Chapter Thirty-Three

The silence stretched well into awkward territory as the two groups stared at one another. Unable to take it anymore, Elysia stared into the lightning elemental’s eyes, causing him to recoil. “We are wasting everyone’s time standing here. If you won’t train us, please show us the way out.”

Suddenly, the lead elemental snapped to attention as if a switch flipped. He flicked his wrist to the side, causing his trainers to back away, then he drilled his lightning blue eyes into the trio.

Fast as lightning, he appeared in front of Elysia. However, to her, it was almost comically easy to follow. She took a step back, dodging the punch aimed at her stomach, then released a single-strand lightning bolt in his direction, but like her, he dodged.

Instead of following up, he tried the same with Sereia, except this time the mermaid failed to react in time, doubling over as the punch slammed into her gut. Though she was far from incapacitated. When he tried to pull his arm away, he found it stuck. Water encased his fist, locking it in place, but a pulse of lightning evaporated the water a moment later.

As to not get trapped again, he jumped back and surveyed the trio before zipping back even further as a paw filled with razor-sharp claws swiped where he previously stood.

A bright blue lightning bolt struck Ione, harmlessly absorbing into her body, causing the elemental’s eyes to widen momentarily before he turned serious once more. With a series of streaks of lightning, he zipped around Ione, scoring hits faster than she could react.

However, those hits did little damage and with each strike, Ione reacted just a little faster until she scored a glancing claw swipe on the elemental just as he materialized to strike.

He stopped several meters away and bowed his head in respect, having seen enough of the elemental feline. Before Ione could strike he materialized a fresh corpse of an anaconda like snake sparking with electricity.

Ione accepted the gift, swallowing it whole, though Elysia knew it was just a way to hide how she usually ate her meals. She had no doubt Ione disintegrated the snake the moment each part entered her mouth.

With the elemental feline pacified, the lead trainer returned his attention to the twins, who glowed with their respective elements, ready to strike the moment he moved to attack. The attack never came. Instead, he nodded in respect, then began speaking, eyes stopping on Elysia first. “Excellent reaction time and prodigious power. However, you lack the finesse to match anyone who could dodge or tank your lightning. My primary focus with you will be refining your lightning control further.”

Elysia scowled, but she knew he wasn’t wrong. She got away with crushing her enemies with sheer power, but that wouldn’t last forever. If they wanted to teach her, she would happily take lessons. Even if they didn’t stay, the trainers may enlighten her on how to improve herself on her own.

Next, he turned his attention to Sereia. “You have the opposite problem, but that is to be expected. Water is a highly versatile element, but it lacks the physical augmentations lightning may grant. Fortunately, there are ways around this drawback. Your control is excellent for your level and you don’t lack power either. Though your water lacks the punch of your sister’s lightning. It’s obvious you spent a lot of time perfecting your element, but there are several deficiencies we would like to address.”

Finally, his eyes landed on Ione, who retook her spot in front of her family, though the previous hostility seemed dulled. “Now you have little to learn from us. The only thing I would suggest is to find tough opponents to fight. Your immunity to lightning is terrifying and your senses are top-notch, but I get the feeling you lack experience facing those who could push you like Lady Elysia. This is something we cannot provide, as your immunity to our magic gives you a distinct advantage. I can point you to a proper challenge or you could wait for your family to complete their training and go together.”

Surprisingly, Ione graciously dipped her head in acknowledgment, but remained where she was, refusing to leave her family behind.

The four trainers approached the lightning ones toward Elysia, while the water elementals smiled nervously in Sereia’s direction.

Sereia followed her pair of trainers toward a pool on the left side of the expansive training room, while Elysia’s eyes gravitated toward the right side of the room where various metal objects laid.

As Elysia predicted, her trainers led her toward the right, leaving the head trainer at the center of the room, where he observed both sides. The first thing her trainers let her to was a metallic cube that reached her waist.

Instead of speaking, the female lightning elemental approached the cube and placed her hand on. Blue electricity lit up within the cube, which turned out to be semi-transparent. The light revealed a maze which the elemental expertly wove her lightning through then stepped away and waved Elysia forward.

In an effort to ignore the awkwardness, Elysia placed her hand on the cube, then siphoned off a strand under the watchful eyes of the silent elementals she was beginning to think were mute. An idea sparked from her previous involuntary training session, prompting her to split the strand down to a quarter strand.

She pushed the weakened strand down her arm and into the cube, only for the lightning to rip from her control and ground itself on the metallic walls of the maze. Undeterred, she tried again, this time focusing on what had happened.

Her lightning ripped from her control again, but she spotted the issue. The metallic walls interfered with her control. Her lightning naturally wanted to enter the metal, but apparently the point of the exercise was to resist the pull.

She wasn’t sure what use something like that would have since she used metal to direct her lightning. Though if she wanted to fight somewhere filled with metal such as inside a ship, it could come in handy. Based on the other objects, this was probably the first step in a training course. Maybe by the end she wouldn’t need metal to direct her lightning.

At the thought of freely controlling her lightning, Elysia’s eyes clenched as she concentrated on her next attempt. When her lightning entered the cube, she clamped down on it, forcing it down the fist sized paths of the maze. She made it a dozen centimeters before the pull became too much, ripping the lightning from her.

