James spent the majority of his afternoon in the lab playing hide and seek with the little Forest Hopper trying to get better control of applying the instantaneous speed produced by the lightning element and also some time jumping up and down from the building testing his weightlessness from his wind element.
After a few hours Skay finally finished whatever mad experiments he’d been busying himself with then came out to find James rapidly sprinting away from another lightning/plasma ball rocketing through the air in the empty field outside the lab.
Little Blue as he was now being affectionately named was all tuckered out again as he crawled up into a little ball for a nap and James was once again rolling around on the ground from the backlash of an arc off the plasma ball. His fluffy grey robes were now scarred with dirt, rips and burnt pieces. James soon managed to stand taking in a deep breath when he saw a pretty severe burn from the lightning arc on his shoulder.
Skay payed no attention to James’ injuries as he pulled him back into the lab to the screen of a computer. James scanned the screen for a short moment and when all he could see was gibberish he puzzled his brow and looked at Skay. “Old Madman what am I looking at?”
Skay had a scary grin split his face as he stared at the computer screen flashing with all sorts of computer code and other nonsense.
“These meditation techniques are just different methods of self-hypnosis. Essentially they all boil down to two things, one of which is to allow yourself to look into your ‘Spirit Realm’ or inner realm which apparently is where you’ll see the Spirit Barrier and also where the majority of your ‘Spirit Energy’ congregates until you mentally call on it. I’m fairly certain now that the Spirit Realm is actually your own subconscious mind. I suspect the Spirit Barrier is actually like a natural self-defence mechanism to the invasion of your spirit energy. What I find most amusing is that your subconscious is actually using your own spirit energy to build its wall. So the more energy you generate the stronger this wall becomes, until eventually you can’t fit anymore spirit energy into your subconscious and it’s all compressed and trapped inside this wall. Once this is done your spirit energy growth stagnates. At this stage you have a chance to break through the Barrier by consolidating a True Spirit.”
Skay then flipped open one of the books on the workbench to reveal what looked like a whole bunch of words all written in a chaotic nonsensical sequence.
“Now I’m still uncertain about the true spirit process but it doesn’t matter yet. What is certain though, is that these meditation techniques don’t just allow you to observe your spirit realm! Their chock full of a whole mishmash of laws pertaining to whatever elemental affinity you practice. By chanting them in your head and slowly trying to comprehend them as you meditate you can increase your understanding of your element.
“That isn’t important to us however because our prior knowledge and methods of learning about the laws of the universe is completely different and reaches down to a quantum level that I doubt anyone on this planet can even conceive the existence of. Although I’m curious how exactly they came up with this bizarre method to pass on information that too is irrelevant for the moment. What is relevant, is that right now this computer is compiling the perfect meditation technique based on all these samples supplied by what’s’iz’name and a whole bunch of compiled knowledge from Earth”
The screen then began flashing madly and he rushed forward to start typing some new gibberish James couldn’t understand and continued talking.
“Now I’ll bet your thinking a whole bunch of things about, why can’t you just use any one of these techniques to enter your psyche and look at your spirit realm? It’s true that you could but you would have forgotten the most important part of the meditation technique. It’s drawing spirit energy into your body from the surroundings. Your no doubt wondering what spirit energy is as well, but you’ll know when I know. Now watch this.”
Skay pulled over two very nice upper-class chairs he assumedly stole from the mansion and sat down. James followed suite and the old madman punched a button and leaned back to also watch the screen as it began flashing random images and colours and started making a bunch of strange and unnatural sounds. James’ pupils slowly dilated like he was on drugs as he stared at the rapidly flashing computer screen. He and Skay both began to drool and froth from the mouth while violently seizing, their glazed eyes unnaturally fixed to the screen.
After a short few minutes the flashing and sounds ended. James rapidly awoke from his daze and wiped the drool dribbling down his chin. Then his face lost all emotion and he looked at the mad Dr. Skay who was completely off in his own little world muttering descriptors like ‘incredible’ and ‘amazing’ with his eyes closed.
