“Welcome, welcome, gentlemehn and gentlefrhei!” bellowed Professor William, slapping the back of a statue so hard that it broke off and fell to the floor.

“Oops,” he said, floating the stone back up to affix it to the bust. “The fifty-sixth time this has happened, haha.”

Elwin and his kismets recalled Professor William’s grueling first session from the beginning of the school year, before they chose their Tanaar. They had spent two-and-a-half hours back then. But with his Quan forged, having survived the ordeal of three days and three nights, Elwin was prepared to take on whatever the Master of Earth threw at him – this time, he and each sat behind a wide table, each laden with three pebbles of different colors, and a larger stone in the center. They were deep within the ziggurat – but contrary to their impression of metal outside, the structure of the spacious lecture hall was given shape by wood, angular and elegant, bathed in soft amber by the rays of the afternoon that shone through many sunvents above and to the sides.

“No time to waste! Let’s dive right in while your memories are fresh. Who here can recall from Quanmaster Montgomery on how different Atomions are classified?”

Elwin and Mirai raised their hands proudly, and so did Lucian. Lucian glared at them both, giving a stare of death to Elwin.

“Ms. Mirai.”

“Atomions are classified by their voices, or tunes. That’s why Alexander Kosmogorov put the suffix of ‘-ton’ after their names, from ‘tonus.’”

“An answer more detailed than I expected,” praised Professor William, much to Lucian’s wordless dissatisfaction.

“Good! Back then, you’ve had practice feeling and grasping the tunes played by different Atomions of metal – such as iron, copper, and alusiton, even though you could not recreate melodies of those more complicated than iron. Thankfully, most of the earth around us and below us are composed of Atomions with far simpler tunes. SO!” he clapped his hands together, making the Fradihta jump out of their seats, “you will take your hands on recognizing and moving these simple pieces of earth. Remain standing!”

Elwin straightened himself up and found composure, glancing at his Quan.

Ready to do this?

You bet, it replied.

“What you shall be introduced today is Melody of the Grains. This will occupy you until next spring. In the Art of Earth – Gurunmastra – the Melody of the Grains is the simplest yet most vital to the craft. Until now, you would have controlled earth with unconscious intuition. You would have felt that some solids are more difficult to move or transform than others. There is a reason why. I need one volunteer!”

Katherine and Mirai shot up their hand, but affirming Mirai’s dedication, let her take the spotlight.

“Ms. Mirai, step forward.”

“Yes, sir.”

She strode forward to the very front of that demonstrational hall inside the ziggurat. A long sinuous sunbeam from above illuminated both the professor and the Arten, before them a cube of lustrous metal, and a cube of dark-colored stone, both the same size.

“Is your Maht Gurun?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now, I want you to hover this cube of metal, and rotate it mid-air.”

Mirai did it easily.

“Now, I want you to hover this cube of rock, and rotate it mid-air.”

She put her Quan to it and tugged upon it at a distance, but her expression quickly broke into a silent frown. She tried it again, and tugged it up, only for the cube of rock to take to the air with a wobble, clumsily, as if it was teetering on the edge of slipping from her grasp. She tried to rotate it mid-air, but from her expression it was evident: it wasn’t possible.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. This isn’t an exam, only a demonstration. Now then, would anyone else like to try?”

A huge boy with a spiky hair of brown stood up behind Elwin. He stood as tall as Lucian. “I would like to try, Professor.”

“Ah, Mr. Khan. Yes, you are welcome to come to the front.”

The earth quaked with his march. Elwin was sure Khan walked that way on purpose.

“Ready when you are.”

Khan readily hovered and rotated the cube of metal mid-air with bravado, even moving it in various directions. But when it came to the cube of rock, his expression quickly changed. He tried to hover it, and hover it, but there was no finesse, no confidence, in the way the cube of rock rose and tumbled in the air.

“Anybody else?”

Elwin wanted to try his hand, but he did not raise it fast enough.

“Allow me,” said Lucian, rising swiftly to his feet, cracking his fingers. Without waiting for Professor William’s acknowledgement, he strode forward, displacing Mirai and Khan as if they weren’t even there.

Lucian rotated the metal cube with dexterity that far exceeded the two before him, even though his Maht was Mashur. He then turned his attention to the cube of black rock, and managed to hover it without a problem, but his eyebrows furrowed in dissatisfaction as he tried to rotate the cube. Though he managed to rotate it once, twice, and on different axes, it seemed to teeter as if to fall out of the sky, once almost dropping just inches above the table. Still, he controlled it the best out of the three.

The crowd murmured in a soft hush of wows.

“I’m impressed, Mr. Lucian. You may let it go now,” remarked Professor William. The cube of black rock fell with a thunk to the table below. “The point of this demonstration is to elucidate that no two solids are the same, even though they both come from the earth.”

