Magic elements

Leona, the cat-girl, speaks up and says, "I have never trained in magic before. I'd like to learn more about that?"

"Indeed. An interesting topic, even for those of you who can't use magic, so listen up." Kiara says.

"Let's start with the easy ones. Fire, earth, air and water. As their names imply, fire magic is used for casting fire spells, earth magic for manipulating rocks and earth, water magic for controlling the element of water and air magic to cast air-based spells."

“Next are the elements of healing and ****. These two are opposites in a way. Healing magic nurtures the living and ****, also called necromancy, nurtures the dead. Both can be seen as a support magic, in a way. Though necromancy is a bit more aggressive. See, when healing magic is cast on a corpse, it does nothing. But when **** magic is cast on the living, it withers their bodies away and turns them into the dead.”

“Then there are light and dark magic. Many people look at these elements in a very simple manner and perceive light magic to always be associated with good and dark magic with evil. This is not true. I for one can cast dark magic spells and I don’t see myself as an evil person. In the same way, a person who possesses light magic can use spells from that element to do evil. So, be sure not to judge people based on their magic elements.”

“Are those all the elements?” Leona asks.

“Those are all the elements that will appear on your adventurer card. It will also be all the elements C ranks and lower will use.” Kiara continues explaining. “But it gets a little trickier with B rank casters and up. See, B rank casters and higher can combine two magical elements together. Water and air magic can be combined into cold magic. Air and fire magic when combined forms the element of lightning and when healing and light magic get combined it forms protection magic.”

“Wait wait, hang on.” Shalia interrupts. “My card says water and earth. So, what do those combine into?”

“Normally, after a heavy downpour, the ground is much to saturated with water for earth magic the be of any use. But those mages who posess both earth and water magic can combine it into the element of mud. If I recall, you also have light magic, right Shalia?”

Shalia looks back at her card and then says, “Yeah, I do.”

“For A rank casters, even triple combos are possible. The magics of water, earth and light combined together form the element of nature. Once you become proficient in this element you will be able to make plants grow faster. In fact, magic users who can use the element of nature tend to be nicknamed druids. Feel free to think of it as a prestige class.”

I will never forget the face Shalia’s made then. It was a mixture of surprise, joy and even pride. She looked so happy.

“Are there are also other triple magic combos.” Leona asks.

“Not many that we are aware of.” Kiara says hesitantly. “It is true that with the 8 basic elements you can make many triple combos, but not all of them work. I guess that even with all our magical knowledge we still are not advanced enough to have made all the combinations work. I only know of 5 triple combos. Storm magic; water, fire and air. Crystal magic; earth, water and air. Shockwave; earth, fire and water. Explosion; earth, fire and air and also the aforementioned nature; earth, water and light.”

“What about quadruple elements. Like four of them being combined.” Ryul asks.

“Of course not, idiot.” Leona answers him before Kiara has a chance. “Even S ranks only have access to three elements. It’s impossible to combine four if you only have a maximum of three.”

Kiara’s lips then turn into a smirk. “Actually, there is one person who has the ability to make quadruple magic combo’s."

Suddenly, Kiara has everyone surprised and at full attention.

“Has anyone ever heard of Mizuki the elementalist?” Kiara asks.

“She’s one of the two beast-kind S ranks, right?” I answer. “A fox-girl who also possesses the [summoner] skill.”

“Exactly.” Kiara replies. “When receiving her awakening, Mizuki learned she had access to the elements of fire, water and earth, but not air. Since the received the S rank, the goddess then appeared before her and offered her a gift. Mizuki wanted to complete her set of elements and asked the goddess for the mastery of air magic. That is how she became the only person we know of today who has 4 magical elements at her command instead of the usual three.”

Wendy raises her hand and asks, “Do we know the goddess gifts of the other S ranks as well?”

“We know the gift Mizuki received because Mizuki herself told everyone.” Is Kiara’s answer. "Not that it would do much use for her to hide it as we would easily notice the extra element in a tournament. But Aelbrecht the Taciturn has not shared what his goddess gift is with anyone, nor has Kase.”

So, when the goddess offered Kaze a gift for his S rank status, he could choose any skill he wanted? Or at least any skill that he could imagine. I don’t like this. There are so many ways a person like him could twist a gift like that into something selfish. Part of me wants to find out what his goddess gift is so I can at least be aware how he could screw me over next time he feels like. Then again, if I do find out, I may end up horrified.