Chapter 26: Reduce Reuse and Recycle
The cold air in the center of the World Tower made Tide shiver. His body had gotten used to the dry hot air present in the fire room. It felt like he walked outside into a blizzard. Some ambient fire mana that was swirling around him was whisked away making it feel even colder.
Apparently Shamanic Senses included being sensitive to changes in temperature. After a brief couple of minutes his body began to adapt to the enhanced feelings a well as the temperature. Soon, he was able to continue across the room towards a new room.
This time Tide decided to enter the air elements room. He had a good feel for earth and fire now which covered defense and offense, now he was just lacking in the mobility department. Air would be more suitable for spell of that type.
As he warped into the room, he was greeted by swirling winds rushing all around him. Not wasting any time, he strode out towards the middle of the room to get some space.
Tide sat down for a quick moment to meditate and refresh his feeling for the air mana flowing throughout the room. Once he did that, he began to brainstorm some ideas. Almost immediately, Tide had a great idea. Why not try the same spell he made with fire to see if any of them produced results. Of course, there wasn’t guaranteed results, but it would speed up his spell crafting significantly and give him a good grasp on how to use the element.
He was able to recreate the mana flow and techniques he figured out only replacing the elemental properties from fire to air. Due his previous practice was able to get through them quickly. His wind wall was very disappointing. Unlike the fire which grew taller itself the air mana just quickly dissipated in all directions.
At best he was just creating a wide breeze rather than a wall. If he focused on maintaining the mana and winds flow upwards, he would only manage to make a somewhat decent updraft before his control faltered. Changing the shape of his concentrated mana he found that a circle of air mana would create the easiest to maintain and strongest wind. It wasn’t that strong, at best the wind was about half the speed from the first gap in the wind challenge.
Next up he tried the flamethrower spell, which he found to translate well. The only problem is that spewing fire out of your hands looks much more threatening, than becoming a living leaf blower. To give it more power Tide worked on closing his hand and creating a more concentrated bubble of air mana between his palms. Since the air element was much less destructive and mana efficient than fire, he was able to condense much more, cramming it full.
Once his arms began to shake from the strain of maintaining his grasp on the air did, he peel back a couple of fingers to release the pressure. Rather than channel through the hole Tide intended and letting out a line of compressed air, the moment Tide’s fingers parted, it broke out all at once. The moment the airtight seal was broken, his hands were blasted away from each other. A loud bang rang through the room as Tide was knocked off balance causing him to stumble to the ground.
His ears were ringing, and his vision was blurry as he sat back up attempting to recover. His sore hands quickly pressed against his ears attempting to silence the ring sound echoing through his head. For a couple of moments Tide thought he was going to have permanent hearing damage, but a dull green glow appeared deep in his ears. Soon the ring stopped, and Tide was back to normal.
It looks like he had just created the magical equivalent of concussion grenades and decided to hold it out in front of himself. His annoyance from the pain and sudden scare quickly faded after his hearing returned. As much as that wasn’t pleasant for him, he could already think of a dozen ways to use this new discovery.
After fashioning himself with a set of stone ear plugs custom made to fit him perfectly, Tide began testing it out again. He adjusted the amount of mana he channeled and made a couple of discoveries. By only putting a minor amount of mana into his hands when he opened his fingers it would just trickle out. By adding a moderate amount of mana, he would be able to create a gust of wind the shot out in the direction he released it. The gust couldn’t deal any real damage, but the force it produced could knock someone off balance. Only once he got a bit reckless and channel a fourth of his mana pool into his hands did he recreate the force and sound he made earlier.
This time due to the ear plugs and being ready for it this time Tide wasn’t injured. After doing a couple other minor test Tide moved on to the next offensive technique, his makeshift elemental burst. Tide hoped to recreate his concussion grenade this time at range. It would be much more useful if it exploded in his enemies faces rather than his own.
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Of course, that wasn’t easy to accomplish. When he attempted to concentrate the air mana into a single point ten feet away, the air mana didn’t want to cooperate. At most he could condense a tenth of his mana into a single spot before losing control. This resulted in a much milder blast. With out his hands creating a separate space from the rest of the air, it seemed that the air mana couldn’t be condensed to the same extent. It needed a container to help provide structure and seal the mana inside before it could go further.
