There was nothing green to be seen—the mountaintop barren, scarred over, a rugged expanse of gray stone lashed with black. Lightning cracked down, dispersing, splattering white arcs over the darkness.
The clouds swirling overhead looked like a whirlpool gone upside-down, murky, churning purples and grays and deep-blues. The deeper it went, the brighter the lightning crackled.
Zane had just one Electricity Law. Discharge. It did a little to fend off the Elemental Electricity as he waded into the chaos.
Like the other Law Areas there were layers to this one. Leading all the way to the mountain peak. He started at the outermost layer—it threw up a stiff breeze, but that was all. Gentle electric currents threaded the air, giving light shocks here and there. He walked right through them. Steel and Fire warded them off.
It wasn't just Steel Body; just having two Elemental Laws in his essence, in his aura, gave him some defense. A little insulation.
He made his way through to the second layer. The ground here was studded all over with brilliant white crystals. They acted like lightning rods, soaking in the shocks, scattering them out when they overflowed.
High above the clouds were thickening, darkening. The lightning struck brighter, fiercer, cracked harder—
By the time he was nearing the peak the wind had picked up to a full howling blast. You could feel Elemental Electricity everywhere, charging the air—tingling down the skin, almost tangible, hugging his skin like a fuzzy wool coat. The ground grew hot under his feet.
The strikes grew stronger too but he didn't really need to take notice; they felt like little more than static shocks to him. Unpleasant, but okay. Until—
CRACK!
A bolt from the blue, and he stood there stunned. He froze for a moment, locked-up; he felt his heart skip a beat. Then he was alright, gasping a little. He blinked, frowned up at the brooding swirling sky. That one actually managed to chip some Health off him.
Zane considered it. It had a kind of… whip-speed to it, a crack, the fire didn't. And when it struck him one place it hit everywhere at once; it just needed a single point… he nodded, fascinated. That could certainly strengthen his Stormfire nicely.
He kept going deeper.
He's nearly reached the peak now. Fat bolts of lightning kept striking there, an endless march of blinding flashes. There was a faint smell of sulfur. Streaks of glass lay scattered about, strewn between charred stones. He wondered what that was about.
Then he saw it.
Lightning struck a strip of gravel, smote it in a blazing rush; it was so bright he had to blink. CRACK!
When he looked again the gravel had been turned to glass.
Then a bolt just as fat struck him. And he locked up again.
Electricity didn't hurt as much as Fire. It was just annoying—paralyzing. And much harder to block.
By the time he stood five feet from the peak he was drawing some real bombs. Intense searing streaks of fat white lightning rippling through him, locking up his jaw, his arms, making him spasm, making every step a jerk. It was just ripping right through him—it didn't care about his defenses. He found it very intriguing even as he jerked and stiffened. The pain was a little thing; his curiosity was much bigger.
He sat down. Got out the A-rank treasure, Lightning Lotus Seed. And nodded.
Let's do this.
He swallowed it in one gulp.
It sizzled down his throat; he felt it all the way down—then it felt like a bomb exploding in his gut. Pulsing constantly, throwing out reams upon reams of lightning. It might've been bad if he did this Law first—or if he wasn't a good ways into Foundation already. But right now all he felt was bad indigestion.
That was the thing about this Electricity. It was just wild energy; when put in a Skill it might hurt a lot more. Right now, though, it was kind of tempering his insides.
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝕄𝕒𝕟 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕥𝕖𝕖𝕝 𝕀𝕀𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕍
Hey. Nice.
Suddenly that indigestion faded to a mild ache.
He felt a sudden incredible sensitivity; when he reached out with his soul it was like every speck of Electricity, every bit of charge, screamed out at him—stood out bright in his field of consciousness. Everything else faded away, lost color…
He started eyes open.
Law visions were good for comprehension, sure. But he noticed comprehension was even easier when you felt it directly; when you experienced it there and then. So he just looked, noticed. There was plenty of Electricity all around, overwhelming. It was hard choosing where to start.
He was drawn to the way lightning moved through air. It went from one thing to another, making it jagged path… a starting point, an ending point. Between them, an arc rippling through air. A connection; a jagged, unstable leap. You couldn't hold this element in place. It had an itchiness to it, a hyper-activeness.
The shortest way between two points was a line. But a line was predictable. Electricity never was. He sat there watching it in almost childlike wonder; he let himself fade away until he wasn't seeing the light, just the essence. And the Law guiding it underneath… the way the arcs flashed jagged, those strange wonderful shapes searing into his eyes, his mind…
𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕕!
𝕄𝕚𝕟𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔼𝕝𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕣𝕚𝕔 𝔸𝕣𝕔
Then he observed the end of it. How it made contact—the instantaneous burst. It reminded him of combustion and fire, but a little different; combustion was more drawn out; it started fiercest, bloomed outward. This burst was the end of the journey, a single devastating moment. He watched lighting strike stone again and again…heard the CRACK, the crash of it, the rush of heat at every burst…
Sometimes knowing one Law—even one from a totally unrelated Element—helped know another. This one came very easily.
𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕕!