Before the chance came to yell accusingly at Skay and start violently rehabilitating the old madman a sudden notion struck him. With a thought and intention to do so, he felt himself having an outer body experience and soon found he was standing in a vast white space that appeared to be infinite. Overhead roiled a gaseous nebula like floating clouds, with great arcs of lightning firing off randomly throughout it.
In the centre of the nebula sat a nucleus of tempestuous blue lightning like snakes all slithering around each other in a great ball. Surrounding this scene was a thick bubble that looked like a great plastic dome. Relative to the size of the dome the nebula and nucleus filled barely a third of the space.
James intuitively knew what all of this was. It was his Spirit Realm, or some subconscious layer of his inner psyche. ‘Strange, I thought my subconscious mind would be filled with all sorts of my sins and desires and prejudices and stuff. ‘ As he flew around inside this strange space he tried to touch the great big bubble that covered over everything.
His ethereal looking hand pushed into the side of the dome causing it to flex out like some stretchy skin layer. The further he pushed, the more it stretched until finally he couldn’t move outwards a inch. Slowly the stretchy barrier’s resistance started to grow as it pushed him back. Realising he wasn’t going to be breaking it anytime soon he decided to go and look at this nebular and nucleolus.
As he passed into the nebula he felt the familiar sensation of wind natured spirit energy flowing around him. With a wave of the hand it all started spinning and eventually a massive twister filled with lighting formed in the centre of his dome. With another swish, the lightning nucleolus exploded into numerous great streaks of lightning violently shooting around within the barrier.
With another thought James returned to the driver’s seat in his body. Dr. Skay sat there looking at him with a massive shit eating grin. “Well? How is it boy?”
James was still a little dissatisfied that the nutjob subjected him to another of his twisted experiments, especially because it was ‘fuckin’ around’ inside his head but he couldn’t deny the results and so just gave a disgruntled. “Harrumph! It was interesting. But how do I meditate and gather energy?”
Dr. Skay’s smile just grew even more evil looking as he moved back towards the computer and started mashing buttons. “Well, you’ll eventually need an appropriate breathing technique. All these breathing techniques are once again designed to operate the best with certain elements but I get the feeling, that like me, you won’t be stopping with one or two elements. So it will take a lot longer to generate an all-purpose breathing technique that grants the best control of all the energies we collect.
“Unfortunately, we may have to forgo more than a set number regardless. Until then we’ll just have to rely on the meditation technique as it is and operate it by focusing on the intention to speed up our energy draw rate. It will be slower, but with your affinity to your elements it should be faster than this Gau Clan’s pathetic little piss-ants without a breathing technique. Which reminds me.”
Skay stood up, opened the door and started yelling loudly. “Harvy! Harvy you fucking disgusting degenerate get in here!” After about ten minutes a very, very slowly moving shadow of a former young man shambled into the lab. The withered, white haired, frail, grey skinned zombie eventually was forced into a seat where its dead eyes stared straight ahead. James quickly got up and backed away. “Oi! Oi! He’s actually dead right?! He’s definitely dead this time. I can actually smell him rotting away just sitting there. What in the fuck is moving his body around?”
Skay started inspecting his mobile corpse. Finally with an “Oh?” while checking his pulse, Skay stepped back then started grabbing a number of glowing substances from nearby. He didn’t even look. Just grabbed a bunch. Tilting the rotting bodies head back he started pouring them in. He even grabbed a few extra not glowing but equally dubious looking substances and threw them in just for good measure.
Once finished, he stepped back and flipped down his 15 lensed glasses which James had started calling his Spider Eyes. Seeing this sort of action, James began to question which he was more of. Mad or Scientist?
Once his Zombie started making choking garbled sounds from it’s throat Skay nodded as if satisfied. Flicked through his lenses a few more times then put them back on his head. “Nah! He’s fine boy. Now hold his body still. I suspect when he observes this meditation hypnosis his body might just overreact and it could ruin him.”
