Parallel Vol. 5

Chapter 18: Elementalist

[9:30] Heaven Floor, Fourth Plane

"The Garden." Zuri gazed at the magnificent tree with shining eyes. She had never seen something so beautiful, and inviting. It felt like she could let go of her troubles as long as she laid beneath its branches.

"That's our Life Tree," Somo explained as he descended with Zuri. "Some records claim that it used to be part of an ancient great tree, but we have no way of confirming it."

Surprisingly, no one stopped Somo and Zuri as they landed on the grass among several sitting or kneeling avians. It seemed they did not consider a possibility where someone tried to harm the Life Tree. Either that, or the Life Tree had self-defense capabilities.

"The Life Tree births and gathers Wind and Earth Elementals beneath its boughs." Somo pulled Zuri to sit down next to him and continued his explanation, "Non-innate Elementalists come here to communicate with, and try to form a pact with the gathered Elementals. You can't make a name for yourself in the top planes without becoming a Wind Elemental."

"Why?"

"Because an avian's greatest strength and pride is their wings." Somo proudly pointed at his folded wings. "But, our maneuverability in the air is restricted precisely because we rely on wings for flight."

Movie scenes where people with wings could fly in any and all directions were just too unrealistic. In some a stationary winged character could almost instantaneously dash laterally, but in reality, they would need to catch a sharp wind with their wings to achieve that effect.

Ancient avians, aware of this fact, quickly arrived at a solution. If they needed wind, they just had to create and control wind. By manipulating the air currents around their wings, they could theoretically moved any way they willed without needing to generate the required force themselves.

The avians first tried magic, but while magic was indeed powerful, cast times were too slow, and the resultant wind was too rigid. After several experiments, they finally stumbled upon using wind elementals.

Elementalists were different from magicians. Elementalists drew power from Elementals to manipulate the basic elements. Due to this, they had much more flexibility when manipulating an element. In return, however, they were limited by the level of their elementals, and their firepower was often far smaller than magicians.

To the avians, however, this much was enough. Even the weakest elementalists could manipulate air currents, giving them incredible mobility. The strongest amongst them could generate dangerous currents on par with natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes. Of course, there were extremely few on that level, and it took many years of training for elementalists with powerful Elementals to learn how to control such forces.

"Elementals are graded from Tier 1 to 6, with 1 being the lowest, and 6 being the highest," Somo explained and then whispered, "Tier 6 is little more than a rumor, though. No one's ever seen or contracted a Tier 6 Elemental. I can't even imagine how strong such an avian would be."

Zuri blinked and looked at Somo with interest. The avian teen did not seem to be interested in the Elementals here. "What Tier Elementalist are you?"

Somo grinned, and strutted out his chest as he boasted, "Don't freak out now, but yours truly is a rare Tier 5 elementalists, and an innate one at that." Despite his words, Somo peeked at Zuri, hoping to see some shock and admiration.

"Wow, that's cool!" Zuri excitedly praised with pure admiration. However, her gaze then turned fierce with battle intent as she clenched her fists. "Zuri has to do better than you. How can Zuri contract a more powerful Elemental?"