Professor William snapped his fingers, and the cube of rock divided neatly in two with a sharp crunch. With a single motion of his two fingers, he sliced off a leaflet from the divided stone too thin to see, and hovered it in front of a photogram projector. The wall splashed to life in a prismatic display of colors. Numerous shards, specks, flecks, and grains of crystal, all of different dimensions and hue, were nestled in that microscopic dwelling of sliced-off stone, seeming to jostle for space above and below each other.

“This rock is called basalt. It has been hewn from the Sacred Mountain itself. All the shards and specks of crystal you see are made up of different Atomions. Some are made of a combination of iron and siliciton, some with magniton and siliciton, and many others with a plethora more. Because there are so many different Atomions present in basalt, all playing different tunes, it is difficult for us to reproduce a melody which allows us to control it. Do you see the point?”

Katherine began to nod. Elwin still needed a little more explanation.

“On the other hand, this cube of metal is made of pure alusiton. Because it is composed almost entirely of a single type of atom, it sings just one tune. All we need to do is reproduce that one single tune to control it. This is easier for us.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Professor William’s explanation rang like a clarion bell. The more types of atoms there were in an object, the more difficult it was to manipulate, and the fewer, the easier. Something that Leonardo had said back at The Marlin surfaced to his memory:

‘Yep, the plates are ceramic. A little more inconvenient of a melody to deal with than pure metal, but I can haul them just fine,’ Leonardo had remarked.

Basalt was made up of so many different Atomions! So that was why everyone at the front had some challenge trying to hover the basalt, but not the pure metal!

“You can return to your tables now,” announced Professor William, waiting for the volunteers to ready at their desks. He turned and declared.

“When matter is arranged into a fixed shape and volume, it becomes what we call a solid – one of the four fundamental states of matter. This is what the FOUNDERS TERA and SERA called ‘earth.’”

“In a solid, many atoms are fixed in place, and are closely packed together. Because of this nature, solids respond best to that which we call ‘melody’ – a series of tunes that can resonate through the material to call the atoms within.”

“So to control an object, we just need to know what melody it wants us to play?”

“Yes. But finding that melody to play is the hard part. You can guess as to why, correct?”

“Because you need to know which Atomions are there, and know its tunes, and combine them together?” said Lucian, butting in.

“Absolutely on the mark. Well understood,” praised Professor William.

“But how do we play this melody? It’s not like we sing to the metal and earth,” asked Katherine, eager to not be left in the dust.

“You pound the melody into the solid through the carriage of your thoughts,” explained the professor. “In Quanmaster Montgomery’s class, you would have learned to recognize the tunes of metals to identify what they were. Now, with the Melody of the Grains, you will learn to recognize the tunes of various simple Atomions that make up the earth, and learn to combine them into various melodies. You will find that when you do, your Quan will hum the melody along with you.”

Whew, that was a lot for Elwin to take in. Speaking of drinking from a fire-hose, Leonardo. It didn’t end at forging the Quan!

“We shall begin easy today. In front of you are three types of pebbles. They are made of mostly the same materials, with one exception: one Atomion is different for each of the three. Your task is to distinguish the tune of those different Atomions.”

And exactly how? Elwin asked himself.

“Command your Quans, and state, MAIOR FORTIOR!”

“MAIOR FORTIOR!” the Fradihta yelled together, as some one-hundred-and-sixty Quans blazed to life once again, there call to arms vibrating the walls and lecterns of the interior.

Everyone next to Elwin started busily feeling this way and that with their Quans, closing their eyes. He remembered what he did back then in the Quanmaster’s class, and closed his eyes too, feeling for the tunes sung by the three pebbles in front of him.

As the world faded to black, he heard – or rather, felt the impact of several tunes hitting him at once – high and shrill, low and grumbly, monotonously long, and startlingly brief. The different Atomions all repeated their tunes in less than fractions of a second, playing notes of various pitches so quickly that he found each of them difficult to discern, let alone isolate them to form a melody himself. It was nothing like discerning the tunes of pure metals.

Elwin opened his eyes, and to his dismay, already found half the hall nodding their heads as if they’d discovered what they were looking for.

He closed his eyes, sweat on his brow, and called his Quan.

Come on, help me, help me find what’s different!

But it only made the tunes louder and confusing to his head. What was it doing?

“Good! I see that most of you have isolated the correct tunes,” announced Professor William, making Elwin gasp in horror. Was he the last one out?

He turned his head to see Mirai already hovering the three pebbles all at once, her Quan seeming to buzz with alternating hums. He looked to his right and saw Katherine hovering three pebbles, with the last one a bit wobbly – and to his back, saw Isaac in master of two pebbles already, although his Maht was Ayu.

Come on! Help me do this thing!

Elwin desperately grasped what seemed like a tune of high-pitched notes, and repeated it in his mind, letting it carry to his Quan. Although the pebble on the left rose briefly, it fell as soon as Elwin was interrupted by Professor William’s next declaration.

“Most excellent,” he praised the Fradihta. “Now that you have isolated the tunes, try combining them together. With that new melody, you will be able to lift the fourth rock in the center.”

