"So, the war is heating up." she said, trying to act calm. As if this was expected. And definitely not problematic. Yes, the king of Merlen taking out a whooping fifty Adepts was definitely within her expectations.

"Perhaps." Gerard said. "The three of us are not the best to ask about this, your grace. This is for the Empires to deal with."

Althea noted his don't-say-anymore look to his comrades. But she had enough to think over without going into what they knew.. The war would heat up, if it continued. There was also a chance it would stop. The new powers and the old powers had both made massive losses. In the end this was not up to her. The county was still tiny before an Empire.

On the other hand, if she could somehow manage the incoming horde of people, she might be able to make up for some of the food losses next year. Liquidating the county's entire store of food should calm the problems now, which meant profit. A lot of profit if the Empires wanted peace.

Yes, she should prepare for war or peace. Even if she had no idea how to do either. Even she would be hard pressed to reach Adept in three years. For the life of her, she did not know how she would pass the Master stage. A stage notorious for stopping geniuses. If there was war, she would have to depend on her support.

Althea knew that the Solerian Empire, as the oldest Empire around, was inclined to the old powers. Not to mention the fact that the old powers drew their legitimacy from the Grandmaster council, making them nominal allies.

But she would rather they just ended the fight. There was little to gain from continuing it.

"The herbs are right here." she said, sensing the water as she waved her hand to harvest them. Mana sank into the river and gently lifted the seaweed-like plant out.

"Is that...alright?" Hei asked. Althea was shocked out of her thoughts by the question, having to spend a second formulating an answer.

"What?"

"Shouldn't the herbs be harvested more carefully?" he asked. “Mana might harm the herbs with how rough it is.

"Mana is gentle." she answered to his dumbfounded look that turned even more doubtful. Why did she get the feeling he wanted to contradict her, just didn't dare to?

"If you haven't “can’t make mana gentle, then it's your fault." she said. "Mana is just a part of nature. If water mana would destroy the herbs just by being itself, then the herbs would not grow in the river bed."

Gerard's brows furrowed. Hei began munching on the herb.

"There is minimal loss of efficacy." he noted.

Althea nodded, and levitated the herb to her, and tried something she had been wanting to for a long time. Absorbing a herb's energy from outside it. Doing so was something technically outside her elements, but if she was right about the way mana worked, it would work. There wasn’t any benefit, but it would look fancy.

Mana followed emotion. Mana from elements especially followed emotions from their respective element. This herb just had a special form of water mana.

'Flow' she said to the mana inside it, using her emotion element. The mana responded to her, but was unable to breakthrough. The herb bulged, like a balloon. Althea gently broke the herb apart from the top.

"Tha-" Hei began to say, and then abruptly stopped.

Mana flowed out from the top, revolving around her. In manipulating it inside the herb, she had made it hers. Althea called it into her core, inviting it inside. A blue light glowed around her as she felt the herb's effect begin.

A river appeared in her mind, flowing through the island. From the mountains it began, flowing down. A roaring beast surging from its source. Fighting, tearing through the rocks as it meandered through the island. The lives on the island tried to drink it. The trees drained it wherever it went. Even the ground refused to give way. But the river was determined. Come trees, rocks or even great beasts, it would not stop.

Water would flow.

The vision ended as Althea felt herself finally breakthrough to Journeyman 7. But it was not done yet, she had to properly understand what she had just seen, absorb it so she could use it in some other revelation.

The struggle of water, it’s determination to flow were both things that she hadn't sensed before. Perhaps it was because she hadn't meditated around a river before, so she hadn't sensed this emotion in mana. That made her wonder if she should go around, traveling the world to actually see and understand the various forms of mana.

"I have not seen that way of eating herbs before." Hei said, a strange tone in his voice that she did not recognize.

"An experiment." she said, not clarifying. The three of them might be her allies now, but they were still from a foreign, possibly hostile force. This kind of information had to remain confidential. Althea could make something useful from it someday.

Hei nodded, not looking convinced. Althea noticed that he had vaulted past two Journeyman stages. Had he noticed something she hadn't? Perhaps she should dwell on the vision some more to see what else there was.

"The Ika is that way." Isa said, pointing up the river towards another source of breakthrough herbs.

"I'd suggest staying off the river bank." Gerard said. "There could be others on it that might attack us."

Althea frowned, wondering if she should look for battles. But that could delay their journey, especially if people noticed Isa's sword. Battling hadn't worked for her before, the fruits had.

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The five of them headed a bit into the forest, and began walking. The scenery was much like before, changing every few hundred meters. Althea tried to sense if there was a difference in mana of her surroundings, if there were some forms that she was missing. There did not seem to be anything worth thinking over. What had Hei noticed from the vision? Why did he cross two stages?

Althea mulled on what she had seen. The river started from the mountains. That could be a revelation, but she already knew that. The river was a runoff from mountains...that grew bigger as more joined. The water could be said to be banding together to flow. The mana certainly seeked out more of its kind.

There was something there, a find perhaps, but it wasn't enough for her to breakthrough. Hei would have an easier time breaking through given that he was just in early Journeyman. Perhaps that was it. But for some reason she felt that it was not the answer.

A blast of mana interrupted her thoughts.

Althea scanned ahead, finding a crack in the earth that had far, far too much mana in it. And was currently the location of a battle.

