I wanted to use the first year to master or at least get the basics down of leyline energy or Dragonvein as Tero calls it. I sat under the waterfall and focused and connected with the Dragonvein. I heard the voice again which shortly disappeared. I tried to move the water around me but it was so heavy that it exhausted me after 20 minutes of trying. Maybe I should try something simple and move a small volume. I tried to but the Dragonvein energy got converted into water and the volume ballooned to a point where moving all the water would become too heavy.

I spent a whole day trying to just move the little bit of water but always ended up turning all the leyline energy around me into water and getting exhausted and failing. I stepped away from the water basin. I could create water out of the leyline energy without water being near. I made more movements and I could hold on longer but I got the same problem. It seems I need to do something else. By just doing what I do, I constantly convert leyline energy into water so I need to do something to stop that. I made various movements but nothing seemed to work. I tried disconnecting with the leyline energy to make it stop creating water but it just dropped everything I was moving beforehand so that was not a viable solution. I also noticed that I wasn't physically fit enough for all this.

Even if I could figure it out, it would still feel as if I was physically moving the water around which seemed to be its biggest downside so far. Night fell and I dropped myself into the water basin exhausted. 0 progress was made today but at least I know what movements don't work. Some movements did interesting stuff but I have yet to find out how to stop the constant creation of water. This would be extremely useful in the desert. After leyline energy gets converted into water it stays like that. I don't know yet how to return it back to energy. I came to a realization. Is it possible to control the energy without turning it into water? That would surely be the basics, right? Maybe turning it into water is something a bit more advanced but also easy to do. I decided to try and start with the basics and manipulate only the energy. Maybe it will make controlling water dragon vein better.

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I finally managed to control only the energy on day 7. Apparently, the position my fingers have plays a huge role in what this energy does. Just moving my arms around with my fingers relaxed turns it into water. I managed some wind skills when I completely extended my fingers. Folding my thumbs into my palms allowed me to use just the energy. This energy didn't just work on the movement of my hands and the position of my fingers alone. It seems my whole body decided the outcome of my movements. Just waving my arm had a large difference from waving my hand and stepping in while shifting my balance. It’s as if this is a dance… This made everything way more complex. Using this energy was still exhausting. I didn't have to move the weight of water but it was just all the physical movements.

By day 9 I figured out certain patterns that work between zero element, water element, and wind element ley line. They follow similar movements but it depends all on my fingers. As long as I kept my fingers extended, I could fold my thumb inward and it would still stay wind. Wind is lighter than water so it was easier to practice, it just seemed a bit less responsive to my movements than water. As if it liked to overshoot certain movements. I had to battle against constant muscle aches.

On day 12 I discovered the secret behind this and decided to rest. An example to illustrate, Imagine if I made an ‘S’ movement with my hand. Zero element and water element would follow this ‘S’ neatly, wind would slightly overshoot on the bends. It would still create an S shape but a sloppy one. I let my tails run simulations on this during my rest day. I practiced more on day 13 and the simulation bore fruit. Besides the fatigue, I could control wind and water quite well. There were still inconsistencies in the results of most of my movements but I already corrected for the behavior of wind leyline.

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I practiced till day 18 and then decided to rest for 2 days and run more simulations. Because I was so light I could kind of fly with wind leyline. By doing this I discovered that controlling the leyline with my legs was way more important while airborne. It was even possible to control the wind with only my legs and I could use my arms and upper body for another element. I will try to see if I can do the same with water after my break. I slept for almost the entirety of day 19 and explored some on day 20.

More arrogant jungle dwellers. An enormous boar was trying to steal the mushrooms I collected. I had a long and epic battle against him. I limited myself to only using water leyline. It was exhausting and I took some ugly blows but this thing isn't strong enough to kill me. I am squishy yes but this is more in a mythical beast context, against humans or normal creatures I would probably fall in a toughness range far above the regular human. Then again very strong attacks would still hurt me but an unaugmented boar tackle? I can tank it, not ideal but it won’t put me in danger. Now I wasn't trying to test this out but practicing and actual combat is completely different so I made a lot of mistakes. I could recreate most of the skills that I would use with magic. So [Frozen Ground] and [Water ball] made their appearance again. But instead of being a skill, it’s more a technique.

I have to keep moving and those skills are more a product of something bigger I'm doing. Like I can move a mass of water around and shoot a [Water ball] from it, some water that falls to the floor can then turn into [Frozen Ground] and I will still be moving the mass of water around to defend myself from attacks or use it for some sort of offense. It makes use of both efficient and sloppy use of Dragonvein. So, I will name certain groups of movement techniques because they are quite fluid. There was so much diversity and possibilities that I needed my tails to help me pull this off remotely competently during combat.

Day 30 was a milestone because I only needed 1 tail instead of 8 to pull off complex moves in combat. Another discovery was made during this; I can use leyline energy with 3 different methods that compliment each other, using all 3 is most optimal, 2 will work and 1 will become extremely sloppy or will cause some techniques to become impossible.

The main one I’m using is just sight. I can see the flow of leyline energy with my Elgards eyes, so it’s easy to use this to follow the flow. The second one is by feel. When I connect with leyline energy I can feel it. I’ve been using these 2 predominantly. The third one is one I discovered accidentally. Calculating the flow and the effect my movements will have on its flow to predict what the next best move is. I can only do this with my tails out though. What this means is that I can only draw out maximum potential with my tails and Elgards eyes. The calculations help me finetune my movements which led to a discovery made on day 31. The leylines mostly respond to the movements and position of my joints. It reacting to the orientation of my fingers should have been a dead giveaway but at least now I know for sure. There was one exception though. It reacted also to the movements of my tails, it seemed to think they had infinite joints. This was too complex for me to bother with now but this meant that I could potentially let my tails do all the movements but this sounds like it’s too advanced for me. I refined this until day 40 and then decided to take a week off and explore the jungle some more.