Adam stared, dumbfounded at the aftermath of the small gale he sent out. He looked at his arm then at the beaming Cathryn. “How did I do that?”
Adam knew that it was surely because he was able to control some spirit essence and whipped it into that gale, but he had no idea how he managed to do it. He was so concentrated on his memories and bringing those emotions to life that he did not sense anything going on with the spirit essence around him. It would be very similar to when he fought that dragon and had no idea how he sped up so fast!
Cathryn beamed with a knowing smile as she said: “I am pretty sure I know what happened. This formation should have been created when you were speeding at that dragon to save Clayton. Your desire to save him was so intense and strong that you subconsciously formed a way to get to his side faster! I am not familiar with the way you set up spirit formations so I am unable to tell just what it is your spirit formation is trying to accomplish or how exactly you formed it.”
Adam digested what Cathryn told him. “But don't I need to use music to do anything with spirit essence? I did not hear anything unusual while I was recollecting those memories, unless you heard me muttering a song under my breath without my own notice?”
Cathryn shook her head. “No you weren't. I think this is something more fundamental to all spiritualists, though. Intense emotions, even in regular people, can bring out miraculous abilities in a person. A father could become stronger than he normally is to save his child for instance. Even for spiritualist these emotions can empower and strengthen their spirit formation! But there is a downside. With these intense emotions it becomes harder to control spirit essence and you could loose complete control of your formation and have it back fire on you! I suspect that with your emotions you can some how create the spirit formation with just you subconscious playing a tune for you without having to play a real instrument! If we can figure out how your subconscious does this, you may no longer have to rely on your flute!”
A rush of excitement fluttered in Adam's stomach before he started to calm himself down. He asked: “How do we go about this?”
“As always, you can only take the long way around. The only thing I can think of is for you to constantly conjure up those memories and emotions and try to keep them as raw and as powerful as you can. As you go through the memory, you need to try and feel out around your soul. If you are creating a formation, you should at least feel a connection with it. From there, you will have to try and comprehend the formation and just how you might be forming it.” Cathryn responded.
Adam gave a sigh. “Why does it have to be so troublesome?” He thought. If doing this reached their desired result, however, it would be worth all the trouble.
Cathryn then said. “If you want, you can try a few times and I can lightly inspect your soul to see if there is anything extra I can glean.”
Adam nodded his head in response and started the process Cathryn had given him from the beginning again. As he did so, Cathryn lightly put her fingers on his temples and closed her eyes to try and sense the spirit essence in his soul. The only thing Cathryn was able to tell was that Adam's soul became more and more active as he progressed through his memory. It became wild and powerful at the moment that Adam cast out his arm again as another gale swept out. This seemed to confirm Cathryn's earlier theory, but Adam had been unable to feel anything out on his end, though he was happy that he could consistently send this gale out.
Adam suddenly thought of something as he asked: “Now it is good that this gale isn't that strong, but the one that was pushing on my back when I was fighting the dragon was much stronger. Strong enough to propel me forward almost faster than I could possibly respond to. Why is that?”
“This likely has to deal with how oddly specific your music spirit formations seem to be. It is also why I told you to cast it out in the manner that you are doing. You are utilizing the formation in a way that it was not originally intended and it looses much of its power in the process. It changes it from a great wind that could push a person at fast speeds to a smaller wind that is only strong enough to throw a few lighter items throughout the room.”
Adam nodded as he understood what Cathryn was saying. He then said: “I also have a couple questions about that dragon.”
Adam was curious to know if she knew anything about why it was rampaging or the reasons for the spirit essence exploding from its body. He was also curious as to what happened to the dragon's soul when it died. He had not been able to stay long enough to see what it was doing, but it was doing something vastly different than any other soul he had seen passing unto death.
