Master Of None

"We were hoping you would say that." The two mages said in unison. There were murmurs from the other mages around Walker. 

"I can't believe they are willingly working together."

"Those two are always oil and water."

"One kid shows up and now everyone is focused on fusion skills, it's been years."

These were just a few things Walker was able to pick out of the murmuring. He was impressed that they were all cooperating so easily. He had imagined from the set up of the room that they would all be at odds much more easily. "I am interested in trying it if everyone else is? Who knows what we can learn from the experiment." Waker had felt his curiosity grow, and much to the mages' joy, theirs did too.

"This kid is after my own heart, you came to the right place." The fire mage finally found the desire to experiment sparking in the other mages and he was not going to let it fade.

"I managed to get to high class wind element spells last year. It is only natural I work to fuse my skills with another." One of the wind mages had been staunchly against fusion skills since it was commonly believed to slow the growth of the elemental understanding. But seeing the earth and wind fusion spell they could not argue the merits. 

Alma saw a chance to butt in and let Walker know the general standing between mages since he was still lacking details, "I know it's weird that we watch the different elemental spirits fuse and interact because that is the natural order. But when it comes to mages it is more common to work on a solo path to a pure element than stop and figure out how they fuse. The only mages that fuse are the duel elemental system users' and even they prefer to focus on one." 

"I can see how that comes about, but at the end of the day I find myself learning more from fusing elements. I get to know how weak they are and how they react to each other." Walker was just saying what to him was common sense. 

"Yeah, but they are stubborn and don't like to admit that, especially since most of them are too young tp go off and fight and actually learn that they need to fuse elements to cause real damage." A few mages who were older than Alma gave her glares. They wouldn't argue with her because of her standing, but they would not ignore the slander. 

"So what skill should we show you first? Want to lean light blade?'

"Or dark spear?" 

The light and dark mage seemed to be competing over how to teach him the skill first, to them this was a form of superiority. "Show me both please, I want to see what happens with the touch if that is safe?" Walker's want was enough to shock the two yet again. They would never usually let the two opposing elemental manas come in contact unless it was a natural contact like the shadows in the sun.

"Alright, those who want to watch the demonstration retreat and those who wish to participate stay in the middle." Alma took charge and made sure there would be no accidental damage. She knew all too well of the explosions the mages could cause when experimenting.

The mages all backed away. The only ones left were Walker and Alma along with the light and dark mages. One of the darkness elemental mana mages came to the center and reached in to his own shadow. Walker saw his hand disappear in to the darkness and nearly thiught it was social magic. He pushed this thought from his mind as he witnessed the hand resurface from the shadow with some solidifying shadow clasped within it.

The shadow in the mage's hand was not the same as his own shadow. It had a darker color that seemed to be an endless void. His hand wrapped around it and came to a triangular point at one end. The rest of the dark spear was rounded and flat on the end. The darkness elemental mage spun it a few times and attacked a wooden training dummy brought forward.

Walker saw the fastest speed of decay he had seen yet. The wooden dummy started to crack and rot before his eyes. "This darkness spear is very concentrated and focuses on delivering heavy amounts of darkness elemental mana to the target through the spear tip. It is similar to an injection of poison. Think of a scorpion." 

Walker took note and thought that this would make a better base for a combined skill. It could inject a toxic amount of the element and completely decimate the body of an opponent. While he memorized these things the light elemental mage cam forward too. "The light blade has less from than that spear. It is formed from any and all light in the area."

The light mage held his hand high in the air and the light around them started to pull in towards him. It condensed much as the dark spear did but from the air instead of a shadow. The light seemed to be pulled inside of the mage's hand instead of forming a shape. Walker was looking on confused. 

"After I gather the light element then I am able to trap it in a condensed state. This is the key to forming the blade.' The light mage opened his palm and a sharp blade started to rise out of it. The pure white light was making the mana in the air vibrate, it was almost as if it was afraid of this blade.

The pure white blade formed a rough pulsing shape. It was like a sword blade without a handle sticking out of the light mage's hand. Like the dark mage had before he turned to a dummy brought forward to him. "Now this is what happens to the natural mana we have stored in each of the dummies."

The light mage slashed at the wooden dummy and the reaction was instant. The color of the wooden dummy became grey and faded constantly. "This happens with an object starts to bleed out the natural mana within them. If this was a living creature it would become tired and pale. Eventually, it would lose consciousness and never wake without treatment. For this dummy, it is now a mana free piece of wood." 

Walker was engrossed in the two demonstrations. He knew that they were informative and would be the ideal training information for him. "Alight, I have memorized the results. Please show me their reactions with each other." Walker raised a small earth wall with his high earth sculpting skill and Alma whispered to the vines. They were both prepared for the worst. 

The two mages used their own protection skills that used their own elemental magic. They slowly approached each other and held out the two elemental magic weapons. The closer they grew the more tense the atmosphere. Not a single mage dared to speak as they activated their own protective skills. They were not stupid enough to risk going without a protective skill.

The two weapons barely touched each other when a burst of light and darkness elemental manas flooded the training area. The blinding flash was combatted by the equally blinding darkness. It was like two tidal waves pushing on each other. Those watching quickly noticed that they weren't causing any damage because the two elements were canceling each other's negative effects out. 

When the waves of mana finally depleted two pale and exhausted mages stood in the middle of the room. The other mages rushed to give them mana potions so they could hear the feelings and results of the collision. Not a single one of them wanted to be out of earshot when they spoke. If they missed it they could lose the chance to greatly increase their own elemental understanding. 

The two mages took a while to fully organize their thoughts. The force they had felt from the opposite skill had out a major toll on their minds and mana. They both had ended up exerting higher and higher amounts of mana to balance things until the skills finally broke. 

"My light blade was condensed so well, but as soon as it touched the condensed darkness element, it fell apart. I could barely keep it from whipping out all around the area."

"I experienced the same. The dark spear lost all of its stability. I was unable to control, it even when I used almost all of the mana to hold it to some degree." 

The two mages having the same issue with their condensed mana was a very telling instance to every mage there. They had all felt this when they lost focus or when they had run low on mana. The only difference here was that the two mages had been surprised by the loss of stability.

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