14 White forest (08)
As Eva and Silver continued to face off against each other Zed carried on his journey.
He would stop at someplace and make camp and stay there for a couple of days. The giant plants and trees seemed never-ending to him.
He again found out a way to produce wind in a different way. He would compress a small amount of air in the surrounding with mana and then compress it. Whenever he released that compressed air he could produce an air current.
After much practice and learning, he began propelling himself above ground. Not much but a few inches and even that was difficult to do.
He would not only needed to focus on the compression of the air and release of it but also how much air he should compress, to what degree he should compress it, from where the air should come from, the particles of different types and elements needed to filtered lest they reacted to each other in a violent way under pressure, the proper temperature to keep, the surrounding of him and obstacles he needed to be mindful of.
There were a lot of calculations, information and observations he had to do in so much little time he had.
Even after two weeks of practice he only learned to propel himself above few inches and that had its own difficulty. He needed to always keep an eye on the ground and terrain.
Thankfully his awareness in his domain has increased or else he would have much more difficulties. Even though he had increased awareness of domain it still could not help much because of how much his thinking was split between calculations and information.
He slowly started to get used to doing it because of his training in the past.
Eva in the meantime continued to pester little Silver to let her ride on top of him. He would glare in response every time she came near him.
Eventually, Zed mediated and convinced Silver to see her as a friend and not enemy but he still refused to let her ride him.
After travelling for a few weeks they arrived at a small pond and stopped for a while.
Zed even stopped looking at the map after a while and only told Eva to tell him the general direction he decided early on.
After setting his camp and fire he started fishing. After his awakening, his body changed in some ways and he did not really need to eat food that much but kept it to keep his mind fresh.
Silver already found himself a nice warm spot and started to lick his fur again.
Eva got the hold of his food and floated towards him slowly.
Silver noticed his no longer enemy but not an ally either floating towards him and put his guard on.
Eva as if not noticing his vigilant slowly stretched her small hand forward making already wary Silver even warier.
She pulled some of his favourite snacks and waved in front of him. Noticing his favourite things little Silver began drooling a little completely forgotten about his approaching not anymore enemy.
Eva tossed him some slowly and floated near him silently, after nearing him she stopped and stood quietly.
Noticing her stop Silver glanced at her and his ice-blue eyes glinted quickly as if he was aiming at her before jumping.
But he stopped after noticing his food in her hands. They both faced each other and continued to stare. Eva stared at his back and head whereas little Silver stared at the food in her hands.
But they did not do anything even after a while because they were stubborn and watching them do that for a few days now Zed got used to it.
He returned his attention on the fishing and finally caught one before night. It was a small fish about a foot long and because not one of them really ate because of hunger they did not particularly mind it.
After satisfying his taste buds a little he meditated until sunrise.
Meditation helped him throughout his life from saving him from despair to solving problems he could not easily because of all the distractions.
It helped him to calm down and reflect on things he did like his practice with wind magic.
After meditation, he absorbed nature mana and started to practice again. He already learned to do wind and water magic before so he started producing fire.
After heating his surrounding a bit with the help of rising sun he started to concentrate on the naturally volatile particles in the air attracting them towards him. After reaching a certain temperature those particles and molecules started burning.
Slowly his surrounding started to rise in temperature. After a while, many small fires started beside him.
These fires were not concentrated or in any order and after burning for a while they would go disappear because of lacking fuel.
After burning all the available burnable molecules he stopped practising.
Collecting his camping materials he thought about his fire magic. They continued their journey slowly which Eva and Silver staring at each other and Zed doing his routine regularly.
He would split his attention doing multiple things constantly so that he could be better at doing mentally demanding tasks.
Just like wind and water he got used to it after a few weeks.
To solve the problem of going out of fuel he again used mana to keep supplying from the surroundings. Just like before he would need to constantly keep calculating about the temperature needed, what molecules are there in the air, their different properties and reactions to one another and other things related to it.
Only after doing it himself did he realised Redel made him study all those basic knowledge books.
He also realised why he could not just simply create required molecules with mana directly. Because if he did not even know their function, properties and effects; how would he construct them?
His grandfather only taught him about energy and mana control and he thought it was so that he could convert energy into different necessary matters during magic.
But now after studying this much he understood that just like his grandfather said mana is only as a bridge. He would need a tremendous amount of energy and effort to create what is available naturally.
Of course, it did not mean it was not possible but he was not powerful enough to do that.
On the other hand, it was much efficient to simply use naturally produced materials. Creating them yourself would require thousand different calculations and he only learn how to do few at a time; he could feel that as he proceeded forward it became harder and harder to add a single calculation simultaneously.
He could only step forward slowly. But he was not required to calculate constantly, after initial calculations and adjustments he could make his mana do those things. He only needed to make arrangements and be flexible depending on the situation.
Mana could not be flexible as he would be so he could only do that himself but he noticed that the more he did work on his own the more powerful and in control he would be. He decided that in the future he should do these things on his own.
He even learned earth magic which he thought would be the easiest of them all but he couldn't be any more wrong. Not only he had to pay attention to every single particle in the beginning but also separate them. While practising he would often fall down because the closest soil he had was below his feet.
And if he controlled away from his feet it would still end up affecting his foothold. In the end, he had to practice for a long time before being able to not affect himself much. It required him more concentration while making use of soil and molecules spread in the air only and not directly from the ground itself.
Different from other magics mana attracted the ground itself to use as a material as it was the easiest and closer to use.
Now he began to think about other types of magic he would need to learn and couldn't help but look towards the sky. The only word that came into his mind after looking at it was vast.
The clouds could not even occupy the sky fully.
Eva was still in her quest to make little Silver her mobile throne and him, on the other hand, finding ways to just eat this floating keeper of his food so that he could eat without worry.
They would both stare at each other and would not even utter a word as if all that it took to know each other was a simple gaze.
Slowly but surely they started to take a step back and came to a decision. Eva as a spirit would provide him with different foods without complaining not only that she also began using plants and fruits with highly concentrated energy but not sacrificing its taste and aroma.
Whereas little Silver unwillingly sacrificed his back and head depending on her mood to be used as her travelling car. He had less concentrated mana than Zed but he was not making her fall down every time while walking like him.
