But for a Slime

Chapter One Hundred Eleven

Joe's scream swept into the air and Gwenvair rushed to his side, even as mana began to swirl within her and come into being. Despite Gwenvair's certain actions, desperation was obvious in her cries.

"Joe! Joe! I… what… Don't move. It will only fan the flames. There is little I can do, but my wind mana may be of some help."

Kalia interrupted, both in fascination then quickly followed by dismissal, "Girl! What are you… pah! Your little wind mana will do nothing. This is elemental Fire. Are you capable of elemental Wind?"

Gwenvair grimaced, tears beginning to run down her cheeks as she shook her head, "No. Not elemental Wind."

Joe, for his part, both heard and could care less of the conversation going on around him, the flames burning through his skin with a crisp crackling of wafting cooking meat that both titillated his tongue and twisted his stomach in disgust at realizing the source of his watering tongue. He ignored it as best he could, but at best could only scream out his question while grunting in pain and leaning over himself.

"What do I do?"

"Don't let it touch any other part of you! Sit up and away!"

Joe immediately jerked away from the flame and moved his left hand up to the bicep of his right burning arm, his forearm burning in a cheery line across the top of his forearm. He grimaced, grateful that only the top of his arm had been burned.

"Why?!" Joe's cry climbed to a screech as pain overwhelmed his control.

"It will burn anything it touches. See your spear?"

Joe glanced over and saw his spear, half on land and half in the water, dancing in brilliant red flames, even underwater, and Joe grimaced, looking down at his arm again through boiling bubbling water. The water did nothing, or seemed to do nothing, although the water was essentially boiling and with it, boiling the top of his arm. The water is getting hotter… He saw his skin further and further from the flame visible reddening and immediately behind the red wave, boils began popping up and Joe grimaced! Boiling water… not good…

His mind raised then he removed his left hand from his arm and began sweeping it back and forth within the water, then immediately swapped to a circular motion while also spinning his entire body. The new cooler water… Joe almost sobbed in relief as the parts of his skin that had been resting in boiling water quickly found relief in the new cool water. However, the top of his arm still burned, his top of his forearm long past boils and third degree burns and now becoming darken charcoal as his arm burnt. His thoughts churned and he could only seek one thing. He'd long stopped listening to the other three, with Gwenvair rather desperate in seeking help from Kalia and Xylarnae. Xylarnae was sympathetic, but offered no solutions, and in fact was busy holding Stephliquen back from rushing to Joe's side. Kalia was flat in her concerns, lips curled in disdain as she spoke curtly with Gwenvair. Joe noticed this only peripherally, the burn so all consuming that it was all he thought of. Gotta get rid…

Joe blinked and quickly held out his left arm before calling for one of his knives in his inventory. He suddenly almost stopped in fear at realizing that in all his tests, all items recalled always came to his right hand, and he stared with worry that the knife might appear in his clenched fist, and he quickly struggled to open his hand. Pain ruptured his concentration, but his focus turned back to his efforts and he sighed in relief when he saw the knife appear in his right hand and fall further into the water.

He moved his efforts of keeping his arm cooled to simple sweeping motions as he turned to his right so he could look down into the increasingly dirtied water. Please, please, please, please… Joe's mind no longer thought clearly, panting chants the only thing he was capable of to keep his mind focused as he dropped his left hand into the water and swept it looking for the knife. He'd kept his eyes on where he was certain the knife appeared, and while he knew sweeping his hand across the bottom looking for a knife was a good way to chop off some fingers, he held little concern for it, all thoughts on his burning forearm. Knife… knife… knife!

His hand slapped against something hard and metallic and his fingers snapped onto it without concern, sliding along it. The pad of his middle finger sliced open under the sharp edge, but all he felt was relief from the burn on his right arm as the slice distracted him from the burn. The relief, however, was so fleeting that Joe found himself struggling to think, his fingers fumbling for the weapon, more slices riddling his fingers and palm before he was able to get it grasped in his left hand. He was right hand dominant, and while his martial arts masters had regularly trained him to use his off hand, using it while struggling with a burning boiling arm wasn't something he'd really practiced. Gotta get the flames off… gotta get them off!

He then tilted his arm to the side, turning it over as sharply as he could, allowing the flesh to slip off to the ground without allowing the flame to burn anything else. He pulled his left hand up and placed the dagger blade at his elbow, a few knuckle spans above the flame, then grit his teeth hard. Don't think, do it… do it… do it… With a growl that quickly shifted to a guttural roar, he sliced into his arm a good centimeter or so and sliced it all the way down to his wrist. As he sliced down through the skin of his forearm, he grimaced in pain and suddenly froze before continuing on through his forearm, but now concerned with worry. Crap! Healing! Status, current job … he then calmed, relieved to find that he had a regen mage job currently equipped. Too slow… He quickly swapped out to a healing mage, having to waste a bit of time looking at his available jobs list to find the name of the latest one he'd leveled. That meant he had to slow the slice of his dagger, wanting to be able to heal his arm before his HP took over. This is… pretty bad… donno if I'll have the HP to heal my arm…

His job switched over, he finished the swipe with final rapid slice and the flickering flames fell with sliced skin into the water where it began to boil the water. He didn't even notice, his mind quickly turned inward as he began desperately directing his healing skill towards his arm. The wound ripped at his conscious like claws through soft flesh, pain crushing his ability to think, so all he ended up doing was falling back on the system skill, punching the heal button over and over again while focusing on his right forearm. His mana fled like water into the desert, gone as soon as hit his wound, and soon he was dipping into the mana within his mana points, shoving mana towards the system as it automagically healed his wound.