Elwin glanced at Mirai, who in a fraction of a second had lifted the rock in the center, followed closely by Katherine, and Isaac a minute later.

No! What’s happening to me? Why am I so bad at this? Come on, help me, help me, my Quan! he cajoled in distress.

I’m trying! I’m trying! Here, hear these. Trial and error. Let’s do trial and error!

Elwin’s Quan attempted its best to make the tunes distinct, but it could only go so far. A Quan could amplify the skills the wielder already knew and had, but it couldn’t give them an ability or affinity that they’ve yet to acquire.

“Mr. Elwin, need a hand?” asked Professor William, towering beside him, seeing the poor Fradihta who’d only managed to hover a single pebble in half an hour.

“Uhm, I – I’m trying to –” stammered Elwin, when a disheartening realization crushed his head. He never took or passed the Maht Examination back at the capital. He was admitted to Aeternitas for his virtuous action instead, trying to selflessly rescue the medicines for Isaac's father. But would that rationale be enough for him here? To survive? Did the secret benefactor help him in spite of his mediocre aptitude?

“Relax your nerves,” assured Professor William. “Do you hear a tune that drones in a flat line in the background?”

“Yes,” Elwin replied.

“Good. That is what we call a baseline tune. It is shared by the Atomions common to all three pebbles, so you can safely ignore that one. Block it out of your head.”

Elwin did, with some groaning and difficulty, sweat forming upon his brow.

“Now then, do you hear the tune that drops and rises like a wave?”

“Yes.”

“Try isolating it. It swooshes and falls, then swooshes again. Repeat the notes with me. Swoosh, fall, swoosh.”

“Swoosh, fall, swoosh.”

“Good. Now then, impress that tune upon your Quan. Make it sing just like you did.”

Okay, okay, swoosh, fall, swoosh again. Swoosh, fall, swoosh again!

And slowly, the pebble to his right began to rise.

“Don’t lose focus! Hold it. Now, the second tune. There must be a note that plays extremely briefly, almost like a pulse. It has the shrill of a needle. Do you hear that one?”

Elwin curtained away the cacophony of noises in his head, and made out a faint but distinct ping-ping-ping that rang behind the background.

“I hear it!”

“Then repeat it, just as fast to your Quan.”

Elwin relayed the notes of his thoughts, and his Quan eagerly pulsed, pulsed, and pulsed, vibrating the air. The pebble to his left began to rise.

“Good, now, the final tune. There must be a series of notes that rumble beyond those you’ve found, almost like a volcano about to erupt, or an animal growling at you. It’s a persistent ‘grr,’ lower than the baseline tune you’ve removed. Can you hear it?”

Elwin grimaced as he reached and reached into the depths of his mind, kicking and shearing away the other tunes that confused him. And finally, after some three minutes of searching, it was there – a grumble so low that its line seemed to oscillate.

“I found it!”

“Hum it. Hum it to your Quan!”

And as Elwin did, the final pebble began to rise in the center.

“Most excellent. Now, combine all three tunes together into a single melody, and raise the rock that possesses all three Atomions!”

Okay. A low grr. Repeat that. Grr. Then the ping-ping-ping, faster, faster, very briefly. What was the first one? Swoosh-fall-and-what? What was the first one? The other two tunes he held in his head began to dissipate. Oh, come on! Quan, do you remember?

It was swoosh-fall-swoosh!

Thank the MAHA, yes, it was that one. Swoosh-fall-swoosh, and swoosh-fall-swoosh, then ping-ping-ping, then – the tunes that he should have weaved began to fall out of melody with one another. Come on, come on, how do I combine the grumbling grr with all this? Is it even possible? Please, all my friends can do it, come on, work, you useless brain! Come on!

But it was too much, and the tunes twisted into a cacophonous melody. He imparted it to his Quan, but the rock he was told to hover rested relaxedly as ever on his table. Lucian and the others shook their heads in silent displeasure, shooting glances at the kismets who had accepted Elwin in their midst.

The class bell gave off a shrill cry.

“You tried well,” consoled Professor William, patting his back. “But I do recommend further practice with these pebbles. Here, take them home. Make sure to rise through this first exercise – it’s the easiest of what we will be doing, after all.”

THE EASIEST?

THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE EASIEST?

Elwin sputtered in his head, absolutely flabbergasted. He had planned to breeze through the foundational forms so that he could focus himself on the Epitomic Forms, but what met him was crushing reality. He had placed so great an emphasis on his curiosity and willingness to learn that he had failed to realize that those things weren’t what performed the feats of the Arts.

He’d overestimated himself. Forget the Melody of the Two Earths; he couldn’t even perform the simplest exercise in the Melody of the Grains!

He drooped his head, placing the pebbles in his knapsack, dread filling his heart at what would come next, because the next class in line was Professor Helen’s – Fire, the literal opposite of his Maht.