Two months. Two months had passed since Asa had started their formal training, and the vast granite block remained the centerpiece of their frustration. It sat squat and immovable in the monastery courtyard, a constant, silent judgment on their efforts. Tala and Kofi stood near it, their hands raw, their minds exhausted.
"I'm telling you, it's mockery," Kofi muttered, kicking a stray pebble that skittered across the flagstones. "We've spent the better part of a hundred hours trying to feel the mass of the rock, trying to understand Earth's resistance, trying to apply the 'principle of unified density' that Asa keeps talking about."
Tala sighed, leaning against the cold stone. "And then he walks over, taps it with two fingers, and the whole thing glides four feet to the left. No visible mana signature, no strain, no dust kicked up. Just… silence. If that's Earth magic, I am failing at the most basic level."
They turned as Asa approached, carrying three steaming mugs of spiced tea. He handed one to each of them.
"You sound disappointed," Asa observed, taking a slow sip of his own. "Good. Disappointment is the door to true understanding, provided you don't let it turn into despair."
Kofi took a large gulp of the hot tea. "Master, we've made excellent progress with Aeromancy, yes, and my control over air pressure is better than I ever thought possible. But when it comes to the other three elements, especially this stone, we feel like toddlers chasing ghosts. We cannot replicate the easy power you demonstrate. Why teach us the hard way when the fast, easy way is obviously something else entirely?"
"The fast, easy way, Kofi, is usually only easy because I'm lying about the source," Asa admitted, setting his mug on the rock. "You've trained hard for two months, and you've mastered the language of flow and counter-flow. You've earned the truth. The entire curriculum for the last eight weeks has been built on a foundation of deception, designed to force you to look deeper than the spectacle."
Tala pulled his hand back from the stone. "A deception? But you've moved mountains! You've shielded entire armies with a flick of your wrist! You told us you only had affinity for two elements, but you've demonstrated command of all four."
Asa smiled, a touch of pride in his eyes. "I do only have true, natural affinity for two elements, Tala. They are Air and Water. This duality is what allows me to create the illusion so completely, especially when dealing with liquids and solids. But the things you've seen me do with Earth and Fire? They were not the power of those elements, but the ultimate application of my own Air affinity."
"Let's start with this immovable nuisance," Asa said, tapping the granite again. "The trick of moving this mass, which I call The Kinematic Phantom, is the pinnacle of Air magic. It's not about lifting it, it's about making the world lift it for me."
Kofi frowned. "We theorized about the vacuum, but the mana required to instantly displace that volume of air…"
"You're thinking too small," Asa interrupted gently. "You're thinking about the air beneath the rock, but what about the air above it? I don't use my mana to become the lever. I use a sharp, focused pulse of Aeromancy to instantaneously and violently expel all the air molecules from the space right underneath the stone's base. For less than a flicker of an eye, I create a perfect, tiny absence—a vacuum."
Tala finished the thought for him, his eyes widening. "And the pressure of the entire atmosphere, the 'Weight of the Heavens,' slams down on the stone to fill the gap."
"Precisely. That weight, which is constant and enormous, is suddenly unopposed beneath the rock. It's the sheer force of the planet's atmosphere, not my wrist, that crushes the stone upward into the void I created," Asa explained. "I don't lift the stone; the world crushes it up for me. It's a kinetic trick. It's silent, efficient, and looks exactly like effortless Earth magic: lifting, pushing, or shattering."
Kofi thought for a moment, tracing a pattern on the condensation of his mug. "Okay, I understand the displacement now, but what about the magnetic tests? You showed us Earth mages who can use localized magnetism to repel metal, and you replicated that perfectly. We spent a week trying to generate a magnetic field from our core!"
Asa chuckled. "And you were exhausting yourselves chasing a phantom. The magnetism demonstration is perhaps the simplest, most confusing lie of the Facade. Think of it: an Earth mage creates an invisible field that shoves metal away. What happens if I create a sudden, massive high-pressure wall of compressed air behind the metal object, and simultaneously rip out the air in front of it? The object is repelled with tremendous force, but it's just air pressure, not a magnetic field. Because the pressure change is so swift, and the air is invisible, it looks like a field."
"It's the confusion it creates that is the illusion," Tala mused, starting to see the pattern. "The visual result is the same as the true elemental power, even if the source is completely different. So, the attributes we were taught to test for, like magnetic repulsion and kinetic movement, are actually unreliable for assessing a new mage's true Earth affinity."
"Exactly. You cannot rely on those effects," Asa confirmed. "They are merely physical attributes that a skilled Aeromancer can mimic with pressure and movement."
Asa then turned his attention to his other affinity, Water. "Now, let's talk about my ability to manipulate Water, which is where my true dual affinity makes the lie foolproof. When I move a body of water, it looks incredibly smooth, correct? Like I'm merely breathing the water into a new shape."
