Who was expecting his element to be lightning before now, honestly I couldn't decide so I took a personality quiz from buzzfeed and got 65 percent lightning,
20 percent light, 10 percent wind and 5 percent fire, interesting. Also, integrating the element of lightning has some... We'll say effects on a person. Anyways, please read and review
I awoke on the mountain that I began the trials on, lightnign coursing through my body, lashing out at everything nearby. Then it calmed, returning to a buzzing sensation in my blood, and I knew that this power was my own. I noticed Pyra a few meters away, backing up because of the lightning storm.
I realized my eyes were still closed, and my senses were greatly enhanced, I could sense the energy around me, like a second sight. I pulled in the power I was letting out and opened my eyes. Pyra walked towards me and said "I think it worked?"
I grinned widely and said "Yes it did." I held out my hand and golden lightning jumped between my fingertips like a tesla globe.
We trekked back through the snowy landscape, unlike last time I was energized, messing around with jumping lightning between my fingers.
*Line Break*
We were back in the wilderness, and I was telling Pyra about the trial "So then I had to fight him for real, and I lost, but apparently I can rechallenge him later." Pyra looked a bit overwhelmed "Ryse, slow down, I know your talkative right now, but let me make sure of a few things. So you had to fight a version of yourself as a blade?" I nodded rapidly "And what was his weapon?" "It wasn't one weapon, but he controlled a bunch of flying swords." Pyra looked thoughtful for a second, "I've never seen a weapon type like it, the closest thing I could think of would be a bitball, but that's a ball and you only control one."
"Anyways, since you don't have your own weapon, you can keep using mine. Now, we know your element is lightning, do you have a sub element?"
"I don't remember being told, but it's light." Pyra flinched, surprise and a small amount of fear crossing her face. She composed herself quickly though and said "That's... a very rare element, I've only seen one primary light element, and I can count the number of light sub element blades on two hands." I personally thought that was very cool, having the rarest element as my sub element.
"So how do I train my lightning element? And what about the fighting style?"
"Do you remember those books we bought earlier in Torigoth?" I nodded "Most of those are driver handbooks and such, but there is one that could be useful." She rummaged through the backpack, eventually pulling out a dusty leatherbound book with gold slivers and a symbol of the elements on the front, the title was written in silver and read "The 8 Elements of Alrest" Pyra blew the dust off and then handed it to me. I began to read
Introduction
There are 8 elements that make up Alrest, Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Ice, Lightning, Dark, and Light. Blades will naturally harness these elements, Drivers can sometimes learn to use them through a forgotten ritual. These elements together form Ether, which makes up all the energy in Alrest. Each elemental Ether contains certain values and abilities, some well known ones include Fire Ether's tendancy towards anger, although they do not always emulate these values... For details on Fire Ether, turn to page 6, for details on Water Ether, turn to page 21, for details on Wind Ether, turn to page 36, for details on Earth Ether, turn to page 51, for details on Ice Ether, turn to page 66, for details on Lightning Ether, turn to page 81, for details on Dark Ether turn to page 96, for details on Light Ether, turn to page 111...
I turned to page 81 and began to read
Lightning Ether
Lightning is the element of chaos, it is the hardest element to control due to it fundamentally having a mind of it's own. It is the opposite element of Ice, it's complementary elements are Light and Fire. Those who harness Lightning Ether will be curious, intelligent, and unpredictible, they also have a lack of patience and a short attention span. Blades of this element tend to use Bitballs or Ether Cannons, and are usually attackers and healers, rarely tanks. They are known for their potential as glass cannons incredibly powerful and fast, but cannot take a hit.
I looked up from the book for a moment to contemplate, this would explain why I felt so gittery and hyperactive, it was the lightning ether coursing through my body. I relayed this information to Pyra before I turned to the next page, which was on training an affinity for lightning.
