Griffith was already up, quietly standing watch over the three of us. The slime now rested contentedly in Thea’s lap, its once-translucent form darkening, a strange substance rising within its center. A deep black hue streaked with hints of red. The same red-black color as the serpent’s scale.

A quick glance at the snake confirmed my suspicion. Where the scale had once flaked and peeled, only the newer layer remained. The older, damaged piece was gone, clearly taken by the slime.

“Ready?” Griffith asked as I rose to my feet, brushing dust and leaves from my pants. A faint acrid scent clung to my skin, curling from my pores. The purification process had begun, subtle but unmistakable. Still, I didn’t feel any different. Not yet.

“Let’s move away,” I said, and we walked together, deeper into a more isolated clearing of the forest. After a few minutes, I lifted a finger, not pointed at Griffith, but at a nearby tree.

“Let me test my fused abilities first.”

He gave a simple nod, stepping back to give me space, ever-patient.

I inhaled deeply, centering my focus, then began forming a slender pipeline of invisible energy. I channeled unwilled Force through it, still moving with the wild, restless behavior of raw fire. There was no trace of water, only the fuse-like energy of flame. I threaded the flow along the path, winding it around a dry twig about a meter ahead.

Keeping the energy minimal, I snapped my fingers.

A sharp explosion erupted around the twig. A compact fireball bloomed, rippling outward in a fast shockwave that nearly reached my feet. The heat lingered in the air, crackling, curling, wisps of flame dancing like spirits.

Something unexpected happened right after. Something that forced my eyes wide with shock.

Water Force.

The searing heat in the air seemed to pause, suspended in time. Then, in a sudden, silent reversal, all of it collapsed back to its origin point, and left behind a delicate layer of frost. Cold radiated from the center like a breath of winter after fire.

An implosion of ice.

“That…” Griffith started, patting my back with enough force to almost send me stumbling. The man was still a walking fortress of muscle. “Peter, you’ve got to give my heart a break. You keep coming up with new tricks every other day.”

I forced out a chuckle, still stunned by what I’d just witnessed. I hadn’t expected the implosion after the explosion, leaving nothing but silence and frost and char in its wake.

“Yeah, I’ll try…” I said, though the unease in me hadn’t lifted. Questions still burned. Why had fire been the dominant force? Sure, my intent had guided it, but if that was the case, why did no water appear when I used no intent?

If I kept losing access to elements every time I added a new one… I’d be severely handicapped. I needed answers, and I needed them soon.

“I had time to think,” Griffith said, pulling me out of my thoughts. His tone was calm, measured. “When I gained my Earth Essence, I didn’t get anything unusual. Just Earth Force, pure and unfiltered by the system.”

He began to pace away from me, putting distance between us as we stood opposite one another in the clearing. He called back over his shoulder:

“Why ice instead of water? Most mages with a water affinity have to train hard, or receive specific blessings to alter their elemental composition. And you—you don’t have fire, Peter. What you have is explosions.”

I rolled my shoulders and dropped into a stance. Muscles tensed, my core flexed, and legs coiled.

“I told you about the space monsters before,” I said, voice firm. “My only guess is that it’s related to them. That’s the only major difference between our visions.”

He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and locked eyes with me, his expression sharpening.

“Ready?”

I nodded.

"Start!"

I launched forward, flame energy flaring in my veins, as a golden, spiked shield exploded into existence before the commander with a metallic shimmer. My spiritual sense narrowed, condensing around me. One-on-one there was no need for a panoramic battlefield scan, not that I even could in this area.

Gripping the shield with one arm, the commander surged toward me, his other hand weaving in sharp motions through the air.

A warning tingled beneath my feet, and I sprang forward on instinct, my gloved fist crashing into the center of the shield. The impact sang through my knuckles. The golden wall quivered. He grunted and staggered back a step.

"You should make more spikes," I taunted, shaking off the sting in my hand. "Getting through this porcupine isn’t that hard."

He smirked. “You haven’t seen what they do yet.”

I tried to mask it, but in that single clash I was confused. The subterranean attack I’d sensed never came. The hop had been a misread. We'd just met at the center, but still, something felt wrong.

I began retreating, looking to reset the tempo. But he wasn’t done showing off.

Two of the large shield-spikes broke free, hurtling after me like javelins of light. Not controlled like Elric’s fracture blades. Just fast, deadly, with a straight-line precision.

I dove sideways, hitting the dirt hard.

