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Chapter 209: The Will of the World

“What’s wrong with elemental monks?”

Aurivy sighed, crossing her arms in front of herself and pouting. “They’re just no fun! I mean, they take away all the choice and opt for a preset element instead! Do you know how many lifetimes it took me to even get all four elements? Eighteen!” She threw her hands up in outrage as she shouted the number out.

“Earth and water were easy. Ursa typically end up with the earth element, and humans get water more often than not. I’m sure if I had a few more decades, demons would get fire all the time. It’s wind that was hard! There are so few races even remotely aligned naturally to wind, I actually had to wait until I could be born as a pegasus centaur.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle as I heard her complaints. “Seems like you just got unlucky.”

“Yeah, yeah…” She grumbled, glancing away from me for a moment. “Anyways… you made that body able to contain elemental ki, right?” When I gave a quick nod, her smile began to return. “Good, that’ll make this easier. Let’s see which element you have, then.”

I nodded again, holding up my hand. Pulling back my normal ki, I instead activated my elemental ki pool, letting it surge through my body. A yellow glow clung to my skin, darker in tone than the normal golden ki. Seeing this, Aurivy smiled slightly. “Earth, then.” As she spoke, a message window appeared in front of me, letting me know that I had unlocked the Elemental Monk class.

“Looks that way.” I agreed as I felt the energy in my hand. “By the way… did you ever try designing a ki path that could hold more than one pool of ki? Maybe you would be able to get multiple elements if you simply cultivated it again as a second pool.”

When I asked that, Aurivy froze. Then she slowly lifted her finger, her mouth opening to speak. And froze again. “I’m going to test that theory in my next life. And if it works, big sis Terra is going to make you a very happy man.” Aurivy nodded her head slowly as she said those rather… interesting words.

But let’s not pay attention to that right now! I cleared my throat, quickly changing the subject. “So… the training?”

“Right.” Aurivy brought her hands up to her face, quickly slapping her cheek twice. “Training. So… I’ve had a couple of lives with earth element ki. I am definitely not the best with it, but I can teach you the basics that you need to know for how the class itself works.”

“Each element has their own unique functions, and differences in how they interact with the world around you. For instance, your earth ki. It is the most purely physical of the different elements. It won’t let you alter properties like normal ki, but it is instead more powerful as a purely self-buffing energy.”

I gave a quick nod of my head while I listened to her explanation. “To be honest, if you put your entire ki pool into a single punch, I’m fairly certain that you could shatter this island we’re standing on. Please don’t test that theory, though… it’s annoying to find new testing sites.”

I smirked softly when she said that. “Alright, fine. But I was really tempted to. So, anything else?”

“Well… kind of?” Aurivy asked in an unsure tone. “I mean, elemental monks function in many ways the same as regular monks. The same techniques tend to work between them, though there are a few differences in how they function. And when it comes to regular monk techniques… you already read the tier three knowledge, so you’re a bit ahead of me in that subject.”

I had to agree with her there. She seems to have been pretty busy with all of this planning ever since I got back from the Keeper meeting, so I doubted that she had had the time to look over the information that I had purchased.

“The only thing that I can really say for sure is that elemental ki is strong. If you use your Keeper energies, you can probably access whatever element you want. So if you’re in a situation where you need ki for something, it’d be best to question which type of ki would work best for what you need.”

After saying that, Aurivy shrugged her shoulders. “That’s really the best advice I can give.” Suddenly, her eyes opened wide and a large grin appeared on her face. “So, ready to move on? Next up is the elementalist!”

“I’ve… got a bit of practice with that one too, you know?” I had to ask, seeing how excited she appeared.

“Well, yeah, but not like me!” She declared proudly, sticking her small chest out. “Next to ninjas, this one is my all time favorite! It even beats summoners… by a little bit. Just a tiny bit… Okay, they’re almost tied. But elementalists!”

I ended up rolling my eyes, waiting for her to get on with it. “You see, the elementalist class shows a truth that no other class does…” As she spoke, she let her words drag on at the end, as if to build up suspense. “The world is alive. Literally. Natural energy is, in some way, sentient.”

“And it shows this… how?” I ended up questioning her despite myself, and judging by the grin on her face, she was waiting for exactly that.

Soon, a voice appeared behind me, a presence that I was only just now sensing. “Let me show you.” When I turned around to look, I saw… Aurivy. Sort of. She had the same pink hair, the same height… but her eyes were golden, and her ears pointed. And above her head, I saw an unfamiliar name… Relan Triav. A level three hundred and five elf.

“This is my incarnation.” Relan and Aurivy spoke at the same time, forcing me to hear her voice in stereo. “I wasn’t sure how long it would be until you decided to descend, so I ended up making this one as an elf for this demonstration.”

Now, only Relan herself spoke, her golden eyes staring up at me. “Natural energy responds to your wishes, much in the same way that spiritual energy does. But the method is different. Spiritual energy, at its very core, is shaped by the minds of those around it. Do you remember the most basic way to activate natural energy, before you acquire a token?”

