Through The Fractured Lens

Lucian

I awoke to a series of loud thuds in unison just outside my room.

Dragging myself out of bed and adjusting my senses, I swing open the door to see Kurou slouching on the couch with dirt painted over his face.

"What was all that noise?" I asked.

"What noise?" Kurou shot back with a plastered grin.

I let out a sigh as I glide my hand across the back of my head. "You know, if this only the first day, I might just find you weirder than Draven—I would have never thought that could ever be possible either."

"You worry too much," the old man teased as he shot up. "Now, you seem quite awake, so let's get started early shall we?"

We walked in silence to the back of the cabin over to the training door again. As the door swung open, I couldn't help but feel surprised for the second time. I had seen it before, but even then I still couldn't fully process what I was seeing.

"It'll take quite a while for this to get old," I remarked.

The old man let out a slight chuckle as we continued walking into the room, the door slowly closing on it's own accord.

"Don't worry boy, you'll be grateful for this room eventually."

While I understood his meaning, I was still quite surprised to hear him say such words.

He had agreed to train me yesterday under the pretense that I proved interesting, which I found hard to believe considering how hard I got my ass handed to me.

Despite what he saw in me, I was excited to learn more about... anything.

"Take a seat boy," Kurou insisted as he also sat himself down onto a patch of sand in front of me.

I followed suit, taking a seat as well before him, as he began squinting his eyes ever so slightly, examining me—head to toe.

"What do you know about elemental manipulation, boy?"

Taking a second to think, I began to recall what I knew about them. "Using spirit energy, people can manipulate the four elements which constantly exist around us, everywhere we go. Fire, water, wind and earth, as well as other rarer factors such as lightning and shadow. They can bend these elements to match their will and shape them how they wish."

Before I could properly collect my breath after speaking, I was knocked back by a sudden gust of wind, slamming me into the ground.

"Wrong!" Kurou shouted, very obviously disappointed in my answer.

"How is that—"

"While you are correct that these four elements constantly exist around us, you see the way they are manipulated entirely wrong. This would probably weigh in on the reason for your lack of success in any previous attempts to learn elemental manipulation," he began explaining.

"You don't 'own' these elements. They aren't yours to fully control. People can only use spirit energy to guide these elements around to best fit their advantage."

Kurou took a second before continuing. "This is the same reason of which there are no limitations to learning how to guide these elements. Any can learn how to manipulate these four basic elements."

"However," Kurou spoke as he held up a finger. "These subtypes such as lightning, shadow, and even others like light, do not get it off so easily."

"Despite these being subtypes, you cannot simply obtain them by excelling in it's parent element. Only certain individuals have the capability to even begin learning these subtypes, let alone have any hope of mastering them," he finished.

Taking a second to properly observe everything he had said, I really questioned how I thought about these elements in all my previous lives.

I thought of it as sort of a chained door. Once I break those chains, I can fully manipulate and control that element accordingly. However, I was far from wrong.

The doors weren't chained, they we're already unlocked.

All these elements flow around us casually, as I had previously known.

But we don't learn how to control these entirely, we learn how to influence them to shape that of which we need.

"Well," I began asking, "So there really is no possible way to unlock these subtypes outside of it being a natural occurrence? And—how do we know if we can learn any of them?"

"While most instances of these unique users gain their ability at birth, there are a few which obtained them later in life, and there's only one way to do that," he began.

Kurou scratched his head, thinking for himself before he continued his explanation.

"Well, and that's just... artifacts."

Shrouded by confusion which was easily visible across my face, I asked another question. "Just artifacts? How much do they cost—and how rare are they even?"

"It's not a matter of price, boy, or else you'll see nobles churn out multiple of these users every generation. The subtypes would be heavily saturated by riches," Kurou sighed.

A moment of silence washed over us as the old man stood up. "These artifacts are from Grimholt. There is no active way to obtain more of them."

"There was only a few in circulation centuries back, and some of them were used. King Romano was one, using an artifact to obtain the subtype of purple lightning."

The old man walked over to me, helping me up to my feet.

I was still knocked down to the ground from his initial gust due to my answer from before, but I was too lost in thought to notice.

"Even fewer remain, if any at all. So don't get your hopes up on finding one, boy."

As I brushed off the excess sand sticking to my skin and clothes, I remembered the other question I had asked previously that Kurou must have forgotten.

"About the other question though, how does one know they can learn one of these subtypes? Do you just naturally figure that out?"

"Usually yes," Kurou replied. "However, I can tether a bit of my spirit energy into you to check for myself if you'd like."

"Yes please. After all, if I have one, that would be quite helpful."

"Very well," Kurou replied as he stepped forward, closing the distance between us. He held out his hand, lightly placing it over the center of my chest. He closed his eyes and I felt his hand slowly heating up.

After a few moments had passed, the heat become sweltering. So much so that I wanted to take a step back and end the process due to the discomfort.

However, before I could react, I felt a sharp pain erupt from my chest before springing outwards to all of my body.

I screamed in agony as I fell to the ground, noticing Kurou's worried and confused look on his face, him clearly not expecting this, which means this was not supposed to happen.

"Kid, what the—"

His words become a distant mutter into the faint air as I tumbled backwards.

My vision became blurred, ears ringing beyond control. The sharp pain around my body began to dissipate, leaving my body numb all around.

I was practically glued to the floor as I watched my senses slowly come back to me.

The initial impact of dust around us as I slammed into the ground from the event began to clear up as I watched the old man shove the dust around, attempting to get some sight of me and see how I was doing after everything.

Finally, he noticed me, and his eyes widened with heavy shock.

"What the hell... that's—"

He stuttered and mumbled over his own words, not even able to finish his own sentence, forcing him to recollect himself for a moment, slightly dazed.

"There's no way.."

"That's... impossible?"