No matter which of the fifty soldiers I chose to combine, they all had similar problems. Their minds were not completely synchronized, causing their bodies to fall apart as soon as they began moving. My next test was to have three or more combine together, and have all of them listen to the commands of a single soldier. That worked somewhat, but had limitations of its own.

Whenever the soldiers all shared a common element, they were capable of moving almost fluidly, only demonstrating slight synchronization issues. However, if one of them did not have an element matching the controlling soldier, then there was a lag in its movement while it waited for the order to be passed along by another soldier. If one of them did not share an element with any of the others, then it would not act at all.

I considered making a fifty-first soldier, one that was designed to be the leading component in the fusions. However, there was a problem with that, as Lex’s grove had not developed to the point where it could sustain any more than was currently present. So, I could only either alter one of the existing soldiers, or come up with a different method. Looking through my character window, I contemplated to see whether or not I had any means at my disposal to get the effect I wanted.

Name

John Hulett

Race

Wood Elf

Titles

Vengeful Heart, Amateur Brain Surgeon, Spider Slaughterer, Starship Captain, Creator of Baishiro

Fame

100,000

Level 207

98%

Class

Druid

Advanced Class

Xeno-Shifter

Deity

Malthan

Health

2000/2000

Health Regen

0

Mana

4500/4500

Mana Regen

124.2

Strength

100

Wisdom

300

Agility

69

Intelligence

450

Dexterity

70

Charisma

35

Vitality

200

Luck

25

Points Remaining

Earth 90%

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Fire 89%

Wind 89%

Water 89%

Lightning 88%

Light 89%

Dark 88%

Plant 88%

Void 88%

Metal 88%

Magnetism 88%

Plasma 88%

Gravity 88%

Time 60%

Animal 76%

Gem 69%

Gold 81%

Luck 26%

Order 23%

Bone 70%

As I looked through my list of affinities, one of them stuck out for me. Order…

Honestly, I had never used Order successfully before, but I knew what it did. I had once tried to use it on an annoying Qu’Lopti, hoping that the order mana would make him listen to me, or at least calm down and stop being so erratic. Instead, what happened was that he became even worse, his control over his body and mind intensifying.

Since then, I had tried to use that element on myself on multiple occasions, but each time there was only a minimal effect. My brain had long since been modified with the aura implants to grant me a better control over myself, so adding in the order mana did little else other than to distract me. Here, however, it might just be what I needed.

Yet, how was I going to make it work? Unlike the elements that I made the soldiers out of, order has no form. It is not an energy, a solid, it can’t be defined physically. Besides that, Lex does not have the proper element in his grove, so I couldn’t create a soldier with that element whether I wanted to or not.

Then, do I use the order element on them while they are combined? Doing so might work, but at the same time would require my constant attention, leaving me exposed to enemy attacks. Then, what could be done…

Thinking about it, I only came to one possible solution. Looking to the air, water, and darkness soldiers, I spoke to them. “Merge with me, let me serve as the core. You will allow your abilities to be controlled by myself.”

This was a fairly heavy gamble, and the merging process could potentially rip my body apart if they tried to meld into me in the same way they did each other. That is why I started with the less solid soldiers, to reduce that risk. And, as I expected, I was soon bathed in water, shrouded in darkness, and lifted by the wind.

There was a small pulling sensation on my body at first, making me think that they really were about to rip me apart to try to follow my order, yet soon that subsided. When they seemed to realize that my body did not come apart as easily as theirs did, they settled for wrapping around me, merging into a strange mixture of elements with me at the center. What I ended up as was rather unusual, to say the least.

With a body made almost entirely of water, hollow eyes of wind looked out to the surroundings. On the back of the body of water was a cape of flowing shadows. In my mind, I could feel each of the three trying to probe at me through the elemental mana, trying to give up the control that I asked of them. However, I was not sure how to accept that.

In order to not drown, I made myself quickly grow gills along my neck, that way I would not be in danger from the water body I found myself in. Next, I reached up my hand in front of me, hoping that the soldiers would mimic this reaction. However, the water body remained motionless. Even when I poured out order mana to try to increase the degree of control, it would not match my movements.

What next… I thought to myself, before I brought myself back to the three connections trying to form with my mind. This time, I decided to reach out to them as well, using the same mana types that they called to me with. Immediately, a massive change emerged within me. My mind connected to the three elemental soldiers, my sight passing through the hollow eyes of wind.

This suddenly felt like my own body, but at the same time not. After all, there was no sense of touch beyond what my body normally felt. Even though my new feet were standing atop the ground, I could only feel the water surrounding me. With a thought, my right arm of water slowly raised up, though I could see it trembling slightly as it did.

