Chapter 7: Eartbending... or not(2)

[The next day, the front of the lion-turtle]

[Third POV]

Solon is currently standing in front of the gigantic creature's head looking directly at it

"You want the power of the earth? Why is that?"

"I wish to learn every piece of knowledge I can from this settlement, before I go and visit the rest of the lion-turtles."

"Very well, the power of the earth is yours to keep permanently." answers the lion-turtle and dives under the sand once again

"I am thankful for your help."

"Oi you brat, come over here and get on." shouts Bumi as he gets on the sand-sailer that the will use to travel.

After getting on, Solon asks Bumi

"Where are we going?"

"The forest, to hunt."

"Hunt? Why"

"Because I can teach you how to use the power of the earth, while getting dinner at the same time."

"Fair enough."

"Meanwhile I will be teaching you some theory about the power. Everything, we have figured out until now that is."

"I can't wait."

"Shut up and let me explain. First of all, The power of the earth is one of the powers that we humans can use to fight against the spirits. It allows us to control earth through our movement. The other powers are fire, wind and water, each with it's own characteristics that set it apart. Each attribute of power is directly conected to one lion-turtle setlement that house a lot of people and have a different culture." Bumi stop to think about his words.

"The power of the earth is one of the most diverse elements among them with only water being able to stand up to it. That is because although it has a common form that hunters use, you can if you want to develop your personal way to use the earth. Some examples are to use it through the legs like most people, through the hands or thrrough the muscles directly. You can even fuse these styles to create a style where any kind of move no matter how insignificant can use the power of the earth. However you must be aware that most people that use it, use brute force to face their opponents"

"One disadvantage of this power is that people are overly depended to the earth. If there is nothing bendable around, most people are as weak as a normal human. That's the reason the users train their body extensively and avoid places where there is nothing to bend. This weakness is also shared with the power of water, but unlike those people we can't exactly carry a flask of rocks around to bend."

"Why don't you carry a gourd of sand on your backs? You can use that instead." asks Solon clearly confused about it.

"You know what? You are right, I never thought of that before. Damn kid you have some nice ideas." comments Bumi after thinking about it for a while.

"We are here kid, the forest we met you. This will be your training ground for the foreseeable future. Let's start your lessons." says Bumi as he heads inside the forest.

"Yes. Let's do this." comments Solon as he follows

[10 minutes later]

Two grown men stand face to face with serious faces. Sudenly the older of the two moves his foot a little bit forward.

With that move a bunch of slender stone spikes with flat tips raise from the ground and shoot towards Solon.

He immediately braces for impact and tries to break the stones by using the power of the earth. Of course, his try failed leading to the spikes hitting him directly in the face and chest pushing him a meter backwards.

(A/N Even if he is a low-level spirit energy-wise his body is extremely strong even in spirit standards. But in the end of the day he is still young.)

"I must say that your body's strength is monstrous. No wonder you managed to survive in the middle of wilderness without the power of an element." he said as he started throwing spikes at Solon once again.

Solon continued to try and break the stones with the power of the earth and continued to fail, getting new bruises and being pushed back until his back was against a tree.

'BREAK, DAMN IT' he screamed in his mind when he saw another spike coming his way.

As if the world itself heard his shout the spike exploded before it hit him. Seeing that Bumi stopped throwing stones at Solon and said with a smile.

"Congratulations, you finally used the power of the earth." unaware that Solon was unable to hear him since his brain was getting overloaded with information about the earth itself.

A second later Solon fainted due to the overload and exhaustion.

[Two hours later]

[Solon POV]

I slowly open my eyes feeling like I got him by a meteorite. Despite that my head felt lighter than before.

"How do you feel?" I turn around and look at Bumi roasting a pice of mean in a campfire made from rocks.

"Like a lion-turtle fell on top of me."

He started laughing.

"That is an interesting way to put it. Now that you are finally able to use the power of the earth you will be training accordingly."

"Accordingly?"

"Yes, I noticed that although your body is extremely resilient and agile, your strength and stamina is bad, even if it goes beyond a normal human. So you will be training your body during the morning, the power of earth during the noon, theory during the evening and the rest of the day and night will be free time for you to rest and train on your own."

"Isn't that excessive?"

"No, this will help you gain resistance to tiredness, you can exactly stop in the middle of a fight and go to sleep just because you got tired. So your sleep hours will be reduced as time passes to get used to the fatigue."

"I see, when do we start?"

"Right now, get up, eat something quickly and we are leaving for training."

~~~~~~~~{Chapter end}~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~