9.Lost

Starting from the moment Yui learned to speak and run, she became too much talkative and curious. Even more she followed me like a tail all her free time. Therefore, we can safely say that it was me who laid down a considerable part of her upbringing. No, she also obeyed her parents, but my person still had a little more authority.

 In the Library, she could often be seen next to me, sitting with an extremely serious face. With such an expression on her face, she tried to figure out what was written in the book, seeing only some familiar words. She even somehow managed to beg her parents for a workout, although looking at her begging face, it's quite difficult to refuse, so now we do a massage workout for her: we stretch her body and prepare her for serious future loads.

 One of the goals set was achieved at the time of my tenth birthday. I've finished with most of the city library, the rest of the books are just copies from the palace library.

 At the end of this period, frequent visitors to the monastery of knowledge began to look at me with strange eyes. Here, people read more slowly by themselves, and the lack of systematic education affects them. I don't know about other nations, but in the Northern Tribe of Water, it is the parents who teach their children to read and write, and this is quite enough for a comfortable life. And it doesn't matter how fast you do it. And according to their opinion, which was not voiced out loud, I do not read, but just flip through the pages. I didn't try to convince anyone otherwise - it's an extra hassle, they don't kick me out, and that's fine.

 The notebooks that my father gave me for my birthdays, I had to use to write my knowledge for Wang Shi Tong. I remembered about him on my head, now I have to actively fur all my memory for knowledge, and "break the convolutions" over which of them may be generally suitable for the magical world and which of them have not yet been revealed. I think if I write as it is, the big owl won't be too offended. Yet in the past world, what I wrote really worked.

 So my parents thought I was a once-in-a-century genius. After the same incident with childbirth, they generally began to think that some kind spirit had blessed me. Yes, I blessed myself! Because of this, their control is very weak, the main thing is to always arrive on time for meals and be safe and sound.

 A few days before my tenth birthday, spirit and body completely merged. It happened right during sleep. I still remember that moment down to the smallest detail. At first, I felt warmth at chest level, not giving it much importance, I wanted to continue my sleep, but suddenly every part of my body seemed to be washed by some kind of energy, and where it passed, the cells of the body themselves experienced something similar to ecstasy. A blissful moan escaped my lips on its own.

 As soon as I came to my senses from an overabundance of feelings, I immediately "went down" to look at my energy. My two sources pulsed to the beat of my heart. There was nothing holding them back now, just pouring out a lot of magic both into my body and out. After looking more closely, I still couldn't find my spirit, not a single particle, and it was just wonderful. This means that he has completely merged with the body, no borders or "seams" are even visible.

 As Wang Shi Tong wrote in his observations of Chin the Conqueror. After all, he came to his library once, which is located in the human world, in order to repay his debt with books. Like me, his spirit and body have merged so tightly that you can no longer see where the beginning is and where the end is.

 This, in his opinion, was very, very intriguing, since all people, even Avatars, if you carefully "look closely", you could find points of contact between body and spirit. For Chin, all this was a single whole, which would allow him to travel through the spirit world in his physical incarnation, having all his powers.

 He, having considerable power, strength and wealth that he had in the human world, did not even think of interacting with the Spirit Realm in any way. As we know, even an Avatar entering the spirit plane left his physical body in the human world, sending some kind of projection of his body to another plane. There is an idea that this is just the astral body of people. Airo later in the spirit world didn't look very material either.

 Plus one bonus to the piggy bank of being a hybrid.

 Unable to resist the sunrise, I quickly dressed and ran towards the nearest artificial pond in order to practice water magic.

 Probably, some residents of the Palace could hear my happy laught at that night, but then I simply didn't care about anything else. Moving water through the air, I really felt whole, as if something long lost had been returned to me. My level did not change in any way, I was still in the rank of a lower spirit, which is on the verge of average.

 The main thing is that I did not feel any obstacles in overcoming the middle rank, but succumbing to my intuition, I decided to wait a little, especially since all my energy had just begun to flow into the body – I need to give it time to settle down.

 The next day, I delighted my parents with my control over the water, which gave me official permission to practice magic at my father's personal training ground.

 Having calmed down enough, and already with a sober head, I set about a thorough check of my skills. As I found out, it's a little harder to conquer magic in the human world than in the Spirit Realm. The lower density of the energy itself in the world is affected.

 This is followed by a deterioration in energy control. Being a spirit that is made up of magic itself, I controlled the energy flows with my whole body. The physical body has certain channels through which magic flows, and this imposes some restrictions. It's not just that the conquerors of all the elements accompany their techniques with movements – these are a kind of hand seals in Naruto, a kind of crutches that facilitate the use of techniques and techniques.

 The masters of magic are no longer much in need of them. Here, my nature also distinguished itself, the channels that were filled with energy only yesterday became bigger and stronger the next day than the day before. In theory, this process will only accelerate, and when the channels have already filled my entire body, I will be more an energy form of life, something between a spirit and a person. The same analogy with the Naruto anime comes to mind, biju is about what I should become in the future.

 In the meantime, I will have to study the racks and movements for better water control. Another advantage was the removal of limits, which all lower spirits have. I'm talking about a water control range of one to two meters from my body. Now I can take control of all the water that I feel – the main thing is that I have enough strength. Long-range and medium-range techniques will finally appear!