The outside world dimmed to nothing as she put all her focus on the task. Violet electricity fed into the cube, lighting it up with a purple hue as she pushed the lightning just a little further, this time reaching over twenty centimeters. The next attempt reached the opposite end of the top layer of the cube, only to absorb into the metal when she tried to force her lightning to turn the corner.

Each subsequent attempt reached the corner, every time fizzling out at the sharp right turn. On the tenth try, she slowed her lightning to a stop, which proved difficult as her lightning wanted to move. The walls pulled at her lightning, but she held it at the center of the path as she focused on how the walls affected her lightning.

As she felt it out, she moved her lightning side to side and up and down, finding it was easier to keep the lightning in the exact center so the pull in every direction remained even. Of course, she couldn’t expect uniform metal walls in a real-life situation, but she would take all the advantages she could.

As slow as her lightning allowed her, which wasn’t very slow as it loved to burst forward, she approached the corner while keeping her lightning centered in the path. Just before reaching the corner, she bent her lightning, then curved around the corner.

The backend of her lightning strand yanked toward the inside wall, but with a force of will she avoided collision, then continued down the far side of the cube, finding it much easier to move in a straight line.

Unfortunately, that didn’t last long as she soon reached another turn, this time downward. Using what she learned from the last corner, she took it slowly and curved her lightning downward, only to run into another turn soon after, this time back toward her.

She gritted her teeth as she curved her lightning once more headache beginning to form. Fortunately, the third corner proved easier than the last two as she got the hang of curving her lightning.

Despite the success, she refused to let herself grow confident. Which turned out to be the correct mindset as the formally fist sized path narrowed to a couple finger with before expanding once more causing bursts of extra powerful pull.

Her plan to keep the lightning centered proved vital as she passed the gauntlet, then turned once more. The section running past her was an easy section of just under fist width path, causing worry for what came next.

Before continuing, she stopped her lightning strand, which now felt much weaker, to let her mind recover. When her headache dimmed to a mild throb, she curved her strand down the latest turn. The rest of the cube proved to be more of the same, allowing her to traverse it as long as she kept her lightning centered.

However, by the time she reached the bottom level, her lightning was barely strong enough to light up the cube, proving she wasn’t perfect.

Still, when she reached the end of the path, allowing her to let go of her lightning, a smile bloomed at her success. She stumbled back a step lightheaded them blinked her eyes open.

Elysia’s eyes gravitated toward her trainers who weren’t really training her, as the maze did most of the work. Her smile dimmed as she found them staring at her with blank expressions.

Enthusiasm crushed her attention, flicked from the cube to the trainers, worried she did something wrong. Sure, she took a lot longer than the trainers, but she still completed the maze.

To prove herself, she tried again, this time with a half strand, hoping to mitigate the lightning dissipation. The much stronger lightning wriggled under her control, but using her trick of keeping it centered, it proved to be no harder than her previous attempt. Only the turns were slightly more challenging, as the strand was thicker and longer.

When she reached the end of the maze, her lightning strand resembled a quarter strand, but she completed the maze in half the time. Though most of the time savings were from not stopping.

Upon glancing back at her trainers, she found they were frowning now. Her pride spiked, prompting her to feed a full sized strand into the maze. The strand barely fit into the corridor, but a discovery caused her core to jump.

She barely felt the pull of the maze walls, allowing her to feed her lightning down the path with little effort. Turning was a whole another animal though, but inspiration sparked, causing her to elongate the strand, allowing her easier turning at the expense of the time it took. She had to elongate the strand even further to pass through the narrowing sections.

The backend of her lightning was at the middle of the layer above, but despite traversing both the narrowing sections and a turn simultaneously, she found it easy. So easy, in fact, she wondered why she struggled with the smaller strands.

In record time she reached the end, lighting up the cube bright. When she returned her attention to the outside world, she found the cube was almost too hot to touch, prompting her to pull her hand away and turned her attention to the trainers.

This time, the trainers were nodding their heads as if they figured something out. Curious, Elysia stared at them, waiting for them to say something, but neither of them did. Instead, the female elemental ran her lightning through the cube.

Elysia watched the blue lightning traverse the obstacles though frowned when she found unlike her, the woman’s lightning avoided centering itself. In fact, despite looking effortless, the lightning drifted all over the place but never touched the walls.

After completing the cube, her trainers waved over the head trainer and had Elysia run the cube once more, which Elysia did with a full-size strand, completing the maze even faster. So fast, she thought she beat the trainer.

Her trainers made a hand sign showing a small lightning bolt, prompting Elysia to try again with a half sized strand. She instantly noticed it was much harder to run the maze, but still easier than her first completion.

The head trainer broke the silence the moment she completed the maze. “Why are your smaller lightning bolts so unstable?”

Confused, Elysia tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

The head trainer waved his hand toward the ceiling. “Please release what you think is a standard lightning bolt and a weaker one.”

Elysia complied, sending a single-strand lightning bolt into the ceiling, relieved to find it dissipate. Then she chopped the strand in half and sent that lightning bolt out as well.

The head trainer stiffened as his head jerked to Elysia, horror in his eyes. “Never do that again.”