In order to learn to train your lightning affinity, you must first already have a connection with the element, there are several ways to gain one, but all are too complicated for this book. Once you have an affinity, it will be raw and very difficult to use, there are two ways to procede. First, you can attempt to master the Ether, preventing it from influencing your actions at all, letting you shape the lightning with perfect control so long as you keep focus. This allows you to use advanced techniques such as controlling technologies using their circuits, or even levitation. The other option is to do the opposite, and let the energy control you rather than the other way around, this is much more difficult and causes wild bursts and random acts of energy but allows for more powerful lightning, intense speeds, and even converting your body into pure ether...
I closed the book relaying the information I learned to Pyra. I decided that the second way of learning to manipulate lightning would be the best, I saw what my doppelganger could do, and knew that was the best way. So I began to learn the new style from Pyra.
"First things first, before we even start on the actual style, you need to learn how to make an Ether Shield, it is the most simple ether technique so it shouldn't be too hard to pick up. You just need to use the Ether in the air to form a sheet in front of you, the thicker the sheet, the stronger the Ether Shield."
"Ok, let me try it." I said, I closed my eyes and put my hand in front of me, and used the new sense I had to find the blue-green swirling energy around me and gathered it in front of me. I heard a crackling humming noise coming from in front of me. I opened my eyes and saw a square shield in front of my hands. When I put my hands down it disappeared into whisps of turquoise that vanished soon after.
"Alright, thats cool." I did it again, faster this time and it took almost no effort. Pyra shot a fireball at me, and I summoned a shield, I grunted, maintaining the shield took a lot of energy, but creating it was really easy.
"Ok, thats a good start, but that structure of shield is incredibly inefficent, your creating a solid square in front of you, first of all, you should never make a square shield because most decently powerful attacks will just continue around and hit you anyways. It's better to create a half sphere, which only consumes slightly more power."
She demonstrated and I copied her, noting that it really was a lot better.
"The other thing is that a solid shield is incredibly powerful, more powerful than you would really need for most attacks, it's better to use a bunch of interlocking shapes, I use hexagons because they are the most efficent and one of the strongest, but triangles are another good option."
I tried her tips, creating a hexagonal half sphere shield around me, she launched another fireball and this shield cost hardly any energy compared to last time.
We spent the rest of the week practicing the new style, I even came up with some new arts.
Vanguard Arts (Ryse):
Tempest Slash: Break/Front Damage Up: Electrify your sword before taking a powerful swing that stuns opponents, especially if it hits them in the front
Fulminus Cannon: Topple/Knockback: Fire a lightning blast that explodes on impact
Dissonance Wave: Blowdown/AoE Circle: Launch a wave of energy that sends opponents flying
Switch Art: Paralyzing Palm: Stun/Break: Hit the opponent releasing lightning into their body, paralyzing them
Rearguard Arts (Ryse):
Lightning Armor: Speed Up/Machine Up: Channel lightning into your ally, allowing them to move and attack faster
Chain Lightning: AoE Chain/Pierce/Defence Down: Shoot a bouncing bolt a lightning that exposes weak spots of enemies
Purge Ether: Remove Debuffs: Your allies debuffs are removed
Vanguard Arts (Pyra):
Flare Smash: Smash/Knockback: Deal a powerful blow that smashes enemies down and sends them flying
Burning Cutter: Aoe Front/Break Up: Launches a sword made of fire at opponents
Magma Upheaval: AoE Circle/Launch: Lava blasts upwards all around you, launching enemies flying upwards and dealing high damage
Switch Art: Explosive Slam: Topple Up/Low HP Up; An explosive attack from above that deals more damage to toppled enemies
Rearguard Arts (Pyra):
Purifying Flames: Clear Buffs: Releases fire that removes buffs from opponents
Blazing Resolve: Increase Damage/Low HP Up: Motivates allies to fight harder the closer they are to defeat
Heat Haze: Attack Down/Lower Aggro: Summons a hot mist that makes enemies unable to focus
New longest chapter, nice, sorry for the art wall, anyways Read and Review