The wound healed so slowly, the muscle, tendons, and tissue reappearing with slow agony as his mana evaporated before the massive wound. Joe quickly came to realize his system granted mana was a drop in the bucket compared to the mana his mana points offered, but that also was annihilated before the massive wound on his arm. When he was dry of the two mana pools offered him, he hit the wall of his own personal mana which seemed to be outside the system, although Joe wasn't certain on his mana points either, considering that his mana points appeared to be incredibly unique amongst all people in this cradle. Still, his thoughts were on curing his wound, and he saw some hope for it as it had recovered almost just about half. He was certain he could have done much better with much more finesse, but the pain and the sight of the inside of his arm was certainly something he hadn't really considered before nor be confront with. A certain amount of disgust welled up within him as he struggled to keep the bile down. Man… guess other animals don't bother me, but… seeing myself ripped open… He swallowed hard and turned his thoughts to pushing his own personal mana into the wound.

He struggled hard for quite some time, pushing his mana up into where it was yoinked by the system and shoved into whatever mechanism that enacted the healing on his arm. And it was a rather violent ripping of his mana Joe could almost 'feel' in some way, as it came out and was forcibly rushed into the work of healing his arm. His arm continued to heal, and passed just over the halfway mark, if Joe was eyeballing it, and Joe found it increasingly hard to push his mana into healing his wound. He was soon back to grunting hard, forcing the mana out into where it could be taken and he increasingly felt like he was squeezing an ever emptier bladder of some kind, the last of his mana coming out in spurts and starts.

By now, the pain had greatly receded and Joe was growing ever more aware of his surroundings as the focus needed to squeeze his mana out was already spent, but that lost to the distraction of pain slowly came back to awareness. He saw Gwenvair at his side, rather dizzy in her worry for him, and dancing ineffectually between touching or holding him and busily occupying herself. Kalia stood in front of him and stared down at him with an amused humor, seeming to be a tiny bit impressed while simultaneously dismissive of him, looking down upon his efforts. Xylarnae seemed most interesting, standing by his side with a calm that belied all the others concern, even Kalia's which slid under her dismissive humor. Joe glanced up at her and Xylarnae nodded with a smile, and Joe noticed her relief rather quickly, and Joe nodded back at her.

Stephliquen seemed the most unconcerned as she watched on, her amazement obvious in her avid examination of his wound. When he started looking around and glancing at others during his pained grunts, she quickly realized that he was, in some ways, winning the fight so jumped in with excitement.

"How are you doing that?! Is that matter formation? Energy matter transformation? That is incredible! What ar…"

"It… hurts! Is what it is," Joe gasped out, interrupting her.

She grimaced and withdrew a bit, "Ah… yeah, sorry. That … it's…"

Joe noticed her struggled then huffed in laughter but sounded more like just one of his many painful grunts as he pushed against the pain and squeezing his mana out, "Pretty cool, though… huh."

Stephliquen quickly grinned and nodded, laughing, "So cool!"

Happily for Joe, Stephliquen stopped at that but came to his side and began giving almost a mild snake bite on his elbow, just above the wound. She grabbed his upper arm with both her hands, clenched rather tightly, then began twisting the skin of his arms in opposite directions. Her right hand rotated counter clockwise and pulled his skin away from herself towards his body while her left hand rotated clockwise, pulling the skin of his arm towards her. She then did this rapidly by rapidly alternating the rotational directions but always in a way that her two hands rotated opposite of one another. Luckily, she didn't squeeze too hard, but enough to pull at his skin lightly. She made up for the lightness of her 'snake bite' by increasing the speed of her rotation, rapidly alternating back and forth between clockwise and counter clockwise for both her hands and soon his arm was burning under the sting of friction. Joe almost jerked his hand away in surprise but then sighed with almost pleasurable relief when the added distraction of her snake bite pulled his thoughts away from the once burned now scalloped flesh of his right forearm.

"What ar….. oooOH! Thank you!" Joe gasped out in relief even as he turned his thoughts more fully on squeezing out what mana he could, pushing through the now growing pain of mana exhaustion to heal just that little bit more.

"Yeah… I do this all the time. Adding sensations, especially to just above the wound, can help distract from the actual wound. I prefer to use more pleasurable feelings, like a tickle or a light brush, but this one looks bad and sometimes you really need to push it to overwhelm the incoming sensations. Probably all placebo, if I were to guess, but it helps me, so…"

Joe sighed and simply nodded, "Helps me… a lot… never really tried on a massive wound like this, though… more small burns and cuts."

She nodded, "Then explain what you're doing … after! Don't stop. That looks like a nasty wound. Not sure how much help or treatment you're going to get here."

Joe huffed again, but this time it was much easier to recognize as laughter, "Ironically, what's happening now… I don't think your people or mine would have been able to do this. Magic here is pretty powerful… for this kind of stuff. Instant healing… basically, although … I'm not sure if my HP can handle this… so kind of hoping to burn what MP I have… although my personal mana is still… so out of my skill set. Struggling to understand how that even works… seems like a … bladder control issue… weird to me seeing as I never had mana before… that I have a sphincter holding it tight… and I have to push through it… I would think… if it was so new to me… that I would have to learn… to hold it in, instead of … squeezing it out… but then again… so much of the stuff here… is so weird… like… why are monsters inedi…"

"Focus! Focus!" Stephliquen interrupted.

Joe's thoughts snapped back to the moment and his eyes back to the wound. He was still pushing out mana in fits and starts, and his heal seemed to be snapping up what little mana was coming out, but it was quite a bit less than what he'd been doing before. He quickly grunted, squeezing hard and a small torrent of mana erupted outwards again, and he watched as the healing of the wound visibly sped up again before quickly slowing as Joe struggled to get the last of his mana out. As he began to run almost completely dry on mana despite his efforts to squeeze out even more, he flipped up his status to look at his mana, and found it essentially zeroed out, each small tick of a single mana point immediately drained away and Joe realized that the healing effort was taking mana from anywhere it could get it, so he pulled his mana points in once again and released the mana from the points. The healing swelled once again, but quickly waned, dying out once again despite the continued help from the mana points as he simply left them 'open' somehow and allowed the mana to saturate deep within himself where the healing construct was sucking away his mana and using it to heal his arm.