James walked forward and hugged his arms around the stinking corpse in the chair from behind, holding his breath and thinking to himself. ‘Ruin him? He’s already fuckin’ ruined. What’s left inside this rotting husk to ruin you crazy old fuckin’ sicko!”
Although he thought these things, he said nothing, this whole fiasco was already essentially condoned by him when he joined in and turned the poor guys hair white ... an added incentive was, he didn’t want to be the next Harvy mindlessly ambling around the place only moments away from starting Z-day.
Skay realigned the rigid body to be looking at the screen then mashed a button quickly backing away. Following the flashing screen and sounds the corpse just sat there. Then after a minute it began violently shaking about as a rainbow of iridescent foam sprayed from, literally, every orifice.
Once the zombie calmed down, the glowing rainbows stopped flowing and one of the really nice looking chairs was thoroughly ruined James stood up and quickly jumped back observing the decaying corpse.
After a few short moments the empty lifeless eyes finally began to move. Then the rest of Harvy began to move, stretching out as if he’d just woken up from a very long sleep that should most definitely have been an endless sleep. He rubbed his eyes sleepily until Skay appeared in front of him flicking through the lenses of his spider eyes again then poking and prodding.
After flipping out his Black-Pad he pressed a button and began making a voice entry while still diagnosing Harvy who was just sitting, quietly staring back. To James that was very disconcerting considering the Harvy he’d met had always been ... broken.
“Soul Experiment zero zero two, post fluid ingestion of ... some things in the lab ... also post hypno-memory implant. Technique in question is codename Godly Insight. Both the unknown liquid ingestion and memory implant occurred in a death like, catatonic state. Subject’s mental cognition levels have vastly increased from his prior levels. I imagine if I could measure his spirit energy growth rate then it also would be significantly increased. All his vitals are abnormally low and making no signs of recovering to normal human functioning levels but ... appear to now be the normalised state for the subject.
“I suspect his body will most likely remain in this ghoulish form permanently. Make a sub-link to current notes on localised species classified as undead. Subject appears to have somehow regained life signs despite having had his will completely crushed to dust. Results of initial test to discern if the soul effects cultivation ... inconclusive. Make a side note, see Elder Gau about future ... volunteers.”
Skay then pulled Harvy up from his seat then began pushing him outside the lab to the field, meeting no signs of resistance as Harvy willingly shambled along very obediently, both followed out by the now very curious James. The madman then began talking to his pad again as he passed an element stick to Harvy.
“Begin new project file. Codename Ghoul. Link to results of Soul Experiment zero zero two. Firstly, testing recognition. Harvy do you know who I am?”
When asked this question, the constantly observing Harvy dropped to both knees and kowtowed in a very respectful manner. “This puppet of yours could never forget you, my Dark Lord.”
James’ eyes opened wide when he heard this. Very quickly his face become as cold and emotionless as the Ghouls. ‘No fuckin’ way! Don’t tell me that crackpot is actually the fuckin’ devil? Did he fuckin’ send Harvy’s soul to hell and retrieve a demon subordinate or some shit? Just what in the actual fuck is going on?’
Skay showed a strange smile. “I see. How much do you remember? I want a detailed recounting of everything you remember as far back as you can, to the moment you awoke in my lab.”
The ghoul showed no emotions and sat up into a seiza position then explained his life in detail. James found it entirely uninteresting. It was classic story of wimpy kid with a good heart, bullied by everyone, disappointed his family etc. etc. He spent the hour playing with Little Blue until Ghoul reached the part when they were patrolling in the fields and encountered the ripples of James’ Gateway anomaly.
The most interesting part of his story to this point was how he referred to all of his time before meeting Skay as ‘being lost’ or ‘before the Dark Lord reached out to me’ as if implying everything now was different and he served only Skay in his madness with some pious mad zealotry.
