While heading away from the Great Swamp, Ellios and the rest of the group decided to stop in the middle of an empty, flat plane of grass. The terrain was as close to ideal as it could be for what they were about to do, with a very small number of trees around.
"Alright, Luke. Let's start. Anastasia, give us some space."
Anastasia nodded and headed to the closest tree, which was several hundred meters away. She could see Ellios and Luke just fine from there, though. She gave a thumbs up, and Ellios smiled and waved at her in return.
"First of all, take out the cube-shaped artifact I gave you."
"Haha… About that…"
Since Luke and Ellios didn't talk much while they traveled, Ellios wasn't aware that Luke had already absorbed the storage elemental contained in the artifact.
While listening to Luke's explanation, Ellios had to interrupt him at a certain part.
"What? You broke it?! That thing was expensive!" Ellios shouted out dejectedly.
Luke scratched his cheek with an apologetic chuckle and made sure to reassure him: "Don't worry, I absorbed the elemental. And besides, aren't you rich?"
After spending a lot of time with Ellios and Anastasia, it was a natural thing to assume.
"…That's not a reason to waste money. Anyways, you absorbed the elemental, so it's fine, but don't scare me like that!"
"I can't promise anything," Luke said with a smile and a snort.
"Ahem, you should try using it. Here," Ellios said as he tossed the old, hexagonal artifact towards Luke.
Luke easily caught it and couldn't help but smirk.
'He let us have it? Interesting.'
"It's a bit weird to explain it, but try imagining sucking the artifact inside of yourself," said Ellios as he stepped closer to Luke.
Nodding, Luke started repeating to himself:
'I want to suck it in. I want to suck it in. I want to…'
He stared at the artifact as if he wanted to drill a hole through it with his eyes and gripped it harder and harder with his hands.
Even after having a staring contest with the artifact for several minutes, nothing happened.
"Keep at it, boy."
Ellios kept looking at Luke all the while and was cupping his chin in one hand.
'Using an artificial elemental shouldn't be difficult, even when using it for the first time… What's the issue, then?' Ellios wondered.
Ten more minutes passed like this.
Sweat flowed down Luke's cheek. He tried and tried, but nothing happened.
Ellios was very doubtful, so he gave Luke another item to store. It was a simple flower he picked off the ground.
Almost instantly, the flower turned into blue particles and entered Luke's chest without any problems.
'…What? I didn't do anything differently!'
Contrary to Luke's inner confusion, Ellios nodded to himself.
"I understand. Luke, the issue is with this artifact, not with you," Ellios announced as he glanced at the hexagonal artifact.
'There really is something special about it, then!'
"Hmm… I'll take a look at it later. Let's move on for now, though. Let's start with the basics."
Ellios sat down in a lotus pose and motioned for Luke to do the same.
After Luke sat down, Ellios started talking.
"You may be wondering how you can grow stronger as an elementalist with just training. After all, the fastest way to grow stronger is by absorbing the same type of elemental over and over. But it's also the most unrealistic."
Ellios formed a current of wind around his finger and drew a circle on the ground.
"This is your soul. It is where your elementals reside, and it is also here that your mana is stored. But as you know, when you use an elemental, you don't use your soul directly. Instead, you use it as a sort of command center to redirect the mana refined by the elemental from your soul to different parts of your body."
The circle on the ground was now surrounded by swirly lines coming out of it on all sides.
"These are your mana channels, and it is actually this part that we strengthen and expand during the training process. But…" Ellios paused and looked at Luke with a tinge of excitement on his face.
"This is not what you will be doing. After all, your very abilities are unrealistic. And we will be making full use of them."
At that comment, not even Luke could contain his excitement.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, though. There's another 'but' coming."
Luke straightened his back, "I'm listening."
"If my age has taught me anything, it's that everything has its price… And your regression ability should be no exception to that. I cannot imagine the price to be paid for reversing time, but… Let's just say that I have a very bad feeling about it. Be very careful from now on."
Luke nodded.
'I know… Even with all the pain I went through, I kept getting stronger with each regression, so it actually isn't all that bad in hindsight. As long as I can endure the pain, that is. But Wilfred also told me something similar… Try not to die too much, I think?'
"Secondly, we need to talk about the E-Release."
"…!"
He was familiar with the name. Ellios once told him that he'd explain it in the future, and now that time has finally come.
'Not even Wilfred knew what it was. I'm quite looking forward to this…'
"I'll be blunt. It's a relatively rare ability these days, since not many wars have happened in the past decades. But on the other hand, the small number of people that are able to do it… Avoid them as much as you can."
"Why? And what do wars have to do with anything?"
"E-Release is just the shortened name for Emotional Release. It's a very powerful technique, although it comes with its fair share of downsides. The only people able to execute it are those who have suffered a great deal of psychological trauma. In your case, the cause of your trauma is pretty clear."
"I don't even remember how I did it, though. I have no recollection of it at all."
"Best leave it that way, at least until you're more powerful. The E-Release is not a physical attack but a mental one. We will be focusing on hunting monsters for the time being, so it won't be very useful either way."
Standing up, Ellios pulled Luke up as well.
"Of course, I won't be hunting the monsters for you. Elemental strength is only one side of the equation. What you also lack is combat experience."
"I hate to admit it because of everything I went through… But you are right."
"Naturally. That's why I'll put you through a specially designed disciple crash course!"
Luke's eyebrow twitched at this level of enthusiasm.
"A-a crash course?"
He had a bad feeling about it. And rightfully so.
"Ahhhh!!! Stop! I told you to stop already!!!"
Ellios kept Luke enclosed in a thick ball of wind, which he used to spin and toss Luke around like an action figure.
Luke's vomit count in 15 minutes? Four times.
"What even is theeeee—AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
He couldn't even form half a sentence as he glided through the air while spinning around like a top. This was Luke's greatest battle so far. A battle against his nausea.
"Stop crying already! You must be able to endure at least this much before you can battle other elementalists! If you're not prepared for all kinds of attacks, you'll just die."
"So whaaaaa- Woah. I'll just try agaaaaaa—shiiiiit!"
"Don't talk, and focus. We're just getting started."
And so Ellios spent the day putting Luke through endurance training using various methods.
Needless to say, Luke was sapped of all strength by the end of it.
Luke soundly slept on Anastasia's back while getting carried.
They headed back to Naiccos to rest, but the scene they were greeted by when they arrived at the western gate left them aghast.
Soldiers and guards carried various objects, both large and small, and were tossing them onto a huge pile some three dozen meters away from the gate.
At that location, a giant hole had been dug out just for that single purpose.
The gate, the walls, and the dirt below were all painted a dark shade of red.
The soldiers didn't fare much better. Their eyes would best be described as hollow and their faces as blank, without a hint of emotion. They, too, bore deep-scarlet stains on their bodies.
"Just what happened here?" Anastasia mumbled.
Ellios' face, on the other hand, remained emotionless.
"Hmm… What, indeed?"