Nostalgic Gamer in a Cultivation World

Tetsu, Zopu, and Kin continued their discussion about the Elemental powers as they left the room. It was clear that they would continue talking about it. The group was excited, and Tetsu was even overwhelmed because Dyne told him to explain it in the way he understood it.

“You guys have been studying Biron the longest. So it makes sense for you to figure it all out so to understand Lord Biron’s intentions by yourself slowly.” Dyne smiled.

Gala remained and waited as Dyne instructed.

“Alright, Gala. We’ll probably stay here for a few days to recover and make the most of this environment. Vahn seems to be undergoing a breakthrough now.” Dyne smiled as he glanced at Vahn, who was in deep concentration.

“Meta, once you feel that Vahn has learned the most in wielding the fire energy here, you can tell him to go down and try to be near the source of this heat so he can train how to wield it properly.”

“As you command, Lord Dyne.”

“Now, Gala. In truth, you haven’t yet maximized everything that you’ve learned here. Your assignment is to learn how to turn fire into lightning!” Dyne smiled.

“Fire turned to lightning? That’s possible?” Gala asked.

Strafe watched, and his face was growing dark.

“Don’t do it. Don’t do it. It’s too early if you do that. You can’t do that. Not even the geniuses could immediately form an element outside their Elemental Family!” Strafe muttered to himself and prayed to the otherworldly Sovereign for Dyne to fail. The soul poison affecting him quivered as it heard Dyne’s words.

“I just have a feeling that it can be done. Lightning is in between Fire and entropy, which I think should be disintegration. Too bad it's far from my Elemental Tree. Vahn should find it easier to do… Vahn?” Dyne called his attention.

Vahn was awoken by Meta, and Meta told Vahn what Dyne just said.

“Me-Me? Please don’t compare me and Met- don’t compare me to yourself, Master Dyne.” Vahn frowned.

“Hrm… You are Fire Element. I already told you that Lightning is just next to you. So you should be able to do it!”

“Meta? Can you do that?” Vahn asked in a panic.

“No. We Ra-Serus are limited to one Element.”

Dyne frowned as he heard this.

“Ugh. Do I have to do everything myself? Grim. I’m borrowing your power a bit…” Dyne sighed as he held Grim, who was in Scythe mode.

A small wick of fire appeared at the tips of Dyne, and it was very thin lines. Dyne frowned as he looked at it. Several minutes passed, and nothing happened.

“Tsk. It’s very difficult!” Dyne cursed.

Strafe sighed in relief. He was worried that Dyne would once more hurt his pride by basically doing something that breaks common sense.

Dyne shook his hands and caused the fire to vanish.

“Hmmm. Fire… Electrons… Plasma... Electricity is the movement of electrons…” Dyne began to ponder the various knowledge he learned in his homeworld.

“Soul Energy allows me to move things beyond the four states of matter… So if I think about that, I can create fire through my soul, which acts as some sort of power plant? But I need to move electrons… Wait! I know! What if I separate the negative and positive charges from the electrons being released like Lightning benders do in Avatar?! Ugh. This would have been easier if Lightning was my elemental family, as I could immediately manipulate the electrons to move on their own. But pitiful old me have to use fire to create that source first.” Dyne cursed.

Strafe’s heart bled as he heard these words. Pitiful? Was Dyne pitiful?

Dyne concentrated, and fire began to gather on his palms.

“Hmm… Ok…” Dyne muttered as he looked closer to the flame.

Suddenly, Dyne reached his other hand towards the fire and acted as if he was yanking something out of it.

“Tsk. Failed. I’ll try it a few times.”

Strafe and his soul poison were quivering. The Soul Poison’s caster had an Elemental Alignment of Wind. Lightning was in his Family Tree. And it took the person about the same amount Strafe did to cast Lightning. And so, the malevolent form which had bits of sentience felt a powerful soul attack that hurt its pride.

“Ah! I get it! I think I see the positive and negative charges. These guys kinda look pessimistic while these other guys look like they have hope in their life…” Dyne smiled as he plucked something once more and almost generated an electric spark.

“Mother Fragmenting Firmament! How can electrons have a pessimistic look?!” Strafe cursed.

“How can he even see it?!” Strafe then realized that Dyne was doing something even more impossible.

Finally, Dyne managed to pull out a thin fire that suddenly became a spark.

Lightning energy appeared. Three seconds later, it vanished.

“Ugh. I’m not good in Lightning element.” Dyne sighed.

Strafe, who had the elemental affinity of Holy and Lightning Element in his Elemental family, managed to learn how to create that spark after three years of Mind cultivation. The owner of the Soul poison did so in about the same amount of time.

Strafe felt something happen as the Soul poison weakened in its assault.

“You were that affected, huh? Megalus has always been a prideful person. Interesting. Is it possible for Dyne to kill you by attacking your pride?” Strafe marveled at what happened that his former pained grievances over Dyne’s capabilities vanished.

“There you have it! Lightning energy!” Dyne smiled.