Now that he was a bit more cognizant, he was able to feel the mana somehow shifting then zipping up his chest towards his right arm and down it before swarming across the wound and doing what it was supposed to. Weird… the mana comes out… changes… in what, quality? Purpose? No… well… maybe a little… somehow… but also… no… something else… something is added… not sure what… and then it just… goes… no more added… it just …

Suddenly, the last of his grunting efforts released nothing, and Joe quickly felt the healing construct grow demanding. Almost… hungry? Can't really explain it! Joe desperately dug in and tried to squeeze any amount of mana out, but the healing 'thing' grew unstable and more demanding even as the small trickle of mana he was getting from his mana points, his system, and his own personal mana points proved incapable of meeting demand. A few moments later, the healing object somehow dispersed, leaving nothing in its wake even as the mana that had made up the construct collapsed inwards then rushed towards his arm and healed his forearm. Huh… pretty efficient… even the mana from the thingy that was creating healing mana is used to heal the wound… although… where di the first healing mana come from? To become healing mana… Is it healing mana? Does mana change aspect… purpose… something?

His thoughts were pulled from his distraction even as the last of his mana hit his wound and Joe grimaced with concern, as the cut still showed unhealed muscle and blood vessels, going deep past the subcutaneous fatty layer of his skin. This is…

Joe's thoughts snapped as the last of the healing mana hit his wound and sparkled, doing something Joe wasn't certain he understood beyond what looked remarkably like having his wound healed with a biomatter printer, as it were. When that last bit of mana did its thing, suddenly, the wound was gone, the entire thing replaced by a completely healed forearm. Relief hit Joe even as he closed his eyes and sat back panting, now in an overwhelming relaxation from the pain instead of in effort and harm.

"Wow… what was…."

Joe grunted, "Not me. That was my HP. Told you about it."

"Right… that was a lot faster… why didn't you just let it do it?"

Joe grunted and looked over at his status and then whistled, "Hoo… I as lucky there."

"What?"

Joe waved at his status, "Used up all my HP. Don't have a single one left. That…"

Joe glanced down at his arm and then squinted, realizing that he hadn't actually been completely healed. He reached up a hand and touched his skin the grimaced, sucking in a breath and pulling his hand away fast.

"Never mind… didn't heal up. I didn't even have enough HP to finish healing."

"What do you mean? Looks good to me?"

Gwenvair interrupted and began patting Joe down, "Are you OK? You are OK? Right? Things are OK! You're arm is healed? It is OK?"

Joe looked up, nodding, "Yeah, yeah. Things are OK. Still a bit…" Joe snapped back with a hiss.

Joe had fallen down into the water a bit during his efforts to heal his arm, resting down on his knees. With the relief of being healed, he'd dropped back down into the water, sitting on his heels before finally dropping his arm into the water as well. When his arm hit the water, he hissed and pulled it back out, quickly noticed the pile of boiling water just off his right side.

"Let's move away from that scary fire."

The others quickly nodded and stepped carefully around the still burning flesh of his forearm and the spitting burn on his spear still laying half in and out of the water. The heat from the water where his cut off forearm lay was now creating a massive column of heated water and air, steam rising into the air with the bubbles boiling up merrily. That is… really, really hot to boil it so fast, or… somehow just instantaneously heats up all around it… that's just... HOT!

When his arm had dipped into the water, his wound had reacted rather quickly with the water, his arm somehow incredibly sensitive, and when he pulled it up to look at it carefully, he realized very fast what had happened.

"It didn't fully heal!"

Stephliquen frowned at that, "Really?"

Joe shook his head, then hissed as he brushed his hand across his arm. A larch portion of the wound had fully healed, all the way to his skin and even including the hair on his arm, which Joe grimaced at when he realized he'd wasted mana and effort on 'healing back' his arm hairs. The whole forearm, from just below his elbow all the way to just above his wrist, had been cut off, but the healing had been from the outside inward, and the areas closest to his wrist and elbow had fully healed quickest, leaving the wound he had been left with to be essentially fist sized in diameter directly in the middle of his forearm halfway between his wrist and elbow. It was still very easy to see it, the lack of hair and the bright pink of new baby skin made it apparent. And when he brushed his hand across it, it lit up his senses, overly sensitive to whatever was touching it. It wasn't quite pain, but it was really overwhelming.

"It's… really sensitive. I think it barely made it to the top layer of skin. Although…"

Confusion quickly lit up his thoughts as he went to brushing the other 'fully healed' sections of his wounded forearm and compared it to his left forearm. Both felt rather identical in how they responded to the sense of touch. However the small patch in the middle that was turning slightly pink, seemed to be incredibly sensitive to touch, even to the point that when he blew across it lightly, his skin puckered up in goose bumps and the sensation, while not painful, bordered on it.

"Wow… so… it seems like it's brand new skin… but also isn't layered in old dead skin layers as well, which makes me wonder how the magic 'healed' my dead skin cells? That seems… rather terrifying in implication."

"That does seem overly powerful. But it certainly is nice to know we have that! I was pretty worried about sickness and disease."

Joe nodded, then snorted, "Get a couple levels in a priest job line, then you'll be fine."

"Priest job line?"

Joe nodded, then snorted, "Oh, yeah… I should help you all get something to unlock your priest jobs… you're going to need to be able to change jobs, as well."

"Change jobs?"

Joe laughed, "I've been doing it for you the last couple days, but you need a priest line of jobs to change jobs. You can't just… willy-nilly change your jobs. It's a part of the priest line to change jobs. Although… huh… I guess we could get you euridite first, real quick. That should be easy."

"Euridite?"

Joe nodded, "Yeah. It's a title. You can change your job once a day, which is kind of all you need for a while, until you unlock gifted. That… you're going to want to do as soon as possible, if you can. But…"

"Gifted?" Stephliquen interrupted.

Joe nodded, "It's a job. Keep an eye out for it. I'm not sure how it works or where or how to get it … got some ideas, but still not sure."

Stephliquen nodded firmly, "Euridite, gifted, and polyglot."

