Investigations into proper flying techniques revealed sufficient insights for John to find the idea somewhat feasible, but ultimately it wasn’t something he would want to do in battle. It clearly needed some more development. On the other hand, it wasn’t like time spent flying could ever be wasted.

Sometimes he had to remind himself, but he was flying. The things he could do in this world might have dulled him to the supernatural, but humans flying still wasn’t common. At most, they would linger in the air for a while. Standing atop water had once been something he would have given almost anything to be able to do, but once it became actually possible… it had lost a lot of its charm.

But that was mostly due to the constant need to cultivate for strength, instead of for the sake of itself. Studying to pass a test wasn’t particularly engaging, but if one was interested in a topic they could both learn and enjoy it. It was a cycle with cultivation that was easy to fall into, where John focused only on what he felt was the most important for his growth instead of what he wanted to do. Even though in some way, the latter always tended to be valuable.

Most of John’s early practice with flight involved skirting just above the ground. When he rose higher, he would fly above the buildings of the Six Elements Crossroads. He had no intention to hide his activities from the sect, though he was cautious about teaching air cultivators anything about flight. While many were progressing quite nicely through the Soul Expansion Phase, it was still difficult for them to fly.

But rather than forbidding them and ending up with people practicing in secret and getting hurt, he simply made it a rule that practicing flight had to be done with supervision. The other important rule was for both students and himself- never fly higher than you’re willing to fall from.

There was a certain knack to flying that John hadn’t been able to grasp instinctively. Instead, it took time to properly fly. His first thoughts were that he should gust air into himself, pushing him upward. And while that worked to some extent, it tended to result in erratic motions, especially when he made only minor adjustments in horizontal trajectory. Tilting his upper body slightly could also send him tumbling.

Pushing down against the air, while potentially being the same thing as pushing the air against him, was a more natural way for John to balance himself. But while it allowed him to stand in air, it wasn’t quite the same as flight.

The proper techniques all ultimately led towards a particular idea, one of seizing control of the air in a region around the user. It required more spiritual energy to do so, but was also more stable- which in turn meant less tumbling about and trying to correct motion. And that led next to a greater efficiency, even though it was technically using more energy. Perhaps if John had perfect control the more minimalistic approach would be proper, but he could see enemies disrupting him easily.

Mostly, he decided to relegate it to sightseeing flights. If he was somewhere safe and didn’t have to go particularly fast, John could conserve his energy. But no matter what method he used, it burned through spiritual energy quickly. Augmenting his air element with water only went so far, and flowing through a cycle and converting between elements merely staved off the inevitable.

If he just sat in a stationary position in the air, John could maintain his state for an hour or more. If he wanted to move around, especially with speed, it was half an hour or less. Not enough for a battle, except for a short skirmish- and of course any other use of spiritual energy would also exhaust John faster. If he kept to using other elements besides air to attack, it just slowed his recovery rate… but it was tempting to drop lightning on people. He supposed he needed to be properly in the Ascending Soul Phase for that to even be somewhat viable.

If he was a pure air cultivator he would also be better. A cycle of elements allowed him to augment any of his elements beyond their one-fifth proportions within his dantian, but he still had significantly less spiritual energy of any one type. And unfortunately, John didn’t know how to fly with any other elements. Though perhaps he could think of small multi elemental boosts. Heat tended to rise, but was that enough to use the fire element? Could he create a cloud of water to stand upon? Both sounded like they would still need a large amount of air element.

But those plans would have to be explored over the course of time like everything else. John was still progressing through the late Consolidated Soul Phase, and he needed to review his fire elemental inspirations so that he could reach the Ascending Soul Phase properly. If he wasn’t able to do that… well, many of his ambitions would be stifled. Among other things, he wouldn’t be confident about approaching the Sky Islands. The current plan was to try something after the next tournament in a few years, but John needed his cultivation to progress properly first.

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Despite being married for more of their life than not, the styles of Steve and Yustina could hardly be more different for them both being fire cultivators. Steve was quite straightforward with his uses, and for him the motto seemed to be the hotter the better. He was capable of amplifying his fire element enough that even he began to overheat from just using it. But in the end, Steve could also cool himself down by burning off that excess heat.

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Ultimately rather than being a strict weakness or failure of technique, it was simply a cycle that led to the greatest output for him. While there was some risk of someone exploiting a weakness in his overheated state, he didn’t have to keep pushing towards that level and could always expend some of his built up flames productively. It was an acceptable trade off for ultimately utilizing more power.