Cathryn gave it some thought before she started answering: “There is really no way to tell why the dragon was rampaging and what was going on with its soul before you found it. There simply isn't enough information for me to even guess as to what was happening to it. As for the others, let me start by revisiting some information on dragons. If you can remember, dragons are considered the closest beings in this world to spirits. They can hold vast reservoirs of spirit essence that no other creature could hope to hold. They connect their souls to the vast amount of spirit essence in their bodies essentially making their very bodies their own soul! There are limitation in this but that is the general idea. When a dragon dies their body will disperse its spirit essence much like the soul of a human or animal would. However, with the dragon holding so much more spirit essence it makes it seem like it explodes with spirit essence that you can actually see! What ever remains of the dragon's body will mummify at this point.”
Adam followed what Cathryn was saying. The exploding spirit essence was just a method of dispersing its spirit essence for the dragon. He also remembered how it seemed that only scales and bones had remained of the dragon after it died.
Cathryn continued: “Now as for what could be considered as its real soul, or the center of its soul, it does something completely different from every other known creature in existence. The spirit essence of its real soul condenses instead of dispersing! This forms a crystal full of pure spirit essence that is incredibly valuable and useful for many many things. The 'dragon's blood' that Henry gave you is more likely to be a mixture that has some ground up powder from a dragon's crystallized soul. Real dragon's blood can only be extracted from a living dragon which is even harder than killing one!”
Adam was stunned by this information. A small part of him wished he had stayed to watch that process. It was unlikely that he would ever get a chance to see it again in his life! Adam thought about the answers he had been given for a few minutes before Cathryn urged him to continue with his attempts of feeling out that spirit formation while he immersed himself in memories of fighting that dragon. Over the course of the next few weeks, this would become a major focus for Adam. He spent plenty of time relaxing and enjoying his vacation, though. During this time Adam had started picking up a hint of a song when he replayed those memories of fighting the dragon. He could not clearly make out the song as he could only hear a whisper of it , a feeling really, and it felt faintly familiar, he just couldn't place his finger on it. Adam felt that if he could just clearly hear a small piece of the song he might be able to fully understand it and recreate the rest of the song!
Adam was currently resting at the wall garden. He had the journal Henry had given him propped on his lap. Adam had really only put songs in this journal he had been given since he had yet to really find anything else out about his path that could help him understand it better. The various songs Adam had composed had been written down with dragon's blood so Adam could more easily read and compose them. When Adam looked at some of the songs that he had written he could almost feel some sort of response, a feeling, that they were close to a type of spirit essence but nothing ever became of them. The current page before him was entirely blank. He was trying to figure out some small part of that song which would be the base foundation for the wind formation he used when fighting the dragon. He still had yet to even figure out a single note in the song though! Adam let out a sigh as he relaxed a bit. He was disappointed that he had not been able to figure out a single thing within these past three weeks! As he relaxed his journal slipped off his lap and fell to the ground. Adam bent over and picked up the book. As he turned the book back over it was on a different page. The page it was on was an old song Adam had composed. This song was called An Ode To The Wind. This song held some of Adam's thoughts about wind and how it moves put into a musical form. It was also one of those songs that Adam would get that familiar feeling from. This time, as Adam looked at it, he paused with a startled look. This familiar feeling he got from the song was something he had been hearing every day for the last three weeks; it was entirely similar to that song which forms the base of that wind formation!
Adam started thinking to himself: “What does this mean? This was one of the songs I wrote in an attempt to control wind with a song, but it never worked! How is it so similar to that song that forms the base of the wind formation?”
