First Element

The wind gradually increased in speed as it rotated around the room. Everyone's robes and cloaks were flapping at an alarmingly increased rate. The wind became so strong, a visible tornado appeared around them and Benny's turkey leg went flying right out of his hands. Luca had regained his senses and was constantly inputting new commands to the crystals while reading the scrolling information being generated on the projection.

"Such a strong Wind Element! There is no way someone who is not even a basic mage should be able to contain such a strong wind!" Benny exclaimed. Kyriel was half holding his beard to keep it from flying everywhere and half stroking it as he was in deep thought. A translucent barrier appeared around the group drawing power from the larger rune circles and protecting everyone from the cutting wind.

The wind became violent as gusts started to break off and clash with each other, soon crackles and pops were heard as lightning was generated within the storm. Arcs of lighting spread across the ceiling in a huge web before fading away. Not long after the air ignited into flames unable to withstand the pressure that was created. The flames spread across the tornado, creating a firestorm and sending the temperature of the cave spiraling up. Sweat started to flow from everyone's foreheads and the smell of burnt meat lingered in the air. Benny's face soured as he lamented over the lost turkey leg. Water then condensed on the ceiling as the humidity climbed in the room and poured onto the firestorm in a stream of water, slowly the storm transformed from a fiery tomb, to a wicked rainstorm that pelted the sides of the caves creating very loud thumps as rocks were whittled down and some unfortunate pieces were broken off.

The winds pattern changed again and the temperature plummeted, the water within the storm froze creating chunks of ice that were even more brutal and blunt as they struck the surroundings. All the dust that was generated from the impacts kicked up into the storm and ground the ice into small bits, and then into nothing. The wind had progressed from a cutting wind, to a thunderstorm, to a firestorm, to a rainstorm, to an ice storm, to a sandstorm all very rapidly. One thing was for certain, the wind element was very abundant and extremely strong.

After a flurry of crystal presses from Luca the storm subsided and the atmosphere in the room went back to normal. The protective shield was dropped and everyone was trying to regain their composure as Kyriel circled back around to stand next to his promising apprentice and take their leave.

"I guess it will be fitting to call you a storm mage." Kyriel chuckled after the wind had died down, and the mana in the room relaxed. "You should be most attuned to the wind element given that unique display. There's no doubt about that, however most of the time the other elements manifest separately from a mage's primary element. I will have to do some research and see if this has happened before so that we can understand the meaning of this further. Until then we will begin your training using the wind element and help you create your first spell."

Kyriel turned to the brothers, "Thanks boys, I will have someone deliver the crystals soon, Luca please see if you can find anything in the data that will help grim understand his elemental awakening further." With a nod he turned to leave before pausing, "Oh and stop trying to make wing equipment until you can make significant strides in the research of amplifying a material's resistance to mana overload. We only have so many crystals you know."

With that he strode out of the room. Grim once again found himself trying to keep up with the mage as they made their way back up the tunnel. He waved goodbye to the brothers with a wave and a nod as he turned to catch up to the figure already going through the doorway. The pathway back seemed to wind and twist in ways that it did not on the way in. He soon felt the warping of the space as the tunnel suddenly convulsed and changed directions right in front of him.

"What the hell just happened!" He couldn't help but shout. Tunnels aren't supposed to just change their layout willy nilly or at all for that matter. It felt more like the inside of an enormous beast after the event ended. Still in shock he failed to realize that Kyriel had never skipped a beat and was already around the bend that had just rearranged itself.

"Hurry up boy we still have much to do, and for your burning question this is a dimensional tunnel. The arrays that power it can only stabilize it so much. Also the further the destination, the less stable the tunnel will be. Those two brothers are back in the actual physical location of the city that's the Mausoleum. Whereas we have just temporarily opened a tunnel from the fortress which is currently located spatially where we entered in the forest, so our physical location is quite a far distance from the city but with dimensional tunnels and corridors we can overcome such things."

Grims head was spinning and the talk about physical and dimensional locations went right over his head. All he could do was shrug it off to one more crazy thing that was now a part of his life and try to catch up before the tunnel decided to warp around again. As he jogged down the tunnel to catch up once again the air resistance that was previously pushing his hair back away from his face suddenly reversed and propelled him head first into a wall before the turn with a massive slipstream. A warm fuzzy feeling came out of his nose as blood started to trickle down along the front of him. Soon after a blue hue started to flash in the periphery of his vision. Instinctively wondering what that meant, the same display popped back up in his vision showing him that the blue bar that represented his mana pool had diminished to the point of barely being seen. A flashing number of 0.3 was next to it, then it went down to 0.2.

Once he saw that he began to panic and the value went straight from 0.2 to zero in an instant. The edges of his vision began to darken and the floor was rising up to greet him. In the last moment before he lost consciousness, he gained clarity for a split second and could feel how his mana had rampaged out of his body interacting with the world and fueled a spell that had rampaged his mana reserves. He focused on all the mana circulating the air around him now and tried to forcefully pull his own mana back. It felt as if he was sucking through a straw that someone was pinching, the world itself refused to relinquish control of his mana. While it all did not flow back into him in a stream, small wisps formed around him and tried to merge back into him.

Only a couple were able to accomplish this task, but it was just enough to stave off his fading consciousness and keep him awake. The slipstream in the tunnel died down immediately as it had started. Only the blood trickling from his nose and the pain that accompanied it were the only indication that anything had happened. He cautiously took a few steps and then stopped so that he could stop whatever had just happened if it were to happen again. When absolutely nothing occurred he called up his status screen and noticed his mana was still in a critical state but it had settled at 0.2 without draining anymore nor increasing anymore.

An alert popped up in his vision: New Spell Learned: Slipstream lvl 0. He ignored the alert and continued on trying to escape the space tunnel.

After a few more tentative starts and stops he felt confident enough to continue on and control his mana more passively. It was almost like controlling a new limb that had suddenly sprouted from his body, he couldn't really exert any real control over it, but it was enough to keep it from flailing and hurting himself.

Kyriel waited for him back in the hallway leaning up against the opposite wall with his eyes closed. After Grim passed through the doorway, Kyriel shut the door with a wave of his hand and then ten loud audible thuds could be heard as if huge bolts were being locked into place. After the tenth thud rainbow lights chased each other around the seal of the door until it was completely encapsulated.

"What I just did was seal off the dimensional tunnel that we just used so that no nefarious parties can use it as a vector to infiltrate neither here nor there. Also, I can tell you are straining to contain your mana. We must stabilize your condition fully before proceeding to exercise your potential. Now come quickly and don't lose focus."

As he was lecturing Grim, Kyriel had turned down the hallway and unlocked another door. This one looked similar to the normal doors that he had already seen, but it had the rune for each element in a circular pattern burned into the door. This one was unsealed and unlocked with the same lightshow as before. Inside there were six different Pagodas that looked similar to something you would find in ancient China back on Earth. Each temple had a separate elemental rune above each of the entrances giving representation for each element except for Arcane. He quickly led him into the second temple that was for Air.