The Cyborg System-Chapter 54: Elemental Fighting

The instructors had chosen to split the elemental fighting class in two that day, as they often did. Master Mancini had taken the fire, lightning, magnetism and wind abilities, while Master Cole took the water, ice, and earth users. Although, to be more precise, there was only one earth user: Harry. But there was also a sand user, they had affectionately started calling the Sandman, and a boy who could produce a sticky tar-like substance. Master Cole even had a somewhat similar affinity, that of manifesting and manipulating rock. Though it wasn’t quite the same, in terms of the fluidity of movement, the similarities were close enough between all of these more material manifestations to share a lot of basic principles in common between them.

There did seem to be quite a clear divide in the group, though. Those of the yellow or orange sash, who could manipulate existing materials, or produce a very small amount of it, and those of the green sash and above, whose abilities flowed a lot more freely. This made the lessons seem to alternate between exercises which were too easy for many, or too advanced for others. Although this was often the case, it seemed like the exercise today had found a sweet spot between the two, being both easy to grasp but also allowing a good variation in the amount of essence that could be applied.

"Good, keep manifesting your elements... allow the ball to condense further. If you feel it growing bigger than a fist, you must condense more, or reduce the power..."

Master Cole demonstrated his own ball of rock being summoned and crushing it into a denser sphere that looked as if the composition of the rock’s basic structure itself had changed, becoming darker and less irregular. You could hear the sound of the rock compacting, like stone being crushed.

"If you are losing control, you must stop," Master Cole emphasised to the group.

Harry was concentrating on adding more earth to the small amount he had manifested already but was suddenly disrupted by a clap of thunder, as many of them were. Turning towards the other group, Harry noticed the lightning user—an indigo sash by the name of Leah—had fired a blue bolt straight out into one of the training dummies in the Great Hall. Smoke was rising from its torso in thick plumes. Harry couldn’t help but be impressed by its speed. It seemed to have good range too, allowing the user to attack from thirty feet away.

"Concentrate on your own abilities," Master Cole reminded them. Harry refocused. There were constant sounds of fire balls and wind slashes from the other side of the hall, along with more lightning bolts, so he decided to close his eyes to help him concentrate. In doing so, he was able to shut out much of the outside world, focusing more intently. He felt the ball of earth growing thicker in the space between his palms, and concentrated on crushing the mound together, into the tightest space he could manage.

He was beginning to feel the strain, but he was sure he had summoned more than he had ever done before. It was as if he was learning to use the essence he did have more efficiently. He just needed to add a little—at that moment, he felt something wet splash across his face. The momentary loss in concentration caused the pressure on the earth ball to suddenly be released, exploding outwards and covering his clothes in earth.

Harry opened his eyes and could see Hailey, a green sash from the Drowned, smiling at him with a guilty look across her face. When their eyes met, those around them burst out in laughter and Harry earnt a new nickname that was whispered for the first time that day: "Mud Boy."

Harry tried to summon a new ball of earth, smaller than the last. It was less stable, and he struggled to maintain control over it. However, as much as he tried to ignore them, it seemed like he was unable to relax and simply focus on the task at hand, keeping his eye on the water user who had splashed his face. She seemed to be thriving with the exercise, even using her control to subtly change the shape from a sphere to a cube and back again.

All around him, he could see the influence of the great factions in action. Their children trained with the best masters from a young age, given constant time and supervision to develop their skills. He thought of his own father, always working. They would train together when they could, but he was always tired and burnt out. Moving to the Fiends was supposed to have given them the opportunity to spend more time together, focusing on his training, instead of constantly having to take missions off-world on the beast planets. It brought back a lot of painful memories.

Harry knew one thing for certain: he hated the Drowned. And if he had his way, one day, he would make them pay.

*

After their classes were over for the day, Rose, Lenny and Harry had met up in one of the open areas on the campus which could be used as an ad-hoc training ground. Harry was looking dejected, as he had been doing lately, but tried to smile as he was greeted by his friends.

"Today, we’re gonna help you get stronger," said Lenny with a smile.

"I don’t know about that," said Harry. "Besides, I already told you, I’m drained from classes."

