Chapter 20: Ten Elements

"I see that most of you are all in the Gathering stage already"

"Then lets a break for a bit from our exercises and I'll lecture more about the Elements so that you can better  understand the history and nature of your elemental attributes"

"Elements have been around for millions of years. Several ancient civilizations had left recorded documents that spoke of such elements, but such documents wouldn't have come to light if it were for a single sage"

"This sage was famous for analyzing those ancient documents and bringing the knowledge of elemental energies into the world. His name was Rio Hen."

"Rio Hen was a scholar who studied ancient civilizations. He traveled through various lands to study ancient ruins left behind by fallen civilization. After years of analyzing these ruins, he found out 4 different tablets in different corners of the lands that told of 4 different elements. These elements were Fire, Wind, Water and Earth. Each of these ruins worshiped these elements as gods because there were certain individuals who had gain these element's power as it was recorded in these tablets"

"These ancient 'Gods' were precisely elementalists. They were specialists who had great elemental affinity that they did not need elemental stones to use the power of elemental energies"

"Rio then deduced that certain people were able to obtain such powers if a certain condition occurs. With either luck or the will of the heavens, Rio encountered a fire elemental stone. With the stone he came to understand more about the elements and his fire elemental attribute allowed him to gain control of fire elemental energies"

"This was the basis of the exercises that we are doing. Rio Hen continued to travel across the lands showing his remarkable powers and spread the knowledge of elemental control. He became a great figure of his time and legend was recorded throughout the lands and was called the 'The Great Elemental Sage'. He also develop a way to tell if a person has a specific elemental attribute with these 4 different kinds stones"

"Until hundreds of thousands of years passed, these 4 elements did not change. It was when the value of elemental stones rised and people scoured the earth to find such stones. Because of this, five other elements were discovered, which were Light, Dark, Wood, Metal and Lightning"

"A great boom of power spread across the land, this caused wars to break out. Elementalists leading people to fight another. A fight for dominance ended until many countries were destroyed. Luckily, because of Rio Hen, the importance of ancient records were known and thus the knowledge of elemental control was not lost"

"After more than 500,000 years, only then the void elemental stone was discovered, discovered which completed the ten elements we now know today"

"There were rumors that there could be more undiscovered elements, but from then until today, no one has discovered such element. Perhaps some discovered it in secret and did not reveal it to the world, but that is just speculation."

After a long pause, Dina looked around to see all her student's eyes filled with wonder.

'An undiscovered element!' everyone thought

Suddenly a young voice sounded "Teacher Dina, how does this help us in understanding the nature of our elemental attributes?" This young man was Windle

Dina looked at Windle and smiled. It was a great question.

"From knowing the history of how we came to know of elemental energies, we can tell the range of difficulty of detecting each elements"

"For example, the first four elements, fire, wind, water and earth, are the easiest elements to sense. They are followed by Light, Dark, Wood, Metal, Lightning and finally Void"

"A record of the legendary void specialist, who created space jewelry hundreds of thousands of years ago, was said to have some trouble in sensing the void pulses. Let me remind you that he was the only void specialist ever recorded in history and it was said that he had a growth potential of 9!"

"So coming back to your question, it is mainly for people who are dualists, triads, generalists or pures. If they want to pursue in mastering their elements, they should concentrate on the first original elements."

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"Okay, that is it for the lecture. Does anyone else have any questions?"

....

After the class ended Teo went straight back to his cave. He was focused on learning the other 6 elements, and it took him 2 days until he succeeded.

He celebrated with Lia and Windle, but because he was lacking funds, the celebration was held in the cafeteria.

Teo initially wanted to pay for their meal but both of them declined. They were sick of the food after eating it from the start. Both of them had part time jobs as well. Windle easily got a job within the Emerald Pavilion and Lia got help from her senriors from the Martial faction. They could afford not to eat cafeteria food. The instead brought their food over to eat with Teo.

"Ha ha Teo why did you want to us to eat here tonight?" Windle asked

"If I knew you were going to bring your own food, I would've just buy my food here and meet you guys at our usual spot" Teo said

"Don't worry, I kinda miss this place" Lia said

They haven't been here for such a long time, ever since they could afford to eat at other places

"Teo did you hear about your Senior sister Rowen's duel today?" Lia asked

"Nope, what duel?"

"You know that Nathan guy, the senior of the Silver Sword? Your sister demolished him today" Windle answered

"Yeah, Senior sister Rowen, broke a few of his bones today. The medical staff said it would take 2 months to heal" Lia said

"Your sister is seriously fierce, I can't imagine her doing something like that. Every time I see her, she looks so gentle" Windle said

Teo was also speechless, he was glad that Nathan got beat up. He also made a promise with himself to never ever anger big sister Rowen.

...

After changing the topic a couple of times Teo finally asked "So Lia what kind of exercises would help you improve your Qi?"

Lia who was already finished eating before Teo and Windle replied "Well, there are several. There are some specifically for increasing your Qi, while others help you control them. I only know the basics, if you ask Senior sister Rowen, she might be able to show you some advanced ones"

"Nah its okay, I just want to learn the basics too"

Lia told him a few basic breathing techniques that will improve the amount of Qi he has. It was the most basic of the basic and everyone started off with this. As for the Qi control, it was a set of poses he had to do in sequence as he practiced the breathing technique.

The breathing technique was relatively easy, but the poses were complicated. You would need to be in a moderately healthy level of fitness to hold these poses for a long time.

Teo was surprised that Windle could do it, but compared to Windle, he was basically a bookworm. Back in Char village, he was made to exercise by his uncle and parents,  but since he moved here he did not even run to the library.

After they ate, Teo headed back to his cave. Although he wanted to walk around with Lia and Windle some more, he was still "injured", a week almost passed since he was attacked. He was counting the days, since then. He didn't go to the library or work since then due to being "injured". Luckily Gina was able to cover for him or else he might've gotten fired.

He had didn't get any pay for this week because of this injury. But even worst, he couldn't go to the library at all. He had to ask Lia, Windle or sometimes his sister to copy a new book for him to read. At least these past 3 days he was too concentrated on his Sensing stage to notice, but after his accomplishments he recalled all the time he lost not reading a book in the library.

Revenge was now once again the top priority on his list.

[Author's Note: It has come to my attention that I am pretty stupid... I was sticking with the title "Master Arrayist" because I thought it was permanent, but only up until recently I found out that I can edit it. So, I will be editing the title later 1-2 days from now to let the readers, who are still interested in reading this in the future, have time to see this notice and know of the transition. Thank you for your support]