Okay, so what about air? I knew the principle behind wind, but honestly I had no idea how to reproduce it on a scale that could be at least a bit harmful to my enemies. Sure if I created something akin to a tornado, then the damage would be immense, but just after thinking about the amount of mana it would take I forfeit the idea.

Still, I had to try, just to find out if I could only create a gust of wind or a blade made out of air. The wind was a result of the atmospheric pressure being uneven in two places and the air moving to even it out. Going by that fact, I could create wind easily, but shaping it would be out of question.

But maybe it wasn’t about wind? Maybe there was something different behind air magic? What if I just compressed air and then made it fly somewhere very fast? I didn’t try moving my water and fire balls before, but I assumed it would be easy compared to creating them, because I had to move atoms beforehand to create them at all.

So I started compressing the air, and it was quite easy comparing to manipulating the atoms so it took me almost no time to create considerably dense ball. Now that was left in this test was to fire it at something. I choose one of the bigger rocks laying everywhere, and started pushing the ball in its direction.

I used all the force I could muster to push it, resulting in it gaining quite a lot of speed. It probably didn’t compare to the gun, but still should do quite a lot of damage upon hitting. And damage it did, essentially blowing up the sizable rock, making it shatter in all directions. Good thing there wasn’t anyone nearby or they would suffer considerable damage.

But now it was confirmed, air is deadly. I was ready to move onto the next element, namely earth, but there was something that caught my attention. If I could compress air into a ball, could I do the opposite? To push all the air outside of an enclosed space, and then throw this empty space as a projectile? It sounded pretty stupid, but it should work.

The process was simple, I created a mana sphere, and then started pushing out the insides. The air inside quickly thinned up, but when I tried to take out more, it started resisting. This was new, until now everything went along with my mana, but now the air left inside was stubbornly trying to stay.

The problem was solved when I used more mana, well much more, it took about half of my pool to get rid of all air. But I wasn’t really satisfied with my result, because the sphere didn’t feel empty at all. There were still things inside apart from air, and I decided to try getting them out too.

First was mana, it was still filling the sphere, even though I didn’t want it too. I thought that I could just manipulate it out when I mixed it with my own, but apparently it took more effort than just that. It still took just a small amount of my mana to control the one inside the sphere, but it took considerable time to completely clean it out.

Now I had a sphere devoid of any air and mana, pretty close to what I wanted to achieve, but still not enough. What I wanted to get was perfect emptiness, and I still felt something inside. I had no idea what it actually was, but I felt like I was being able to clear it too. I just needed to tug very hard with my mana.

Aaand, after nearly an hour of tug-o-war I finally managed to take it out. Phew, it was exhausting. It certainly couldn’t be weaponized, when it took me nearly half a day to complete. The final result was a black ball floating in air, a perfect sphere without any irregularities. I would say it was pretty, but there was something ominous about it, being completely black, even more than a night sky when there was no light.

I was a bit curious about what was that last thing I pushed out of my ball, but even in my internal library there were no records on a substance that would always accompany air. Maybe I just caught something in my sphere when I was creating it? A ghost or a spirit maybe? They did exist, but I got a feeling they were harder to catch than that.

I was also pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to just pull it out when it resisted me, because they were supposed to be masters of mana and magic, so my amateurish attempts would just end in a failure. No matter how much I tried, I just wouldn’t be able to fight with a spirit using my mana. At least not yet.

Okay, I waited long enough, I really wanted to test the results of my spell. I found another suitable rock, this time slightly bigger, and tried tossing the ball at it. The problem was.. it wouldn’t budge. No matter how hard I pushed it, it just didn’t move, like it was anchored or something.

And then I felt it, the same invisible thing I pushed out of my ball blocking the way. I tried pushing on it instead, so it would make space for my projectile, and to my positive surprise, the ball moved. That meant that if I wanted to shoot my ball of emptiness, I had to create a path for it, rather than simply push it with my mana.

It was relatively easy, since making just a small hole for the ball made the invisible thing stretch while it went through, so just creating a very thin tunnel was enough. Soon, the ball of emptiness was moving in the direction I wanted at a speed of running person. Slow, but fast enough for testing purposed.

And then it hit the stone.

Well, I was expecting it imploding, collapsing into itself because of an empty space appearing inside.

What I wasn’t expecting, was the ball expanding twenty times in size, enveloping the rock and a large chunk of ground around it while emitting a whistling sound. It lasted for a couple of seconds and then disappeared. Along with everything it swallowed.

Now that was a deadly projectile.