Yustina, meanwhile, concentrated on the flow of power. She was a water cultivator in her past life, and that greatly influenced her style. It had also led to the incident where she and Steve properly met. She’d had her own flaws early in her fire cultivator, and she’d forgotten simple things like consuming sufficient water. After John had become a water cultivator himself he sort of understood, but it was still a rare moment of absentmindedness for Yustina.

John did his best to learn from Steve, but ultimately he wasn’t the sort to directly blast away at people and try to burn them to ashes. It wasn’t that Steve’s technique had no subtlety, but that was layered within a core of great power. He overwhelmed people early and took over the pace of combat.

Yustina’s style was to wear people down, and they might not even realize she was doing it. Like waves crashing over and over on rocks, slowly wearing them away… or bringing a frog to a slow boil. Of course, the latter only worked on lobotomized frogs which wasn’t really appropriate, but she could make people not realize her flames burned as hotly as they truly did.

Individually they were a force to be reckoned with, but together they were almost unstoppable. Water cultivators were the weakness of fire, but Yustina’s experience allowed her to minimize that advantage. Against other opponents she acted in the background, controlling the flow of battle while Steve would feel confident going all out.

Yustina would stabilize his peaks and troughs, covering the last bits of his weakness that Steve didn’t handle himself. And he provided instantaneous power for when there were opponents that wouldn’t crumble to anything else.

As an individual cultivator, John still managed to pick out some useful features of both of their styles. He already had the flexibility of being a five element cultivator, it was just how he made use of his different elements that determined how well he covered his own weaknesses. And while Matayal was no longer with him, he didn’t have to fight alone. John wasn’t going to assume he could defeat anyone alone, even once he advanced to the Ascending Soul Phase. That was what the whole alliance was for.

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While John found he greatly improved his ability with fire after training with Steve and Yustina for a while- they were Ascending Soul Phase cultivators after all- he didn’t quite feel that he had scratched the necessary itch. For each of his previous steps since his near self destruction, he had found that memories of those he trained with triggered some insights that allowed him to step forward. Some he had been at the threshold, while others had opened the path ahead of him reaching it.

Two out of three were now dead. Matayal and Kusuma… they were only a small part of the deaths that had happened. Kusuma was older, but she could have still lived on for quite some time with her cultivation. Matayal went far too soon. Though it was strange to think of it, soon enough she would have been gone for longer than he spent with her. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel it- sometimes it felt like an eternity- but it also still hurt like it happened a day before.

John almost wished his memory were not enhanced by being a cultivator. Almost. But of course, he would not actually wish to forget the love that had developed between them. If anything, that would leave him with only the pain. Humans were funny like that.

Since Steve and Yustina didn’t seem to fit the bill for fire, the next option was Charlotte. The sect head of Firepine Palace had welcomed him in for training when he requested, and they had fought alongside each other. She was both a friend and a mentor of sorts. John figured he might find the particular spark he was looking for there.

Firepine Palace’s style drew upon their insights from the Phoenix Forest, the key thing being that the area was not purely that of the fire element but also of earth. Rather than consuming the earth, however, the two instead resulted in new sorts of life. Some elemental zones were barren, as the pure elements ruined their habitability, but the Phoenix Forest was flourishing in its own unique way.

Fire wasn’t just destruction, but it could also be transformation. John knew this, but reviewing his knowledge could result in new understandings. Fire allowed water to shift between forms. It was heat and energy, necessary for all life. And while it could also destroy life, the general result of such destruction was ash- a valuable breakdown of various constituent parts into usable nutrients. With the addition of ash, many plants could grow stronger.

It was just like the normal cycle of death and decay… but accelerated. John had already come to the understanding he could amplify elements in both directions, though the natural cycle was much easier.

Charlotte’s insights into fire were valuable… but John realized that they were not what he needed either. And yet, who else had inspired John? He thought, briefly, of Gesine from the Molten Sea. Rather than an inspiration, she had simply been an antagonist. They only truly encountered each other once, during the final battle. John didn’t like to think about it, but he calmed his heart and picked through the memories anyway.

He didn’t find anything compelling there. The way that the Molten Sea controlled earth with fire was interesting, but it wasn’t something that John had taken to. It was rather difficult to go visit the site of the event, since the leviathan was dead… but perhaps seeing one of its children would be valuable. It wouldn’t hurt to try. At worst, it was a good excuse to visit Tirto, Verusha, and Nitza.