“So… that was some pretty sweet magic you used to take these guys all out.” Mr. Adderson said awkwardly with a chuckle and a shake of his head as we were on our way back. “You said those were from some kind of martial art you learned back on Earth right? You seriously couldn’t do that stuff back home before coming here? It just turned out your kata could do magic?”

“Yes.” I told him. “I believe I told you before when we were prepping for this mission a couple days ago, but from what Tia told me it seems there was some kind of interference on Earth from too much spirit energy suppressing the mana or something like that. I think she could tell you more if you sat down and chatted in a more relaxed setting.”

“Yeah.” Tia agreed and tucked her chin down with an embarrassed look.

“Haha! Oh man, what’s the matter? Aren’t you supposed to be a goddess or something? Why you acting all shy kid?” Mr. Adderson laughed.

“Divine beast.” She squeaked and seemed like she was trying to disappear behind me.

“Yeah, this is a side of her we haven’t really seen much of either. I guess it might have to do with her having been a leach in her past life though. It would make sense that she would be the slow to warm up type. Come to think of it, I don’t think she interacted with the village kids all that much either. It was always just me, Levin, Rolwen, Eirlathion, and Nymph for her” I explained.

“By ‘Nymph’ I guess you mean the little tree spirit all the fey are getting bothered about?” Mr. Adderson asked.

“Yep, that’s the one. She was pretty torn up about us having to run away. I really hope she doesn’t do something drastic now that we’ve left.” I said.

“Hehe… yeah…” Mr. Adderson said and rubbed the back of his head with his free hand. He had his five little fairy prisoners all pinned to his chest with one arm. It seemed like the roots I’d used to bind them were doing a pretty good job. Tia said that they were somehow actually feeding off the spirit energy of the fairies they had entangled, thus allowing them to maintain their strength while also keeping the prisoners properly subdued. If I’d known they could pull something like this, I might have decided to tie up the changeling after all.

The little guy, Sagle he had said his name was, really stayed on his best behavior as held him like a baby while always keeping one hand holding him by the leg. Once he had taken this tiny human form, his facial features became a lot easier to read. I identified pretty quickly it was specifically my hands that he was fairly intimidated by. It didn’t take much in terms of thinking about my encounter with Nier to figure out why that was.

I decided it was probably best not to let this guy know how the fire kata actually worked, or the fact that I really didn’t have much of a handle on this whole magic thing yet. The other fairies seem plenty subdued by those root bindings, but I don’t know what this guy might do if he found out my hands could not deliver the instant death he was probably imagining.

If the words of those fairies are to be believed, they are on some kind of mission to establish contact. I do not know if this little guy has any secondary objectives though, or even if the peace mission his subordinates told me about was true in the first place. This meant keeping him subdued in this manner is probably for the best for the time being.

I might have liked to draw some information out of these guys while we were on the move, but once we got to walking it seemed like Mr. Adderson had decided to start getting chatty. Oh well. Perhaps it meant he was warming up a bit after this successful “mission” we had together.

Talking in terms of what’s best long run, it is definitely better to build my rapport with this guy than interrogate some prisoners. It seemed I somehow made a bad first impression when the subject of Ninjas came up. Fortunately, I had another chance at a first impression now.

“Well, at least now I have some more proof toward what I told you before.” I said. “I was being quite honest when I said I had learned at a dojo historically preserving Ninjutsu. Although, I certainly had not expected that reaction I got from you. I usually like to keep that whole ninja thing quiet for an entirely different reason. You get a whole lot of stupid ya-hoos coming into the dojo if they hear the word ‘ninja.’ The kids classes are also a bit annoying the first few days before they start learning proper respect for their teachers.”

“Kids classes…” Mr. Adderson mused. “I am hoping you save the chopping people’s arms off for interrogation part for the adult level.”

“State side, we only teach taijutsu. Ninjutsu, which is just the Japanese word for espionage technique, is only taught if you go to the main dojo in Japan. And also no, they do not teach about inflicting that kind of serious bodily harm. I didn’t think Nier would take a toddler seriously unless I did something extreme like that. And besides, I knew Tia could heal him after it was done.” I explained.

“Yeah, they’d probably be sued to the ends of the earth if they were really pulling that kind of stuff.” Mr. Adderson commented. “Seriously though, what kind of magic was that really? You just waved your hand and they all dropped right there.”

“That was the water kata. Today was the first time I ever used it on a live target. It never got much response on the training dummies.” I said.

“Water? I saw the trees swaying about too though. You sure it wasn’t wind?” He asked.

“Nope, it was definitely the water kata.” I told him. “Wind was the one I used to shoot Nier down.”

“Heh, water… is it one of those bits where you disrupt the fluid in their brain or something super scary like that? If you’re pulling that shit, that’s crazy freaky kid. I think I’m getting the creeps from you just thinking about it.” Mr. Adderson said.

“No… at least I don’t think so.” I said. “It definitely creates more of a force wave, so in a way I guess it would be a little closer to sound in nature. So, it’s like they were all hit with a shock wave. Except for wind and void, my kata seem to produce effects a little different from what you might think.” I explained.

“Umm…” Tia made a little noise to get my attention.

“Huh? You wanna say something Tia?” I asked.

“Y…yeah. It’s just, I was thinking and I think I might have figured out why your magic is so different. Levin’s earth kata is actually having the effect you might expect the earth element to have, right? And… I said it before. True earth-elemental gravity magic is magic from the second strata, so it’s really high level.”

