Eight elements folded together like the pattern of a great tapestry, each strand supporting the others. Thunder beat like a heart; wind carried motion and subtlety; earth became bones; fire remade and honed; water soothed and allowed; plant renewed and fortified; light clarified; darkness deepened.
Krish felt the sum of them as more than a collection. They were the architecture of a person remade into something beyond the ordinary categories of strength or wisdom. Each training session had changed him physically, yes, but also in how he perceived possibility. Where before his horizons had been thin and immediate, they widened into corridors and layers.
RC's tone in that quiet hour was unusually soft. "Master, integration efficiency across all elements currently at acceptable thresholds for advanced training. Physiological metrics indicate capacity for further elements."
Silvia's presence folded around him like a long-remembered story. "Elements are not powers to be wielded as tools. They are languages to be learned. Once you can speak all eight, you can begin to write."
Krish rose then, letting the combined auric glow outline him like a nascent constellation. He felt no triumph and no arrogance—only the steady, predatory patience of someone who had found a key and now knew which doors to seek. The void no longer swallowed him; it watched.
"My path begins," he said, voice steady. "And it will not end until it becomes everything it is meant to be."
The wind answered with a ripple. Thunder tuned its drumbeat low and sure. The earth steadied. The fire hummed hot and patient. Water flowed, alive and soft. Plants whispered of spring. Light and darkness embraced in the old dance.
The void dissolved a little more. Krish's presence grew, not by empire or force but by deliberate mastery. He would climb, and the climb had only begun.
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