Black Magus

As if I was preparing to breach the brown tunnel, I held my first two fingers out before me while intently meeting the focused eyes of my vassals. “Now then, watch closely.”

Using my established technique, I produced a large, billowing flame from the tip of my middle finger as if it were a giant lighter. Once stabilized, I began bending a stream of air from the tip of my index finger, causing the flame to first flutter and then condense into a thin blue stream before suddenly burning out.

“Too much fuel.” I cursed, mostly under my breath as I lowered my hand and turned to Toril. “You try. Adjust the ratio of air and fire until the reaction happens.”

“What reaction, Lord?” Toril asked.

“You'll know when you see it.” I grinned. “If your flame goes out like mine, lower the intensity of your flame. If it comes out billowing and smoky, on the other hand, there is too much air. Go on. Try.” I gestured, stepping back a meter or two.

Toril took a wide stance at once, clasping before his chest to then extend the first two fingers of each hand forward. From his fingertips came a lighter-like flame nearly identical to mine, only a bit smaller. Once confident with the levels of his flame, he then concentrated to begin displacing air, resulting in a focused blast of concentrated air sputtering the flames for a few moments until eventually, a near-cylindrical pillar of red fire roared to life.

“More air,” I advised. “Slowly.”

He turned his seemingly worried and awed eyes to me before nodding and returning his concentration to the task at hand, increasing the throughput of his air bit by bit. In turn, the raging pillar of flame began to slowly shift from an amber blaze to a shortened cone of light blue fire.

“More.” I prodded with my hands. “More. Slowly.”

He continued adding air bit by bit until a shroud of blue fire enveloped the concentrated cone, shifting it up the spectrum to a blinding white radiance that roared and screamed into the night like a dragon's roar. Not that I had ever heard such a thing.

“That's it!” I cackled maniacally as I pointed and turned to look at the dropped jaws of Jaimess and the bulging eyes of Jonet. Toril on the other hand, let the flame die out before turning his wide eyes to his hands as if he couldn’t believe what he just did.

I let him have his moment and come back to reality on his own terms while I continued with my lecture. “That is what’s known as a neutral flame,” I explained with a grin I just couldn’t contain. “A simple torch made from fuel and oxygen that can burn hot enough to weld steel.”

“How do you know these things, My Lord?” Jaimess managed to gasp. “The books you’ve written. Your theories. They’re unlike anything I’ve ever read or seen. It’s…” He chuckled despairingly. “I-”

“Listen.” I turned to Jaimess with a sudden cold seriousness, causing him and the other two to snap their spines rigid where they sat. “As your leader, I give you my word that I will share with you, all of my wealth, knowledge, power, and privileges. In exchange, I ask only for your undying loyalty- that you serve me to the best of your abilities, and that you ask no questions about the source of my knowledge or the rationale behind my decisions. Just know that everything that I do is for a reason.”

“Of course, My Lord.” Jaimess immediately bowed. “My deepest apologies-”

“And be unapologetic.” I coldly added, looking at him and the others. “Never say you are sorry, for you are anything but sorry. And do not be sorry to anyone. Acknowledge your mistakes, right your wrongs, grow as an individual, and if you truly wish to apologize to someone then do it through your actions.”

“I- I understand.” Jaimess nodded.

“That goes for you two as well.” I snapped my eyes back to the other two. Causing them both to quickly bow and acknowledge in response.

“Good.” I nodded, then pulled a sphere of water from the surrounding air and snow. “Now, back to our lessons. Toril, focus your neutral flame on this water.”

Toril opened his mouth as if he had a question but quickly shut it and did what was asked. After only a few moments, the water began to roil and soon after, boil in midair.

“Remember what I said about all things being made of particles or molecules far too small for us to see?” I asked, causing a quick affirmation to come from the scholarly Jaimess. “Those particles are under constant motion. Vibrating perpetually.” I gestured to the still-boiling water with my chin. “The intensity of these vibrations is what we perceive as temperature and the different phases of matter.”

“Phases of matter.” I heard Toril mutter to himself as if to recount his memory.

“Take water for example.” I continued with a wave to our wintery backdrop. “When water molecules move about with less and less energy on the small scale. We, on the large scale, perceive the water to grow colder and eventually freeze. Conversely, if the molecules have an abundance of energy, the water grows hot and flashes to steam. Regardless of what form, or phase, it remains water, even as ice and steam. My theory,” I gestured toward the sphere of boiling water, “is that we can turn water into steam or ice with elemental manipulation alone.”