Joe glanced up at her then grinned, "Yeah. You'll get how all this works pretty quick."

She nodded again and Joe turned his thoughts to his available jobs tab for a bit before nodding, "Yeah. Seems like euridite would be easy to get. It seems like, maybe. I think all we have to do is something about a 'vast variety' of jobs and job types. Not sure if that means a lot of jobs, specifically, or groups of jobs. My hunch is the groups… I remember euridite came around after I opened up a bunch of the job groups like grouping, nobility, and crafting. You'll only get it once a day, but then you can change to the priest line of jobs easy enough."

"So you still recommend the priest line?"

Joe nodded, "Yeah, but be careful. They get a daily report for every new person in their priesthood, per job. So, if you change to a job in that line of jobs, they see your face again."

"Every time you change your priest job?"

Joe glanced at her, paused in thought, then shook his head rapidly, "Oh, no! Not that. The priest line of jobs is something like nine or ten jobs long… deep? Long? There are a series of nine or ten jobs. Each time you unlock a NEW job and TAKE it; you have to TAKE it first, not just unlock it, your face gets plastered on some kind of 'priesthood jobs' bulletin and shown to every person that worships that god or goddess that morning. Then it's not shown again until you open the next job in line and take it. Getting a job a day is… unheard of! Getting it per week or month is also insane. Changing jobs is so rare it's pretty much a once in a lifetime thing here, it seems."

"Really?"

"Well… a lot of it has to do with them unable to know what job is next, although I'm absolutely certain the wealthy nobility has a record of a line of jobs and how to get them that they jealously guard and save for their people, but yeah. If you are a normal person, it's pretty much a random shot in the dark if you get what you are aiming for 'cause it takes pretty much a couple decades to get to the minimum level to unlock the next job in line."

"What's the minimum?"

"Seems like twenty… that's the lowest I've seen. I'm guessing here, 'cause some of them leveled multiple levels, but things in this system seem to work by fives."

"Huh. But why so long to hit twenty?"

"Can't use weapons."

Stephliquen's lips curled, "Yeah. What is up with that?"

"Not sure. But seems to be something on the people here."

"But how are you using weapons."

"Pretty sure that it was something specific to the people. We have a year to acclimate before things nail us and we have to naturalize our stats. I think the weaponry is the same."

Stephliquen shook her head, "No. Others found themselves eviscerated when they attempted to take a weapon as well."

"Then they must have naturalized as well."

Stephliquen frowned at that, then rapidly shook her head, "You're talking about making your stats from the system become the primarly stats?"

"Hmm… I guess you could say it like that."

"The stats that make you think and talk slow?"

Joe grimaced, "Yeah. Terrifying, huh?"

Stephliquen grimaced as well, "Yeah, but no. It's not that."

Joe focused on Stephliquen, frowning, "What do you mean?"

Stephliquen shook her head slowly, "Many seemed to have been wiser than I, not accepting naturalization immediately, like you. Most of the subj… people were still highly responsive and reactive to the world around them and those within the city also interacted with the people quite well. Yet, as soon as they took a weapon…"

Joe frowned, "Huh… then… how am I?"

Stephliquen nodded, "One of the reasons why I put down near you… not that that helped. I was captured and taken immediately."

Joe chuckled at that, "And we still met! Huh! Lucky."

Stephliquen snorted, "Don't believe in it."

Joe grinned, saying, 'The people here do," before waving to his status and pointing to the last stat on the list of stats.

Throughout all this, Xylarnae and Kalia remained to the side and watched on before walking to the side and whispering to one another, speaking quietly in deep discussion. Gwenvair, however, grew ever more insistent and upset with Joe before finally interrupting him with a firm and angry cry.

"Joe! Are you well?"

Joe looked up at her, then struggled to hold in his blush. OK… that was dumb!

"Yeah. Yeah. I'm OK. I'm sorry for ignoring you. I didn't mean…"

Gwenvair shook her head, "No. I don't care about that. Are you well? Is your injury cared for?"

Joe's concern melted and a soft smile came to his face before he then grinned and nodded, "Yeah. It's all good. My arm is fine, if a bit sensitive. It'll be all better in a couple days even if I don't do anything." Although… can I heal this, too? That would be… Joe grimaced, halting the distracting thought and focused back on Gwenvair after he made a mental note of it.

Gwenvair, however, seemed to be done and simply hugged him, grateful that he was fine. Joe sighed deeply, his tension at having bothered or ignored Gwenvair drifting away even as he fell into the hug with her in relief as well. Stephliquen smiled and nodded at him before stepping back and away but as she did so, she stepped towards the spear which was still burning merrily and Joe called out in surprised worry.

"Watch out!"

Stephliquen froze then looked down to see her foot almost right up against the spear. She danced away with an odd curse Joe didn't recognize but could easily understand as a curse. Gwenvair had quickly turned in her hug with him before rising to her feet and staring at his spear.

"We will be here a long time."

Joe glanced over at her then down at the spear with a grimace. Can I brush it off?

Joe looked around for a stick. Finding one over the top of the small hillock, he came back and straddled his spear before putting his stick on the edge of it and brushing wildly down it. Maybe scrape off the mana… is there some kind of fuel source/ Gotta be, right? A mana gel, or something? But even as he swiped the stick rapidly down it, nothing changed except for his stick to rapidly catch fire and burn. Joe wildly tossed the stick into the water then looked down at his spear still burning. Well… this isn't good.

The spear was still mostly unaffected by the flames, but Joe didn't want it to heat up too much, and finally decided the best thing he could do would be to mitigate the damage. Boiled spear it is… hope it's delicious… with a dash of forearm and a pinch of stick. He found another stick and this time simply pushed the spear into the water until it was immersed. That should keep the temperature down… hope I don't ruin the tempering. Joe sighed and then turned back to the others. Stephliquen seemed to understand what he was doing, and nodded.

"Smart. The water will keep the temperature down."

Joe nodded, "Hope it's still a good weapon after all this."

Stephliquen nodded and Joe turned to look at the others.

