[Flashback]A Rolling stone gathers no djed[Bob]

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde lisytened to Bob's story, though to be honest he did not get the reference. He assumed he was trying to relate to him, perhaps with common problems, but he was just not seeing it. Though he was pretty advanced in magic, there were still many things in which he was imature. Though he had heard mention of Zeltiva, a place he hoped to go some day. It would be much easier to study magic there, and a much freer place. "Ah, you have been to Zeltiva? I hope to go there some day and study in the arcane arts. They have an academy for learning that has been there for a long time. Though i have heard there are also Academies in other places." "Sure, we can stay and do some training, what would you want to train about specifically? Or do you want me to just train you in general? And as long as you dont overgive again, that should be fine."

[Bob Barton]

Bob looked at Clyde as he enthusiastically spoke of Zeltiva. Normally, he was only this excited when he spoke about magic but then again Zeltiva was in reference to magic too. So Bob tried to break the ice a little so that Clyde would get to trust him as he told his story. Hopefully since he was from Zeltiva himself, Clyde would not get too bored hearing it.

Assuming his deep narrating voice, he started "Been there? I was from there. Zeltiva born and Zeltiva raised thanks to my Uncle Marny. He works as a doctor there so if you ever find yourself in Zeltiva, go over to him and tell him that Bob is doing fine alright? But yeah...the academy... Uncle Marny wanted me to go there but you know how families are. We stay together because of blood but that does not mean we don't have our disagreements. Some which are more damaging than others..." Bob took a deep breath remembering the day he left home "I wanted to be a gambler so I left Uncle Marny. I hope the next time you find yourself in that situation, you will make the right decision" Bob himself wondering how would life be right now if he stayed.

He grew tired of the memories. The ones you always remembered are not the sweet ones. Yes training, training would be a good distraction. "Maybe reimancy again? After all I already have a solid base in it. If you were to train me in the others, you'd have to start from scratch."

[Clyde Sullins]

Listening, Clyde nodded. He was always interested in gaining new information, especially if it might be pertinant to someplace he wanted to go. He also understood family issues, he did not get along to well with his own. "Yes, sometimes families can be hard to deal with. My parents have been trying to get me to apprentice under a blacksmith or metalsmith for a while, they see it as a good respectable line of work. They dont care for magic at all, and would never let me go to Zeltiva. Though once im old enough, im going to go regardless." Listening, he agreed some more training might be good. "Okay, but you are still a bit shaky on its basic applications. I want you to do something simple to start. Just make a small ball of res, form it, for water reimancy, a liquid res might be best. Then transmute the outer layer of it to water, while keeping a res core. If you do to much, you wont be able to control it, so dont convert all of it to water. I will show you with some air." Holding out his hands, Clyde extruded some glistening bright gaseous silver res. Forming it into a ball, he hovered it, and then with a flick of the wrist, transmuted the outside into air, which he started to swirl around the core of res. This left him with a swirling ball of air, calmly floating there. "Next we can work on using res to attract the elements from nature. Some puddles of water will work fine for you." Saying this, he would point at some small puddles a little bit away, left from the last rain.

[Bob Barton]

Balls again? Bob wondered if he could try making a cube or a pyramid but soon decided against it thinking it might somehow get messed up. There is always a reason, and it would be better not to question his teacher's judgement. Especially since its another free lesson. Since Bob was not as experienced in reimancy as Clyde was he rubbed his hands together with a little res in between, adding layer after layer to make the ball. When it was done, he tried to transmute the outer layer again like he did with the rock, water cooled down by the wintery air started trickling down his unprotected hands. In reflex, he tossed the ball backwards and heard a big splash as it hastily fully transmuted as it hit the tree.

A bit shamed from his lack of control he rushed through the motions again ignoring his previous failure. This time he got himself mentally prepared for the feeling and allowed the cool water to trickle down his hands again for nearly a minute as he slowly transmuted the outer layers. Wiping his hands on his coat he turned to Clyde with a smile, satisfied with his success and went towards the puddles keeping in mind "Attract! Attract! Attract! Like Mizas to my pocket!"

He went to the biggest puddle, if anything did happen surely the effects would be big enough for him to see it. Just to get a feel of the water he poked his finger into it...it was cold but at least now he knows it for this new trick. He focused as he did when he controlled his dice. If he can move the dice, he should be able to do the same for the puddle. Squatting in front of the puddle for another minute like a kid who had seen it for the first time, he finally got a little reaction. Happy, he went on to try and bring it all the way to him.

[Clyde Sullins]

Watching, he saw Bob's attempts at doing the reimancy. Though the first one was a failure, the second time was not so bad. Trying to attract it the way he was, once he got it working, drips of water would start coming off the puddle, and attach themselves to the ball or res, sticking to it as long as he concentrated on keeping it attached. "The reason we use a ball of res in reimancy, is because it is the easiest shape to maintain, having no edges at all. However next time once you transmute it to water, use attraction right away to keep it attached, or it will just drip off again." Showing his ball of res and wind, it continued to swirl, and then using attraction, he pulled air from the air to attach to the ball, having it slowly grow in size, and to continue swirling. "Res can be used in two ways, one is to be transmuted into the element, which uses more res. The other is to attract physical elements to it, like a magnet, which uses less res than to create it from scratch. This is much more efficient. So for air, since there is so much, you almost never have to create it, and can just attract it." "However once you get more than one element, you can also combine them into combinations, different things, or even new elements like lightning or ice." Holding up the ball of res and air once more, he created a smaller ball of res inside the first ball of res, which he ignited the outside of. Using this he heated it up, making the air grow hotter and hotter, till it started to distort from the heat. This was a bit of a new way to do it, which he had not yet used. "I haven't tried this out yet, I wonder what will happen? I'm heating up the air, using the internal fire, so the outer air and res will heat up. What do you think will happen?"

