“What did I just drink?” Elem asked aloud, noticing that his speech had begun to slur. His mouth was feeling numb and a cluster of foam was developing in the corner of his lips. He rubbed his head, desperately trying to get his thoughts under control. Something was obviously wrong but he no longer seemed to have the mental capacity to figure out exactly what was going.
The sensation felt as if some unseen force was slowly and methodically deconstructing his mind. Apart from his foggy mental state, his senses were the first to disappear. Vision, hearing, scent; they all disappeared one after another. Even his sense of gravity and time vanished until the only thing left for him to experience was a vacuum of silent darkness.
Elem floated through the void like a droplet of water within a vast ocean, unable to distinguish up from down, milliseconds from millennia, or even his own consciousness from the emptiness around him. It was a strangely peaceful sensation, as if Elem along with all his worries and desires had been erased from the face of the earth.
“What an impressive resolve,” the Qulapalik’s voice suddenly boomed, tearing apart the silence. “You carry much inside you, I can sense that. Determination, power, anger, fear. So many emotions for such a little thing.”
The Summon’s words slithered through Elem’s brain like a school of hungry tadpoles, frantically activating his confusing mind. Although there was still nothing Elem himself could see, it appeared that the Qalupalik was looking at him. Even worse, the Water Summon was somehow evaluating him.
“Tell me human, why is your Essence burning with so much rage? Doesn’t that tire you out?”
“Revenge,” Elem answered. In his state, he was surprised to hear the sound of his own voice. “I am training to destroy someone who has ruined me.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the Summon. “Good… evil… those are the creations of humanity’s limited perspective on the ten thousand things.. So you wish to end this person’s life?”
“Yes I do,” Elem said resolutely. As he spoke, a massive apparition of the Qalupalik’s face appeared before him. The Summon had grown to the size of a whale and excreted an almost unbearable fishy scent.
“To have your revenge, a part of you must become like him. Is that truly a price you are willing to pay?” It asked. “Are you prepared for the risk of losing yourself in the currents of wrath? Are you willing to take the risk of transmuting into the very thing you wish to destroy?”
Elem stared into the Qulapalik’s colossal eyes. The gaping abysses seemed to expand the longer he looked into them. He gave the Summon an affirmative nod without wanting to think about its questions too much. Since losing his father, Elem had stopped thinking about what he wanted his life to look like. His own destiny was no longer important and even his development as a Summoner was nothing but a means towards his singular vengeful goal.
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“Then so it is. Your next Summon shall be a reflection of your rage; an avatar of the trauma you carry inside.”
Six gray, finned arms emerged from the Qulapalik’s eye sockets. The wet hands gripped around Elem’s limbs and reeling him in. He did not resist.
“Proceed with caution.”
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When Elem woke up, his head pounded and his eyes burned as if he hadn’t used them for years. His consciousness had been transported away from the cave below the Unagi Peninsula and now he found himself in a strange, unfamiliar place.
He had never seen a place like this before. The air he breathed felt thick and wherever he looked, Elem saw jagged rocks point at the skies like the crooked teeth of some colossal monster. The heavens were colored a deep, unnatural purple hue and were adorned with bright stars, nebulas and other astronomical objects. It was a beautiful sight but one that felt so foreign that it overwhelmed Elem with an uneasy feeling of dissociation.
There could only be one logical explanation for the strange location, he figured. The Qulapalik had brought his entranced body to the Sacred Fountain, allowing his second Essence node to open up to a realm beyond the physical plane. Elem took a deep breath. If that were the case, meeting his next Summon would only be a matter of time.
But what could his new Summon be? Elem was dying to know the answer. What being would even inhabit a biome consisting solely of spiky rocks?
“Could it be an Earth Summon?” he murmured to himself as his mind automatically conjured up an image of his father’s iconic Minotaur. “Time to find out.”
Elem stretched his back and began his incursion into the strange land. To get a better view, he climbed the tallest rock he could find. He was shocked to see how vast the biome truly was; the expanse of rocks continued on for kilometers like a petrified version of some massive rainforest and remained eerily consistent until reaching the base of a smoking volcano in the far distance.
He was about to climb back down when a large shadow casted over him and the surrounding rocks. Elem froze when he looked up, noticing a large Summon flying directly over him. His muscles tightened as he regarded the beast, suspecting that his eyes were tricks on him.
“A… a Wyvern?”
He immediately recognized the Summon as a Wyvern: a well-known and powerful Legendary Class Summon, notorious for its voracious fire-breathing attacks. It appearance was as majestic as it was terrifying, featuring thick black scales, powerful hindlegs and two clawed, pterosaur-like wings. The Summon had an intimidating face with strong reptilian features, intelligent eyes and two ebony horns running protruding from the sides of its head.
“A Wyvern,” Elem repeated in disbelief. His Essence had attracted a Wyvern? He had never seen that coming.
The Fire Summon, however, seemed less than impressed to meet Elem. In fact, it appeared agitated to find an interloper within its territory. The beast cocked its head to the side and reversed its entire body in a surprising display of elegance. Now facing Elem, the Wyvern trapped the young Summoner in its gaze and let out a deep roar that sparkled little embers in its gaping maw.
“Crap!” Elem cursed, knowing what was to come next. He quickly leaped off the rock dashed behind another, only narrowly escaping a plume of all-consuming flames.