“Yeah.” I said, interrupting her. “You went on some kind of rant about that when you saw my gravity magic the first time, but you never really elaborated on that. What do you mean by ‘second strata’ exactly?”

“Well… every field of spiritual cultivation is somehow combined into three tiers, and each of those three tiers are in turn within three strata. So, nine tiers in total. It’s even rumored there is another set of three higher order orders of power that the three strata are the first level of.” Tia said before I felt the need to cut her off.

“Yeah. How about we just stick to the nine tiers and three strata for now.” I said. “I don’t want rumors, just the stuff that tells me why my magic is strange here.”

“Umm… well.” Tia stammered. “So, you have five elements in your discipline, but I was thinking maybe they all acted a little like five separate elemental cultivations that… maybe you might be progressing them all individually in the nine tiers and three strata system? You have never talked about anything that sounded like that, so I wasn’t really sure, but… Well, what you just said just now got me thinking about it again. You said it’s only earth, water, and fire that act weird. Your wind and void magic though act a little more like you might expect them to. So… maybe you’ve only progressed those three into the second strata and not the other two?”

Tia twisted and fidgeted awkwardly after saying that much. “So, umm… do you have something like that you can think of in your meditation?” She asked.

“Huh…” I responded. “Actually, yeah. There sorta is. Never thought of it as an objective measure for anything though. We’ve got what we call the focuses of heaven, earth, and man which probably correspond to those three tiers you’re talking about. By they way, they are in that order. Heaven is the lowest in the progression, man is the highest of the three. There are philosophies at each stage, but mostly it’s how the ninja like to think backwards. As for what you could call strata… that would be taijutsu, ninjutsu, and bujin-jutsu.

“So…” I continued. “If what you’re saying is right, that would mean I am in the heaven stage of ninjutsu for the earth, water, and fire elements. Meanwhile, that probably means I’m on the man stage of taijutsu for wind and void.”

“Broken in other words.” Mr. Adderson snarked.

“Umm… yeah, I guess so.” She said.

“You said something about the second strata being god level magics though.” I said. “It doesn’t seem anywhere even close to something you might associate with gods though. They have proven fairly powerful in personal combat, but that’s only in terms of momentary burst attacks and at an interpersonal level. There’s no way I could even do something like flying around the way Mr. Adderson or these fairies do. I would say their wind magic is worlds ahead of mine. Plus, if I’m detecting things right, Mr. Adderson should actually be stronger than you or I am.”

“Huh? Say what now?” Mr. Adderson said. “Well, I mean, I guess if you put it that way about flying around all day vs. The small bursts of power you can show, but there’s no way I can do anything even close to as fancy as you can with that whole shockwave thing. I’ve never seen anyone in the capital actually making air bullets either. That one was also crazy powerful.”

“Well, about that…” Tia said. “Mr. Adderson is a fey. That means he was just born with a soul and a physically manifested spirit that acts like his body. It did not have to adjust to a new body like all of us, which means he immediately got the full strength of an earth human’s soul from the moment he came to this world. Our spirits are still growing into these new bodies, that’s making it so we can not use the full strength we get from our earth souls yet. We… I mean you, me, and the boys, will get stronger as we grow up.”

“Aright. Tia. Focus. God level magics. Mine definitely don’t qualify for that lofty title. What’s the deal here?” I asked.

“Well, it’s pretty simple.” She said. “Those abilities are incredibly refined and sophisticated. It is god level because the human mind cannot comprehend how complex of a spell it is. So, if you had a mind that could take in more information, you could do really crazy things with those powers. It’s really pretty incredible that you are even able to do as much as you can with them.”

“Right. I guess that makes sense.” I commented and nodded. “I was actually kind of afraid for a minute you might say something like I just had to dump more brute-force mana into the spells. If it’s a matter of finite control though, that’s something that sounds a lot more reasonable to me.”

“Heh, damn human brains getting in the way of bad-ass magic, huh?” Mr. Adderson commented. “Oh, right. I guess it’s elven brains in this case. But wait, it’s because I’m a fey I have more spirit or whatever power here? I thought elves were fey too.”

“Elves are a little special because we are born the same way as humans.” Tia said.

“Heh, well that blows.” Mr. Adderson commented.

“And why exactly are you the one who’s complaining about it?” I asked.

“Whah? Can’t I offer some sympathies here?” He retorted.

“Honestly, I’m more irritated about being a toddler than any of this magic stuff. That doesn’t matter a whiff to me. Anyway, let’s go eyes on the prize here. Shouldn’t be too much longer till we get where we told Eirlathion and our mom to camp out and wait for us.”

“Oh yeah, your parents. What’s the story with those two anyhow? It looks like you have a bit of a cold relationship with your mom but you go calling your dad by his name instead of calling him your dad.” Mr. Adderson asked.

“That’s… incredibly complicated.” I said. “Honestly, it’s something I don’t think I’m all that ready to share. Maybe you can get the story from Rolwen or something.”

“Umm… no, that’s Ok. I won’t ask.” Mr. Adderson backed off and started squirming as bad as Tia. The rest of the trip back got very awkward after that exchange. Somewhere along the way I heard him muttering something about ‘grey elves’ and berating himself for being stupid. It seemed like he didn’t quite know how to look at us after that and he remained silent for the rest of the trip.