"It's beyond smooth," Tala agreed. "When I try to hold a shield of water, I am constantly fighting the water's own desire to collapse. But you part a lake and the walls of water stand there like glass, perfectly stable, almost for minutes."
"That is the fusion of my two paths," Asa explained. "The initial action, the dramatic parting of the lake, is my Air affinity—a massive rush of high-pressure air that violently displaces the liquid. That part creates turbulence, foam, and instability."
He paused, letting the silence hang. "My Water affinity comes in immediately after that initial blast. Water magic is fundamentally about molecular cohesion and flow control. The moment the air pushes the water aside, my Water mana locks onto the displaced molecules. It doesn't fight the water; it commands its own nature. It grabs the energy state and instantly stabilizes the turbulence created by the Air. I am not fighting the collapse; I am commanding the structure to hold itself. This is why my water manipulation seems so effortless and lasting: the Air does the heavy, noisy work, and the Water does the refined, silent engineering."
"So the speed and power are Air, but the stability is Water," Kofi realized. "It's two magics working together to create an effect that looks like a single, overwhelming Water spell."
"It's how I can part a body of water, and then immediately hold that liquid for a long duration with minimal mana expenditure. It's what makes me capable of fighting a true Earth mage's magnetic manipulation, because I can counter-displace his field with my Air, and then stabilize my own body with my Water," Asa said.
"But the deception had to be complete," Asa continued, standing up and walking to a small fire pit used for kindling. He picked up a damp piece of wood. "We haven't practiced Fire magic much, but I've shown you spectacular displays of it. Lightning bolts striking on command, lines of fire erupting across fields."
"And that's the final element that only Air can convincingly fake," Asa said, holding the damp wood. "A true Fire affinity mage converts internal mana directly into calorific intensity. They could place a finger on this damp wood and cause it to spontaneously burst into a cleansing, permanent flame. That is the non-mimicable core of Fire."
"But the spectacular lightning you showed us? That is merely an advanced Aeromancy trick," Asa explained. "I use an intense, focused surge of Air mana to violently strip the electrons from the air in a straight line between the cloud and the ground. This creates a perfect path of ionized air—a low-resistance conductor. I don't create the lightning; I simply create the path that the lightning is forced to follow. It looks like a mage commanding the raw force of fire, but it's just Air setting the trap."
Asa turned back to the boys, the time for the lighthearted facade entirely over.
"You have spent two months learning the theory of all four elements and practicing two that you thought were mine. Now you know my full secret: I have Air and Water affinity, and I use one to create an elaborate, powerful deception I call The Kinematic Phantom."
"The purpose of the last two months was not to teach you my trick, but to exhaust you trying to achieve effects that were fundamentally foreign to your potential," Asa said. "You failed to lift the rock the way I do because you don't have my command over Air. You failed to stabilize the water shield the way I do because you may not have Water affinity, or you lack the coordination between two disciplines."
"But now, you know what cannot be faked. This is the truth you must seek in yourselves: the non-mimicable core."
He ticked them off on his fingers, his expression solemn.
"If your path is Earth, you will feel a deep, innate pull toward Transmutation—the ability to not just move matter, but to fundamentally redefine its chemical structure, turning common stone into crystal or metal."
"If your path is Fire, you will have the capacity for Spontaneous Ignition—the ability to generate heat from nothing but thought, converting mana into raw caloric energy. This is a life-giving or life-taking warmth that has nothing to do with friction."
"If your path is Water, you will find your strongest command in Healing and Restoration—the ability to utilize water's regenerative mana properties to mend tissue and restore equilibrium, not just move the liquid."
"My Kinematic Phantom can lift, push, shock, and displace. But it cannot redefine, restore, or create heat from silence. That is the limit of my lie. That is the core you must find."
Asa picked up his tea mug, the smile returning, though it was now mixed with deep reflection.
"I was like you once, convinced I was a weak Earth mage, trying desperately to move small stones with clumsy mana. I exhausted myself for years. It wasn't until I was long past my young, arrogant days, in my late thirties, that I finally stopped trying to be what I thought I should be, and perfected this technique of using Air's pressure to mimic Earth's power."
He looked at the two young boys, both of them holding onto the edge of a new philosophical cliff.
"That breakthrough, that moment of flawless, world-shaking illusion, is why the Council gave me the name I've carried since: The Kinematic Phantom."
"You are now done with the deception. The two months of practice were to show you the power of Aeromancy and the refinement of Hydromancy and to demonstrate how truly subtle the elemental divide is. Tomorrow, we begin the real work. We find your signature, your true, unmimicable path. It will be the hardest challenge yet, because you will not rely on your eyes; you will rely on the faint, true pull of your heart."