The Training Begins

"So. To get started, do you remember what it felt like when you summoned?" Ryu asked Shu and Yuki.

"Yes," Yuki responded.

"Kind of. Not all the way, though. It was mainly just a reaction. I'm not sure if I can replicate it, but I can try," Shu said somewhat hesitantly. 

"Okay. Let's first try to summon small amounts of your elements. Yuki, just create a small ball of fire or a simple flame in your hand. Shu, try to summon even a drop of water," Ryu instructed, looking at Shu with hope.

Yuki immediately got a flame to form, but couldn't quite get it to shape into a ball quite yet. She tried to force the flame to be condensed into a ball to no avail. 

Shu, on the other hand, was really struggling. He wasn't able to get a single drop of water to form.

"Here. Let me give you some advice that worked for me. Don't try to force it. You should try to look inside yourself and feel the fluid motion of the energy within you. Then, once you do that, try to use that energy as a magnet to draw the moisture in from the air around you, either gathering in your palm or dripping off of your finger," Aiko holds out her hand and makes water gather in her palm. "Remember. You are not creating it. You are simply guiding the water that was already there."

"Okay. I'll try it," Shu gives a nod of his head. 

He closes his eyes and focuses. After a bit of searching, he finally locates the flow of energy. Instead of trying to create water, he thinks of taking the water out of the air around him. A drop of water grows slowly on the tip of his finger until it drips off, seemingly falling in slow motion. And then the water stops.

"I can't do anymore. It's like it's avoiding me," Shu looks disappointed.

Ryu contemplates for a moment and looks over at Aiko. "Maybe we can just have you work on manipulating the water instead of drawing it from the air for now. Aiko. Can you give him some water to work with?" 

Aiko makes a big bowl out of her light and fills it with water. "Here," She places the bowl in front of Shu.

"Here we go," Shu concentrates on the water and puts his hands out toward it. He slowly lifts his hands, and the water comes out as well. He lifts his hands further until the blob of water is level with his chest. Once Shu is confident that the water won't fall, he starts moving it around some more. 

After a little while of playing with the water, he tries to make it into an orb. It takes a decent amount of coaxing, but eventually, he gets the water into a somewhat spherical mass. After a tad bit more experimenting, he gets it to be a near-perfect sphere. He then makes a triangular pyramid, and after that, a cube. He split the water in half and made them both into spheres. He then tried changing one into a pyramid and succeeded at that, but the sphere was back to being a blob.

Yuki saw what he was doing and tried to shape her fire into something other than a ball. After a short period, she found that it was nearly impossible for her to do. 

Ryu saw what she was trying to do and explained that fire doesn't quite work the same way. Fire clings to other things typically, rather than taking its own shape. The only examples of people shaping the fire itself are fireballs. He explains that any time she's seen him with a weapon that looked like it was made of fire, it was really just a normal weapon covered in fire. 

Yuki was slightly disappointed but got over it quickly as she realized how useful it could be even if its utility dropped because of that. 

Quickly after, Ryu remembered something and explained it to Yuki as well. Fire is essentially a living being. It needs nearly everything we need. Fuel, air, and protection from harsh weather. Fire can take shape on its own, which always ends up being an animal of sorts. This typically happens when you aren't fully controlling the fire, but are still giving it your mana. Mana allows the fire to become truly sentient, and the mana dictates what animal will appear. Some people's mana forms a phoenix, while others form a wolf. When Ryu does this, his is a serpent.

He goes on to explain that most of the time, this happens by accident, and is very difficult to achieve purposefully because normally when one relinquishes control of the fire, the mana being fed to the fire normally stops, so it remains a normal flame. 

Shu was listening in on Yuki and Ryu's conversation, which gave him the idea to make weapons out of the water. Shu takes a knife out of his boot and examines it. He held it in his left hand, while he tried to copy its form with the water using his right. He got the shape nearly perfect after only about a minute of fiddling with it. He put his knife back and tried to grab hold of the water one he just made. His hand went right through it, making him have to re-form the knife. This time, he tried hardening the surface of it. It worked, to his surprise, but required a massive amount of concentration to the point of which he had tunnel vision. He could only focus on the hardness of the knife, otherwise it would warp again. He practiced giving slightly more attention to something else at the same time until the knife deformed again. Each time, he was able to give the knife less attention, but he still had terrible tunnel vision. 

For the rest of the day, Shu worked on the tunnel vision, while Yuki worked on cloaking her weapons in flames.