Chapter 96: Zephyr vs Sage Maximus (1)
Zephyr strained as much as he could, but the floating orb of water simply refused to compress.
Clearly whatever translation origin was using to execute his intention of ’compression’ wasn’t working the same way as it had with the fire spell. Mainly because water was malleable and had a fixed volume compared to the fire spell that was simply a gaseous combustion reaction. It could be compressed to something very tiny to pack more violent energy within.
That’s not going to work, host. Aegis informed Zephyr. Water as a liquid is mostly incompressible, so I’d suggest giving up on treating it like a gas. Rather you should focus on using it to its strengths. For example, you can visualize it as a high pressure jet.
Zephyr immediately altered his approach. He stopped trying to compress the orb of water and instead focused on giving it a rod-like shape.
Sage Maximus in the middle of the training room stared at Zephyr with a nod of approval. The boy seemed to understand the nature of the various states of matter. He watched as the water floating over the boy’s hands began to stretch thin and rotate, building up speed increasingly with a sharp hissing sound.
"Slow..." Sage Maximus muttered softly. "Way too slow." Zephyr had used more than four seconds to switch from flame to water, and another four to five seconds to shape it to his will. While it was fast for his age, and for someone trying out a spell on the fly for the first time... it was still too slow on the general scale of things. The people he would be up against had comprehended various words that allowed them to cast specific spells within the blink of an eye.
They would never allow Zephyr such a generous amount of time like he had used to switch and shape the spell.
Eventually, Zephyr finished shaping the spell. He locked his gaze with Sage Maximus, who smiled amusedly at him like this was all child’s play.
Zephyr clenched his jaws, pointing both hands at the sage to focus the water jet like a nozzle. Unlike the fire arrow spell, this needed more continuous guidance.
FSSSZZZ!