"So. You guys said it was elemental fire. Can you explain?"

Gwenvair shook her head, "Elemental is… very rare."

Joe frowned, "You have sparks. That's elemental lightning… on the first floor of you dungeon. The water frog things in your beginner dungeon. Sheesh, even the snows are spitting around snow… that's a lot of…"

Gwenvair smirked at that, chuckling with some disbelief, "Those aren't Elem… well, they do use … that's not…" she ended with a huff and stared at Joe with disbelief and a hint of confusion.

"One's elemental. And the other is an elemental."

Joe blinked at that, confusion reigning for a bit. What's… "Can you say that again?"

"One's elemental. And the other is an elemental."

"Just the two words. Nothing else."

Gwenvair frowned, considered, then nodded, "Elemental. Elemental."

Joe frowned, focusing, "Again? Please?"

"Elemental. Elemental."

Joe glanced to Stephliquen, "Is she saying the same words?"

Stephliquen cocked her head, "What?"

"That… please listen. Is she saying the same word?"

Joe looked back to Gwenvair, "One more time please?"

Gwenvair complied quickly enough, but grew more confused and concerned, "Elemental. Elemental."

Mana pulsed, the very air growing heavy and Joe's eyes flickered to look at the growing wave of meaning and power, but it fluctuated and compressed before swirling in an odd uncertainty then dissipating weakly after.

Joe focused hard, pushing to hear the sounds but not quite able to grasp them so turned to Stephliquen who quickly shook her head, "That seemed like two different words. Didn't even sound really alike."

Joe looked back at Gwenvair, "Please, one more time?"

Joe quickly swapped out common for French and focused, "Nusnarlagan. Lagan."

"That's not…"

Joe grimaced and quickly set his skill back to using common and spoke again, "That's not the same word, but why am I hearing it the same?"

Gwenvair frowned, staring at him with confusion, "I am gal sunugan."

"Wait. What?" Apply common, replace French.

Joe spoke up again, but Gwenvair still spoke incomprehensibly and Joe's frown grew. I want common, please. Why? Realization hit Joe and his eyes widened in wonder before he grimaced. OOoh… this… is not good!

He went to his pack and ripped it open, pulling out his notebook and began running through the notes, piecing back through the notebook to find what he needed. It turned out to be pretty easy, his notes for language having petered out rather quickly after he'd gained the magical ability to speak without concern, and he found the name of the language near the end of his notes on the language itself. Galga… Please set the language from French to Galga.

Gwenvair looked at him with growing concern, "Are you OK?"

Joe huffed in relief, "I'm fine. Sorry. Was doing a test."

Gwenvair nodded, her own relief flooding her face, "What happened?"

Joe laughed, "I was hearing the same word for elemental, but you are actually using two different words."

"Of course," Gwenvair stared at him with worry, "They are not the same thing at all."

"It seems like it. Could you please explain?"

"Between Elemental and elemental?"

Mana swelled again, flickering and then faded in a weary gasp, accomplishing nothing and fading away. Having a hard time with this? Or… missing a concept? That…

Joe chuckled, "Still hearing the same word."

Gwenvair nodded, "Elemental is easy enough but Elemental is not something I have… nor my clan has much experience with. It is very rare."

The mana, this time, welled with more certainty, wrapping around both Kalia and Gwenvair with more deliberate motion and effort before washing towards him. It flickered around him in a wash that seemed focused on his brain and head. It swelled and moved with a purpose before it grew unstable and ultimately wobbled and died out in a whimper of nothingness. Joe frowned to see it. Big problem with translate-o-matic here… He turned back to focus on the others.

Kalia grunted, "I can speak on it."

Gwenvair nodded, "I am grateful."

"So what Elementals were you speaking of. Do you have Elementals in your dungeons?" Kalia asked with naked greed.

Gwnevair frowned, "He was speaking of elementals, not Elementals. There are sparks, snows, and some mukfrogs that use englobe with their water magic."

"That has nothing to do with Elementals. Such weak creatures could never Elementalize,"

Gwenvair nodded, "Yes."

Joe raised an eyebrow, "But they are shooting out lightning and water left and right. The snow's are spitting out snow. What … I don't understand."

Kalia's grilling of Gwenvair ended with disappointment and she turned to look back at Joe, "You are equating the use of an elemental with Element?"

"The words are identical to my ear as we talk. I hear no difference."

Gwenvair jumped in with an explanation, "He speaks a different language and is using magic and mana to translate our words and ideas. Some … oddities have been found in understanding."

Kalia glanced back and forth between Gwenvair and Joe before she looked at Joe, "You do not speak common?"

Joe shook his head, "Nope."

Kalia's eyebrows furrowed, "The entire Great Cycle speaks Common. I know of no place in our Great Cycle that does not speak common. Where are you from?"

Joe stared at her, "My planet is called Earth."

"Planet?"

Joe grimaced, then sighed, "We do not call our world's planes. We call them planets. My plane is called Earth."

"I have never heard of the place. What cradle is it on?"

Joe froze, clenching teeth for a time as he stared at them, then blurted out quickly, "Our solar system has two cradles. We call them Jupiter and Saturn."

* * *

"Our cycle has two cradles. They are known as Jupiter and Saturn."

"A dual cradle lesser cycle. You are quite blessed. It is unusual, but I have never heard of them. There are not so many dual cradles that you would be so unknown."

"I am uncertain of how to say more, but such is the case."

Kalia paused at that, considering carefully, "It is odd you do not know common. It was spread as the common language for all in the Great Cycle by the Emperor. Are you in rebellion?"

* * *

"It's rather strange your people do not know common. It was declared the lingua franca for galaxy by the emperor. Are you rebel forces against the Empire?"

Joe felt his heart rate spiking and worry twisting through his gut, too much new data with not enough context left him in a sea of uncertainty. He opted for revealing nothing, for he had no other options. And… why is two gas giants rare? I thought there multiples were rather common… but… not important, focus…

"We are not in rebellion against the Empire," Joe replied, focusing on the truth of that statement as much as he could while chuckling, "If anything, we are simply the backend of nowhere. No one knows of my people or Jupiter and Saturn."