I raised my eyebrows at the question, actually having to take a moment to remember. “You send a command… with mana.” I recalled, having practiced that way so long ago.

“That’s right.” Relan nodded happily. “You have to communicate with natural energy in order to get the response. You must speak to the will of the world. And that’s where the elementalist comes into play.”

Relan turned towards the side, no longer facing me. “An elementalist communes with nature. When we cast a spell, we are telling the world what we want. Watch.” Relan brought her hand to her waist, retrieving a silver baton with a blue spiral embedded in its shaft. I could feel a slight resonance with the natural energy as I looked at it, likely indicating that it was her token.

She held her token high above her head, and spell diagrams appeared beneath her feet. “I am the inheritor of this world’s will. I have studied the depths of magic, and understand its laws. By my command, let the black sun shine within the sky. Let night fall over day, and let darkness cover the land.”

As she spoke, each of the circles beneath her feet began to light up. First in green, then in blue, and then all four of them turned pitch black. But that wasn’t all… the color of the grass seemed to fade away, turning into a dull grey. The blue of the sky was next, looking as if a cloud had encompassed the horizon. Next, the sun itself seemed to turn black, and all color was drained from the world. Light became darkness, and the shadows became bright.

And in this world of inverted light, Relan turned to face me, the circles at her feet now appearing to be the brightest white left in the world. “I tell the world to change, and the world changes. When I cast a spell, I must plead with the world itself. There are those who cannot reach the world’s will, and have their spells fail to cast, or receive effects that they didn’t want. But the will of the world is easily swayed. It is not good, nor is it evil.”

Next, five more spell diagrams began to appear above Relan’s head. “The best first step is to identify yourself. Make a title that the world can recognize you as.” Once the spell diagrams had fully formed, she aimed her token at them.

“I am the inheritor of the world’s will. My word is the word that shapes the realm. Where I pass, nothing shall obstruct me. Where I wish to go, nothing shall deter me. Let this space be mine to hold.”

The five diagrams above her head shifted to a dark grey, suddenly blending in with the sky above. Relan let out a laugh, jumping up into the air. It seemed that gravity no longer had any meaning for her, as she floated several feet off the ground. “You see? One sentence for every component. I’m still working out the trick to third tier elemental magic, but I think it should still hold true.”

As she spoke, she hovered off to the side, slowly spinning around me. I watched her curiously, feeling that her mana wasn’t decreasing by much as she held the spells in place. “And… why is your mana still fine? Even at your level, these two spells are strong enough to drain you in a few minutes, right?”

“Normally, you’d be absolutely correct!” Relan stated, stretching her arms out and rolling upside down in the air, moving up so that her now-black eyes stared into mine. “But, if you know the rules, then the natural energy can sustain the effect of a spell longer than normal.”

She began to hold up her fingers, one by one as she lifted off a set of rules. “One sentence per ring. Always announce yourself. The more familiar the world is with you and your title, the more easily it will help you. If we were on Earth, I could probably maintain one of these spells for days. But here… I have ten minutes, it feels like. This world isn’t familiar with me.”

Hearing her explanation, I fell into thought. If it was as she said, then an elementalist was a far more useful class to have as a defending unit than an attacker. This world would become more familiar with them over time, but sending them to another world would ‘reset’ that. “What about the components of the spells themselves? That should be another important rule.”

Relan grinned, as if she had been waiting for that question. Her orientation righted itself, and she landed on the ground. Her previous spells disappeared, color returning to the area. “I was hoping you’d ask that.”

As she spoke, she reached into her pocket, and pulled out a large circular ring of metal, attached to it five other rings. She tossed the ring into the air above her, and then aimed her token at it. Immediately, the metal ring stopped in midair, the five other rings spreading out evenly along it.

“Having the spell as close to your desired result as you want makes it easier, sure. But…” She turned her eyes to focus on the rings. “I am the inheritor of this world’s will. I have studied the pinnacle of magic, and claim dominion over it. My word is the law of the world. Gather, lights of above. Gather, celestial bodies that live within the night’s sky. Let the wrath of the stars fall upon those who would do me harm.”

Closing her eyes, Relan aimed her staff off towards the distance. I could feel the mana swelling up from her body, pouring into the spell at a far greater rate than both of her previous spells combined. The rings that she had thrown into the air turned to face in the direction she was pointing as well.

A silent surge of power pushed me back a couple of steps, silver light launching itself from the six rings. The power of this spell didn’t seem to lose even when compared to the third tier spell that Ryone had once shown me. A spell that harnessed light to destroy its target.

And when the light faded, I saw Relan grasping her head, her brows furrowed in pain. If I had to guess, that spell had drawn too much of her mana, and she was now suffering the backlash. As I began to approach her to check on her status, her body burst into a golden mist, which slowly faded away.

“So, that was your lesson on Elementalists! What do you think?” Aurivy asked from behind me with a wide grin, entirely unconcerned with the fate of her incarnation.

“I think… it definitely requires a lot of practice to get right.” And definitely a personality that is not easily embarrassed…