"How did you do that?" Malek asked Elara.

  "Did what?"

  "In the match. That thing you did to stop the attack. How did you do it? Aren't you supposed to be a water magician? Then how can you use air magic?"

  Elara laughed a little. Malek and Elara were sitting on a bench outside their resting room, simply enjoying the plain view of the testing ground.

  "Well no, I didn't use any kind of magic other than water. The whole thing was water magic," she said.

  "But how did you do that? It doesn't make sense."

  "Do you really wanna know?" She asked, her tone mischievous.

  Malek gulped a little. "Yes."

  "Then you will have to make me three potions of my choice. It doesn't matter if you know how to make them or not."

  "Well, it's kind of difficult. What if you ask something which is beyond my capability."

  "I don't care. Do you wanna know or not?"

  Malek ruffled his hair. "Damn it, ok I agree. Now tell me already."

  "It's simple really. You do know that everything, one way or another, is made out of mana, right?"

  Malek nodded.

  "So if everything is made out of mana, then water is made out of mana too, right?"

  Malek nodded again. "Makes sense."

  "So to explain it simply, water is present everywhere and every time in the air. But it's in such a small amount that human eyes can't observe it."

  Is she talking about moisture? Malek was surprised.

  Elara continued. "See, the air around us contains water particles. Tiny, tiny particles. So small you can't see them. But they're there. Always. The amount changes depending on the weather, the temperature, the location. But they're never completely gone."

  "Ok, I'm following so far," Malek said.

  "Now here's the thing. Most water magicians, they need a water source. A lake, a river, a bucket, whatever. They pull water from these sources and manipulate it. That's the basic level. But if you understand that water exists everywhere in the air, even if you can't see it, then you don't need a source. The air itself is your source."

  Malek's eyes widened. "Wait, so you're saying you can just pull water out of thin air?"

  "Exactly. But it's not easy. The amount of water in the air is minimal. We're talking about particles so small that thousands of them together would barely make a drop. So you need extremely fine control. You need to sense those particles, locate them, and then manipulate them. Most magicians can't do it because they can't sense something that small. Their mana control isn't refined enough."

  "But you can," Malek said.

  "I can. Took me years of practice though. I had to train myself to feel the water particles. To sense them individually. It's like trying to hear a whisper in a crowded room. You have to focus, block out everything else, and tune into that specific frequency."

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Elara paused and looked at the testing ground. "Once you can sense them, the next step is manipulation. What I did during the match was manipulate the water at such a small level to create an invisible water wave. This wave travels through the air and meets the incoming attack."

  "But how does that slow down the attack?" Malek asked, now getting excited.

  "Think about it like this. When something moves through the air, it's pushing air particles out of the way, right? That's air resistance. Now imagine if the air suddenly had more resistance. Not a lot, just a little bit more. The object would slow down slightly. What I do is increase the density of water particles in the path of the attack. The weapon has to push through more particles, which creates more resistance."

  Malek frowned. "But wouldn't that be noticeable?"

  "Not if you do it right. The change in resistance is gradual. The attacker barely knows what's happening before the power behind that attack has already been reduced by a lot. It feels natural, like the attack just lost momentum on its own."

  "Ok, but that still doesn't explain the barrier," Malek said.

  "I'm getting to it. Jeez, what's up with you? You never showed such interest in what I did before."

  "Cuz I never knew you were this cool."

  BAAM.

  A solid hit on his head.

  "Ouch..."

  "So where was I? Right, the power behind the attack is reduced by a significant amount. Now comes the barrier part. To create the barrier, I don't need to do anything complicated. I just need to concentrate the small amount of water in the air and form layers."

  "Layers?" Malek asked, rubbing his head.

  "Yes, layers. Multiple thin layers of water placed parallel to each other. Each layer is incredibly thin. We're talking about the thickness of a sheet of paper or even thinner. But when you stack them together, they become strong."

  Elara held up her hands to demonstrate. "Imagine you have ten sheets of paper. One sheet is easy to punch through, right? But ten sheets stacked together are harder. Now imagine you have a hundred sheets. Or a thousand. That's what I'm doing with water. I'm creating hundreds of microscopic water layers in the path of the attack."

  "But water is liquid. How does it stop a solid attack?" Malek asked.

  "Good question. Water is liquid, yes, but it's also incompressible. You can't squeeze water into a smaller space. When force is applied to water, it distributes that force outward. So when the attack hits the first layer, the water absorbs some of the force and spreads it out. The attack continues and hits the second layer, which absorbs more force. Then the third layer, then the fourth, and so on."

  Elara's eyes lit up as she explained. "Each layer takes away a portion of the attack's power. By the time the attack has passed through all the layers, it has no power left. It stops completely. To people watching, it looks like the attack just froze in midair. But it isn't floating. It's simply held in place by the water layers. The weapon can't move forward because it has no more momentum, and it can't fall back because the water is supporting it from behind. It stays there until the attacker pulls it back."

  Malek's mind just short-circuited. The theory behind her defense was anything but simple.

  "But wait," Malek said. "If you're using water from the air, and the amount is so small, how do you gather enough to make all those layers? Wouldn't you need a massive area to pull from?"

  "You're thinking like a normal magician again. Yes, the amount in any given space is small. But I'm not pulling from just one space. I'm pulling from all around. Think of it like a net. I cast my mana out in all directions and gather water particles from a wide area. Then I compress them into the layers I need. The area I pull from can be as large as ten meters in radius. That's a lot of air space, and a lot of water particles."

  "And you can do all of this in seconds?" Malek asked.

  "In a real fight, I have to. That's why the training is so important. I've practiced this technique so many times that it's become automatic. I don't think about the steps anymore. I just do it. My mana knows where to go, what to grab, how to form the layers. It's all muscle memory at this point."

  Malek was literally lost for words. How did she even think of something like that? At this point, it's an absurd way of making use of water magic. He never in his life had even heard about it. This wasn't just advanced magic. This was something else entirely. This required understanding magic at a fundamental level that most magicians never reached.

  "Elara," Malek said. She turned to look at him. "I think you're adopted."

  BAAM.

  Another solid hit on his head.

  But at this point, Malek didn't care. One fact had already settled in his mind.

  Elara was a prodigy.

  A genuine, once-in-a-generation prodigy.