Okay, now comes order. I decided, and began adding order mana into the connections that had been formed with the three soldiers. Quickly, the trembling stopped. My arm seemed to become almost solid, steady even as I swung it back and forth with a few experimental motions. With a thought, I saw the water of my hand become ice, and then it formed into a spear.

Swinging my arm, I launched the spear of ice from my arm, ‘feeling’ it travel through the air to land on the ground a few meters away. Somehow, I could still clearly sense it as part of my body, even though it had been separated. And with another thought, it flew back to me, melting to rejoin my body.

This is so weird… I did my best to get used to the situation, deciding to test out my control over the other two elemental soldiers at my disposal. Focusing, I felt the shadow cape twist, wrapping around my body and causing me to sink downwards. Soon, I had fallen completely beneath the surface of the pavement, much like what happened when I trapped people within a shadow prison. Yet, this time I was able to clearly see up above, as if there was a window facing the sky above me.

More surprisingly, there were similar windows scattered around me. The landscape looked empty, only eerie darkness as far as I could see, with the only changes being the various windows facing upwards. As I walked through the empty space, I noticed that each window was a shadow. I also noticed that the window I originally started beneath vanished as soon as I began moving, likely indication that my own shadow disappeared once I decided not to surface through it.

Picking one of the larger shadows, I pulled myself up and back to the surface, and began performing a few more tests. I was able to easily create spears of shadows, blades of wind, or any other physical embodiment of the three elements I was currently made of. The only thing I had to really worry about was that my true body was still visible, floating in the center of my chest. Unlike the elemental soldiers, that was still a considerable weak point.

Nodding my head, I decided to continue exploring the possibilities of this. Pointing to the metal, light, and earth soldiers, I spoke up again. My voice sounded odd, cracking as if spoken through a fan. “You three, join me as well.”

I couldn’t help but worry as I saw the stone and metal soldiers breaking apart, moving to merge with my water body. However, like the previous three they did not try to pull me apart too strongly before giving up and simply forming an elemental armor around me. This time, I actively tapped into the links that they sent, controlling them to reshape into a more fitting body.

What I looked like this time was slightly strange. Instead of a body made primarily of water, stone was the main element now. Though, the stones were cracked and broken into large chunks, with streams of water flowing between them. I still kept the cape of shadows, but the eyes this time were brightly glowing lights.

As for the wind and metal soldiers, I relocated them to the chest of the large elemental body. Using the metal soldier as a shell, I filled it with wind to create a breathable cocoon. Like this, my true body had a measure of defense, but that was not all. Scattered pieces of the wind soldier’s body flew around my larger form, shards of metal forming claws along my hands.

Again, I performed a few tests to make sure that I could control it, before I took a deep breath. My voice now was deeper and hollow, as if speaking through a pipe. “Okay… the rest of you, join in as well.” This was the ultimate test, and if it worked I would have a new trump card to use in my fights. One even more powerful than Celeste’s body armor form, yet having the requirement of needing a wide area to use.

Sure enough, I soon felt many more connections forming in my mind, causing me to be stunned for several minutes. It was like listening to fifty people trying to talk at once, and trying to understand what each of them were saying. Needless to say, it was not an easy task to do normally.

Taking a deep, calming breath, I steadied myself and began sorting the connections by their elements. This way, rather than dealing with fifty voices, I only had to handle a handful. Then, I connected to those links in the same way as I had before, though doing so caused a much higher consumption of mana. While I was able to draw out the small amounts of mana that the fifty soldiers naturally produced in order to make up for that part of the connection, I had no way to compensate for the order mana I was using, aside from my own reserves.

And, having to sustain such a large body, this caused my mana consumption to gradually overtake my recovery speed. Though, I could probably still maintain this form for quite a while if I wanted to, since manipulating the elements is done using the mana from the soldiers rather than myself. Taking a deep breath, I sent a bit of wind mana out to form elemental eyes that let me see what I looked like now.

My body was now fully ten meters high, looking like an avatar of battle. The only flesh that could be seen was my head, hidden beneath a massive helmet. My eyes held within them a deep red light, shining like torches. My chest appeared to be covered in two layers of armor, one stone and one metal with a sleek, skintight look.

Each of my four limbs were made of stone, glowing red lines visible along them like hidden veins. Lightning danced across my body, while flames rose from my hands and feet. My back still held the flowing cape of shadows, but it was now much larger to match my new size. I could feel water pulsing through me like blood. Finally, the plant soldiers had wrapped their bodies around my waist and wrists, becoming a belt and a pair of bracers made of vines.

My true body was curled up in a ball, hidden within a metal shell inside my chest. I knew that, with a single thought, I could control any of the elements within me with an ease I had never felt before. It was like I had truly become an elemental. An elemental capable of controlling ten different elements.

“Okay, now that’s cool.” I heard Celeste say in my mind, a voice of genuine surprise and excitement. I had to say, I did agree with her.