Sam went back to his sofa and stared at the wall for a bit, not sure of what to do. His weapon skills were already in his mind and he did not have to practice them much, and there was no Dao for him to explore. With a start, he remembered what he had been told about elemental affinities. He had no idea how to gain one, but he would damn well try. They seemed too good to pass up, especially without his Daos to rely on. Reaper had said something about there being a process to connect with an element, which Sam inferred to mean that he would have to be near the element for a long amount of time. He now understood what the man meant, if his theory was true, as it would mean burning yourself to awaken a fire affinity, if that was one of the elements.

Sam assumed that the basic elements of nature were present, as the Bear had used the power of Earth to create his armor, but it could be something a lot more obtuse. Sam wished that he had access to more information about these seemingly basic things, but the System seemed to be determined to stop him. In any case, he would have to pick an element to connect with. He had no interest in Air or Water, but Fire or Earth might be interesting. Considering his own skill sets and his Daos, he wondered if he should not do both. Fire would synergize perfectly with his Dao of Anger, assuming that he could control it, and Earth seemed to match the concept of Justice well, an implacable and solid force that would not waver. He would have to find a way to awaken them however, and he knew someone that might be able to tell him.

Jeffrey had been a System user for decades before he had met Sam, but then he remembered with a sigh that the System would just remove the information from his mind. The only way to do it was through trial and error. Looking around himself for anything that could cause a distraction, he sank back into his chair and began the mental part of the whole thing. He assumed that this would work somewhat like his Dao, but he had no idea if he was barking up the wrong tree using this idea.

Feeling like a complete idiot, Sam began to think about what Earth meant to him. In its most basic form, he thought of it as the bedrock of a planet, a mass of dirt and stones that coalesced to form the crust of that planet. On another thought, Magma could just as easily be considered a part of Earth as well, but one that used Fire as well. Sam was initially excited about the link, but then a strange feeling started to form inside his brain. It was like he was being stretched between two massive hands, and until he did something different, his mind would continue to elongate until it snapped. Realizing that he was trying to combine concepts far too early in the process, Sam returned to plain old Earth.

Going back to where he started, the crust of a planet, he joined his train of thought again. In any case, the painful stretching sensation meant that he was on the right track. Sam continued to ruminate on Earth, moving onto the more ephemeral meanings of it. Imaging Earth as a person, Sam thought about what they would be like. He immediately imagined a massive man, made out of the bones of the mountains and with fiery red eyes of lava. As the stretching returned, Sam made his eyes into amorphous blobs of green energy, to symbolize nature. The vision began to tear, but then held after a moment. He had created his vision successfully.

For what felt like an age, Sam waited there, burning the image into his mind. Eventually, he felt a click and he knew that he had done it. A moment later, the image began to move and he saw the figure come to life. Sam sunk into the image until he had fully immersed himself in it. By this point, he was in what was basically another Dao vision, and he relaxed, knowing what to expect.

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The man began to shrink, and with him, the planet underneath him grew smaller and smaller until it was but a tiny speck floating in the blackness of space. With a bang, it began to grow again, and as Sam floated closer, he saw the small form of a baby sprout into existence next to it. Tendrils of green and yellow energy poured into the baby from the planet as it grew, and it slowly started to mature. After millions of years, it turned into a toddler and took its first few steps around the infant world. Each of its movements caused mountain ranges to erupt from the ground and for vast pyroclastic flows to ooze up from the core of the world. Millions of years later, the figure had become a teenager, now aware of what he was doing. Sam could see the first blooms of life forming in between the vast hands of the figure and he gently dropped them down onto the ground. Two lizard-like creatures scurried around and then plopped into the nearby sea. The figure jumped and left the planet completely, residing in its moon. Sam realized that the planet looked almost exactly like Earth, and as the wheel of time kept turning, faster and faster, he saw the first humans begin to form societies. The figure woke up again and saw his creations spread across the world, and it smiled. By now, it looked like the man who Sam had envisaged and his body was suddenly sucked toward him. With a whoosh, he was drawn into the blackness of its mouth and then everything went dark. Jolting back into his body, Sam fell off of the seat, his mind aflame with new connections. A System notification waited for him and he opened it.

You have formed the first half of your Elemental Meridian of Earth. The ideation of the element is the first part of elemental mastery, but the much longer and harder part is what comes next. To fully create your Meridian, you must absorb the physical form of the element into your body in whatever means that you find necessary.

Sam nodded in satisfaction. He had the right idea all along. Feeling something new with his body, Sam looked inwards, seeing that there was now a small orb of yellow energy orbiting his core. As he closed in on it, he saw that it looked rocky in appearance, with only its strange hue detracting from its appearance as a planetoid. Exiting his core, Sam began to think about what he had just done. Now the problem was finding a way to incorporate Earth into himself. It was a strange idea, and presumably even harder to do in practice.There was no way for Sam to do it now anyway, so he left the matter to rest for the moment.

With nothing better to do, Sam got into the magical hot tub, luxuriating in the warm embrace of the jets. After a while, a voice ran out over the speakers that were revealed to be hidden in the roof of the room. Sam jumped, startled out of his half awake state and then relaxed, realizing that it was only a loudspeaker.

“Wait, if there is a loudspeaker hidden in this room, then there might be a camera, or even a microphone,” Sam thought with more than a little bit of paranoia. With a nervous glance up, he dismissed it. There was no use worrying about things that you could not control. That was the road to stress and ulcers, and Sam wanted neither of those. The voice repeated itself and Sam listened more closely, having missed it the first time.

“ALL FIGHTERS PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE STAGING AREA.”