Adam could not readily find his answer so he began to experiment. The first thing he did was to play through his memories of fighting the dragon and try to feel out that song again to make sure it gave the same feeling as the one he had composed. Adam discovered that the two were indeed similar, though there were some differences. He then scratched his head unsure of what to do next. An Ode To The Wind was a multi instrumental piece that Adam really had no way of playing on his own even though he would have to be the one playing all the instruments if he really wanted to make a formation with the song. Adam brought his flute up and tried to combine what he felt was the most necessary of the various parts into a single song he could play. He tried to see if he could do or feel anything with it but it was the exact same as every other time he had experimented with this song; there was no noticeable interaction with spirit essence. Was it really just too much for Adam to do on his own? Why couldn't he just put the major parts of this song together and use it as a basis for one of his unique spirit formation? Adam read his music over and over trying to find the answer. This song incorporated everything Adam knew about wind. Everything from breezes to gales to the wind gusting up and down and changing speed. Everything was there so why couldn't he do a thing!? Then it finally dawned on Adam and he felt like such an idiot! Yes this song incorporated everything but could he possibly control all of that? In truth, Adam had not been able to really create any simple songs that gave him the same feelings of being close to a type of spirit essence as this one gave so he always assumed what was required was a complex song. Past evidence has shown that his control had to be very specific in the oddest of ways. His sword song would only work with his sword and not another's. This was because he was most familiar with that sword and knew the best way to wield it from an exceptionally long time of practice. The entire sword song was formed from many small parts played one after another with each of those small parts encompassing a single aspect of the sword. The wind formation he had created was out of the single desire to move forward faster. This desire of his had managed to complete a formation that would help him but it was just a small part! It was in no way a whole song like his sword song! Trying to play the whole song he had composed was fool hardy. He has never truly wielded wind so the song only contained his thoughts about it. It was not nearly as accurate nor as well defined as his sword song was. This was why there were differences between the feeling of his composed song and the song he felt that was part of the wind formation.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Adam read through his composed song looking for specific places he had used for wind being forceful or pushing forward. He wrote each individual part on new pages in his journal to separate them out. His next step would be to look at each small piece and figure out which one was most relevant to his wind formation and try to build off of that small part. Ideally he would come up with a song that would indeed form his wind formation! Adam toiled away, unaware of the hours that passed.
Night had long descended before a grumpy Helen appeared at the wall garden. Adam would normally be back long before now to chat with her as she relaxed from a day of work. He was supposed to be there for her but he had made her walk all the way out to the wall garden to get him!She hesitated to interrupt Adam, though, when she saw how absorbed he was. She waited for a few minutes as she watched him go through times where he recollected his memories of fighting the dragon and throwing out that gale followed by him picking up his flute an playing few notes trying to get something right. Helen was always impressed when she saw Adam throw wind out like that. It had been three weeks since he had been able to finally do something a proper spiritualist might and she was happy that Adam had finally achieved some results in his path.
After watching him repeat his actions a few times Helen noticed he was not really improving whatever song he was trying to make with his flute. She figure she could interrupt him without hindering his progress. Helen frowned as she tried to decide how to interrupt him. She couldn't get close to him since he had warned everyone not to while he tried to study that wind formation. Simply yelling at him wasn't going to quite cut it either since Helen wouldn't feel as satisfied unless she really startled him. Finally thinking of something, Helen took one of her shoes off with an evil grin. Just as Adam was getting ready to play through his memories again Helen suddenly threw her shoe at him! The shoe landed solidly on Adam's chest. Adam suddenly jumped as he yelled in fright. Adam's elemental sight would typically allow him to notice any object before it got this close to him but he had not been paying attention to anything until that shoe hit him. Picking up the shoe that had fallen, Adam finally noticed Helen. He asked with a very miffed voice: “What are you doing Helen?”
Helen rolled her eyes “Sure, notice my shoe before you notice me.” she said sarcastically. Then with a bit of anger she continued: “Do you even know what time it is?”
Adam's heart drop when he heard the anger in her question. With Adam's elemental sight it did not matter to him whether it was light or dark out, though he could generally detect what level of light there was. It was only at this point that Adam finally noticed that night had already fallen for quite some time. “Helen, I'm sorry! I- I completely lost track of time...”
As she walked over, Helen smiled sweetly with a slightly red face at the panicking Adam: “I can forgive you if you promise to take me on a good date some time.”
Adam fervently nodded his head while saying: “Of course.”
After Helen put her shoe back on she pulled on Adam's arm saying: “Come on, you must be hungry by now. There are still a few shops open and I wouldn't mind eating a sweet too.”
