The Same But Not The Same

The bell above the restaurant door jingled.

"Please come again!" The mother-daughter duo bowed as Xavier and Eulene left the restaurant.

"You are quite the rich man, aren't you?" Eulene asked as she caressed her tummy. It has been decades since she had such a fulfilling meal. It was not everyday that an immortal like her got this hungry.

Xavier kept nonchalantly walking west on the concrete road. Street lamps flanked them, illuminating their path. The city was empty, devoid of any pedestrians. The fear from the meteor fall and the lightworks had yet to wash away from their minds. The quietness did not make the scene any romantic. If anything, it was eerie. "Where are we going?" He asked.

"To Aunt Maisel's. It has been 4 hours. She must be really worried by now." Eulene pointed westward- to a place bordering the forest. The restaurant was not far away from the outskirts.

"Does she know?" He turned to Eulene.

"I told her I am from far away, and she has her own suspicions." She sighed. "She took care of me for two years despite my dubious background. She and her daughter Sarah are like family to me now."

"There must be a reason."

"Seemingly, I remind her of her missing daughter." Eulene slowed down, prompting Xavier to do the same. "Her name was Eulene. Maybe our worlds share the same heavens, or they are old buddies." She let out a melancholic smirk.

"She is a teacher, right?" Xavier asked, still walking at the slow pace. "And a good one at that."

Eulene's eyelids twitched. "Yes. How did you know?"

"The way you speak."

"This world is not so different from mine," Eulene said, "if she were a man, she would have become the principal by now."

Xavier nodded. Some things run rampant everywhere. He turned to Eulene again- but some things are different. "Tell me about the powers of your world."

Eulene returned him a smile. "There's something I read of in your world's physics, something called- 'equal exchange'."

Xavier raised an eyebrow, but he spoke nevertheless. "It's simple. Mana is a special type of energy that exists in the atmosphere. Those who are born with a particular type of brain- Meta-Cerebrum- can emit Omegawaves alongside the other brainwaves. These Omegawaves can be used to control mana and manipulate the particles corresponding to different elements."

"Mmmh… the 5 elements?" Eulene asked.

Xavier shook his head. "7. Fire manipulation is pyromancy. Water- hydromancy, Earth- geomancy, wind- aeromancy, wood- xylomancy, lightning- electromancy and light- lumomancy. Just like talents, the Meta-Cerebrums and their emitted Omegawaves have different levels of 'tendencies' towards different elements. Some specialise in pyromancy while some in hydromancy."

"You don't have metal as an element?"

Xavier snapped his fingers. An iron pike ascended from the concrete road at breakneck speed, aiming for Eulene's throat.

She simply stopped walking, without taking any steps to dodge or block it. The spear stopped an inch away from the tender skin on her neck.

"High level geomancy allows you to manipulate metal." Xavier snapped his fingers again. The metal stake detached from the base and began to levitate. It swum in the air smoothly as Xavier showed the way through his pupils. "While high level electromancy can let you use the magnetic properties of the metals."

With another snap of his fingers, the piece of metal dropped to the ground and dissolved into the road. They began to walk again.

"What about those who can control more than one elements?" Eulene asked. "I am sure I have seen you use them all."

"Here in Avarynth, we are called 'Kinetics'. Those who use only one element are monokinetic, those who use two are dikinetic. Three- trikinetic, four- tetrakinetic and so on. In such terms, I would be a septakinetic… though I disagree."

"What do you me-"

"I believe I have revealed enough," Xavier interrupted her.

Eulene sighed. "Like your Meta-Cere… cerebrums, we also have something special called 'Spirit roots'."

Xavier stopped and pointed at Eulene's lower abdomen, his finger inches away from her bellybutton. Even Eulene's thick skin could not save her from embarrassment as she stepped away with a red face.

"Biantai!" She cried out, calling him pervert in her native language.

Xavier raised a brow and rubbed his chin. "Interesting. Your language is quite efficient- able to compact 'how did you know?' into just two syllables."

Eulene glared back at him, not bothering to explain herself. The maiden had only ever got this close to the opposite gender during battles. And nobody- even her worst nemesis- dared to point their fingers at her private region.

But sensing no odd intents from him, she composed herself. "Yes. It's in our lower abdomen." She coughed, the blush yet to leave from her face.

"We have something called a 'dantian' in our lower abdomen. All our absorbed Qi are stored here. We use this stored Qi to use techniques and maintain our immortality."

"Immortality?"

"Compared to mortals who dies in less than a century, we immortals can live for a thousand years or more- provided we can reach the required level. I know it's not really immortal, but that's the closest Avion word I could find."

"Continue." Xavier kept walking.

"But what's more important than storing energy is our soul. To strengthen our mind and soul, we need 'enlightenment'. Through the insights we gain, not only do we strengthen our minds, we also get our own 'elements'. We can manifest our Qi in form of these elements." She stopped and brought forth her palm. A small blue dragon roamed over it- flying.

"Do you feel anything?" She asked.

Xavier knitted his brows as he observed the dragon. After a few seconds, his eyebrows relaxed as he said, "Pride, wrath, majesty… I sense these 'feelings' along with the heat it's emitting. And there's no combustion reaction taking place. It's pure mana."

"I 'understood' true dragons after fighting one. The battle was among the seven ties. As you can see, unlike your elements which are physical or materialistic, ours are spiritual." The dragon disappeared as she began to walk again.

"So, unlike us who borrow mana to manipulate physical particles, you absorb the mana, make it your own through gestation in your 'dantian', and use the pure mana to unleash your techniques. Moreover, your techniques depend on your insights."

"Yes. Another thing about our insights is that the holding capacity of our dantian depends on it. If we don't have sufficient enlightenment, we can't store more Qi despite how much we absorb it."

"So, unless you don't have sufficient insights, you can't break through bottlenecks. Sounds like my research."

The duo walked past all the wooden houses and concrete road, and found themselves on a earthed road between cornfields illuminated by the moonlight.

Eulene gazed at the cornfields as she walked. "'Immortal' is something the mortals termed us. We take pride in another name. We cultivate our spirit, body and mind, trying to get them to the peak, as if they were our cornfields. In Avion, that would be…" she knelt and caressed a leaf of a corn plant.

"Farmer."

Xavier raised a brow. "Pardon my interruption, but wouldn't 'cultivator' be a better term to use here?"

"Cultivator?" She stood up and continued her stroll. "This sounds better."

Suddenly, a lightning crashed into Derbury forest.

Xavier scowled, remembering something. "Inside your hut, is there anything that can lead to you?"

Eulene understood what he implied as her eyes turned serious. "Books… with Aunt Maisel's name on them. Should I destroy it?"

"Negative." His eyes turned even more piercing as he gazed at the Western horizon. "Books are precious. We will go to your Aunt's place."

Eulene spread his senses to the max while Xavier's silver eyes glinted gold. Sensing no oddities, Xavier followed the faster Eulene as they flashed to their destination.

They were in front of a countryside large wooden house- not extravagant, neither cheap. Eulene knitted her brows. The door was open ajar. Eulene had previously retracted her senses respecting her aunt's privacy.

But something was wrong. Just as she was about to grab the doorknob, the door abruptly opened. Someone rushed forth and clawed Eulene's shoulder.

It was none other than her Aunt Maisel. She had a terrified expression on her face- almost beastly- as she panted hard, gasping for breath. The sternness from the teacher's face was long gone. Dry tears covered her cheeks, but the tears never seemed to stop coming out.

The matron's trembling fingers dug further into Eulene's shoulder.

"Sarah… my Sarah… she's gone."