Chapter 24- Free Falling

As Tide quickly descended further into the pit, he was getting ready for the eventual splat he would make at the bottom. At this point after being burnt alive, drowning, and being crushed he wasn’t too scared of becoming a pancake. As much as Tides mind was accepting of this fact, his body still instinctively was flailing through the air and pumping adrenaline throughout his system.

After falling for a couple of moments Tide still didn’t see a bottom to this pit. Instead, the wind switched back to blowing upwards. His stomach lurched and his descent began to slow down. After spreading out his arms Tide was being lifted by the more intense wind current. He spread his limbs out like he was doing a jumping jack to create as much surface area as possible. Slowly, he ascended and due to the updraft lasting longer than the previous wind he made his way back to the top. Tide looked over as the platform he attempted to land on was only a couple of feet away.

Tide flailed his arms and tried to bridge the distance between himself and solid ground. His window for grabbing the ledge, was quite short as he quickly soared past it up into the air rising even further. Tide knew that he would eventually come down, so he tried a couple of different things to reposition himself.

His control over his body in the air was quite lacking. His attempts to grab the ledge initially left him spinning through the air uncontrollably. Taking a deep breath, Tide regained his composure and tried to stabilize himself. Holding his arms and legs out wide Tide’s bodies spinning began to slow and he once again reached the typical skydiving form. By the time Tide had gotten that figured out the wind changed direction once again. Now, with the wind pulling him back down Tide descended back into the pit.

This pattern continued for a bit. When ever a updraft came around long enough for him to rise out of the pit he would attempt to get over top of it to stop himself. Most of the attempts ended up with him missing it or smashing into the side of the pit. Eventually he gained a bit more control of himself midair and found that he could slightly direct himself by subtlety leaning his body in the direction he wanted to go. When the wind was pulling him downwards, he would have to do the opposite and lean the other way. To not spiral out of control he only tilted a little bit at a time gliding over to the platform one inch at a time. After one more good updraft he crashed back onto solid ground. He landed with such force that the wind got knocked out of him and he probably fractured a rib or two.

He took a moment to just lay there happy to have something to stand on. After a couple of minutes, he was all healed up and ready to keep going. Looking over at the second pit that he was stuck in for fifteen minutes, Tide realized that this jump was even further than the previous one. The distance was doubled. This time he would somehow have to clear the now thirty feet gap. It wasn’t realistic for Tide to make that jump for a couple of reasons. First off, he didn’t have much space to get a running start on the small section of ground he currently occupied. The second was that he still had a 50-50 chance to just get pulled down into the pit. Third was that even on his previous jump where all these things worked in his favor, he at most cleared twenty feet with his jump.

It looks like he might have already figured out the solution to this during his previous mid-air struggle. His stomach had just calmed down from the previous wild ride, and it looks like he was going to have to go for another spin.

He took another minute or two to get ready before jumping with all his might. He only got around ten feet of distance from his stationary jump before his momentum slowed. He had jumped like he was going for a belly flop in a pool, so he would get to sky diving form much quicker than last time. Then for the next five minutes he slowly leaned further and further gaining some distance towards the next platform.

With an already proven technique he reached the next platform without incident. This time he managed to make his landing much softer and didn’t even break a bone! Anyone else would have thought Tide was crazy for being happy for not having any bodily harm occur, but at this point Tide was surprised that he wasn’t being eviscerated by a raging whirlwind.

Tide didn’t get his hopes to far up though because there was still a bit more to go in this challenge and it could still likely happen.

The next gap was even larger, which made Tide realize that jumping was never the solution here. It was an insane distance to reach the center of the room. It had to be at least a hundred feet if not more till the next patch of land which was just a circle of stone floating in the middle where green waves of wind spiraled and wrapped around themselves.

Once Tide got ready, he leaped off of the solid ground, so he could begin working his way towards the end of the challenge. He got another ten feet and began gliding over towards the other side. When the wind pushed up, he leaned towards the center of the room and when it sucked him down, he would lean the other way. Slowly he made it about halfway before the wind suddenly changed. Rather than the typical pattern of alternating updrafts and downdrafts Tide was suddenly blow away from the center by a strong gust of wind moving horizontally rather than vertically.

