The Fundamentals Of Elementals

"Mmmf!" Nina stretched her back. Sitting on her bed with her blankets still on, she just woke up. However, she was still groggy and wanted to go back to sleep.

"Ugh..." She clapped her cheeks a few times with her hands, but that wasn't enough to wake her up. "Maybe a few more minutes..." she mumbled, still tired.

Yawning, Nina laid back down on her pillow and closed her eyes. Ah, how nice it was to not have anything to do in the morning. She finished all of her tasks for this week and could relax for a little bit. Though, it would be nice if the birds stopped chirping...

Outside her windows, the birds were as loud and energetic as ever. Even with her windows shut, Nina could still hear their singing. She really wished that woke up later so that they wouldn't wake her up either.

Nina was so tired that she quickly fell back to sleep. Well, at least partly. She was half asleep and half awake. Part of her consciousness was screaming at her to get up but it was being drowned out by the rest of her consciousness, telling her that she hadn't gotten enough sleep. But she should've listened to the part of her conciliatory that was telling her to wake up...

A voice yelled at her outside her cabin to wake up. The person yelled Nina's name a bunch of times, but Nina didn't hear it at all. It was Idril. The elf had just arrived and was trying to get Nina to come out. After a few minutes went by, the girl still hadn't come out.

"What's taking her so long?" Idril stood in the grass with her arms crossed, feet tapping against the dirt. She was getting impatient.

"Selphie! Hurry it up! How long does it take her to dress?"

Tired of waiting, the elf opened the door and walked over to Nina's bed. She peered down at the girl who was still in her bed, hugging her blanket, all snug and comfortable with a happy look on her face.

"Ignoring me, huh?"

"Shoo, birdie... Let me sleep a bit long-... -er..." Nina mumbled, her voice fading off at the end.

"Birdie? Who's a bird now?" Idril chuckled. "Maybe I've been too hard on her... Maybe I should let her sleep..." The elf brushed Nina's hair. She ran her hand along the girl's face and stopped at her ear. "...Is what you would like to hear, no? But unfortunately for you..."

"Selphie!" Idril yanked her ear and yelled into it. Nina jolted up from her bed and the two of them bumped heads.

"Ow!"

"Gah!"

Idril and Nina both rubbed their heads. Nina looked around her room, still dazed from just having woken up. She didn't see the elf who was standing right in front of her. It took her a couple of seconds to realize that she wasn't alone in her room.

"Huh? Oh!" Nina jumped out of her bed, almost throwing her blankets on the floor when she saw who it was. She bowed to the elf, accidentally pushing her table and knocking it over. *Crash!* "Oops!" Nina turned and picked up the table and put it back in its original position. "Sorry..."

*Sigh...* The elf looked very disappointed but didn't say anything. The sigh alone was enough to tell Nina what she was thinking.

Idril looked around the small home. It was an absolute mess. There were papers all over the floor. Most of them were wrinkled and had ink smudges on them. She kneeled down and picked one of them up. "What's this, Selphie?" she asked Nina.

"Hm? That?" Nina was rubbing her eyes and didn't see what Idril picked up. Idril took a look at the paper and saw what it was. It contained the magic circles and formulas that she taught her about yesterday.

"Hmph..." Idril smiled. "You're quite the hard worker... Even though you don't really look like one." The reason why the papers were wrinkled was probably due to her practicing her magic and the water got on it.

"Um... Thanks?" Nina did not know if that was a compliment or not. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Idril had been her teacher for a few days now and Nina found it hard to understand the elf. Sometimes, she would say one thing when she meant the other. Her tone was always the same so it was near-impossible to tell if she was joking about something or being serious about it.

"Well then, why don't you show me if all your practicing paid off or not? If you impress me, I'll let you off the hook this time for ignoring me," Idril said.

"You will?" Nina's eyes shot up. She was expecting her to punish her for sleeping in, but if she was going to give her this chance then she wasn't going to let her down.

"But first..." Idril gestured at the floor. There was so much stuff all over and she wanted Nina to clean up her room before showing her how much she improved.

"Sorry." Nina went around the room, cleaning up her mess. She started at the bed and worked her way out from there. After neatly putting everything away, she walked back to the elf and awaited her instructions.

"Good. Let's start," Idril said, giving Nina the go to begin when she was ready.

"Okay." Nina took a sharp breath and calmed herself. She held out her hands and water formed at her fingertips. A sphere of water as big as her hand appeared. This was the easy part. Now, the part where she always messes up.

Nina closed her eyes and took another breath. "Concentrate... Concentrate..." The water in the center froze first. The ice spread from there, branching out.

"Oh." Idril was a little surprised at her progress, but could Nina really do it?

