Chapter 30: Understanding The Elements of Nature

*FWOOOOOOOSHHHH*

The loud rushing sound of water falling at an impressive height could be heard. Isaiah looked up at the impressive waterfalls in front of him with his teacher. In the distance, the boy could see the sun peeking from the horizon indicating that it was still early morning.

"So why are we here?" the boy asked the Ancient One.

The latter grinned,

"Didn't you want to find a place to train and understand the elements of nature? I figured this place would be good for you."

Isaiah raised an eyebrow,

"Sure, but why couldn't we do it in Kamar-Taj? I mean we could recreate this scene over there, right?"

However, the woman shook her head,

"First of all, it would be inefficient since Kamar-Taj is not a place that could accommodate a waterfall. And I don't want you to create one using (Denial of Nothingness." she said before the boy could interject, "It would be artificial and there would be no learning experience. Besides, you can easily train here without anyone noticing you."

Isaiah looked at her before turning his gaze to the waterfalls. Right now, they were on top of the Iguazu Falls which are located in Argentina. Ever since he had read, in Solomon's book, that he had to understand the elements of nature to manipulate it, he had been finding ways to comprehend them. He decided to ask his teacher.

(Flashback)

It was now March 1st, 2007 and Isaiah was on his bed removing the bandages from his body. As he unwrapped them, he could see that the injuries were not there anymore and his skin had returned to its normal skin colour. He had to thank his teacher for rewinding his body when she did otherwise, it would have been much worse. The burns were caused by Hellfire which contained destructive magical properties which would have been hard to heal. After disposing of his bandages, he stretched himself and felt his body. He also turned his magical circuits on and felt no pain whatsoever.

'Finally! No problem!' he thought.

He jumped off the bed and went out of his room after putting his clothes back on.

"Let's start training."

For the past two weeks, he didn't train his magical skills due to his teacher forbidding it until he was healed. So he simply trained his physical skills. He would train in martial arts that he learned over the years or he would try out hobbies on Bianca's recommendation. Lately, he had started picking up all kinds of entertainment from novels to mangas to movies. The boy would also continue gaining new knowledge from his research such as overhauling machines he would find in dumpsters. He would then keep them in his ring for future use. If one were to look inside of it, there would be a place reserved simply for things he kept on a whim or for future uses.

Isaiah grabbed the book titled [Mana], and read the section [Elemental Manipulation] once more.

[To control the elements using mana, one must fully understand said elements.]

Only one sentence was written for that single section. Over the two weeks of his recovery, he had racked his brain over the meaning of this sentence. He had theories, but he couldn't confirm them until he was fully healed. He had also done a lot of research on the elements of nature using every piece of knowledge he could find including the ones he got from his death trip in the Akashic Records. However, now that he was healed, he decided to go to his teacher and ask for help. After pinpointing her location, he found her in the training yards assisting apprentices who started on their path as sorcerers.

"You will now focus on creating a formation. Feel the Universal energy to power your Eldritch Magic. Let the energy course through you. Your job is to guide it and not forcefully control it." the woman instructed as she showed the task to be performed.

Isaiah sat on a nearby bench observing them. After half an hour, the class ended and the apprentices went on their way. Isaiah saw his teacher walking up to him.

"I see that you've finally taken off your bandages, Isaiah. How are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling great! I don't feel sore anymore and I can use my mana without any problem."

"That's good to hear. So what can I do for you?"

Isaiah retrieved the book of Mana and showed her the page,

"I was wondering if you could help me with that. I have some theories on what to do, but I didn't try them yet."

The Ancient One read the page and slowly nodded.

"Alright, so what do you want to do?"

"Well, As you can see, the book says that I have to understand or comprehend the elements of nature as well as their sub-elements to be able to use them. There are five main elements."

"Five?" the Ancient One asked, "I was under the impression that there were only four."

"Well, there are four main elements that we all know: Water, Earth, Fire and Wind. But there is also a fifth element which is Void or Ether."

"Ether?"

"Yeah, it'd another name for Mana the energy used in conjunction with the other elements to create spells. Sometimes, they don't even use the elements. An example is (Projection) which doesn't have any elemental properties."

The teacher listened to the boy's explanation before answering,

"I see. Then which element would you like to start with?"

Isaiah room the time to think about before answering,

"I'll start with water."

Rating an eyebrow, the teacher asked,

"Water, huh? What made you choose that one first?"

"Well, it's the least dangerous and I feel like it's an easier start on the path of elemental magic." the boy replied.

Fiona closed the book and handed it to the boy,

"Alright then. Come to the classroom, tomorrow, at around 2:00 PM, and I will take you somewhere to start your training."

Isaiah perked up at the statement,

"Alright! I'll see you tomorrow, Teacher!" the boy said and left.

"See you tomorrow, Isaiah." the woman replied before letting out a low chuckle at the boy's enthusiasm.

(Flashback end)

So here they now are. In front of multiple waterfalls.

"So what do I do?"

"I want you to try to meditate under a waterfall."

