

In the early life of his Silent began to do things that no one thought possible, magic was quite simple, it required a will and a power supply. Of course he needed to train for the power to do these things.

In this life he had learned by the age of five all of the elements that his tribe can use and or control, it is actually sad that it is so little elements but it took two years of effort, he thought to himself after such a long and exhaustive situation.

This situation was actually brought about by my father, Lavits. A majority of the people in this life had minor control over the elements, if they did not have any control they would become beggars. Usually those people with no strength had extenuating circumstances that caused such a situation, like they were born without profound strength, or they had lost their strength in some way, such as raiding a labyrinth or dungeon.

In the case of Silent’s small town, it was more often the former rather than the latter. But in the two cases of the latter he had learned a couple of important things. The first person that gave him this knowledge was his grandmother who had psychic powers to some extent, this was an absolute secret to just his house. While the second had unknown powers by everyone in the town for almost sixty years.

Silent’s grandmother's psychic abilities actually weren't what the clan believed psychic abilities could be. They had assumed that these abilities were power to control others minds and telekinesis, but his grandmother only had the ability to communicate through her mind. From what she told him, this ability was naturally occurring and could not be achieved through training or cultivation. The issue that arise from having psychic powers in his tribe was that in order to become more powerful, the chief wanted to use people with these abilities to conquer other tribes. If a person could control the leaders of other tribes, they could just be used by them and forced into swearing fealty to the chief thus expanding his power. This was why Silent’s parents and grandmother kept absolutely quiet about this ability. If his grandmother were to show a hint of it the chief would put her in a life and death predicament and she would fail causing the entire tribe to be in danger.

Silent’s mother, his family's second secret weapon, had control over fire on a cultivated and extreme manner. He learned from her when he was three how to start a fire in order to cook food or to keep warm. The most minor of spells were simple to him. No one in the tribe knew of her fire expertise and she liked it that way. The chief would have forced her into his army long ago otherwise and also went to war with nearby tribes just based on her mastery.

Silent’s mother taught him how to control the basics of fire in just a single month. His family was convinced that he was some kind of genius, the fact was that he understood fire far better than the average person at the time did due to his previous life’s education. He understood the chemical reaction that occurred during a combustion reaction, so he could learn the idea behind the most basic fire techniques in a matter of hours. He could start the fire in order to cook with a snap of his fingers at three years old, by week's end, he had the ability to hold a fireball in midair in order to create light. He had understood far better than his parents that fire runs off of oxygen and in order for it to survive best, he must move more oxygen to the place that he wanted the fire to be lit. So, his most elementary fire power from his mother came in the form of ignition. While his fire ability became incomparably stronger through his father’s power. Silent’s father had wind based powers.

His power was seen as one of the top powers in their small tribe, he boasted a power as strong enough to be able to kill most people in the city without even a second thought. He could move the wind in a way that caused people to move slower than he would. Their maximum speed would fall to less than half and his maximum speed would remain the same. He used his power to stop any evil monster that threatened the city. He had also used it during the battles their chief loved so much, aiding his army and hindering the opposing army. Silent’s father also showed him how to use his powers on a basic level, he had to first use his weapon to create a small gust, but he then amplified it tremendously. Usually his father carried a bow and a stave. With the bow he could unleash an arrow so quickly that the target wouldn't have time to move. But his real mastery was with his stave, every swish would move an enemies weapon enough to take them off target, every thrust would be unguarded every slash brought about the power of the gale.

In just as quick a time as Silent had learned basic abilities in his mother's fire, he learned the basics of his father's wind based power. These abilities enhanced each other dramatically. Silent used the wind to flame the fire. This was by far his most powerful ability.

His other power came from a book in my chief’s large house, this was the power over earth. As there was no one to teach him this, he had only been able to read about it and make up his own spells to use it. This trial and error style learning however was how he learned best. After month three Silent had discovered how to create earth matter out of the energy around him, he could then use his wind to create a small scale sandstorm which could be used in battle very effectively. He could also use it with my fire in order to somewhat create steel. This process used so much energy however that his tiny body could not handle it for long enough to make anything out of this steel.

In a total of just over one single month, I had learned all elemental abilities my family had to offer, but his tribe was skilled in a single other ability that only the chief could use, this was thunder. When his father first told him about this and how thunder came from the sky or the chief’s hands Silent had originally corrected him, Silent asked if he meant lightning, but apparently in this world, lightning was merely the light, while thunder was the power behind it. The first thing Silent thought of after he was told this was in a popular game on earth one of the attacks was called thunderbolt, grew immediately associated his current situation with this memory. After learning about this power, he had to give up any more insight into it until such a day that he could be taught the intricacies behind it.