Just as she was halfway done with freezing the sphere, her magic became unstable and the remaining water dropped to the floor along with the frozen part. The ice shattered, exploding into tiny fragments.

"Agh, I was so close!" Nina was disappointed in herself. Had she kept it up for just a few more seconds...

"I have to say, Selphie, not bad. It wasn't great, but it's progress," Idril congratulated the girl. "But... Why did you freeze the water from the inside first?" she asked, puzzled by why she did that.

"Because... is it easier?" Nina answered.

Wrong answer. The elf glared at Nina, obviously not pleased by her reasoning. "Selphie... Can you tell me what I taught you yesterday?"

"Yesterday... Um..." The elf taught her a lot of things yesterday. It was so much that she barely kept up with all of it. "In this world, there are two main types of magic. Elemental magic and neutral magic. Elemental magic requires one to have an affinity with an element. Neutral magic is magic that anyone can use as long as they can use magic in the first place. My affinity is water and to freeze it, I am using neutral magic to lower the temperatures of an object, and in this case, the water I create."

"Correct," Idril applauded Nina for remembering all of that and explaining it perfectly. "But that is not what I am looking for," she told her. She wanted to hear something else.

"Creating ice requires me to utilize two magics at the same time, and until I'm used to it, I should focus on maintaining the water and diverting the remainder of my magic to freezing it."

"Yes. Go on."

"Umm... Learning how to use ice magic is extremely hard and that I should keep practicing?"

"..."

Nina saw that Idril was frowning and apologized to her. "Ah, sorry! Is it that I should freeze the water starting from the outside?"

"Took you long enough..." Idril sighed. That was what she wanted to hear. "Can you explain to me why I want you to do that?"

"Why? I... I don't know. You never told me..." Although Idril did tell her to practice ice magic like that, she never got an explanation from her about why.

"Use your head. I want you to figure this out by yourself."

"Umm..." Nina thought about the question. Was there a difference in freezing it starting from the outside inside of the inside? Other than it being harder since she would have to freeze it on all sides instead of just having to focus on one point, was there a point? "I don't know."

"Keep thinking," Idril told her. She wasn't going to give Nina the answer like that. She wanted the girl to get it without any help.

Nina racked her brain. A few minutes passed and she still couldn't figure out the answer. She stood there awkwardly, swaying from side to side. Her mentor's glare made it very uncomfortable but Nina really didn't know the answer. Even if they stood here all day, she doubted that she would get it.

"..."

"Sorry..."

"You're great at memorizing things, but you really need to start learning through experience and insights," Idril said. "Listen closely. The reason why is this." Instead of explaining it to Nina in words, the elf showed it to her instead.

Idril extended her arms and two spheres of water formed in either hand. One of them started freezing from the inside first like what Nina did, but the other started to freeze from the outside. The demonstration was finished in a couple of seconds and the results were two perfectly frozen spheres of ice. Well... One of them wasn't a sphere though.

The one that froze from the inside had bumps and spikes all over. It looked more like an abominable snowflake while the one that froze from the outside was a sphere.

"Do you get it now?" Idril asked her student. Hopefully, she wouldn't have to give her an explanation in words about why she wants her to freeze the water from the outside.

"It's to maintain its shape," Nina answered. If she froze it from the inside, the ice branching out would cause the water to change shape to match it.

"Yes, but that's not all." Idril dropped the two frozen chunks onto the floor. The spiked one shattered whereas the round one didn't even crack.

"What?" Nina was amazed by this but didn't know why this was the case. She looked up at her teachers waiting for her to explain.

"If you freeze it from the inside, only the core will be hard. The outsides would be quite fragile as it is only partially frozen. Now, if you freeze it from the outside, it is the opposite. As for why that is advantageous, you can see for yourself," Idril pointed at the two ice spheres.

"I see!" It didn't matter if the insides were completely frozen or not. As long as the

"Good. You better start doing it the right way now. I don't want you to pick up the habit of doing it the wrong way."

"Got it," Nina noted it down in her to make sure to not freeze the water from the core first.

"With that out of the way, let me tell you the reason why I'm here today," Idril said, getting back onto topic. The reason for her visit... It was not to check in on her student to see how she was doing... Well, it was partially that, but the main reason why she is here is because of something much more important. "For starters, I should've given this to you right away, but seeing how you're not coughing out blood, it's not urgent or anything."

Idril reached into her pocket and pulled out a vial with a white liquid inside. "Here," she handed it to Nina.

"What is this?" Nina took it and opened it. The smell was very strong and a whiff almost took her out. "Erm..." She looked at Idril, asking the elf what she was supposed to do with this thing.

"Drink it."

"What?"

"You heard me."

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