Without saying anything, Lenny placed his hand on his shoulder and began to concentrate on pushing the spirit essence out of his own body and into Harry’s instead. The ability seemed quite intuitive, working similarly to the way he would have to apply his essence to a core to activate it.

"Skill: Spirit Share has been activated," said the system. "Your essence is draining. Spirit: 19 of 22... spirit 17 of 22... spirit 15 of 22..."

The notifications kept coming. Harry looked at him strangely, but it didn’t take long for him to realise what was happening. Eventually, though, it started to feel like Lenny was filling a balloon and the pressure inside had built up to the point it was getting harder to pump any more into it. Not wanting Harry to figuratively burst, he stopped. "That should do it," said Lenny. He still had 9 essence points remaining, suggesting Harry had recovered a little since training, or perhaps wasn’t full to his maximum capacity. Still, the cooldown for the Spirit Share skill was only 15 minutes, unlike his Spirit Drain, which would take a full hour to recharge. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

"Thank you," said Harry, who instantly knew what he wanted to do. He sat down in the snow, closing his eyes, and beginning to concentrate. A ball of earth was summoned, and just like before, he concentrated all his newly refilled essence on adding to the amount of earth, then controlling the earth into a more compact form, repeating over and over. Gradually, layers built up over the top and he fell into a kind of rhythm of movements that were almost meditative. This time, however, he was able to concentrate on it up until the point he could feel his essence close to depletion, at which point, he let the solid ball of earth drop to the ground, like a rock. He had never been quite as sure of his ability as he felt in that moment. In fact, with the Terra Firma faction being essentially wiped out, he often doubted the strength of the earth ability, but now he felt like there was a hidden well of power inside of him that he’d just never fully learnt to unlock. He still hadn’t, but he knew if he worked hard, his strength would be unleashed.

Opening his eyes, he was surprised to see that Rose and Lenny were sparring. He had been concentrating so hard on his task, he had no idea 30 minutes had passed. They had decided to fill their time in the best way they knew how: more training. Lenny seemed to be using his head movement, footwork and fists to fight against Rose with her staff. Actually, Harry was astonished to see that not only was Lenny dealing with Rose’s graceful strikes and staff work, but he was actually landing some solid strikes of his own to the body. It didn’t look like either of them were going at full speed, but the intensity with which they were fighting was still impressive. Sweat was dripping from their bodies, evaporating, rising like hot steam in cold air.

Suddenly, the staff was stopped mid swing. "You’re finished?" asked Rose.

"I ran out of essence," said Harry.

"Do you wanna keep going?"

Harry looked at Lenny strangely. "How much essence do you have?"

"Not me," said Lenny. "Rose."

He looked at her with a strange expression. "You don’t mind?"

She shook her head.

"I’ll take that as a yes, then?" said Lenny.

Harry smiled. "Of course."

*

And so, they settled into a new kind of rhythm at Base Sixteen. With Lenny being reluctant to go back to the Jade Garden again so soon, really the only good thing he could do with his essence was give it Harry for practicing. One such session wouldn’t make a huge difference, but when done every day, repeatedly, it built up overtime. Besides, someone would not usually have three people’s essence to practice with. As time went on, they only had a couple weeks to go till their expedition.

Using his scan, Lenny could see Harry’s essence was creeping up. It was a slow process, not like his own ability to absorb essence. However, in many ways, Harry could use his ability more directly, while Lenny could simply use it to activate spirit weapons, armour, or create new things when provided a core to use as fuel. He wouldn’t say he was jealous, in fact he was happy to see Harry growing stronger, but it was certainly the case that his own affinity was more of a gradual improvement process requiring set conditions to grow.

Conditions? The word made him think of his system again and the strange requirements he needed to fulfil. Perhaps he would be finding out a lot more about the origin of his system soon. Or perhaps it was just a wild goose chase, a private joke by whoever designed the system. Lenny began to wonder if he really was going insane, hearing a voice that wasn’t there, but that wouldn’t explain how the system had helped him from time to time, providing information or unlocking doors.

Lenny still felt like he had a lot of room left to grow and not a lot of time left to do it in. For now though, he needed sleep.