Hearing the roars of the falling water, Isaiah turned his eyes back to the teacher,

"Won't that kill me?" he asked incredulously.

However, the teacher simply deadpanned,

"You're a sorcerer, Isaiah. A simple waterfall won't kill you. You can also use your spells to strengthen your body. Now off you go. You want to go in before anyone sees you."

The boy kept his gaze on his teacher once more before looking at the waterfalls. He then took a step towards the edge. Then another and another. Until he reached the edge of the land before taking a step into the air. Before putting his feet down, orange and gold arcane energy burst out from beneath his foot and created a platform where the boy placed his limb. He then created another platform where he placed his other foot, but this time it was a little lower in height. Isaiah then proceeded to create platforms and climb down as if walking down some stairs.

"Good luck, Isaiah. I will be watching you."

Isaiah nodded and continued walking down. With the roaring sounds of the waterfalls. Fortunately for him, Fiona picked the lowest waterfall she could find and there is land just beside it in case he needed to rest away from the cascading water.

Looking around, the boy found no witness and could sense no one in the vicinity. Once he was prepared, he stripped off his clothes leaving him in only his boxers. After gently folding them, he placed his clothes in his ring before walking up to the waterfall.

*FWOOOOOOOSHHHH*

He could hear nothing else except for the falling water.

*SLAP*

The boy slapped his cheeks before pumping himself up for the task.

"You can do this, Isaiah."

Taking a deep breath, he activated his circuits. The familiar circuit-like patterns appeared all over his body as he cast (Reinforcement). Once he was ready, he extended his arm and slowly placed it underneath the water. The force of the water was so strong, that he could feel it even when (Reinforcement) was activated. He retrieved his arm and took a deep breath before completely going right beneath the waterfall. As soon as he did, the water started to mercilessly hammer into him. Be it the head, the back, the chest, the water would slam into it. Suddenly his eyes widened and let out a cry, "Whoaaa!", before falling into the water due to slipping on a very slippery rock. He was soon swept away by the current.

'Isaiah! Are you okay!?' the worried voice of his teacher was heard in his mind.

Once he arrived in an area where the water was calmer, he swam to the surface. Unfortunately, he had swallowed some of the water.

*Cough* *Cough* *Cough*

Coughing out the water, he then replied to the woman,

'Yeah, I'm fine. I just slipped. I'll go again.'

'Alright, do be careful.'

Isaiah swam back to land and made his way to the waterfall once more.

"Alright, Isaiah. You can do this."

Once more he placed himself under the waterfall all the while making sure he did not slip off this time. He dug his foot into the rock with his superhuman strength and stabilized himself before sitting down in the lotus position that is used for meditation. Unfortunately, he had slipped once more.

"Come on!"

After a few more slips and falls, he had finally got the hang of it. Isaiah sat down in the lotus position and started his meditation. Under the trial of the waterfall, the constant hammer of the water, the roaring of the liquid as well as the struggle to stay upright and in place without slipping off, the boy began on his path to comprehending Water.

What is water?

From a scientific point of view, water is simply a name we, humans, have given an agglomeration of hydrogen and oxygen. One molecule of water contains two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. Each atom has a polarity depending on the number of electrons and proteins they contain. In this case. Hydrogen atoms contain only one proton and one electron whereas oxygen atoms contain 8 protons, 8 neutrons, and 8 electrons. However, the electrons are in a continuous movement around the protons and neutrons and they form a ring just like the planet Saturn which are called shells. One the first shell, there will be no more than two electrons. On the second ring, there will be no more than eight electrons. In the third shell, there will also be not more than eighteen electrons and so on. In the case of Oxygen, there are two electrons on the first shell and six electrons on the second shell which makes it incomplete. Since hydrogen atoms contain one electron each, they will be attracted to each other due to Oxygen's incomplete shell and fill the missing two electrons resulting in the water molecule.

This knowledge can easily be found in textbooks that Isaiah read Kamar-Taj's library on the internet. Isaiah continued to concentrate.

What is water?

Water can be a liquid, a gas, and a solid. It is everchanging with no fixed form. It reminded the boy of a quote from a famous martial artist: Bruce Lee.

"Be Water, My Friend. Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."

Just like the quote says, water has no definite shape. It can be anything you want.

Unknown to the boy, his mana began to emit from his body in a hazy blue gas-like energy. The blue arcane energy began touching the cascading water. Right now, Isiah was in a zone. It was only him and his mind. He could feel nothing, hear nothing, and see nothing.

What is water?

It is the source of life. Without water, there can be no living being on earth. It is present everywhere be it the earth, the air, or the living. Some could even say that water is synonymous with life.

The mana that the boy was emitting soon started to change. Invisible to the naked eye, but the change was present. The gaseous state of the mana was ever so slowly starting to become a liquid.

What is water?