Adam had been starting to feel his hunger but only gave an inward sigh. Helen was likely to choose a good shop that sold expensive sweets and would make him pay for it all. He could only silently comply with her, though, since he made her walk all the way out here so late at night after she had finished working.
The next morning Adam was stuck in the cafeteria trying to decide whether he should go see Cathryn about the new insights he had gained on the wind formation song or just continue to study it for a while more. In the middle of his thoughts Alfred came by to talk to him. He was still well known at Madame's so no one would really stop him when he entered the dormitory. Alfred had an exuberant look about him as he spoke: “Hey Adam! great news; Clayton is back! He just got back last night!”
Adam also brightened at the news. There had been a few groups talking around and doubting the Silver Saviors' claim that they slayed a dragon. They had even started making some accusations against them! “Great! Now we can shut all those doubters up and get back to work!”
Alfred nodded his head. “I wonder what kind of reward they will give us though. It was a dragon and all so even if they only pay us a small percentage of it's actual value it should still be a huge reward!”
Adam agreed as he lost himself in his imagination. If the reward was big enough and they all got a cut of it... maybe he could even buy his own house. As he was thinking about those things Alfred also added something else in: “Oh, and get this. The investigators had apparently even found the recent remains a spiritualist in the dragon's cave! They are going so far as to speculate that it is a spiritualist from Luxom that came to instigate the dragon into attacking Heider!”
Adam was surprised. “What!? Is that even possible?”
Alfred shrugged. “You tell me, you're the spiritualist here. The investigators said the dragon should have been slumbering since no one had noticed it until recently. With those fresh remains they believe the spiritualist to be the cause of the dragon having been woken up.”
It all made some since with logical thinking but Adam knew that dragons were simply uncontrollable. Could a spiritualist really instigate a dragon to do anything at all? Would Luxom really send a spiritualist to their death just to rouse a dragon that lived in the enemy's territory? Faced with another question that only Cathryn could answer, Adam decided he would go see her after all.
When Adam finally reached the institute and posed this question to her, Cathryn rebuked him a little. “You can't believe everything the military says. They have a heavy enmity with Luxom so of course they will blame them for every inconvenience encountered. We recently received a letter this morning from the military asking us to try and identify some remains. I suspect they are the one from the dragon's cave and the military is hoping our finding will back them up!”
Adam was surprised. “Have you seen them yet?” he asked.
Cathryn replied: “No it will happen on a later date. But even if they are spiritualist remains, that proves nothing! To think that someone from Luxom would try their hand at taming a dragon or throwing their life away to make it angry and attack Heider? Ridiculous, this surely isn't the sole reason for why you are here is it?”
Adam's ears burned a little red in embarrassment. He had gotten a little too caught up in the politics surrounding this issue. He finally started talking about the similarities between his composed song and the wind formation. Cathryn exclaimed: “That's wonderful! If you can figure out the song on its own you might be able to more clearly tell how your subconscious creates the formation without need of using an instrument! Other than that, I can't think of anything more for you to try and do. Just keep putting some effort in and you will get it in the end. Maybe you should take a few breaks from it as well! If this has proved anything it is that luck is just as important for you. Maybe spending a lazy day doing some random stuff will help you discover something more.”
When Adam finally got back to Madame's Helen actually had a message from Clayton for him! In a few days the military would be holding a small award ceremony for the Silver Saviors. It was expected for Adam to stand next to Clayton when he receives the award! The military had heard about Adam's part in stopping the dragon and remembered that he was also the one who originally found the demonic bear all those years ago. Clayton left a warning that they were probably going to try and rope him in during the ceremony and that he should not believe every little thing they say. Still, Adam was excited. To have even a small award ceremony would mean that their reward for taking the dragon down was going to be substantial. With Helen standing in front of him, his dream to buy that house seemed all the closer and more tangible.
[AN: Thanks to you all for following, favoriting, and reviewing me! As a side note, I have created a website I hope to act as a hub for my future works! It is still in its infancy but if you want to check it out go -> here]