The next morning, Rein awakened with renewed vigor. He no longer thought of what could be going on in Suey’s mind. He doubted he would fully understand anyway, and the little minx should be occupied by the menial tasks she needed to complete as part of her exceptional clause to join Xeeseir’s newly-formed squad.

To say he ‘awakened’ was actually inaccurate. He had no need to sleep-- he found himself refreshed from the mental mantras he had chanted through the night, until the spherical lamps brightened up. The halls manipulated magical inscriptions in the labyrinth, brightening or dimming the lights to inform the inhabitants of time of day.

Rein knew he required strength. No. Rather, he had an urgency for strength. The twin ladies within the group had rejected and obtained the displeasure of Supreme Guihnes! Beincen must also be stirring the pot in the background.

The new initiates were given full freedom to decide which instructor they wished to attend through the day during this one month.

Rein naturally picked the ones that he believed to be most useful to him. The other initiate members of his squad went their own way for the information they themselves desired.

The spring lady instructor that resided beside the lake formed in the caldera of the volcano was one such figure to Rein. The instructor never told them her name, as is her right. Thus, in his mind, Rein thought of her as the spring lady, seeing as she emanated the refreshing aura of spring itself.

After waiting for a short period, since the lectures were repeated at timely blocks, the spring lady gazed at the sparse number of attendees and began speaking of the nature of various elements.

“...fire,for example, has an intrinsic nature to combust or raise the heat of its surroundings. Water, on the other hand, flows in ways that wood aurae can never imitate. These are obvious differences, and discovering new, obscure qualities in each element is a major part of my research.”

A hand raised itself-- a question. “Is it basically the elemental chart?”

The spring lady visibly rolled her eyes. “That is nothing but simplified knowledge of the most basic of interactions between the elements. They may have some relevance, but the nature of the world is abstruse.”

“As I have already taught you all the day before, if observable in nature, then it can be imitated and magnified to an unimaginable scale. The true wonders of aurae are, however, discovered,” her eyes glinted like gems, and her voice raised a pitch ethereally. “That which does not occur naturally in nature, unless we put the pieces in place.”

She raised a metallic kettle and flames from her palm heated the water inside. “One might think water and fire to be separate and against each other. Yet, what of the burning water in this kettle that could be directed to scald a foe?”

The flame in her palm amplified, and a torrent of steam leaked through the cap of the kettle. “And what of this mist that could be carried by the wind to scorch an enemy? Of course, these easily observable phenomena have long had advancer arts dedicated to them.”

Rein did not choose to attend the spring lady’s lecture for no reason. In fact, he had quite a few questions.

Raising his arm, Rein asked one that he had yet to figure out. “How exactly do the devils raise corpses to do their own doing?” In his mind, he brought forth his distinct memories of the battle against that weak outer advancer that is the corpse-man.

The spring lady’s face lit up in joy. “A perfect example.” A flick of her arm and a frog popped out of the lake behind, right into her palm. A needle that glinted under the sunlight appeared between her other thumb and finger, and she stabbed it right into the frog’s skull.

She pivoted the needle back and forth, eliciting twitching leg movement as she pleased from the now, presumably, dead frog.

“Theorized, difficult to observe in nature, yet possible. This is the origin of the magics that allow the devils to control corpses, and even bring back a form of the pre-existing consciousness of the body. There is just one small problem.” She paused, observing the rapt attention of all those in front of her.

All those that chose to come listen to this spring lady naturally came only because they were interested by the nature of her lectures.

“As you all surely already know, each of us beings have our own unique blend of aurae, forming our individual aura. Using strings of aurae to activate the brain and limbs, one could bring back parts of the bodily function. But the body itself is built on its individual blend of aurae. Thus, the corpse raiser’s aurae strings are invasive in nature, and clashes with the nature of the body itself. That is the devil in this magic-- it is not a natural flow of aurae.”

A flick of the wrist, and the frog flew with precision into a pot beside a far-off hut-- the spring lady’s abode most likely. “Frog stew,” the instructor explained with a smile, distracting the attendees from the fact that some of these members here might very likely become a walking corpse if they fail in one of their future missions.

The spring lady continued on passing on her knowledge regarding the various qualities of different types of aurae to the listeners, and also provided all that had come a short private face-to-face for questions.

This suited Rein-- ever since he had discovered his spatial-aspected origin ability, he had always wondered whether it could one day grow into a direct magical attack.

“No. Many scholars have hypothesized that you could use collapsing space to crush objects. The reality is that such a thing is impossible. Space is something that an object exists in.” The spring lady waved her arm around dramatically.

“Space simply does not have any force. For example, a teleportation portal cannot be closed if an object is in the way. Even if the portal is a tiny dot, that space within said dot can be expansive to those objects or beings that occupy that size of a dot.”

All this theory made Rein’s whirl like the spinning wheel of a racing wagon.

A last hope lingered within him. “I’ve read that space collapses in dying realms. Surely, that means something…?”

A shake of the head crushed this hope that his origin skill could contain offensive qualities. “Do not mistake correlation and causation. The space of dying realms collapse not because of the space itself, but rather, the aurae and the land itself is losing its strength to support the space that they occupy.”

“There is a reason why you cannot simply teleport a person’s heart away and separate it from said person’s body. Now, being able to perform such magic would be absolutely ridiculous!”

Sensing Rein’s somewhat disappointed heart, the spring lady consoled him. “You young men are always looking for that explosive magic. Wholly unnecessary. You’re Rein, the young man with that odd combination of wood, lightning and spatial alignment, yes?”

Rein nodded.

