Chapter 16 – Life 5 – The Blue Metal

After a long battle of attrition, the Blue-Metal Scorpion was down. My special sword definitely helped the battle, but the final kill went to the Camp Master, as was traditional. But while I was happy with the amount of Qi I still got, my thoughts were elsewhere.

Was the promise of potential power, stemming from a memory of a dream (or was it a dream of a memory?) worth giving up my comfortable Metal-Maker life? I knew I was talented, even compared to my peers with the same powers. In a few years, I would probably graduate from being an Initiate and be moved to a different camp, where I could be a Disciple myself. That was what my power promised me in the Empire.

But didn’t I want… more? I felt a strange feeling driving me towards getting a combined element of some sort. I had heard tell of elite monsters and their powers, not to mention the apparent power that a Camp Master wields… everyone said that something (or someone) with a combined element had power beyond what simply wielding two elements would allow. The Camp Master, for example, conjured a sandstorm that I doubted even 10 Earth-Molders and 10 Air-Makers could accomplish. Not to mention that the sand actually hurt the strange metal scorpion in a way that none of our other attacks could.

Now that I thought about it… the scorpion’s strange blue metal was likely the combination of the normal Rock Scorpion’s Earth element with a Metal element, wasn’t it? Didn’t that mean that I could learn such a thing as well? That wouldn’t be so bad… trading my current Metal-Making for a more powerful type of metal wasn’t a huge sacrifice. I hoped.

I threw myself into training. I practiced with both normal swords, swords I made myself, and of course my specially made sword I let no-one else see. I made bets on my own sparring sessions with my fellow Initiates. The thing being bet was, of course, the right to make a final strike on a monster. My dream/memory clearly said that I needed as much power as possible to make the exchange upwards. This made sense; what good was trading something away if you had little of it to begin with?

Improving my blade became more and more difficult. At first, getting the final blow on 5 monsters was enough to give me power to improve it further. But as it got heavier and heavier, I found it soon requiring 10, then 20, then 50. Eventually, my muscles strained to even lift it, so I convinced an Earth-Maker to make me some stone weights for strength training. It also became incredibly sharp, to the point that I had to discard the now cut-up leather sheath I had made for it. Perhaps the leather of a stronger monster would work, but it would likely need to be an elite.

Eventually I got to the point where I couldn’t improve the sword any further, even when I had killed 100 more monsters than the last time. I was known at this point as being something of a battle maniac, some would even trade me their final kill rights in exchange for doing all the work for them. This was somewhat frowned upon by the Disciples, but I did good work; the same number of monsters were getting killed, so they had nothing to complain about.

The sword was a thing of beauty at this point, able to cut through damn near anything. I even put it to the test against another elite, a flying beetle that could conjure ear-shaking thunderstorms. I got such a good slice, the Camp Master had to drag me away so that he could ensure he got the final kill.

And yet, my sword had yet to turn into the blue color I knew from the scorpion. I decided it was time. I went out in the middle of the night to a rocky part of the camp and formed a large block of metal in my hand. I then proceeded to strengthen it further, just like my sword. I pushed harder and harder, draining all of my Qi, until I instinctively knew it would be several hours before I could make the tiniest bit of metal once more.

I was thankful the Yellow Moon, the governor of Earth, was high in the sky at that time. I looked up at it and tried to feel its power. Before becoming a Metal-Maker, I had always felt a slight connection to the Yellow Moon alongside the Brown. This was simply my natural path. I stabbed my sword into the ground, where it cut a hole for itself effortlessly. I focused on making it take on the properties of the ground around it. I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, but it felt… right, for some reason.

I waited there for at least an hour, trying to maintain my concentration as much as possible. And just as I began to fear I was going down the wrong path… I felt a sudden wave of weakness pass through my body. Weakness… followed by *strength*. It felt like my bones were being reforged with solid steel… if not something stronger. I wasn’t sure if that was an imagined feeling, or if that was literally what happened when you attained a combined element, and at this point I didn’t care.

It was painful, of course, quite painful. But I was used to pain, as any monster fighter would be. And this pain… was a good pain. Invigorating, even. And in the end, I pulled my sword out of the ground and found that the cutting edge had turned a distinctive blue. It had also grown even heavier than before, but thanks to my constant strength training I was still able to carry it back to my dwelling with relative ease.

When I awoke the next morning, I was expected to, as usual, make a weapon for the camp. That was a bit of a problem, since while a good night’s sleep was supposed to allow one to fully regenerate their Qi… I felt like only a fraction of mine had returned. Had my capacity for Qi had gone up? Or did I simply regenerate it more slowly now?

The answer turned out to be… both. The blue metal came from me slowly and tentatively, like my very first time making metal. Not only did my internal energy return at a trickle, but it took quite a bit out of me to make this new metal. I supposed I would need to kill monsters to get used to my new power. To hide my new element for now, I simply gave an old dagger I had made on the side and kept as a spare. My teacher raised an eyebrow that I was giving such a small product as my contribution but said nothing in the end.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The battle against the monsters was the real challenge of the day. A particularly fast scorpion came from underground before our Earth-Molder scout could notice it, and wounded one of the Initiates, a Metal-Maker like me. Out of consideration for his talent, he was escorted back to the camp, but it meant we were down two people.

