Chapter 21
930 Words
“Your next task is to find your dominant element.
Visualization works like this: you must see what does not yet physically exist. Creation in the physical plane depends on the strength of your thought. You must not only know it, you must want it as if your life depends on it. And you must dare to do what others cannot even imagine.
This is deeply individual work. No one can help you with it. You must learn to control your thoughts and channel your internal energy into the correct point in space.
Begin.”
Everyone tried.
Within half an hour, some students managed to manifest flames, plants, or floating spheres of water.
By the end of the lesson in Origins of Elemental Power, everyone, except me, had succeeded in completing Professor Sophia Varis’s task.
“Well, those who succeeded — well done,” she said. “I’m glad to see such a capable group. And those who didn’t manage it, don’t be discouraged. All you need to do is switch off your conscious mind and activate the subconscious. Practice. We’ll meet again in a week.”
Sophia Varis scanned the room one last time and left the auditorium.
Everyone was thrilled.
I won’t lie, I was disappointed. I wasn’t used to falling behind in my studies. In fact, I had always been the best, the one who grasped everything instantly.
“Your accuracy won’t help you pass the exam, pathetic girl,” Edward said again, turning to me. “Aren’t you ashamed that Triton Aquaris’s niece can’t even do something so basic?”
“Could you just leave me alone?” I asked. “Is there really nothing more interesting in your life than watching me?”
“That’s pathetic. No, you are pathetic, Ariel from the House of Water,” he laughed.
Almost the entire auditorium was watching us now, giggling.
I stood up, ready to leave.
“Is pathetic Ariel going off to cry?” he called after me. “Tears are water too. Maybe that way you’ll finally manage to complete the professor’s task.”
“I am pathetic, Edward,” I said calmly. “But you know what’s even more pathetic?”
“Oh? Enlighten us,” he laughed.
“That you keep calling someone pathetic over and over, thinking it makes you better than them. But it doesn’t. You know what people used to tell me as a child? ‘Whatever you call others, that’s what you are yourself.’”
I straightened my back and walked out.
I did want to cry, but I would not give them that satisfaction.
I would manage. I would learn to create that damned water sphere from nothing. The investigation into Lea Arn faded into the background. First, I needed control over water magic.
I would wipe that arrogant grin off his face. I would surpass him, just like I had done yesterday at the archery range.
I walked firmly toward the library. Purpose burned inside me. I had never wanted to learn something this intensely before.
When I arrived, the library was, as always, empty.
I placed my hand on the tablet and said I needed every book explaining how to create water on the physical plane.
“Sector Three, shelf 1163,” the system responded. “All books matching your request, Ariel from the House of Water, are located there.”
“Thank you,” I replied to the unknown device.
In Sector Three, I pulled out six books at once and returned to my usual spot between Sectors Six and Seven.
Settling in, I immersed myself in everything related to water: its forms, its states, its physical nature.
Hours passed as I read what the real Ariel likely already knew. Some of it was obvious, but other parts were so simple that the human mind could hardly believe they worked.
I missed lunch without even noticing how time slipped away.
“I won’t survive on just oatmeal,” I muttered.
“Aria, are you there?” I called again, but there was still no answer.
So I kept reading, waiting for dinner to come and for time to pass.
The deeper I went into the books, the less the theory felt like theory at all.
One of the oldest volumes — its cover soft like worn leather, its pages faintly glowing at the edges — described water not as a substance, but as memory. According to the author, every drop had once “remembered” every form it had ever taken. Ocean, rain, blood, mist — all were only temporary expressions of something far older and far more aware.
I paused at that line.
Water is memory.
That was not how Professor Varis had explained it. In her lecture, water was emotion, healing, intuition. But this text went further. It suggested that advanced water magicians were not creating water at all — they were calling it back.
As if it had always been there, waiting.
I shifted to the next book — a more structured manual on elemental formation. It explained focus points in space: invisible coordinates where intent, breath, and emotion intersected. If aligned correctly, a mage could “anchor” an element and give it temporary form.
I turned another page — and the inked diagram there shifted slightly, as if reacting to my gaze. A spiral. A wave. A single drop falling upward instead of down.
For a second, I thought I heard water. Not in the book. Around me.
I lifted my head sharply.
The library was still empty and silent.
- Writer