 With the return of magic came the feelings of the spirit, a kind of analogue of human intuition, which helped me out in the Realm of Spirits. It was thanks to this invisible organ that I could determine the approximate strength of the enemy. And the most useful function of the spiritual locator is to help avoid the attention of unfriendly higher spirits who were not averse to eating me.

 After running around the city and scanning people, I was able to make for myself a rough gradation of the conquerors' forces based on the forces of spirits. Untrained teenage magicians and students who have just begun to comprehend magic have the powers of a lower spirit, namely a weak lower one. Students who have completed their studies and simple magicians, who are not even close to masters, have strength from a strong lower to a weak average spirit. The masters of water already have strength from a strong average up to a strong higher spirit.

 Unexpectedly, the head of the Halls of healing turned out to be the strongest in terms of energy density and its quantity – this is the grandmother who conducted my examination as a child. For her hundred and forty years, she looks very cheerful, and it seems that she has already outlived four leaders. There were also two grandfathers at the level of a weak higher spirit – these are just one of those who fought off the people of fire during the siege.

 However, it should be borne in mind that I only checked the reserves and energy density, but the power of human magic is not in this. The power of a magician, that is, a conqueror, is the quintessence of his experience, skill, flexibility of mind and only then his quality and amount of energy. Otherwise, I would not have met masters who have reserves of strength at the level of a weak average spirit.

 For the next two months, I increased the control of water magic to my previous level, and also managed to regain all my signature techniques.

 It took me another six months to take full control of my water within a radius of ten meters – now in this kind of ring, simple manipulation of water is given without a single movement of the body, but the efficiency of the energy used is lost…

 It took another year to comprehend other aggregate states of water. Ice and steam obey me now almost as well as plain water. A lot of techniques have been added, however, only some of them I have brought to automatism when creating.

 The first technique I hammered into my subcortex was a water needle coming out of my mouth at high speed. To create it, it is necessary to hold back saliva or drink water beforehand, also created its analogue - an ice needle, the effect of the hit is the same.

 The octopus style follows next. Thick bundles of water are created around the perimeter of the body, with which the magician can both defend himself and whip his enemies with them.

Ice spears, arrows, swords, daggers, whatever your imagination desires, feel free to send to the enemy.

Ice boots /skates – allow you to quickly move around the battlefield.

A water/ice drill is a heavy artillery in water magic, after which I spent another week repairing a hole in the landfill.

There are also non-combat techniques that I decided to add to my arsenal without fail - this is water filtration, an air bubble for breathing underwater and walking on water, the latter simply because it looks cool.

 The remaining time until I was twelve years old, I spent fighting with my mother, whom I still managed to force to fight without any indulgences. It's one thing when you just perfectly execute techniques, and quite another is to perfectly execute them already during the rapidly changing picture of the battle, being under great pressure.

 Yes, there weren't enough events in these two years, I was completely immersed in magic, and all because right after my twelfth birthday, a battle was scheduled with a student who would be chosen by the masters of water. But to spite these old men, after an easy victory, I want to challenge one of the masters to a fight. Hmm, let's see how they sing after my second victory!

 Do you remember how happy I was to activate magic? At the same time, inspired by my feelings, I ran to the training ground of the water magicians so that they could personally train me. Yes, I was a little arrogant then, but the choice was to ask this way or go to a group with other students, where my progress would be much slower.

 Usually, teachers adjust the learning rate to the average value of the entire group. Knowing that water would be much easier for me, I wanted to spend my time more efficiently, while simultaneously learning the experience of water combat magic and leaving time for healing magic.

 I don't know how it happened, but even after showing at that moment my great abilities in conquering the water, these stubborn and bad people, pushing on traditions in training, and my alleged immaturity, told me to sign up for a group like normal people. It's my fault, I had to "cool down" and solve the issue of learning behind closed doors. Later, my father sorted out the situation for me, pointing out gross mistakes. The fact is that water masters are not just strong people, they are also public figures who should not "lose face". And even though I am the son of a Leader, there have not been any significant achievements behind my back yet, that is, I could not tell them what to do and how to do it.

 The body, having decided to prove that hormones in the child's body are not just words, rebelled and showed how they can "handle" situations.

 As a result, we had a bet, in two years I will have a battle with their chosen student, and if I win, I will be able to approach any master on the site for training. If I lose and I still want to study with them, then it will be only as they say. I hurt their pride a lot then, they mean that they have been teaching decent men the right magic for almost half a century, and then I drew such a wrong one.

 I was also emotional, deciding to keep the last words to myself, and yelled at the whole square that I would kick even the master's ass. The rumors spread quickly and now neither side wants to give up its position.

 Of course, they did not believe my words about defeating the master, but I will not give up my words. Unfulfilled promises, even those made emotionally, are still postponed in people's subconscious, and in the future your words will have less weight – this is a funny human psychology.

 I'm used to keeping my words, too, if it's not about life and death, of course.

 There is a week left before my fight, which is known all over the city. As soon as it came to Yui, she, burning with righteous anger, tried to beat up these scoundrels who offend her brother. The father and mother took it more calmly, thinking equally about stuffing their own bumps with an early-matured son.

 I am glad that in a few years the body will be ready to accept the full power of raising the rank to the average spirit. Of course, I can try earlier, but here I decided to play it safe. As soon as I move to the next step, I need to go to the spirits of the Moon and the Ocean. It was high time to have a conversation with them. I kept postponing my visit because... ancient spirits have the same ancient cockroaches in their heads, and this is dangerous for the lives of others!