𝕄𝕚𝕟𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝕃𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕚𝕜𝕖
Then Zane looked to the beginning, to the sky, those thick dark clouds—to the power jumping, shivering within them. Like a fertile ground for electric powers… he kept watching, noticing, feeling its inner workings… The instability was what gave it its strength, weirdly. Electricity needed to careen from one pole to another. Something clicked.
𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕕!
𝕄𝕚𝕟𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕘𝕖𝕕 ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕠𝕤
Then a full picture was forming in his mind. Altogether it made those most volatile, unpredictable shocking parts of Electricity; the powers that gave birth to thunderbolts.
𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕕!
𝕄𝕒𝕛𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕞'𝕤 𝔽𝕦𝕣𝕪
He was in a good flow today; it felt like the world was just rushing into him. But he didn't rest.
He shifted gears instantly. Started focusing on the way it coursed through him. What instantly fascinated him about this Element—what he thought could make some of the most difference to his Stormfire—was how it seemed to hit everything at once. Strike one spot and it spread in an instant; not just over the surface, but through the middle too; it really did hit everything.
And right now the Lightning Lotus Seed's powers made for a perfect example. He focused on the way each little spark zapped through all of him. It wasn't truly instantaneous, he saw—but it might as well be. That penetrating, voraciously spreading property…
𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕕!
𝕄𝕚𝕟𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 ℂ𝕠𝕟𝕕𝕦𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖 ℙ𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕤
But it didn't just stay in him. It flowed out too, carrying across the air, jumping to steel, to glass, to gravel, to stone, stretching out thin claws of light. It didn't need something physical. It could jump to anything and everything—
𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕕!
𝕄𝕚𝕟𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔽𝕚𝕖𝕝𝕕 𝕁𝕦𝕞𝕡𝕚𝕟𝕘
But some things resisted more than others. When it struck ground for instance, especially certain kinds of stone, it bit the dust—burrowed in and vanished. It was kind of that way with essence too. The more essence there was, the harder it was to tear through… it was why even though none of Zane's Laws countered Electricity, he still felt a layer of protection.
𝕃𝕒𝕨 ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕕!
𝕄𝕚𝕟𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔸𝕣𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕖 𝕚𝕟𝕤𝕦𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟.
Then there was how the Electricity stayed within him, gathered in the steel. He sensed some of the seed's Electricity making its home in his body; he saw it outside, too—how lightning stayed in those crystals on the ground, just sizzling… storing…
𝕃𝕒𝕨 ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕕!
𝕄𝕚𝕟𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔹𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕪 ℙ𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕤
And then he had his second Major Law of the day. The way Electricity moved instantly through all things, natural and magical.
𝕃𝕒𝕨 ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕕!
𝕄𝕒𝕛𝕠𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕨 𝕠𝕗 𝔸𝕣𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕖 ℂ𝕠𝕟𝕕𝕦𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟
Strange—he felt he had a little more in him today. He could feel exhaustion lurking at the edge of his mind, but he could do… two more Minor Laws, maybe? Before it swamped him. He figured it was a matter of experience. Some of those Minor Laws felt like hearing a song he knew, just played on a different instrument.
There was probably something deeper there. A hint of how everything eventually came together.
Or maybe he was just a little delirious.
His last level wasn't a Skill Level. It came from all the essence in the seed—
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟙𝟙𝟘 -> 𝟙𝟙𝟙
He stood. He'd save some of himself for today, do a few stints in the sauna. Finish it off tomorrow, he decided. After he overdrew his soul last time he figured a little restraint was okay. He'd just carry it over to the next session.
***
When he went outside, he saw hundreds of heads instantly turn to him. The reporters were still there; he them yapping away as he passed—he caught little snippets of it. They seem to be speculating how many Major Laws he'd just gotten.
"We know an A10 Soul Talent can do one Major Law and two Minor Laws a day!" the male reporter was saying. "But as we all know, Zane Walker's the only known S-rank Soul Talent. Could it be he can do one Major Law and four Minor Laws?"
"Five, even?!" said the woman. "Our statisticians have analyzed the footage, and our best guesses put it at one-point-eight Major Laws a day, plus minus zero-point-three! Which means we could very well be seeing a breakthrough in the next few days!"
Zane blinked.
…
It reminded him of those reality television shows. Or like sports commentator talking heads. Except he couldn't understand how anyone could find this interesting.
He thought about correcting them, then figured it was pointless. He went back to the sauna.
He didn't bother upgrading all his Skills yet; he'd do it once he got the full Elemental Law.
***
The next few days he settled into a routine. He spent some time in the Soul Sauna. Went on some nice walks with Evan. Readied himself for the final push. He ended up Leveling up twice with Reina's help; another thing that made them unusually effective was how long they could both go for. Reina was a trooper—she liked to go until she couldn't take it anymore. It meant a lot of essence.
She'd been bottlenecked at Level 99 for a few days now. But her Elemental Law was almost done too.
***
Two days after his last try he came back to the Electricity Law Area.
If all went to plan, by the end of the day Elemental Electricity—and because of it, the highest grade of pseudo-Stormfire—would be his.