The spring lady continued, “Imagine a war between nations or realms, and your spatial portals could move an army from point to point on a battlefield. Or perhaps, multiple battalions to different points at the same time. Now, that is a level of control no singular attack will ever achieve. Though, transporting other beings, themselves huge reservoirs of aurae, could be rather taxing without the help of supporting tools.”

“Naturally, you would need to first reach the realm of an outer advancer to create such portals… that is certainly a weakness of spatial magic.” Little did she know that Rein’s was an origin magic birthed by the echoes of the fallen gods.

“Frankly,” she continued. “Lightning advancer magics will provide the explosive strength you may need. But I say this as a word of advice. There may have been a time when such explosive magics may have dominated in the advancer world. In this day and age, that is simply no longer true. It is those in the shadows that one should fear most.”

Her tone conveyed a rather downcast mood at the end of her words, but she quickly brightened up again.

“Plus,” she added. “Spatial magics are a great tool for supporting assassination tasks. Only difficulty of it would lay in the preparation and cost needed to rapidly activate such teleportation.”

Rein increasingly understood the reason for why origin skills are considered by some to be ‘absolute’. The spring lady turned to another initiate to provide her knowledge. It was certainly worth attending this instructor’s lessons. Though, it seems she had yet to find it worth her time to grace them with her name.

Yet… how was he to fight? Yes, his half-senior Chenhr had trained him and Master Yirn had provided him with stances and mantras, and he also had a powerful body that could be even further tempered. Yet, he knew that advancers’ strength mostly lies in their advancer magic rather than physicality. His body could be strong beyond compare, but if someone kept, for example, firing aurae bolts at him from a distance, he would not be able to respond and eventually be worn down!

It was at this moment that Rein felt his heart calling out to him. He sat down cross-legged beside the lake of the caldera and opened himself to this rather odd ‘call’ sensation.

He closed his eyes to indulge in said feeling, and when he opened them again, he had entered a vision!

He looked around and found himself in a dreamy peach garden. He was looking up at a youth leisurely sitting on a branch of a peach tree with his back leaning back into the trunk, a twig between his teeth. He recognized this youth as the young Yirn of the vision previously shared by the remnant will of the draconic metamorphose bead!

“So… how exactly did you ‘beat the shit’ out of the other dragons with your handicapped elements compared to the other dragons? I must say I am very curious.”

‘His’ mouth opened, and Rein discovered that the dragon he was inhabiting in the vision had gained the ability of speech since the last vision.

“It’s quite straightforward,” ‘he’ chuckled in a deep guttural growl. “You know of the dragons being born with most natural elements belonging to common phenomena, yes? Water, wood, fire, wind, lightning and earth.”

The youthful Yirn nodded. That was precisely why the gods used dragons to deliver earthquakes, storms, tsunamis, rain, clear skies and more. Sometimes to reward the mortals, sometimes to punish them.

“Imagine a normal dragon whose body contains the same amount of aurae as I do. Do you think his body stores that amount of aurae in all these six natural phenomena elements? What about me?”

“You would have vastly more wood and lightning aurae stores.” The youthful Yirn’s eyes were transfixed to ‘his’ as he answered.

“When I fought,” ‘he’ continued. “When my opponent employs water magics, I would use my lightning to electrocute said opponent, while using my wood to draw vitality from water. When my opponent uses earth magic, I would also use my wood to absorb their strength.”

“When my opponents use wind…well. Wind does not do much against lightning or a strong tree, yes?”

“Wood or lightning? I have vastly more reserves of aurae stored as such elements.”

“Now fire. You may not know this fellow Yirn, but lightning contains aspects of fire. I use my lightning to ignite wood, and generate fire to counter an enemy’s fire.”

“But…” The youthful Yirn finally interrupted. “Your fire affinity is low. How could you use fire magic?”

“Fellow Yirn,” ‘he’ answered with a mirth. “Do you believe elemental affinity is about generating elemental energy or controlling the resulting magic?”

That question certainly made the youthful Yirn furrow his brows in contemplation.

“Fellow Yirn. I, Gent, tested it. Elemental affinity is very much more related to absorbing said element into one’s body, and generating it into a known magic. Controlling said magic, however… that does not require all that high of an affinity. I may be considered… deformed. But I still do have low affinity with the other elements. Thus, since I could ignite my wooden aurae with my lightning aurae, I can effectively transform all my aurae within my body into fire. As long as I master control over a fire-based magic…”

“But… your body should be incompatible with containing and holding said fire element, yes?” Yirn was baffled. “Would your body not suffer damage?”

“Fellow Yirn.” ‘He’ grinned. “I am a dragon. I am born with a body tough beyond your comprehension. And I have further strengthened it through my own methods!”

The youthful Yirn resting on the tree branch dropped the twig in his hand as he shook his head. Rein wasn’t sure if Yirn shook his head in amazement, confusion or comprehension. Rein found himself finally understanding why he had decent control over that water drop spell through the Soak Staff! It also explained why armaments could carry all sorts of inscriptions supported by inlaid gems containing various elemental aurae!

“No wonder that other dragon under your god called you a battle freak,” Yirn muttered.

“Auromirrar?”

“Yes… the she-dragon.”

Gent chuckled once more. “She finds me annoying to the eye. Always speaking of my failure to properly serve the Gods, my lacking ability to control the flow of nature. When serving as my god’s mount, I can always set her off with just a side-glance!”

The vision faded along with Gent’s continued laughter echoing in Rein’s ears.

When Rein opened his eyes again, his expression was of a startled rabbit. Even the spring-lady looked over mid-explanation to another initiate.

“What happened? You closed your eyes for just a heartbeat? Tell me if you’ve comprehended something unique!” The spring-lady had repeatedly stated that any new epiphany to be shared with her.

Rein only shook his head to the disappointment of the woman.