When he got to that point he described his time being psychologically tortured by Skay as falling into the true nature of despair, anguish and finally death. In death, he learnt of his purpose in the world. To assist the Dark Lord in whatever he desires. Or some such. James somewhat lost interest when the Ghoul began fanatically worshiping Skay. He just assumed something had gone very wrong with Harvy’s brain and because Skay had been the greatest and most life changing influence to ever happen to him, when he was suddenly resurrected from death certain weird things happened inside his head. James was no quack and made no effort to understand for the moment. He would perhaps look into it later.
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His interest wasn’t flagged again until Skay began to continue with his monologue to his pad. “It appears apart from the painting of all his past experiences in the light of recent fanaticism the subject is fully in charge of his faculties with some curious exceptions. Next test is to determine subject’s cultivation. Harvy you should have already been pushing against the Spirit Barrier when our experiment began. What is your cultivation now?”
The Ghoul closed his yellowed dead eyes and then opened them with a strange gleam and even more fanatical look. “Master my barrier is showing signs of cracking, but I haven’t yet condensed my True Spirit.”
“Oh? From the little I understand, to begin breaching the barrier a person must first coalesce their spirit energy into a True Spirit. I was told ‘In order to breach the barrier you must first condense your spirit energy into a formless shadow of your own self.’ To already be breaching it without a True Spirit to break the barrier, hmm ... Is it possible to simply keep filling the insides or your barrier even once it’s full? No that doesn’t sound reasonable, once it’s stretched to its limit you can’t force any more energy into it. Perhaps ... some sort of interference from outside the barrier?”
Skay’s eyes started to gleam as he discovered more and more interesting curiosities. James put Little Blue down and approached. He too was thinking rapidly. “Is it possible his own subconscious mind tried to break it’s own barrier even after it’d built the thing?”
“Mmm, it’s possible. But to what end? It’s trying to prevent the spirit energy from expanding. Why would it purposefully try and release it. In addition the barrier is a creation of it’s own design, it should be able to essentially dissolve the barrier instantly.”
James cupped his chin in his hand. Finally after another moment of thinking he snapped his fingers. With an odd smile. “Old Madman, I reckon that his barriers damaged precisely because it’s controlled by his subconscious. When this poor bastards conscious mind left his body to escape its torture, his subconscious automatically started shutting down along with his body. After 2 day’s of being trapped somewhere between life and death, boom, he’s brought back to life. The damage to his subconscious is clear in that he’s now convinced we’re his Dark Overlords.”
Skay’s eyes brightened and mad laughter rang out between both him and James. “Very likely you’re correct boy! If the Spirit Barrier Realm can be considered an inner battle between the armies of the conscious mind and subconscious mind, then if the general takes irreparable damage his soldiers too will falter. Brilliant deduction boy.”
Skay then tapped his pad again. “Record that conversation and link to Project Barrier Breaker and Project Ghoul. Begin recording test results for the elemental affinity testing. Harvy, your previous element was very weak Earth affinity correct?”
“Yes Master.”
“Good, today we’re going to change your major element, and leave your weak earth to the side. Take that stick from the Tree of Elements but don’t channel spirit into it yet. When you’re ready, instead of however the hell you’ve imagined your spirit energy before, I want you to envision everything you’ve experienced in your recent re-birth. Take all the feelings and sensations you felt and are feeling now and try to envision your spirit power as the same as what those experiences made you feel. Feel for spirit power to give you the same sensation you felt at the most powerful moment. Then when you’re ready, release it into the stick.”
James hearing all this took a step back and placed his hand on Skay’s shoulder. The moment he saw the stick reacting he gripped and shot away. After his past experiences with this testing he knew the stick multiplied the reaction of the element very briefly and being too close was just wishing to get bitten. As they shot away from Harvy they both watched as the pale withered branch began to form into ash and blow away on the wind.
