No Pain, No Gain

"Yes to both counts. Enjoyed the tea before?"

"Mmm-hmm." Elwin nodded, taking a longer sip this time, feeling the notes of hot maple warm his core. "My friends introduced it to me."

There was a moment of silence as Tanaar and Arten contemplated questions and troubles of their own. Below them, the Tree of Naran and Naru stood watch; beyond it the ziggurat of grey-silver, and past it, glittered the southern campus Quartier and the township of Aienwater. Behind them, far taller than the summit of that hill, stood the Sacred Mountain, embracing them all.

"You are blessed to have such friends, Elwin. Cherish and protect them if you can."

Elwin felt a pang of regret skewer his insides. It was he who turned them away, and he did not tell anyone else about it, out of shame. Professor Aionia already knew what must've happened, of course, because Elwin's concern was written all over his face when he approached her for help.

"Professor, I have a question."

She shifted herself to face him directly, waiting.

"Even though I've trained myself this far, knowing how to float... I am still not sure that I am blessed with the power of the Mahamastra like my friends."

"Why do you think so?"

"Well... uhm," Elwin fidgeted, turning away slightly, "back at the first class of experimental philosophy, when Katherine demonstrated her fireball... can you recall?"

"Yes."

"Back then, Katherine made a fireball of her own and kept it going for five minutes straight. And she pulled the energy of the world around her as naturally as she breathed. In fact, she didn't even notice that she was doing it unconsciously. It looked to me as a power that she was born with."

Professor Aionia took a deep breath, listening closely. Elwin continued on.

"I made that fire just now, on my own accord... and it was beautiful, yes... but I took the energy from something that was already very hot. It had to be made obvious for me to begin with. And even then, I still passed out from exhaustion right after."

He drooped his head.

"Professor, what if I do not have what it takes to master the Mahamastra? What if after doing everything, I still don't belong here?"

At the closing of Elwin's question his face was contorted in a pitiful expression of worry even without meaning to; for all his life he was called an imposter by those around him, and at some point, he began to believe in it himself, deep down, just as Mirai believed herself to be a traitor because all Heian called her so. Elwin did not know of Mirai's past yet, but he always found that being and existing in the world was more difficult than he imagined.

Professor Aionia rested her hand on Elwin's shoulders.

"Elwin," she spoke with calm assurance, "you have already proven your mettle to me when you climbed here and rung the bell on this summit. You had accomplished a challenge set forth and achieved by no one other than yourself. It is a great honor and fortune to know he who strives to overcome himself of yesterday. It is easy to slink into the comfortable dark and to withdraw to nothingness, harboring the poison of vengeance in your heart. But you did not do that. You came to me and asked me for help, even though it would have been embarrassing, even frightening to do so. That courage alone is worthy of recognition."

A rumbling wave of tears threatened to rush in like the high tide. Elwin raised his head and tried to hold them back. His mother had always praised him for his efforts, but praise from family is praise from family; it was expected. To hear genuine praise from someone outside of it was precious to his heart; in fact, he was hearing it for the first time.

Professor Aionia continued.

"I know and understand that the world appears hostile... it is not against our nature to feel inadequate and disheartened by those more blessed than ourselves. And given the world as it is, it would be unfair to blame anyone how they feel."

"But I ask you not to destroy yourself in the envy of seeing people more blessed than you, or bring harm to those who speak ill of you, or think lightly of your vow. There are many paths you can walk to master the Mahamastra, paths of self-overcoming, rather than pushing others down."

"Like what?" voiced Elwin, softly.

"People say someone is blessed because they appear to grasp and practice the Mahamastra quickly, and perform feats of great awe. And yes, to a degree, that is something that few are born with."

"But consider this: Would you rather be born with talent and handed the silver spoon from birth, or overcome your lack of power with great effort, and through your journey carve out a legend for yourself?"

"The world is full of blessed individuals who, having been lauded and exalted all their lives for their gift over the Mahamastra, never try further, never taste the sweetness of victory nor the bitterness of defeat, patting themselves as more than adequate. Many eventually fade to nothingness in adulthood, cursing the world for its lack of reward."

"If you have no blessing, then you must ruthlessly abandon that door which is not opened to you, and instead harness your discipline. Better still if the will behind that discipline is driven by a curiosity for the Mahamastra and a desire to help the world. When you climb the ranks of mastery that way, your power shall truly be yours."

"So then, Elwin: Who do you choose to be?"

***

"FASTER. THREE MORE REPS TO GO!"