"Hmm. My memory is not what it once was," Kalia sighed with obvious frustration, "It is likely lost when I lost my points."

Joe nodded, offering commiseration but mostly relieved to not have to explain more, "I don't know if I could remember every sola… cycle or cradle."

"Doing so with mortal mind would be almost impossible."

But then that means there is a way to do it … in another way… an immortal mind? Or another tool? Do they have another way to … but she says remembering, so it would be something linked to memory… not an outsid…

"Then your people do not have Elementals or elementals?"

Joe blinked and looked at here, "Elementals as a basic portion of existence, of course, but we seem to have a meaning that I do not understand for I hear the same word and not two words."

Kalia narrowed her eyes and spoke once again, "Elementals are simply creatures that focus more specifically to a single portion of the dao, a single element, such as the sparks or the attraction elemental on the second floor of this dungeon. Sparks use only lightning magic while the attraction element uses only attraction or repulsion."

Joe nodded, considering being a bit nitpicky about the 'attraction' elemental using 'two' elements of attraction and repulsion but focused on understanding the difference between the two. For the most part, this definition of elemental was something he understood, and was something that was common in literature and gaming. Elementals were often a creature made entirely and only of a single element, thus the name. So a spark, being made up of lightning, would be an element. Such a creature would be impossible in the real world, but here, floating snowballs and sparking balls of lightning that had animal like intelligence seemed common. He worried what he would do if he met a 'water' or a 'fire.' Or… maybe better name would be wisp? Yeah… water of fire wisp… should I call the spark that? Would make more sense? Although sparks are a bit bigger than what I would think of for a 'wisp.'

"Then how about the other?"

Kalia nodded, "First, you understand this first example?"

Joe nodded, "Our people know of these. Creatures of a single element, usually made up of that element and attack using that element."

Kalia's pinched face relaxed at that, nodding with affirmation, "Exactly. The other is not the creature."

"Yes, but I assumed the attacks of the creature would be considered elemental."

"No… yes," she interrupted herself with what seemed to be the universal half yes half no head shake representing a complicated topic rife with a myriad of exceptions, "There attacks are of their element, but they are not Elemental."

She stared at Joe with focus and Joe simply nodded, accepting the statement for now in hopes that future explanation would add clarity. She nodded in reply and continued.

"Elementals are not elementals, although elementals can be Elemental."

OK… that… was the most useless sentence ever constructed by an intelligence. Joe grit his teeth and opened his mouth to interject but Kalia grimaced and held up a hand.

"Please. You will see."

Joe settled and nodded his head, but said nothing.

"So, Elementals. Elementals are the embodiment of an element. An elemental can be made up of Elemental element of its element, but…"

Joe interrupted and shook his head, waving his hand back and forth, "This isn't helping. The two words are still intermingling and that is only adding to the confusion! Let me try to ask some quick questions for clarity. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be belligerent, but the description is going very poorly."

Kalia seemed angry at the interruption, shocked anger fluctuating across her face before she breathed deeply and nodded with a displeased growl.

"I really am sorry, but," Joe shook his head and continue, "Look… just… OK. I'll just focus. An elemental is a creature made up its own element and uses it to interact with the world around it, so, for example: a fire ball that is made of fire and somehow is a living creature that then uses fire to manipulate the world. Or sparks, made of lightning, and use lightning to act upon the world."

Kalia waffled her head before nodding slightly, "A simplistic explanation but seems to catch the majority of the concept."

Joe nodded with some relief, "OK. Than am I missing something big with it?"

Kalia nodded, "They do not simply interact with the world with the dao. They embody it as an existence upon which they may enact the dao. They bring the dao upon the world but also bring for the dao into the world."

Joe frowned, nodding slowly, but unable to grasp the differentiation. Sounds a lot like what I already said, but I'll accept for now.

"OK?"

"Therefore, the dao comes into existence within the elemental, is expressed upon the world, and is then enacted upon it."

A metaphor clicked in his mind and he blurted it out, "A doorway to the dao upon which the dao can come into this world."

That seemed to click with Kalia, and she nodded slowly then with a bit more certainly, "A doorway. Yes… it could be seen in such a way. Truly… an interesting viewpoint, but one that encapsulates the idea decently, although it fails in certain other key factors."

Joe nodded, "A weakness of all metaphors."

"True. But a decent one none the less."

"Thank you."

"Now, for the Elemental. It is more a concept than an expression."

Joe narrowed his eyebrows at that, "By expression, you mean the animal like representations of the dao?"

Kalia grimaced but nodded, "Yes, but they are not animals nor are they alive."

Joe crunched his eyebrows even more but nodded in acceptance, "OK."

"As a concept, the Elemental is the ultimate expression of that element."

Joe's eyebrows flinched," Uh huh."

"They are the epitome of the natural, the essence, the purity, an ultimate expression, the dao in perfection expressed in the natural."

Joe stared at her, wondering if he was really hearing what she was saying. She seemed earnest and his face fell ever inward as he attempted to understand what it actually meant. The philosophy was so alien, he struggled to grasp it.

"I… don't know if I understand."

Kalia sighed, "It is the element perfected!"

Joe's eyebrows crunched, "So… elemental fire is… super fire?"

Kalia huffed and rolled her eyes, "What are you, a child?"

Joe nodded, "In this, I am."

Kalia pulled back, staring at Joe with some wonder, "Truly?"

"I know nothing," Joe replied flatly.

"Then, your understanding could be expressed as that. Although a better explanation would be purer fire."

"Purer? Not purest?" Content originally comes from N0veI.Fiɾe.net

"There is no purest."

Joe leaned back, "So it can always be more… pure? More super? More elemental than it currently elementally is?"

Kalia frowned a bit before nodding, "Yes, to an extent."

"So… then… are there Elemental elementals then? Uh… purified element elementals?"