The very question Isaiah was asking himself this whole time. Unknown to him, his ability to comprehend almost anything was now starting to work overtime as it was not used to question things like that. If it was a mathematical problem, it would be easily solved by the boy due to it being clear. Or if he wanted to learn something about an object, he would easily learn about it due to it being a physical object. However, water is abstract. The physical aspect can be easily understood, however, on the magical side, it will be harder. Sorcery in Marvel, especially in the Order of Masters of Mystic Arts, focuses more on borrowing different energies in the universe. There isn't much information on elemental magic using mana because, one, mana is rare and, two, elemental energies exist such as the Flames of Faltine or the Winds of Watoomb. The only other examples of elemental manipulation are from the mutants, unfortunately, they don't use magic.

Now that Isaiah thinks about it, the mutants may help him since the powers they produce come from their own body, be it psionic powers such as Telepathy or Telekinesis or even elemental manipulation such as hydrokinesis or pyrokinesis.

In the meantime, The Ancient One had come down from the top of the waterfall and was now close to the boy observing him.

'Impressive, He has not made a single movement.' she thought in surprise.

Fiona has already informed Mordo and put him in charge of Kamar-Taj in her place so that she could keep an eye on the boy.

Looking at him, it has already been a few hours. At the beginning of this training, the boy could be seen struggling a lot against the waterfall due to the instability of the place. However, after more tries, she could finally see him start to meditate. Ever since she had taken him under her wings, she was amazed by his concentration. When the boy focused on something, it was like the world simply disappeared from his view. She would sometimes try to get his attention when he was like that and the latter wouldn't even respond to any stimuli. It was like he was entering a trance and he would only exit it when he finished whatever he was doing. However, this training took the cake, as soon as he entered his trance, not even the waterfall could move him. If she squinted her eyes, she could see the boy literally indented into the rock beneath him.

'He must've done it to stabilize himself,' she thought.

Now, a few hours later, she was still observing him and there was not a single change. She saw his (Reinforcement) still in place, however, from time to time it would flicker. The hazy blue mana was still being expelled from the boy. She looked at the sky and, to her surprise, the sun was going down.

'It has already been a whole day!' she thought in shock.

Looking at the boy, there was not a single change in his position.

'Just what are you doing, young Isaiah?'

She had chosen this place, because, in her early years of training, she and some of her comrades, would sometimes meditate under a waterfall. It would strengthen their physique and their mind. It was very difficult for beginners to simply position themselves under the turbulent water, but Isaiah had figured it out in less than a day. She too was meditating in the meantime.

Two more hours later, when the sun had finally set and the moon rose into the sky, The Ancient One sensed something. She didn't have Isaiah's innate hypersensitivity to energies, but she had developed her own. She opened her eyes to look at Isaiah and saw the blue outline of mana glowing in the night. Suddenly, the mana the boy was emitting started to shift radically and in an unpredictable way. If at the beginning of the training, the mana was hazy, now she could compare it to a liquid. The water of the waterfall also started to splash everywhere due to the mana's influence.

The Ancient One got up and tensed before flooding herself with Universal energy and conjuring two tap mandalas.

"Isaiah?" she called out, but there was no response. Only the sound of falling water. However, the movement of the mana was becoming more and more intense. Until out of the blue, Isaiah's mana emission was cut off leaving only the boy under the waterfall.

"Isaiah?" the woman called out again this time confused.

There was a sense of stillness in the atmosphere when suddenly...

*BOOOM*

An explosion was heard and Isaiah's body released a shockwave of arcade energy.

"Isaiah!" Fiona shouted as she conjured a bigger shield to counter-attack the shockwave.

Once the shockwave passed, she dismissed the shield and witnessed a shocking scene. There, her young protege was hovering above the rock he was sitting on, his eyes glowing blue with mana covering him like something straight out of those comics that Master Hinata sometimes read. However, the most shocking sight was the fact that the waterfall was now flowing backwards! Instead of following gravity and falling. Somehow, Isaiah had reversed its course.

'Amazing.' the Ancient One gazed at the sight in awe.

She quickly shook her head and returned her eyes to the boy.

"Isaiah!" she called out again before slowly approaching him.

The boy was not moving and still hovering in the air. Suddenly, like strings being cut off a puppet, Isaiah passed out and fell to the ground. Reacting quickly, Fiona caught the boy and quickly moved him out of the way before the water returned to its natural course and crashed down onto him.

Fiona released a sigh of relief before looking down at the passed-out boy in her arms.

'What a reckless, but an outstanding boy. When he grows up, he's going to be a monster.' she thought before opening a portal and returning to Kamar-Taj.

A few minutes before the shockwave, Isaiah was still in his trance.

What is water?

What is the one thing that represented water the best? After some time, Isaiah finally found the answer.

Flow.

What represented water the best was flow. Water is simply the physical representation of the concept of flow. The concept of flow could be found almost anywhere. For example, water is a liquid with ever-changing forms, but it always follows a certain flow. Flow can be found in every liquid. But it can also be found in the abstract such as Time. Time is like water. It always changes with a variety of different branches resulting from different flows of time.

Suddenly Isaiah had an epiphany, his mind opened up to countless possibilities as his ability to understand anything had placed its final piece in the puzzle. The boy felt his mana going before passing out resulting at the end of his training and the start of his path to understanding the elements of nature.