Chapter 18: Elemental Manipulation

[Carman POV]

The water in this space is strange, I can tell that I am not in a physical space right now, it's hard to describe but it's like being aware that you are in a dream, but unable to freely shape your surroundings. The water seems to be a physical manifestation of the hydro energy I've been sensing. There is a multitude of different colors being reflected on its surface as though I was on the surface of a raindrop catching the sunlight. Each of these shades and colors had their own melody. Some were sad, some were happy, some were tired, some were angry, some were supprized, some were gleeful. The chaos making it hard to tell sometimes where one person's memories began and where it ended. It was like standing in a room where there were hundreds, possibly thousands of musicians playing a separate tune, each of them unique and beautiful, but in the confined space that they had to share, the noise only reflected and merged into an unholy cacophony, the many songs distableizing one another leaving the listener disoriented.

Overwhelmed, I flailed my arms and legs desperately, trying to swim to the surface. The longer I spent in this racket, the more I felt parts of myself slipping into it and parts of the music burrow themselves into the openings. The disorganized arrangement of experiences only further confused me as I smelled the sight of a beautiful piece of art and saw the taste of a delicious chocolate cake.

I tried desperately to hold on tight to the parts of myself that were drifting away into the water, as I did I started to hear my own tune. It was disorganized, incomplete, full of doubt, and seeking, no, longing for something. It was like hearing a solo instrument playing when you know there is supposed to be a chorus. As I focused on my own song, tying to use it to pull those parts of myself back together, they resonated with the other songs playing around them. The songs slowly melding together to make something coherent. Slowly, the parts of me that had decided away started to orbit around me like the rings of a planet as they were drawn back in, as the resonated, I felt more connections from with the experiences of hundreds of people across Fontaine, I felt their grief, their joy, their exhaustion, their exuberance. And as each emotion came and went it was like another musician joined the growing symphony growing from the chaos.

As more and more of the melody became clear, I started to feel a powerful humming from myself, my whole being thrumming with the music and reverberating with the beat. The more musitions that were a part of the symphony, the faster the others resonated and joined, and suddenly, all of the songs were playing as one. The song was ethereal and nearly impossible to describe with words, it was far from perfect with hiccups that occured in the resonance between the players, but these imperfections also conveyed some kind of incomprehensible beauty. All of the experiences being conveyed through the songs worked together to depict the human experience, something that was long yet short, ugly but also beautiful, and it reverberatednnot just with me but also with the waters around me.

The song's waves pushed me upwards and out of the water, as soon as I surfaced, I felt a cool breeze on my face as I found myself being shaken by Ryuzu. The joints in my shoulders and neck twinged a bit, meaning she had probably been shaking me for a bit trying to wake me up, the skin all over my body felt raw for some reason, as though I had scrubbed myself a little too much leaving a burning tingle along the surface.

As I became more aware of my surroundings I heard a slapshing noise and turned to see a humongous puddle of water on the floor of the apartment. With my elemental senses still active I could feel and even hear the dense cluster of energy practically singing in the pool.

Not even sure of why I was doing it, I raised my hand upward, the water following my hand as I felt my song spread from me and resonate with the water. Like a conductor, I took control of the music, shaping and directing it to my wishes. The water covered in the air and streamed around me, forming a ring around Ryuzu and I before taking the shape of hundreds of cogs with a large one with a hollow center rotating around my waist. Several defensive mechanisms I had seen in the Gardemeks, from defensive shields to devices that shot projectiles. The longer that the water revolved around me and the more mechanisms that took shape the more tired I started to feel. Slowly, grabbing onto Ryuzu for support, I moved back towards the bathroom, plugged the drain and let the water fall into the tub. I got soaked again, the towel that was now around me suddenly drenched, but I sighed in relief as my mind relaxed.

-Ding-

[Congratulations to host on learning skill: Elemental Manipulation: Hydro]

[Host has leveled up skill: Elemental Manipulation: Hydro: Lv. 0→4]

[Host has learned Elemental Skill: Hydropowered Defence Ring]

[Warning, system detected a hazardous substance within host's proximity and automatically stored it in the [Item Storage] due to the host being incapacitated. See [Item Storage] for details.]

Seeing the last system message, Carman felt any excitement about his elemental abilities drain for a healthy dose of fear to creep in and tie his stomach into a knot.

Opening his inventory, he read the description of the latest entry.

[Item: Primordial Seawater

Item type: Ingredient

Description: in a separate layer of reality underneath Teyvat, there is a immeasurablely large sea dubed the Primordial Sea. All life native to Teyvat can trace it's origins to a creature that once swam out of the mythical waters of this sea.

This water contains magical elements other than Hydro and Dendro that have been long forgotten by the world of Teyvat which gives it it's mysterious properties.

Of it's many properties, Primordial Seawater is capable of improving alchemical creations, and increase a user's sensitivity to the Hydro and Dendro elements.

[Warning, host has the body of a naturally born Fountanian, due to their ancestors being oceanids transformed by the Hydro Archon using power from the Primordial Sea, any Fountanian who makes physical contact with a sufficient amount or concentration of primordial seawater will permanently lose their physical form and revert back to their ancestors original appearance. Host is advised to handle this substance with extreme caution]

]

Carman felt a trickle of cold sweat trickle down his back.

-To be continued