Mana swirled and punched through everything, swamping within and through him before erupting outwards in a wave that slowed and caught before rushing back inwards to slam home into his mind. Joe huffed as concepts seemed to solidify and crush back down within his mind.

"The perfect representation of a concept within a given form… a purified ultimate element. And an elemental, the creature, is the expression of external elemental forces upon this … place to express that element as a force in this world. The creature is a doorway for the element to express itself here, the other is its actual existence here as a perfected, purified example of said element."

Kalia sat back and nodded with a smile, "Yes. That is an excellent summation, although missing several conceptual formations. To answer your question, yes. There are elementals that are their rarified more pure cousins. These represent a … 'deeper doorway?' to use your terminology?... yes… a deeper doorway closer to the truths of that element of the dao. It… is difficult to truly use such an analogy well."

Joe blinked, "Seems…"

His mind waffled with the idea as his thoughts struggled to grasp all of it in its entirety. Concepts washed through his mind and seemed to come in and out of focus until he finally gave up trying to dig deeper and accepted his weaker and limited understanding, replying with his understanding just to make sure his understanding was clear.

"So… the creature animal things… they are doorways to the 'dao' … uh… elemental plane from which that element comes from, and the purified elements are more perfect examples of that element itself."

Kalia nodded, "You are beginning to understand."

Alright… so the creatures… they'll keep their name… elementals. But when I'm thinking about the purified element… huh… should… well… if I name the animal, I usually say fire elemental, or water elemental… but I guess I could use Elemental water to describe the purified or rarified form of that water. Would that work? Or… but when I have to talk about elementals and Elementals in the generic… arg! This isn't fun… uh… so, yeah… let's leave the creatures as 'elementals' and I'll use 'purified element' for this other form… although if I'm discussing a specific element, I guess I could use purified Elemental water or just Elemental water. A water elemental would be the creature, Elemental water would be the super water… would that work? It's just… so … Maybe I'll try to say Purified… or PE? Purified Elemental? Huh…

Joe sighed, "Why are doorways acting like animals with a will?"

Kalia huffed, "Why would a purer flame act like anything but itself? It is just fire. It is nothing more than fire. It has no will nor intelligence. It is a flame."

"But a door?"

"The door represents the dao of said element, the embodiment of that element, enacting its will upon our plane."

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"That," Joe's brain short circuited again and he sighed and sat back with a huff, "I'm not sure I'm going to understand it much more than that… and I'm already pushing my understanding as is! But… there is some… being? A will? That is moving little doors around the world connecting us to it?"

Kalia's humor faded, then returned during Joe's explanation, "I told you your analogy was… flawed."

Joe sighed and continued, "So the sparks on the second floor were… doorways to the plane of lightning?"

"Essentially."

"And the magne… attractor elemental?"

"Yes, as well."

"Didn't look like a door."

"What part of the spark looks like a door?"

"Could have been a spatial doorway."

"And why do you think the attractor elemental was not?"

"The big blob of copper and iron? Can't really walk through that."

Kalia huffed in disgust and shook her head, "You think you can use the elementals as a path to their elemental plane?"

"You likened them to doorways."

"You did. And I specifically told you that the analogy was flawed."

"You haven't said no."

"Kalia sighed, "I've never thought of such things or considered it."

"But…?"

"No buts!" Kalia rejected immediately and Joe sighed.

"Then the purified element … the example we have is this fire here," Joe asked as he waved down at his still burning forearm flesh and the spear, merrily boiling away the water in the swamp.

"Yes."

"And water won't affect purified fire? Elemental fire?"

"Not natural water."

"But elemental water could?"

"Yes."

Joe chewed his lips in thought before finally nodding his head, "OK. So… oh… is metal a natural counter to lightning?"

Kalia cocked her head, "I never considered it such, but seeing what you did to the sparks with your metal constructs… I am uncertain. I'm certain other lightning or metal mages likely know. I'm know little of the dao of lightning and even less of metal."

Joe's thoughts leapt at that, and he found his eyebrows furrowed, "Are there metal elementals?"

"Yes?" Kalia seemed confused by Joe's question but certain of the answer.

"And elemental metal?"

"Yes," she replied more firmly.

"Iron… elementals? And elemental iron?"

"Yes."

"What isn't… an elemental? An element?"

Kalia blinked at that, turning to deep thought and then looking at Joe with slight consideration hinting at respect, "A… profound thought. What is not such. There are many I can think of. There are so many daos, to think of what is not… I do not think … I do not know. All is the dao, so could not all be an elemental and Elemental?"

Joe's certainty on the topic immediately tanked and he stared at Kalia with concern, "I don't like that response."

"Why? You offered a powerful insight. It is an excellent observation."

"But then you are saying that there are tree elementals and such a thing as Elemental tree!"

"Of course. Is that not what dryads are? What a world tree is?"

Joe blinked, concerned, "Elemental armor and armor elementals?"

"Yes."

"Elemental love and love elementals?"

Kalia chuckled, shaking her head with laughter, "Rarer. I'm unsure what form a love elemental would look like, nor what Elemental love would be, although a lust elemental would likely be a succubus."

Joe stared at Kalia, aghast at the concept, as everything he tried to understand warred with this new concept, "Elemental hero? You know what? I'm not sure I want to know!"

Kalia nodded, "Hero elementals are terrifying."

Joe huffed and then shook his head, "There aren't… but how…"

Kalia's smile smoothed out as she shrugged, "It simply is."

Joe wondered, "That seems…"

Kalia remained silent as she allowed Joe to remain in his thoughts and turned thoughtful herself.

* * *

Kalia stared at Joe, pondering. His struggle to understand elemental expressions in contrast with pure Elemental elements concerned her, his mental capacity a concern. However, when he grasp the meaning, he immediately moved beyond comprehending simple elementals and Elementalism, quickly grasping the horror of conceptual elementalism. Often, conceptual elementals were horrifying in their complexity and Elemental concepts outright profound when used correctly. He… is not simple. But how does he know so little? Yet… think so well?