Elwin huffed and panted as he froze, unfroze, and froze the cauldron of water over and over in ferocious rhythm, shunting energy away, pushing energy in, all of his head and Quan a conduit for power and tremoring with exertion. He felt nauseous and faint, teetering ever on the verge of blacking out and collapsing on the spot. It was no different in intensity to the summit he had to climb; if that was primarily a physical challenge, this one had to be done entirely in the mental realm. It conjured as much pain as trying to attempt a push-up with a single finger.

"Please professor... I –"

"PUSH YOURSELF! JUST ONE MORE!"

Elwin bit his teeth and contorted every part of his face with the utmost effort, tears streaming from pain, as he froze the cauldron of water for the final time, and unfroze it with a crackling bang, instantly boiling it to steam. The cylinder next to him, from which he took heat to scald the water, was now cool. 

Elwin bent sideways and vomited his stomach out on a bramble with marring wretches. Professor Aionia rushed to his side and offered him her handkerchief, along with a cup of chamomile to drink.

"Well done. You pushed above your record of yesterday."

Elwin wiped his mouth on his sleeve and mopped his forehead with the handkerchief, taking deep, heavy breaths. The path to greatness was always difficult, but he would not falter. He would never falter until he got to the vision he was looking for.

The tea was delightfully sweet, soothing every troubled nerve on his body, still crackling with the power that Elwin had commanded through them in control of water and fire.

"Hoo... ha... hoo... p – professor...," he stuttered, trying in vain to formulate a question out of his swimming head.

"Take your time."

"Hoo... how... why must we feel tired like this when we perform the Mahamastra? When we... hah... try to move energy? I..." 

Elwin paused, swallowing more tea in gulps to quench his parched throat, "I would like to know the reason why. Because without it..."

He shuffled to a bench, laying himself down, but pushing himself up again in her presence.

"No, no, you are free to sit."

Elwin was thankful, for his head was still swimming. Professor Aionia seated herself next to him, and began to answer his inquiry.

"A transfer of energy in the natural world is always inefficient. When we transform energy from one type to another, or move it from one place to another place, some of it is irreversibly lost. You know of this law already, don't you?"

"Dmitri... no, Alexander Kosmogorov's law?"

"Correct. So the same should apply to human beings, right?"

"Right."

Professor Aionia held up a finger.

"Wrong."

"Huh?" Elwin leaned in, puzzled.

"Hear it out. Alexander Kosmogorov said that energy out must always be less than energy in, when it's converted or moved somewhere by a mechanism. This is why we can't make a wheel that moves forever on its own."

"A hundred years ago, a team of experimental philosophers called Vincent's Circle attempted to prove that when people performed the Mahamastra, Alexander Kosmogorov's Law will also hold true. To their surprise and frustration, that wasn't the case."

"What? Could they have been wrong?"

"They thought so. Finding fault with their initial experiments, Vincent and his colleagues refined and elaborated their setup for twelve years until one could measure the temperature of water down to seven decimal points, and no variable could disturb them. They used test tubes of the most precise alus-glass, and for where the energy came from – they used a cylinder as this one, made out of only one type of the purest metal." 

She pointed to the metal cylinder next to them. 

"Volunteers were asked to do the exact same thing you did: heat up the water by taking energy away from the cylinder."

"But the result was frustratingly the same. The energy added to the water was always the exact same amount of energy taken from the metal. Surely, some of the energy taken from the metal to the water must be lost as heat, just like in the natural world! How in the world could this be? Is Kosmogorov wrong? Are we all wrong?"

"That's frightening!"

"A frightening mystery indeed. Until one of them suggested that the problem only occurred when human beings were involved. Living beings – you and I."

"And so?"

"So Vincent's Circle hypothesized that human beings added energy during the transfer to compensate for the natural loss, and we do it either by instinct, or by some other, deeper law of the cosmos that all beings must obey. That is why we feel tired. That is why we feel the same exhaustion with the Mahamastra as we do sprinting, lifting, because we spend energy ourselves to equalize the beginning and the end."

"That explains... that explains everything! Oh the Founders bless us..." Elwin trailed off. "But how? How does it work? How exactly do we add energy? Our bodies? Our flesh?"

"The experimental philosophers asked the same question over the next decade. To answer it, they recruited hundreds of thousands of volunteers from all walks of life. Those who were bad at controlling the Elements. Those who were average. Those who considered themselves 'blessed.' And they found that those who were blessed with the Elements could make up for more lost energy than their entire physical body would allow. If they used the energy of their physical forms to ensure equality of exchange, they would have to simply explode, or turn to ash, or die, but they clearly did not. So it was clear – people didn't add energy using their physical bodies."

"Where then, if not for our bodies?" Elwin inquired, trying to match the puzzles of the jigsaw.

"The only other place... could be up here."