[Bob Barton]

The boy is only 11 and here he is teaching Bob so many things he has yet to hear about. Opening his eyes to a whole new world. Then he started explaining to Bob about attraction, another complicated theory. Bob thought back to the time in Zeltiva when he used to laugh out of spite at the mages because they had it so easy with all the powers they wielded. Now he changed his mind finding out that they had to learn so many different and complicated things just to be able to use it.

Then Clyde started doing something which he explained as heating up the air in front of him. Bob did not really see much of a difference for a few moments and squinted his eyes to try and get a glimpse of whatever was being shown to him. Then the spot where he was focusing on started to shimmer and distort a little making it a little bit more harder for him to see Cylde. Bob dropped the remaining res in his hand he was using to attract the water to see what would happen next.

[Clyde Sullins]

Sitting there, Clyde realized he had distracted his own student. Such was a problem with a low level teacher, they often got off topic, and were easily distracted. Maybe once he had done it more, he would not be distracted at the drop of a hat. Looking over, he said "Oh, sorry about that, i did not mean to get off topic or distract you, my bad. Here, i will do this so you can see, and then you can try to attract some more water. Remember, once you have the res, attraction is not to hard, and the closer you are to the source, the easier it will be to draw it in." Focusing once more on his magics, he built up the heat inside to a higher degree. By now the air must be very hot, and this would give him a chance to try a new combination of elements. Directing a chunk of the superheated air and res away in a small stream, he then transmuted it, and sent it flying. With a sound like a loud whistle one might hear from a kettle, the air flew in the direction he had pointed at, a large tree. Hitting it, a steady stream of steam struck, and started to boil the bark from the heat of it. As some of it blistered, some fell off the tree. It was obviously good he had not tried that on a person, for though it would most likely be non-lethal, that blast of steam would be quite painful, and would probably cause some burns to the flesh. "Well see, it has made a burning hot stream of steam! Quite unexpected. I guess i failed to truly combine the elements in the correct way. But still it made something new! And though i dont think it would kill at smaller levels, that would still be very effective and painful, and would most likely incapacitate anyone trying to attack you. Or scare them off."

[Bob Barton]

Still with his full attention on Clyde's combination, Bob eyes focused on the hand expecting something dangerous. Another fire spell, if the firebreaths and the fireballs were not damaging and intimidating enough, surely fire combined with air would even more. As a gambler, Bob lived by the philosophy that more is always better and two elements is definitely more than one.

He wasn't that near Clyde but as the steam gushed out, Bob could feel the intense heat and high pressured air upon his face and found himself looking away. When the whistling sound marked that the attack was over, Bob turned back to find that dried out bark littered the foot of the tree. Fingers snapping in disappointment because he had missed the whole thing but at least he got to see the damage. He wondered if he should learn something like that as an invisible projectile would be really useful for him in case he should ever run into trouble.

With an elated voice he congratulated Clyde "Unexpected but you shouldn't sound disappointed my friend. Many great things are gotten from accidents and I think this is one of them. Should I ever become as skilled as you, I will definitely be using this." Then he thought to himself again. Why shouldn't he be able to do this now?

Bob got a little too excited with his plan and started to roll up his res on the palm of his hand and attracted the remaining puddles until the water ball became as big as his fist. Looking at his teacher he said "Watch this!" and pressed the water ball between his hands compressing it a little. He has done this trick with cards a few times and here's hoping that it would work for a water ball. Releasing his hands the ball of res flew but due to his inexperience and lack of control, instead of it flying across his body to his other hand like a normal deck of cards would it flew into his face with a "SPLASH!"

[Clyde Sullins]

Watching as the other guy tried to do some odd trick, Clyde smiled a bit. That had not really been to successful, he might want to work on it some more first. "What exactly were you trying to do there? Im hoping getting your face wet was not it?" This last bit he would say with a smile, playfully asking the question. "Well you might be able to do things before to long, you never know. Also, just wondering, but which element do you plan on getting next? If you do Earth, you would also unlock ice, a element with many uses. Or you could do fire. Though this would not make a new element, you could say make boiling hot water that scald people as you throw it over them. That could also be useful." "So any ideas what you would do? or are you still unsure?" Looking over, he would wait for his response to this, before adding one more final note. "Now i noticed that you send to just throw your magic at things, without shaping it. Shaping something can be very helpful. Usually you want to shape something, and then transmute it, which you do right before tossing it at the target. So instead of just throwing a water ball, i want you to make another, and then shape it into a tight stream, making it like a single squirt of water, and not a big ball." "Depending on the case, this can be very useful, say if you are making a spear of earth, or are making a thin spike of lightning. Or something like that."

[Bob Barton]

Hair and face dripping with water, especially cold water from winter is not a pleasant experience. Whats more Bob just made himself look like an idiot in front of someone far younger than he was. The question didn't help either and Bob replied "Where are my manners, I forgot to share. Would you like a taste of some refreshing cold water too?"

More elements! Bob tried to recall what the man told him during his initiation and counted down his fingers "Fire...water...earth...air...Ice and lightning? Tell me more about these new elements Clyde." If he had to choose another element right now, he might want to get one which lets him use the new ones as well. With more elements, he would be able to do more things and that means more to his gambling than plain old loaded dice.

The next trick he had to do with his lesson sounded simple enough. Making another water ball should be easy after doing it a few times already. Bob squeezed the new water ball with both his hands but this time with a hole in it so that the pressure would allow it to escape and squirt in front of him. "Look! I'm doing it." Bob screamed as he turned around to show Clyde accidentally releasing the water squirt towards his face.