* * *

Joe wasn't certain he could really comprehend what Kalia was trying to express and he struggled, flipping open his status page and finding things relatively unchanged, including the list of resistances he had. He stared at the resistances and wonder what it could mean and how it actually matched with what she was saying. He grit his teeth and turned to her, showing his status.

"These are my resistances. How are there so few if there are so many elements, as you claim?"

Kalia stared at him, cocking her head in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"These represent magical resistances against certain types of magic. This seems quite… limited in comparison to what you are arguing for, like hero, metal… metal should just be wrapped up in earth… that's all it is. A specialized earth element, so…"

Kalia knit her eyebrows, "You're understanding of the dao is quite limited."

She opened her status and stared at it for a bit before turning to show it to Joe. It was essentially identical to his, except for her list of resistances. Joe balked, all thought stopping for a time before he stared in awe. Its… not… He quickly recognized a scroll bar inset next to her list of elemental resistances, just to the right of the listed value, and Joe despaired.

"Could you… let me read it… and touch it?"

"How…" Kalia asked then simply stopped, nodding, "Certainly."

And immediately, the twisting ever moving morphing letters and words shifted to English and he reached up to swipe down the scroll bar. He swiped down hard and the names blurred past without end, the almost microscopic scroll thumb hardly moving in its space as the various elemental resistances blurred by continuously. Hundreds easily passed and soon Joe was certain he passed a thousand and still, the scroll bar location icon did not move at all, still at the top of the scroll bar representing a list that was still not even a percent of a way through the list. His eyebrows wavered even as his heart thudded.

He ignored swiping on the list of resistances and moved his hand to the scroll location knob and pressed on it before swiping it down. Resistances passed in a blur so quick he could read nothing, and even then, his moving the knob to half way down the scrollbar caused the bar to hiccup and the knob froze, then jumped back up to the top of the screen, and Joe froze. Did… the list just refresh! This... gotta be millions! Billions?! This…

He stared in horrified awe before grabbing the scrollbar knob and pulled down slightly, the list blurring with mad speed, then pushed it back up to the top of the list, revealing her original list of resistances and Joe turned to looking at what they were. Illusory sound. Illusory sight. Illusory touch. Illusory taste. Illusory smell. Illusory gravity. Illusory breeze. Illu… breezed? That's just touch! What….. you know… the list went on, and Joe found dozens like this, although that was simply under illusory. There were duplicates of almost all of them, such as light illusions, physical illusions, mental illusions, water illusions, earth illusions, wind illusions, and fire illusions. They then got into the truly bizarre, such as breath illusions, tree illusions, rock illusions, and other stranger and stranger possible illusions. He wasn't sure if the illusions were made out of the listed item or if the illusion were of such. Is tree illusion making illusions of trees or making illusions out of trees?

He almost asked, but then decided that he'd spiraled down this rabbit hole more than enough and simply backed away, staring at his own status once again. For a moment, his status display shifted, a slow wave of transformation moving across it before settling and remaining essentially unchanged. Joe sighed and glanced back and forth between his and Kalia's display. Her's was incredibly granular, but it also seemed to come with its own issues as each of her resistances revealed very little increase for each, the resistances she'd gained seeming to be distributed across a massive variety of possibilities. Joe really wasn't sure which was better, but looking at the illusory line of magics then looking at his resistances, he was certain that his mental and spirit as well as one other, either sound, light, or shadow, as well as a few other options would offer a significant resistance across all the ones Kalia was differentiating. Joe wasn't even sure what to think, and was feeling rather too overwhelmed to initiate any kind of change. Some of the things Joe saw on her list seemed bizarre and out of his comprehension, so he sighed and stepped back, turning away from Kalia's status.

She stared after him for a bit before simply closing her own status and watching him. After a bit, she turned away and began chatting with Xylarnae and Gwenvair since Joe seemed lost in his own thoughts, unwilling to retreat from them. Stephliquen, being alone, kept her eye on Joe before stepping up to his side.

"You OK? You look like you had your brain popped."

"Maybe."

"Everything fine?"

Joe nodded, "Yeah, but… it's so wild and out there I'm not sure I can explain. It's so alien… it… just bizarre."

Stephliquen remained silent but nodded her head. Joe also remained silent for a time before glancing at the spear and finding it still burning merrily so he sighed and tried to explain. It was only a few moments later that Stephliquen looked at him with her own stunned expression even as he tried and failed multiple times to answer any questions she had. By the end, both were responding with 'I don't know' and adding in a pile of new questions but neither comprehending enough to know how to answer. Asking Kalia proved useless as she simply shrugged and claimed not to understand or laughed and nodded, agreeing with their consternation. Very few times did she try to explain her knowledge, and if anything, it simply made it worse and increased the confusion that both stopped asking her for any more clarification. Another ten or twenty minutes had Stephliquen move off alone as well, not lost in her own thoughts and so Joe found himself alone once again. A quick glance at his spear showed it still burning and he sighed and sought escape in his status.

He went over his recent gains quickly, noticing he'd leveled quite a few jobs in his fight against the sparks that the magnetic elemental had been spewing out. He didn't look at the actual numbers, rather exhausted to be writing them down now, but he did glance over the list of them and noticed he'd gotten theorist to forty eight. Why would I do… He blinked and nodded. Seems nice… the others? He started going over the rest quickly: Regen adept and regen shaman to just around forty, as well as healing adept and shaman to forty as well. One each hit thirty nine and one each hit forty. Scout had hit forty and Joe nodded with satisfaction. Rogue hit forty five, and he grimaced, annoyed at the extra five levels wasted to unlock nothing. He sighed and let it go before looking at his ninja line of jobs. Man.. got a lot done! He'd unlocked shadow hunter, shadow warrior, shadow master, shadow blade, genin, chuunin, jonin, and shinobi all to thirty eight, thirty nine, or forty. He'd not been too strict on waiting to hit forty, not wanting to waste too much experience.