Jonet seemed to give me an almost offended look as I formed a smaller ball of water in between my hands and began focusing. Straining myself to imagine the endless sea of water molecules banging against each other furiously. Once properly visualized, I began to will the mana within the water to become agitated. To conduct and convect and radiate energy into the fluid, causing the molecules to scatter and lash out at everything like a hornet's nest thrown inside a car.

After a few moments, the boiling bubble of water suddenly exploded in my hands. Caught off-guard, I failed to activate my Wraith Form in time and thus was scalded a bit up the arm and face. My vassals, however, were much luckier. With the island in perpetual winter, the steam condensed into fog ages before reaching them.

“Surely you all know of steam, right?” I asked through the dissipating cloud. “As I’ve said before, the vapor produced by boiling water is still fundamentally water; as is the case with mist, fog, clouds, and so on. So it stands to say we can manipulate these things still. Give it a try, Jonet.”

With a quick nod, she began waving her arms around in fluid circles, drawing the dispersed cloud to condense into a snaking stream around her form. With the cloud cleared, she then began to try and change the phase back to vapor, yet strained and eventually lost her grip.

“Amazing!” I gasped as the water splashed to the ground. Then continued. “In addition to using water in different phases, both water and steam can be used under different pressures. When we generally manipulate water, it’s done at low pressures. But water is capable of extraordinary things when put under high pressure. Like cutting through steel or stone like a hot knife through snow. So too is this true with air. Jaimess, give it a try. Use air to fell that tree.”

“Of course, My Lord!” Jaimess nearly leaped from where he was sitting, taking his stance to hold out his index finger. As I taught him, he formed the ambient mana into a shape akin to a rocket nozzle. Then formed a knife-thin, low-pressure region between the exhaust and the tree. The ensuing thrust resulted in the air shooting forth the pierce through the tree in its entirety, much like a rifle bullet.

"Impressive!" I rocked back on my heels. "However, make it wider, and have it impact horizontally."

He nodded resolutely, repeating the process as normal until it came time to launch the attack. Rather than simply thrust his palm, however, Jaimess stepped into a horizontal slice of his knife hand to release a torrent of compressed air into the tree. The impact was hard enough to knock snow loose from the canopy and left a deep gash in the bark. But I had yet to be satisfied. I knew the limit of Jaimess' ability. And that was not it.

“Thinner,” I demanded. “Thinner than that of a blade or a leaf. As thin as a single particle of air. Add as much pressure as you can. And fell that tree.”

He seemed hesitant but nevertheless strengthened the throughput of his attack by condensing more and more air around his knife-shaped hand whilst simultaneously altering the shape of the wind's path into something akin to a whale tail. This time, his attack saw a torrent of snow and flora whipping in the wake of a nearly visible wind scythe before exploding in a burst of snow and permafrost. When the fog finally cleared, the first thing seen by all eyes were what appeared to be thousands of black tree rings exposed to the elements for the first time in their history.

Without hesitation, I extended my forefingers towards the neighboring tree in the same fashion I had earlier. Resulting in a thin jetstream of water grinding against the bark to carve a deep groove across the surface. “Lastly, comes Earth.” I then said, relaxing my grip on water in favor of earth. With a simple squeeze and a bit of strain, a basketball-sized chunk of permafrost burst from the ground and remained suspended at face height. Eager to be blasted with a torch. “Melting rock requires a ridiculous amount of heat energy. So much so that it’s not even worth trying with elemental manipulation. Not in combat, at least.” I killed the fire after a few moments and let the stone fall and crack open to reveal the dry and toasty stone with a core of muddy goo.

"Conversely, liquefying air requires the transfer of a ridiculous amount of heat energy. Even more so than with rock. As such, I assume it to be extremely difficult, if not impossible to force a phase change in the air. However.” I doused the stone in a heavy hose of water, turning the smoldering stone into a clumpy pile of mud I promptly began dragging around. “Some of these elements can still be used in conjunction with each other. Mud. Dust. Water vapor. Oxygenated flames. Elemental Fusion.”

With the passing of my lecture, we went on to practice everything we'd learned thus far until our last hour of training came upon us. Wherein we scattered across our clearing to practice and develop spells until it was time to retire for the night. While they returned to their rooms, I took my nightly detour to the library and wallowed in the satisfaction of seeing my hypothesis proven before my very eyes. As impressive as it was. however, I knew all these manipulation theories to be a far cry from magic. The rest of us may have gained the ability to crudely control the abundant ice and snow around us, but it was nothing when compared to the abilities granted to Jonet by her ice affinity. Unlike us, she could form her ice into shapes and creations otherwise impossible to make.

Not that I was complaining. For we all had not just unique affinities. We had the potential to obtain more. And mine would be revolutionary.