Naturally, I volunteered to take the Initiate’s place in getting the final kills. Most of the other Initiates were used to my thirst for power, as well as the fact that I could take on almost any of them in a fight, so they granted my request. With my reinforced sword at hand, I could take on most of the Rock Scorpions without even using my new element. Then, the trouble started.

The scout proclaimed that the earth was trembling more than usual, and that this was why he missed the first scorpion. We thought at first that he was just trying to avoid being punished for failure, but some small part of me could tell that he was telling the truth. I guessed that meant I had a limited amount of Earth-Sense now, just like any other wielder of the Earth. Still, I couldn’t mention that I felt anything, for as far as everyone knew, I was still only a Metal-Maker.

Eventually, though, we all started feeling the trembling. There were stories of the earth-shaking that preceded the Apocalypse, so some started to worry it was a relapse of that. But in the end, it was something debatably worse. An elite scorpion that had marked us as its prey. But this one wasn’t like the Blue-Metal Scorpion from before, that one we could have simply run from.

This one *melted* the ground out from under us. It had clearly combined the power of Earth with the power of Fire. I heard my teacher mention something about the word “Magma”, though I didn’t quite know what it meant. I was too busy trying to stay alive.

Giant bursts of superheated rock emerged from the ground, from which the scorpion came. It was massive, albeit not as large as the Blue-Metal one, and it gave off heat mirages in the air around it. It was covered in red veins that moved around the rocks it was normally made of. Fire was one of the best elements for combat, so we all knew that facing this elite without the Camp Master at our side would prove deadly.

Sadly, it seemed to recognize our attempts to escape, and literally ran in circles around us. With its ability to melt rock, we were surrounded by a ring of molten stone. It continued to circle us, looking for an opening. The Earth-Molder scout panicked and ran, quickly trying to make a bridge of rock over the molten ring to escape. The scorpion shot a burst of superheated steam out of its tail, and the man was scalded to death, screaming all the while.

The Fire-Molder Initiate tried to absorb the heat of the rock, but it didn’t seem to have much effect. Our teacher eventually brought her back, warning her against trying further. Working with combined elements when you didn’t have one yourself seemed quite difficult.

The teacher eventually led the four remaining Metal-Makers, alongside herself, to start making a metal shield with which to try and ford the molten ring, which was getting ever wider. She yelled at me for not contributing to the shield, but there was no time to explain that my abilities were temporarily weakened.

Eventually, the shield was up, almost like a hollow metal ball big enough for us to pick up and fit inside. We marched it over to the ring, but I could tell the shield was already starting to glow and melt. We were all sweating, and I knew that if something didn’t change, we wouldn’t survive. I really only had one option.

I tried to focus all the energy I had left and did something similar to when I reinforced my sword. Only this time, I pictured the entire shield, particularly the bottom parts, getting reinforced as evenly as possible. It was incredibly draining, but as I pumped out more and more power, the shield eventually stopped glowing, and started showing off a very light tinge of blue. The inside was still sweltering, but it seemed the metal was doing a better job of absorbing the heat than before.

All of a sudden, we were jostled immensely. The scorpion must have decided to stop playing around. I was weak, almost at the point of passing out, but I held on to my fellow Initiates. Eventually, the teacher closed off the entire bottom ‘floor’ of the shield-ball, encasing us completely in metal. We were battered around for some time, with many Initiates breaking bones in the process. But the scorpion seemed unable to cut through our shield, and even more crucially, seemed unable to melt through it either.

Eventually the violent motion stopped. We waited there for an hour. Two. Three. But nothing more came. We used my sword, which I had carefully kept from cutting into anyone or anything, to make a gap in the wall. As best as we could tell, it was now night, and the scorpion had left us alone. The landscape had many scars of cooling molten rock, but the actual scorpion was nowhere to be seen.

We had lived through an elite monster attack, something many thought impossible. We were all relieved and began to slowly make our way back to the camp. The teacher and I were mostly uninjured, so we were responsible for taking down any random smaller scorpions that came our way.

It was after one of these battles that we began to talk. “I really didn’t think we would make it out of there”, I said. She nodded. “Yes, once the metal began to glow, I, too, knew we were dead. And yet, the metal reversed its course, as if it became stronger…” I didn’t know what to say. “Ah, well, that sounds a little-“ “Stronger, in waves. Each wave radiating off from a single point. The point where you were in contact with the shield. I could tell with my Metal-Sense, you see. I suspect the others still have no idea.”

I backed up. “I- I don’t know what you-“ She shook her head. “Don’t worry, I’m not one to blackmail the person who saved my life, especially one who is also one of my own Initiates. But I do have to ask… How did you do it? I’ve been training for years longer than you! My Master always says, ‘You’re not ready yet’, but you figured it out all on your own!”

I considered my teacher’s words. She claimed to owe me her life, but truly, if she hadn’t formed that first metal shield, I doubt I would have had the energy to save myself, much less the rest of us. She had saved me as much as I had saved her. Plus, she had taught me the ways of Metal-Making, so that I could prove myself in combat. I knew that having powerful Initiates was one of the requirements for graduating from Disciple to Camp Master, so she wasn’t entirely altruistic, but…

As far as I was concerned, she had earned some of my knowledge. “It all came to me in a dream. When the right Moon is high, you must exhaust your power as much as possible, then push further…”

We talked into the night.