During these few months of vigorous learning of elemental powers Silent had also learned some of the intricacies as to using this power. In the beginning, just making a small spark would consume his energy vigorously. The way he looked at it was that his energy reservoir was only large enough to be used for a small thing like making a spark, after the second day, I could make 3 sparks in succession. After the third day Silent, was able to start and maintain a fire for 3 seconds before his energy ran low. By the end of the month, there was enough energy in my reservoir to maintain a small flame continuously without depleting my reservoir at all.

Sai’s mother, Lilith, explained to him that his body naturally absorbs the energy of the earth and heavens, and that it takes time to refill your energy when depleted. This made sense to him until the point that it felt as if his energy wasn’t being depleted at all. Silent then asked his mother again and she merely told him the same thing, the natural energy of heaven and earth refilled your energy over time.

After finding no answer from his mother, Sai naturally asked his grandmother. Why is it that I can maintain a constant flow of energy output but never decrease my energy reserves? Sai thought to her while in another room, assuming and hoping she was listening. Sai did this to maintain the illusion that his grandmother couldn’t communicate at all, just incase someone were to discover her ability through context clues.

Her answer was far more insightful than he had expected or first experienced, You’re absorbing energy faster than you are expending it, if you were to use more profound spells, you would spend energy at a faster rate and not be able to maintain the spells as long as you currently are. After expressing his thanks to his elder, Silent had created some theories of his own.

Sai theorized that during this period of growth, the more energy he expended, the more space in my energy reservoir would be available. As could be seen with the growth from his first day to his second day, he had found that he had significantly more energy to expend. The next thing Sai had to do was put hours theory to the test. He had to use more energy.

Directly after this, Sai’s father Lavits returned home from his morning rounds.Sai asked his father to teach him how to use wind powers. Sai’s father of course was excited over this, him being able to teach his own son how to use his most powerful technique was a dream come true for him. To him, having a successor of his abilities was of paramount importance to him.

The only issue with this was the tribe. In order to cultivate anything that the tribe practiced in, one had to get express permission of the chief. Usually this was not a problem, but usually children started their cultivation at the age of thirteen, learning how to use your powers was a coming of age ritual. Anyone who violated this would be killed by the chief immediately.

“I’ll be glad to teach you son, but we have to ask the chief first, if we don’t then he will come after us. He is far more powerful than your mother and I combined, so this is a necessity.” Of course Silent understood this as well, if the tribe were to just give away its secrets to anyone, then the tribe would more likely than not suffer. Therefore, the chief’s advisor kept a record on all of the people in the tribe that had elemental powers, and the level at which they could use them.

This also meant that the chief would go after people that were getting too strong as well, in order to maintain his position, the chief had to be the strongest cultivator in the tribe. If that position was threatened, then the chief would take action against anyone who potentially threatened his power. The hinderance of having such a person as their clan chief is that their clan’s cultivation was rather poor. The benefit however was having a unit of cultivators that were all on the same strength and could be used as a cohesive formation.

After asking his father about cultivating in wind, they both had to pay a visit to the chief. That very day Sai’s father and himself went to the clan chief to ask permission to cultivate wind.

The village as a whole was only a couple hundred acres in size, there were however six hundred people that lived in the tribe. The distance to the center of the tribe could be walked in less than an hour by even a three year old. This meant that Sai’s cultivation would be set back at least two hours, possibly all day. Of course this worried him since he was not able to expand his energy reservoir the entire time, it was a secret that he could cultivate fire, and his father could not teach me anything about cultivating wind at all until he was given permission.

After reaching the chief’s luxurious home, Silent’s father knocked on the door. The chief’s home was at least four times the size of their own small three bedroom house. It even had a second floor, which was astonishing given that it was made out of earth, there wasn’t any structural posts besides solid rocks taller than a person. A servant answered the door soon after knocking. The solid stone door was pulled open as if it weighed no more than a hollow wood door of Sai’s previous life. “How may I help you Lavits?” The servant asked, behind his back, four guards could be seen at the end of the foyer guarding yet another door.

“My son would like to cultivate wind magic, we are here to ask permission from the chief.” Silent’s father was direct and succinct in his reply, he held no emotion in his voice even though he told Sai multiple times that he was nervous about whether Sai would be allowed to cultivate wind magic.

“I will inform him immediately,” the servant stated after taking a glance at my eager face, his face turned sour as he turned around and walked back to the foyer, “you two can wait in here while I inform the chief.”

After several minutes the servant returned to the foyer sweat beading up on his forehead from presumably rushing to the chief then back. “The chief will see you now,” the servant said looking toward Silent, but not ignoring house father. “the chief only wishes to see the child right now, you may remain here or we can escort the child to your house when the chief is done with him.”

“Then I will have to trouble our great leader, I have business that I must take care of.” My father said to the servant, he then turned to Sai and knelt down to his tiny hight, “Do not anger the chief, always be respectful. Address him as ‘Chief’ or ‘Great leader’, good luck son.”

Silent nodded, agreeing to be completely respectful to this leader of their tiny community. He then turned to the servant and asked “Can you show me the way, please.”