At first they thought something was wrong with the stick, until a dark aura like a black shadowy mist pervaded the area around Harvy. All the grass in a 30m diameter with Harvy as the epicentre began to blacken and die. James had just escaped this pervasive aura of death as the wilting grass had rapidly approached him. While James face was stony and cold, Skay looked like he was about to erupt in whooping with joy. He was so excited in fact that he was shaking.
It wasn’t long before Skay couldn’t handle it anymore and burst. “Hahahaha. Fuck! That’s fucking fantastic! Boy, do you want know something that’s been bothering the shit out of me? How do people in this world become so powerful at controlling the heavenly laws when the don’t understand them in such detail as us? From what I’ve been able to deduce these people have no fucking idea! So then, where does their control come from? It comes from the one thing we don’t have and haven’t accumulated. Experience!
“I can tell you in gruesome detail what happens when you die, but I sure a shit can’t tell you what it ‘feels’ like to die. I wouldn’t be able to tell you what the experience of dying is like. Because I’ve never fucking experienced it! Harvy that fucking waste of space just got a reaction from the element of death with no theoretical knowledge and just experience, and even with all my theoretical knowledge and observations of death, I am forced to admit that I doubt I’d be capable of creating that kind of reaction when testing for it because I’ve never fucking died before and never felt the sensation of death.
“I never mentioned it earlier, but I found discrepancies between what I expected from your rat and what it actually achieved. I see now that I was wrong in my assumption, it wasn’t just learning about electricity from me shocking it, I suspect the majority of its affinity came from the ‘experience’ it had with lightning not just what it had learnt.”
At this point he took a few deep breaths to calm down and swung his line of sight back to James who was now madly thinking about the applications of this. “I suspect that perhaps the reason my affinity with lightning is so powerful is also because on Earth I’ve been shocked and electrocuted countless times. Was this theory driven by your tests on teaching Little Blue? If so ... are you about to suggest we should begin subjecting ourselves to these ‘elements’ so as to train our affinity with them? You’re not about to have me stand in a thunderstorm are you?”
Skay’s eyes glittered brightly and he tapped his tablet. “The Subject has unlocked his potential in the element of death, I’m suspecting it was created by his incredibly close encounter with almost becoming a completely lifeless corpse as attributed by his now permanent disfigurement. Create a Sidenote. Begin monitoring the weather more closely for any rain. Link note to project ‘Zeus and Thor’s Lovechild’.”
Stabbing the pad again and flicking it so It rolled up, he put it into his lab coat. He then turned to Harvy. “Harvy what level of spirit power does a cultivator need to swear this ‘Oath of the Heavens’?”
“Master, this disciple has heard any spirit power above a half-filled spirit realm would be sufficient.”
“Good, then swear an Oath of allegiance to the Dark Brotherhood! Your oath should consist of...” Skay’s face warped weirdly as he began to describe to Harvy what the oath was that he wanted him to swear.
Hearing this James’ face also warped and his breathing became a little harder. ‘This mad fucker is planning on starting some twisted evil cult!’ James’ face then lost all colour and expression when Skay got to the part about the brotherhood’s members. “Harvy, remember the brother hood is small now and only consists of me and Guild Master James, and although you serve me in the cul ... brotherhood, James is the true master do you understand?”
James inner voice was screaming and raging! ‘You old bastard! Since when did I become the leader of your fucking cult! Just what the fuck are you planning?’
Moments later an unusual scene happened as bright lights, light breezes and a gentle warmth fell on Harvy from the sky like the natural laws descending. In fact it ‘was’ the natural laws descending, as Harvy’s oath was registered and the strange laws of this world acknowledged.
James now began to panic a little. The last thing he wanted was for himself to be dragged into some messed up cult by the Old Madman and posted as the ‘Overlord’ of said cult, while Skay gets off as just a ‘Vice Guildmaster’ or some shit.
James’ cold angry voice rang out. “Just what the fuck are you doing? You fucked in the head old bastard. What makes you think I’m just gunna join your sick fucking cult? And don’t say it isn’t when, hell it even sounds like a fuckin’ cult!”