This was a serious problem. The plan was to keep spreading the trail of fuse-energy that was currently on the field. I'd planned to ignite them later, but that assumed he’d give me time. And that he wouldn't just move away. The other option was exploding us both trying to use another technique. Maybe I could wrap the fuse around him using Vel’s tube method... but I still didn’t have the control for that.

On the beach, I’d managed to swirl droplets of water in tight, spiraling rings around my body, learning discipline. But this wasn’t the beach. This was battle.

Just as the second spike screamed past my shoulder, my spirit sense pulsed. Griffith’s hand rose, slow and theatrical, fingers outstretched like he was drawing power from the very island.

Danger. Everywhere.

There was nowhere to run.

BOOM.

A deafening tremor cracked the ground, and the battlefield erupted.

My nostrils burned as a plume of pulverized earth exploded skyward. Reflex slammed my eyes shut in an act of self-preservation. My lungs itched with grit.

"So that’s what I sensed earlier…" I just barely managed to cough out.

He hadn’t planned a column strike. He’d been grinding the bedrock beneath us, priming the ground like a trap. I pushed my Precursors' Sense to the edge, desperate for a ping, but there was nothing. No red-glowing form.

Below.

I hurled myself toward where I thought he’d been before, simultaneously dodging the surging pillar that erupted behind me. But this doesn't feel right... Shouldn't I have landed already land—

Thump.

I fell harder than I should have into a hole in the ground, surrounded in a small prison of dirt.

From below again.

The earth buckled. A pillar surged upward beneath me like a battering ram. But it didn't send me flying up, instead a ceiling formed overhead, sealing me in. I could feel it more than see it. My eyes, still burning, refused to open. Sand scoured my vision, tears streaming as pain bloomed in my sockets.

"Ugh." Impact. My shoulder and back smashed into the new ceiling.

Then it began to press down. My flow of energy went haywire. Explosive force fizzled and sputtered inside me. Time slowed. My limbs dulled.

What the hell is he doing? Trying to crush me? Or—No. This wasn’t Elric. Griffith didn’t mess around with me for nothing. He was too measured for that. With Elric, we just enjoyed torturing each other, usually playfully. But Griffith was a teacher.

Then what’s the lesson here?

The walls compressed again. Thin side-pillars jabbed into my ribs, eliciting a strangled gasp. More pressure. More pain. A relentless test of what I could endure. I tried to shout, to yield, to remind the man this was just a spar for conversion, but when I opened my mouth, the air vanished.

Crack.

Something shifted inside me.

A subtle internal click. My flame, wild and frantic, suddenly… dulled. Softened. Like it had been caught by something. The pain didn’t vanish, but it changed. A strange calm settled in the center of my chest.

Flame was purely chaotic, fast, violent, and hungry. A creator through destruction, replacing every other power I’d touched. And it wasn't just moving through me chaotically for no reason, it was running.

Water hadn’t avoided it, the fire did. But under the pressure, only now did it truly calm itself.

A hush fell over the chamber.

Frost bloomed outward from my chest, curling into the compact walls of earth. Veins of orange energy pulsed within the ice, synchronized to my heartbeat. Each beat a flicker of barely restrained Force.

Crackle.

The surrounding stone quivered, fine fractures webbing through the frozen pillars.

A second flicker.

Cr-cr-crack.

Ice surged forward, its presence now dominant, not erasing the fire but tempering it. Now it was the primary element, the explosions weaved within the cold. And finally, I could breathe again.

Vapor coiled from my lips. Cold wrapped around me like a blanket... Strange to say, but it was nice. Not biting, but pure, familiar.

Another flicker of fire surged, more raw and volatile than the previous two, but ice held the reins, controlling the micro-combustions.

Crumble.

The columns around me dissolved, crushed into powder beneath the warring forces.

I raised my left arm, channeling the first ability I’d ever created. The one I used before I even understood power. Now living up to its name more than ever.

Blasting Wave.

Energy coiled in my palm, spiraling inward before pushing outward with growing resistance. For a moment everything was still. Even sound fell silent, bowing in reverence.

In that silence, a quick moment of clarity, I raised my right hand and cast a barrier around myself and Luna, its shimmer folding in tight, shielding everything but my left hand.

I felt the Fire Force begin to spill outward, the pressure cracking just enough to give way. The Water Force resisted, wrapping around it, but was losing its hold. But this was it. This moment where they pulled on each other equally. Truly balanced. This was Harmony.

There was a blinding light and the world split.

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