To remedy this issue Tide wanted to make something that could contain the pressure and help him stay in control. He went to shape the stone under his feet into a hollow sphere, but it wouldn’t budge. His mana would just scatter once it reached its surface. He ended up having to expand a large amount of mana to manifest stone that he could use. He ended up making a sphere about the size of a tennis ball. It had a two-centimeter-thick shell of stone and an empty core to shove the mana into.
Holding this stone sphere in his hands Tide started the process of pouring air mana into the stone sphere. It took a little bit longer to channel it through the stone exterior, but it was much easier to manage now that he didn’t have to try and contain it with his will. Tide was able to channel about a fourth of his mana into the sphere before he noticed some strain in the stone. Not wanting to lose a hand, Tide stopped the flow of mana.
Taking a step back towards one side of the large room, Tide with his best pitching form chucked the sphere at the other side of the room. Right after throwing it Tide laid down not sure how powerful the blast would be. Luckily his strength was now at ten which put him on par with professional pitchers, and the stone ball flew before being stopped by the stone wall opposite of Tide.
As it smacked into the stone wall, the ball cracked, and the air mana was released. A loud bang rang out and dust fille the air as stone fragments zipped through the air. Looking up Tide watched as the dust cleared before standing up. He had essentially moved from concussion grenades and went straight to making frags. After everything had settled, Tide stood up and began gathering the stone scattered around the room. The stone fragments began to levitate and gather above his palm, once again forming another stone sphere.
After messing around for a while longer he found the most efficient amount of mana and stone thickness. If he wanted to make the strongest bomb, he wanted he would opt for a ball with a four cm shell with a much smaller air pocket with a total radius of seven cm. A stone orb with these dimensions produced the most intense explosion and sent the more shrapnel through the air at a reasonable mana cost. These stone fragments wouldn’t be able to damage armored opponents, but they would be very effective against softer foes.
Up next Tide began to play around with elemental augmentation. He activated the skill and began absorbing air mana into his body. As he did a tingling feeling ran throughout his body, before slowly fading. There didn’t seem to be any definitive change like earth’s augmentation, but as Tide moved around, he noticed that his entire body felt much lighter. He pulled out his wood axe and gave it a swing. As he did, he noticed that he was able to swing much more effortlessly and swiftly. After swinging around the axe for a bit longer, Tide decided to check how it effected his speed.
As he picked up pace, he found that his top speed increase by a bit, around a ten percent increase if he had to guess. The most interesting part was that his stamina consumption was reduced by a significant amount. After running ten laps around the room, he hadn’t even used up twenty stamina. If he had to make an escape or travel long distances this would come in handy.
After having a quick break to regain mana, Tide began to create an air golem. He gave the skill a fourth of his mana and watched in fascination as his mana began to coil in front of him. It merged with the air around him and began to spin faster. As it picked up pace it began to create a semitransparent vortex in front of him. It was widest at the top and tapered down to a point that barely touched the stone floor. It was hard to define the golems shape as it was constantly shifting and spinning. Two arm like appendages that branched out from the main vortex and rotated around it freely around its body. A pair of glowing eyes consistent with his other golems appeared slightly above the arms and looked back at Tide. Seeing no other developments Tide gave it the name Zephyr and began to test out how it would respond to his commands.
Its speed was much faster than any of the other golems and it could hover at any height in air. He wanted to get a gauge on its attacking power, so he gave it a command to attack one of the walls. Zeph swung one of its arms towards the stone in front of it and its arm detached, becoming a crescent of mana that slashed into stone wall. It sliced a shallow groove into the stone wall. After a couple of seconds, the wind golem shrunk slightly, and a new arm grew out of the main vortex. While the attack didn’t have much power, it was quite fast and hard to see. Tide spent the next hour summoning and commanding various air golems around getting a good feel for their capabilities.
Now that he worked with the wind golem for a while, he had finished going through all the spells he created with fire. Now he would go back through and try any new ideas he had for wind.