Master Of None

With his crystal in the inventory and a slow walking pace Walker enjoyed the peaceful morning. He liked wandering the lower tier and waving to the guards he knew. Seeing the workers and merchants setting up was a calming experience for him since he knew just how important they were to the city as a whole. These people were the ones that sold and traded food and other important goods. When even one didn’t show up or had a rough time the entire chain was affected. 

After the surprise visit the other day he needed this time to himself to really unwind and get himself ready to go on another adventure. Before he had gone to bed he scoured the library so he could find a few books on the elements and how they worked together. He had placed four of them that spoke of the light element and its influence on the other elements. He was planning on stopping by the cathedral on his walk home so that he could give them to Alice. He wanted to make sure that he said his goodbyes before he was gone for who knew how long investigating the purple slimes. 

When the cathedral came in to view he saw that there were still a decent amount of tents in front and taking up space in the square. However on his way passed the previously burned down carpenter’s quarters which already had an entire floor of structure built. There were many people moving around preparing pieces for the day’s building. Therefore looking at the tents still at the cathedral Walker rested easy knowing that their homes were soon to return.

The steps had a few people sitting on it and enjoying the sunny morning. They waved and greeted Walker, easily remembering his face from his assistance in the healing of many of them. ”Back again so soon? Should I try to recruit you as a member of the church at this rate?’ The high priest was resting on a chair by the entrance. He seemed to be greeting those coming in first thing in the morning. 

”Well, I would like to say yes to that. But I am actually about to leave again for some time. I found a few books Alice may like and wanted to top by and drop them off.” He seemed a little embarrassed saying it now but the high priest seemed pretty happy to hear this. 

”She just got up and is in the garden reading. You will be a pleasant surprise with the new books. She already read three of the five she selected before. I feel like there is never enough to keep her occupied these days.” The high priest shook his head in defeat. He had scoured all the nearby book stores for some other books on the light element but all there were copies of ones they already had. The ones that seemed to be there that she had not read were ones that were not applicable to what she wanted to learn. 

Walker remembered the way and headed off. He found the back garden and the gazebo Alice was lazily reading in. She was wearing a completely white sun dress that swayed in the breeze. Walker stood stunned for a few minutes before he was able to gather himself and head to the gazebo himself. 

Before Alice even realized it was him he had pulled out the books he had brought and sat down. ”So I thought you would want to read these too.” How smile and casual tone was his attempt to act cool, however, his entire persona was dispelled when Alice looked at him with a surprised smile. He was lost yet again looking at her. 

Before he could say another word she had slid over to sit next to him and stole the books from his grasp. She started to look through them while leaning on him. Any other person it would be rude but since the two had grown closer and closer at every meeting Walker could only be happy that she was next to him. 

”I also wanted to let you know that I should be heading to the deep sun hollow forest in a day or two. Of course you are welcome to go and browse the library while we are gone but sadly I won’t be there to help you out finding anything.” 

Walker knew that she would not need his help but offering it was the point. Plus just keeping each other company was the main reason to read in the library there instead of just staying home alone. 

He knew that he had just dashed her joy at having some new reading material since her eyes looked much more sad. But she did not fall completely because she knew that he would be returning full of stories to tell her. She had latched on to one of his sleeves holding him to the bench of the gazebo while opening the page of the book she was reading. ”Well, I am not leaving right away. I planned to spend some time here anyways. If you really want I can even stay and practice some water magic here instead of home.” His offer was more because he couldn’t use the training pond. If he disturbed the spirit lily it could die, so he would need to practice elsewhere anyways.

Hearing that he would stay and even train there Alice marked her page and stood up. Walker had no idea where she was going but when he stood up she raised a hand and waved at him to stop. Sitting there he waited while listening to the birds tweeting and flapping around in the bushes. Before he knew it Alice had returned carrying a large basin of water in her hands. The slow steady steps and the slight droplets on her dress. 

Walker jumped up and grabbed the basin from her. ”I know that I said I would stay and try to practice water magic but you didn’t need to run and get a bunch for me.” Walker was embarrassed that she would run off to do something like this for him so suddenly. 

”I can help.” Her melodic voice made the sunlight shift slightly and completely stopped Walker in his tracks. He was still surprised any time she used the mana she had to speak. 

”You know if I could hear your voice every day of my life I think I would be living a dream.” Yet another slick phrase he had heard from he guards growing up just popped in to his head and fell out his mouth before he could realize it. 

Alice’s reaction was the immediate flush of read and tuning away from Walker while he was embarrassed in his own right. The water basin slipped from his hands and splashed him slightly on the face dragging him back to reality and away from Alice. The sudden splash made her laugh which in turn made the sunlight swift in to a few additional colors again. 

”I might not be able to focus here if I try to learn something…” He mumbled this barely loud enough for Alice to hear. He was more talking to himself but out of worry she grabbed his sleeve again and decided that while Walker sat down to focus on learning something about water magic, that his back would be her own backrest for reading. 

While the two now sat back to back Alice continued her books and Walker start to meditate and sense the water mana within the water basin. He tried to fall in to the meditative state faster but he was too focused on the person  leaning on his back. It took him nearly triple the time to calm himself and actually start to properly focus on how the water was rippling with every single little breeze in the back garden of the cathedral. 

He was using the grand elemental manipulation to make the water rotate in a whirlpool. The flow of the water was much stronger than manipulating the air. The water had more weight behind it and could drag along stronger things. The wind would naturally be easier to resist but would be faster overall. 

Seeing the difference in the two difference elements were the start of how he would go about influencing this element. They could both move in similar fashion and Walker even knew that Air could carry small amounts of evaporated water. This was proven by rain clouds and snowstorms. The question was how could he use that to make an attack? 

Realizing he had gotten ahead of himself and was about to try and fuse two elements before he even learned how to manipulate the single one and have skills he could use for it, Walker re-focused himself on the water alone. The little whirlpool he made was easy to start but much tougher to stop or even reverse.

Since the water was held down by its own weight, getting it to rise up was more of a challenge, however he started to notice that the water did not like to be separated into pieces but preferred to stay together. He decided that he should build on this fact and moved in to a new technique.

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