“Meta, I don’t think Strafe limited you to be unable to cultivate. While you don’t have a Mind, you can share with Vahn’s Mental energy. Since you two are one, you should learn to cultivate. Remember, now that you are with Vahn, what he can do, you can soon do.” Dyne sent secretly.

“I understand, Lord Dyne.” Meta agreed respectfully.

“Lightning…” Gala was amazed at what he saw.

“Yeah. This one. You just need to do this. But this isn’t as easy as it looks. Remember, Tieg and Rem trained me.”

“Hrm… We can try to catch a Theeder up north.” Dyne recalled the lightning element Seru that could be captured on the Ancient Wind Cave north of the Voz forest.

“Alright, for now, Gala. Go and train. I’ll call you again tomorrow for our plans to go to the Voz forest.”

“I will be diligently training near the seed core.” Gala bowed.

“Great.” Dyne smiled and motioned for Gala to leave.

Vahn had already gone back to cultivating, but Dyne kept on thinking what more they could do.

“Hey Strafe, What if I improve the way I do that Self-Kindling thing? If Meta helps me by pouring in more energy from him, won’t I make a Theeder Seru that is more resistant to the Mist? Won’t It be possible for me to easily convert another without needing to make a bond with it like with Grim? Like I’ll just make them my allies like Bertugo and Brod.”

“No. Self-Kindling is impossible for Meta. Even if you managed to awaken eight Genesis Tress for Meta, he still can’t help you with Self-Kindling.”

“Why?” Dyne was confused.

“What you did was something only you could do. I have always wondered why you could do that so easily. Self-Kindling is a very difficult process to achieve. Though it is very easy to theorize, mixing the power of Life and Death, good and evil, is something that no one else in this world can easily do. Those who are aligned in Life or Death, Holy or Dark, have means of summoning monsters and creatures. But their nature is set to the alignment that they are created in.”

“Alignments?”

“Life creatures will naturally value Life and peace. Death creatures will have inclinations for wars and conquest, which bring about Death. The Ra-Serus, for example, are creatures of Life Alignment. The Serus is also like that. But the Mist is able to take control over them and make them creatures of the blackest and darkest shade of Dark. That’s why they can’t help but kill people.”

“Does that mean that there are creatures in your world that are naturally good and evil?”

“Good and evil are vague concepts, unlike the ones in your world. In my world, there is only the cultivation and Life and Death Alignments. Creatures like angels who are born in the Light naturally have light alignments. Devils have Death or dark alignment. These creatures have minds of their own, but they don’t have free will.”

“You mean because they naturally do what their alignment tells them?”

“That’s why I told you Self-Kindling is far more difficult than Soul Kindling! It’s easy to bestow a monster a soul, but to make it aware of its self and make choices that are not brought about by its instinctive alignment? That’s just impossible! Self-Kindling is that process and is a thousand- or even a million times harder than Soul Kindling!”

“And yet I managed to create one that has gained consciousness…”

“Yes. I thought at your first attempt. You just got lucky with Grim. You see, with Brod and Catastrophe, they didn’t have souls. So you gave them souls that had roughly awakened and created the process of Soul Kindling. The problem is that Serus was made to be Light alignment Souls. In fact, most characters in this world that are human have their alignments! But the main reason that you could do it is that you are Brimstone! Your Element transitions from neutral to light! You were not only able to purge the dark, but you made it a stepping stone for Grim to become light!”

“Woah. You mean, Vahn and the rest don’t have free will?”

“They have freedom, but their inner instincts would be to follow the Light element and its values. It wants life. So they will do what they can to protect it. This was also to limit this world. The more sentient lifeforms are existing which have total free will, the harder it is to destine the fates of the people here.”

“So you mean, like Songi. He will betray Biron because of his alignment?”

“It’s much more complicated than that. He and the rest of the villains in Legend of Legaia are Dark, aligned souls born in a Light World. So naturally, they will hate this world and want to rule it. I did this to make it easier for me to move the events of this world to follow this game's events. Of course, the level of free will that humans have is greater than the Light lifeforms in my world. They can still choose to be bad, but it is unlikely. We call this process, Soul Conversion. Of course, converting a soul is very, very difficult in my world. That’s why the Sovereign in your world had to die to make that possible.”

“Amen. Anyway… so you made Serus have no consciousness for the same reason? Is that why that Puera in the Floating Mist Generator had consciousness and yet remained to serve Cort? Because he was of Dark Element?” Dyne recalled a certain detail in the game.

“You got it. I had to do what I can to make this world's weight lighter. Except for two certain Ra-Serus, the rest are aligned to the light! The Sim-Serus and all that Cort will create are all evil. There are only two Neutral souls created here.”

“Except for two? Is it Jedo the Dark Seru and Biron?”

“Exactly. Jedo becomes the Ra-Seru of Songi. To make it possible for that Ra-Seru to betray the rest, I made him one of the Ra-Serus that has true free will.”