"The Gorge of Ika is just ahead, and we aren't the only ones there." she said, not stopping.

"How powerful?" Hei asked.

Althea sensed again. "A lot of Apprentice stages, a few Journeyman. The wind blade girl. I can deal with them easily."

"Lady Surich." Gerard stated.

"What?"

"The wind blade girl is Lady Surich. I would recommend calling her that, you grace, for our sakes if not yours. The Surich family has great influence in the Sel Empire."

The Surich family. Althea knew about them. A few Adept stages, none of great note. The family did have a bit of wealth, but it couldn't compare to hers. The family probably was still massive to non-core disciples of the Elemental sect though. Lady Surich had to be the third most important participant, after the Crown prince of Zun and Althea herself.

"I shall try." she said, walking towards the edge of the gorge.

The battle stopped as they turned towards her, sensing her mana cover the gorge. The wind blade gi-Lady Surich, sighed.

"I only need five flowers." Althea stated, looking down at the gorge..

The wind blade girl looked at the person she was fighting. "I am not fighting her."

The opponent, a pretty looking boy wearing the uniform of the Solmer Confederacy, looked at her and frowned. "Five flowers are acceptable."

Althea nodded and levitated an entire plant, with five flowers, to her. And then walked back to the forest, her companions following her.

"I was polite." she stated.

Gerard looked at her doubtfully. "I suppose that was better than a fight."

Althea shook her head at him.

"How are you going to gain anything if you do not fight for it?"

Gerard just looked at her. "In times like these, your grace, we do not gain anything. The Surich family would kill us if we dared to harm their precious daughter, and the Elemental sect would not protect us."

Althea pursed her lips, observing the flower.

"Perhaps you should go to a faction that values you then. A faction that wouldn’t even protect you is not worth serving loyally."

Gerard just made a noise and took a flower. Althea turned back to observing the flower, sure he was badmouthing her in his head.

Absorbing mana from the flower would be harder. Earth mana did not flow. No, it was still. Not at all like this flower, which moved with the slightest wind..

An idea occurred to her as she threw the flower into the air, and then pushed the mana inside it to be still. This time, the mana broke free without needing any other help from her, just remaining there, like a rock in the air as the flower broke around it. Nurturing its surroundings indeed..

Althea stepped into it and called on the mana.

The mana answered. A vision appeared in front of her, the earth splitting apart as plants and animals died. The entire gorge was littered with dead lifeforms, littering the ground as the earth that had supported them had moved away. The vision was so abrupt that it nearly pushed her out of the vision. But she held it in.

As time passed, the plants and animals decomposed. Turning into soil once more. Then new plants grew from there, and animals feasted on them. During the rain the water came, trying to take the soil away as it flowed, but the plants held on.

The Earth endured. What it took, it gave back. The Earth was an observer, it traveled through time in its own cycle. For it, a hundred years was but a blink of an eye. The lives of shorter lived species were but blips at the edges of its consciousness. A century could pass before the Earth paid attention to them again.

Althea felt herself breaking through to Journeyman 8, this time needing to understand her breakthrough before it took place.

There was a relation between the water's flow and the Earth's stillness here. The two were opposed to each other. If the water wanted to flow, it had to go through Earth that only wanted to be still. If the Earth wanted to be still, it had to oppose the Water that wanted to flow.

Perhaps that was why they were called opposing elements in magic here instead of water and fire that Althea had heard of more.

If that was the case, then air and fire could be considered opposing too.

Althea sat down, clinging onto her discovery, aware that it could be monumental to her progress, somehow.

The air wanted to be free. The fire wanted to consume. The image of fire consuming air as it tried to runaway appeared before her eyes as she used her imagination.

When the air won, the fire was extinguished. When the fire won, the air was consumed and it grew larger.

That was the opposition of air and fire.

But how did air relate to water, and to earth? The Earth needed the air if it wanted to nurture. The nitrogen in the air, and all that. But the air also wanted to flow. There was opposition and companionship there too.

In fact, there was that in fire and air too. The fier needed the air to burn. The air...did the air need fire? No, it needed water. Was the air not related to fire at all then? No wait, the air was heated by the fire. And heat produced reactions. What did reactions do? Were they vital to air? Did they have any relation at all to mana?

Althea felt herself hovering on the border of Journeyman 9, but unable to grasp it. There was a relation between air and fire. There had to be.

What was it?

There were reactions in the air, storms caused by hot air going up and forming clouds. Was that a part of fire?

Althea sensed at mana. Fire, the physical thing, did not have heat as its intrinsic property. Heat was a reactant or something. But fire the mana did have heat as a property. Yes, wherever there was heat, fire mana would follow it.

Or more accurately, pure mana was given the fire affinity by heat as well fire. Even light could turn it into fire mana, it just turned it into light elemented mana in much greater quantity.

The information she was receiving just from observing a patch of the forest here was immense. Mana swirled around her as she was pushed into Journeyman 9. But Althea still felt incomplete. That much might be enough for her to breakthrough, but there was so much she did not understand. So much for her to find out.

How was air related to fire? Was it just the reactions? Yes, she had to find time and figure that out.

If she did, then maybe, just maybe, she could directly break through to the Master stage. And that would make an immense difference in the Human Cup. not to mention make her the youngest person to breakthrough to the Master stage in this millennium. At least in the Northern Continent.