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This sudden change caused Tide to lose his midair balance and quickly spiraled out of control. Once the wind switched back to an updraft Tide was able to regain it for a moment before another gust blew him forwards disrupting him once again. For the next half an hour Tide was like a string puppet whose master decided to thrash him around. All sense of control he had from his last two practice glides was thrown out the window. It was like the wind was hitting him from all angles and he was being swept away by what ever direction it pushed the strongest.

This time he was stuck fifty feet from either side of the pit, and the odds of him stumbling back onto solid ground to regain his bearings was minuscule. He tumbled through the air spinning around like a leaf stuck in the wind, and eventually his stomach gave out. His stomach’s contents were quickly emptied out into air alongside him. Unfortunately, at the rate he was spinning his body collided with his throw up coating himself with his own throw up.

At this point Tide was kind of done with the situation and stopped struggling to regain control. Obviously there had to be another trick to deal with this situation. It was quite hard for Tide to think while tumbling through the air, but if he closed his eyes, it became a bit easier.

This chamber was designed to help him gain affinity with the air element, so Tide began to brainstorm how he could use the air element to get out of this pickle. If he used his mana to calm or give order to the chaotic winds, then he could most likely make his way to the other side. Tide gathered his mana from his mana well and expelled it around himself, attempting to use it to block the rampaging wind. Much to his surprise as this bubble of mana began to form around himself the wind impacting him was weakening. Excited with the change, Tide quickly pumped more mana into the bubble surrounding himself.

At a certain point the wind became weak enough and Tide began to free fall downwards. Tide didn’t want to fall to far down into the pit, so he tried to weaken the amount of mana towards the bottom of the bubble and let more of the updraft through his protective membrane. As he did so his decent slowly stopped and eventually, he began to float back up to ground level at a somewhat controlled pace. He wobbled around a bit as he found the right balance to maintain. Once he was a couple of feet above the platforms and center of the chamber, he added a bit more mana to the bottom and came to a stop.

Tide was ecstatic due to this new discovery. By changing the density of his mana around the bubble the wind would push him in whatever direction he wanted to. Shifting his mana, Tide began to let the wind push him up and towards the center of the chamber. He felt like he was flying, able to move in whatever direction at will. He kind of got lost in that feeling and as he became more and more comfortable shifting his mana around, he began to have fun zipping through the air freely. His fun was doomed to end eventually as he began to get a headache after only a couple of minutes. His mana well was almost depleted, and it was time to move on.

Tide flew up and glided over to the center of the chamber. As he got closer, the winds became more powerful, and he had to use the last of his mana to keep control as he fell into the vortex of green winds concentrated in the center of the room. As his bubble of mana collided with the concentrated air mana it was quickly popped, but his momentum carried him forward straight into the green swirls. Soon his body made contact and was instantly lacerated into bits and pieces. Looks like in the end he still had to have at least one painful remodeling before he completed this test.

When he next opened his eyes, he looked down to see the purple crystal beneath his hand crumble away into dust. And with that Tide had finished the last elements test. He looked up to see the window prompt floating in front of him congratulating him on a job well done.

Congratulations you have completed the Challenge of Air!

As a reward your body has been modified and you have gained the trait [Wind Weaver].

Tide once again opened the new trait to see what he gained this time around.

Wind Weaver: A body that has experienced the fiercest of winds and gained control over them. Effects: +5 to Control and Agility, and +20% Air affinity.

Tide was a bit sad that he didn’t gain a new passive resistance, but it made sense this test was more focused on his control and manipulation of the mana and wind around him. Honestly, he was just excited that he was only brought to near death once, rather than needing to do it multiple times.

After he read the description, another window popped out in front of him giving him a strange proposition.

Would you like to merge the traits, Fire Forged, Stone Sturdy, Depth Developed, and Wind Weaver?

Tide was puzzled by this question, in the past it didn’t ask his permission to merge his other skills, but this time it needed his permission. This made Tide hesitant to accept the merger. He was quite happy with each of the traits he collected. If this combined them into something worse all together, he would be pissed.

After a moment of deliberation Tide eventually, accepted the offer. From a logical standpoint the system was made to help humans get stronger, why would it make an offer that would be bad for him in the end. The other mergers in the past seemed to be just to simplify his status screen and reduce clutter on his status screen.

After pressing yes on the screen, a smaller new one popped up in front of him.

Congratulations you have completed merged the four basic elemental body traits into the unique trait [Essence of the Elements].