James blew his top at Skay as he was no longer able to control his fury at having been duped and not even getting the chance to escape. Harvy’s oath had been uttered and he now fully considered James to be the boss of his Master and the true Evil Mastermind behind everything that had happened to him.
Skay chuckled dryly and turned to look at James lifeless dead eyes staring back at him. “Boy don’t worry so much. The most important thing now is resources. We’re well behind in terms of cultivation in comparison with others our age. The thing we need most is resources! The best way to do that is to initiate some Gau Clan disciples so that you can use them for all the mundane things like gathering materials and cultivation resources.
“You’re the leader of our guild because I believe you’ll be spending more time in the outside world. I, on the other hand, will spend almost all my time here researching. In fact as long as I don’t run out of things to study I may never leave this place, so it would be better for you to ‘take command of the troops’ as they say and take care of all those outside things. Also, Harvy now has a powerful element which will be of significant use to you when you go gathering resources.”
James was incredibly suspicious of the Old Madman’s explanation, but for the most part it made sense. ‘He’s not wrong, having some knowledgeable or strong subordinates ... or any subordinates at all really, would be a massive help in collecting and hunting for resources. I guess I don’t dislike the name. Dark Brotherhood sounds very much up my alley.’
He started to get a little bit excited at the idea of creating a Guild actually. Although it sounded like a cult it’s not like they were making any sacrifices to gods or other weird stuff. ‘Although ... if all our subordinates end up like Harvy.’ James quickly shook this thought aside. The benefits at the moment outweighed the disadvantages. If they had to cross a few more ethical boundaries of his old world that would be fine. As long as it moved towards his greater goal or benefited him, he believed he was not entirely averse to completely stepping past those ethical grey areas into true evil.
Finally he accepted that the situation had already progressed to this stage and he could only roll with the punches now. His face loosened a little and he crossed his arms pondering to himself. ‘First we need more intelligence. Although it seems like it might take a while to gather enough spirit energy, eventually we will be assaulting the spirit barrier. We need to understand what the True Spirit realm is and how to get there, and every realm after that. From what I understand we probably can’t unlock new elements after we consolidate the true spirit so before then we need to manifest as many different spirit energies as possible. I doubt we are the only people in the world who understand how to unlock more than one element.
Reaching the end of these thoughts he looked at Skay and with a nod consented to the creation of the Dark Brotherhood. “Fine you crazy old bastard. I can see some use in creating a guild. We’ll have to work out how members and that shit works later. For now we should try and come up with things to trade with the clan so we can gain resources and then try and learn some more about this world. On top of that we need to find a way to help raise our spirit energy as fast as possible.
“I’ve no intention of keeping an oath to the Gau Clan and I think I know a way to break it so we also need to test that before the Elder or Hao that sick bastard find out we’ve gathered enough spirit energy. I’m going to try and train my control over my current elements and later we’ll try to start accumulating some more element affinities. I plan to get the 4 major elements at least. You do whatever fucked up things you do in your lab and try and get that breathing technique finished, we’ll meet back here tomorrow morning for Hao’s lessons. Little Blue let’s go.”
James finished his instructions to Skay then beckoned to the little lightning ferret. Having spent most of the day playing with James it had grown rather attached to him and very quickly ran up James’ leg to sit on his shoulder as he walked away from the lab.
For the rest of the day James was shooting around the courtyard and wildly swinging his arms about like some crazy. Occasionally he’d stop and start muttering to himself, then he’d start a whole new series of motions.
As he trained he started trying to use both spirit elements at once, which he very quickly found to be incredibly difficult. Tring to ‘envision’ his spirit energy as two separate things simultaneously was beyond the limits of his mental aptitude.
Just doing it for a minute or so strained his mind so badly he was forced to stop from the massive headache he was building up. When his head finally cleared up after ten minutes he tried again, and for a minute he managed, until finally, he once again succumb to the pressure of his head aching.
