As soon as Arath woke up, he focused on even further cultivation, specifically his hand and perfecting manifesting his element. To his surprise, he found out that no matter how hard he tried he seemed to have lost the ability to control his powers outside his body.

'It is as if it was never there. It doesn't make much sense, I can easily remember how I did it back there.' The man was flabbergasted. 'Did my breakthrough fail somehow, or was it interrupted by my wounds maybe?'

He pondered on the issue for the rest of the morning but came to no conclusion on why or how it had happened but instead recalled a similiar situation. The picture of an explosion, right before he stumbled upon Anga and Clara, was still fresh in his mind and looked suspiciously alike to the one from the last fight. Before he could try and undestand his situation his thoughts were interrupted by loud knocking coming from his window.

A girl with short hair was smiling at Arath from the outside gesticulating in a manner so obvious even a blind person could understand what she meant. He put on his coat and opened the window leaving his room. They climbed down and, as soon as their feet touched the ground, laughed aloud. After a quick conversation they settled on going for some mushroom soup and set off to services district.

"Any progress in the case? What should we prepare for?" Arath asked.

"It is hard to say as most of the evidence and witnesses are on our side but the Council doesn't want to make Heroes their enemies, so the judge's decision will be probably heavily infuenced by that. To be honest if I were in his shoes I wouldn't know what to do, if I punish Heroes a war might break out in the future and certainly our lives will be much tougher. If I punished mercenaries the decision won't be fair and innocent people will be hurt, but at least the conflict is avoided. Whatever he does, I won't blame him. Anyway I was informed today that the verdict will be announced the day after tomorrow so not that much time is left." She said sadly.

"Whatever happens, you can always count on us." Arath tried to console his companion and succeded to some avail as she smiled gratefully and hugged him.

"Why aren't you a little older?" She sighed quietly.

"What do you mean?" Arath was confused by the reaction.

"Oh shit, I forgot you had enhanced hearing. Nevermind, I was just thinking out loud." She blushed and decided to change the topic. "What about you? Is anything interesting going on in this head of yours?"

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Arath thought about his latest discovery and shared his concern about the breakthrough, in order not to sound like a freak he didn't mention how much he had awakened and focused the conversation on the explosions that might have been the results of him achieving control over his element. She was astonished at first but as she gradually calmed down more ideas came to her mind.

"It is possible that because of how unstable your elemental side was in both situations you could only temporarily access your abilites. But on the other side if you could gain so much control in both situations so as to cause explosions of this caliber there is little chance that it was a side effect of your breaking through. No matter how ridicilous it sounds this might be the level you will achieve once you can manifest your element. Amazing, truly spectacular, I knew I had a good eye but you my friend, you are a gem in my crown."

Arath didn't how to react to such an ego-centrist statement so he laughed it off. The awkwardness didn't last long as the restaurant they were headed for appeared just around the corner. The soup was decent but that was all they could hope for while ordering a mushroom soup for a price smaller than a small fortune. The two spent the time talking and just enjoying the moment trying to take their minds off of the decision that would change everything they were used to. In the evening Arath walked Elizabeth home and after saying goodbyes returned to his apartment.

He now knew how to proceed so as to gain control over his element and that was his plan for the time being, do his best to manifest his powers once again. There was only one problem that bothered him, specifically magical energy flowed much more wildly in his left hand because of the thin layer of his spiritual body which made controlling it many times harder than normally.

'My left hand isn't good for neither weapons nor elemental powers now, I could as well cut it off and there would be little difference.' His frustration grew stronger the more consequences of the recent fight came into light. 'Space Element, how can I use it, if the normal way won't work?'

Just before he managed to fall asleep a certainly complicated and long-term but possibly beneficial plan arose in his mind.Hving abandoned previous ideas about awakening bones in his hand he now focused on a very unusual part of his body - skin. It was complex and took a long time to awaken but to Arath's mind if he subdued it, only his imagination would be the limit. Mostly only Fire and Earth Elementalist did it in the early stages of advancement in order to be able to perform one of the most basic yet powerful spells - fiery and rocky skin respectively. It was rare for others to go down this path but taking no risk meant no gain, at least that was what the man thought.

The entire next day and a half were spent on cultivating and the final result was having most of the outer layer of his head awakened and ready to be used, but before he could continue to improve there was one more important matter to attend to - the judge's decision concerning Leafers.