James closed his eyes and entered his Spirit Realm. He noticed a substantial difference in the level of activity and quantity of his spirit energy. The gaseous nebula and lightning had both reduced significantly and looked to be nowhere near as excited as they were when he last came here, presumably because he’d been using them in his body.
With a wave of his ethereal hand and a thought he started manipulating both elements inside his spirit realm at once with no strain or backlash. ‘Interesting, inside my spirit realm I can control them separately and simultaneously, however I wish. Lightning and Wind. Technically, would it be more apt to call them Electron Flow and Gaseous Particles?’
As he had this thought he was suddenly struck with a new idea ‘Now I think about it, if there’s no atoms to travel through how could lightning make a path anywhere. It is after all just the light show created when a stupidly excessive number of excited electrons start jumping through a whole bunch of gas atoms until they reach the ground. I wonder if I could create an element that represents the flow of electrons through the gaseous particles?’
With this concept in mind, James reached out his ghostly spirit hands and called forth a great bolt of lightning into his right hand. Then grabbing out with the left hand he seemed to pull away a section of the nebula which spiralled down into a mini-twister in the palm of his left hand. He stood there in his spirit realm, a great bolt of Lightning in one hand and a whirling twister of Wind in the other. ‘Well, I’m not even sure what will happen but, here’s to hoping.’
With that thought he pushed the lightning bolt into the twister and a massive boom rang out. His mind was blown out of his spirit realm and he fell backwards onto the ground holding his head. A few moments of groaning and rolling on the ground later, he finally climbed up into a sitting position, his eyes were shot with blood and filled with madness. Then he slowly calmed down and entered his spirit realm again.
“Holy fuckin’ shit!” James uttered when he reached his spirit realm. There still remained the green gaseous nebula and the blue nucleolus of lightning, just as they were before. No great changes had happened there.
Regardless of his two elements that remained basically the same, he instead stared at the white ground inside his dome, right in the centre. There appeared a green twister of liquid fire. ‘Plasma?’ James thought to himself. It was the only thing he could think of.
Plasma is created when gas atoms are excited to the state in which their electrons leave there orbits. Which is very much the case when we see lightning naturally occurring, as electrons in the gas particles are super excited and separate from their original atom creating photons, or as we see it, light. When all these electrons have built up to a frenzy they then try to find the closest place to relieve that energy, which generally turns out to be the hapless ground or some part of a cloud. Once one electron starts jumping atoms, all the rest follow through those same gas atoms creating a streak of light and that is the phenomenon we know of as lightning. Just a massive arc of plasma through the sky.
Now that James had tried to combine his laws of electron flow which he had ‘envisioned’ as lightning and his element of wind which was his laws of gaseous particles he created the ‘True’ element of lightning. Plasma! The superheated 4th state of matter.
James mind boggled at the implications of this. ‘What if I can combine all my elements into one single element? Would that not be the element of god? The resultant answer of the greatest question of the universe. Where did it come from and why is it here? It comes from the coalescence and interaction of every natural law and it’s here cause I damn well made it!’
His mind spun endlessly and he was on the verge of going mad from his fantasies. Eventually he forced himself to calm down somewhat. ‘Perhaps I’m jumping the gun a little. Plasma is considered the fourth state of matter and is the resultant of one of the stages, gas, and electron excitation. Which means most likely I won’t be able to achieve similar results with liquid or solid states. If I were to apply electron excitation to liquids or solids they would most likely only act as conductors. If I ramp up my lightning element enough I may be able to boil water or melt steel, again, I wouldn’t consider that to be a new element but rather the result of two elements interacting to create an element I already have control of. I suppose after I unlock earth and water I can only begin to accumulate more abstract elements like the emotional ones or perhaps darkness and light. I’ll have to have a think about how to envision those ones.’
Having finished his thoughts he began to play around in his head with magic. Once night fell and the servants delivered some food he went to bed full of expectations of tomorrow’s lesson from Hao.