The sun beat down, making the air in the training yard heavy and still. Tala and Kofi sat across the old stone table from their master, Asa. He had placed a simple pewter cup, filled with water, next to a piece of smooth, grey river stone.
"So, we have tracked the journey through the elements," Asa began, picking up the cup and letting the light catch the water's surface. "Earth, the anchor. Water, the connector. Fire, the reaction. And today, we study the invisible foundation: Air, or Aeromancy."
Kofi shifted in his seat, the question clearly weighing on him more than the sun. He didn't look at the water or the stone. "Master Asa, may I speak plainly?"
Asa nodded, setting the cup down. "Always, Kofi. Honesty is the only path to clarity."
"It's about what you teach and what you do," Kofi stated, looking directly into Asa's eyes. "You speak of four elements, yet you only ever show us two. You move mountains with Earth magic, and you twist rivers with Water magic. We see that power, it is undeniable."
Tala leaned forward, reinforcing his partner's point. "But your lessons on Fire, and now Air, they feel… too deep for someone who avoids using them. Last week, you spoke of molecular agitation in fire as if you had forged the sun yourself. You knew the precise moment a flame consumes the air around it. And the magic we learned, Water's surface tension and viscosity control, that's only half the equation, isn't it? We know you have mastery in Earth and Water. We just don't understand how you teach us to master the other two when you only ever claimed Water and Earth yourself."
Kofi added, "It's confusing. How can you be so well-versed in the subtle art of the flame, or the intricacies of the void, if those are not your chosen paths?"
Asa was silent for a long moment, a gentle, knowing smile finally appearing. He placed both hands flat on the table.
"You both ask the question of a true scholar, one who sees the loose thread and must pull on it. That is a strength, not a weakness," Asa said softly. "You are correct. I have shown you only two paths, the paths I choose to walk openly. But I possess the knowledge, and yes, the experience, of all four elements. The discrepancy you sense, the mystery of my avoidance of Fire and Air in my demonstrations, is a far greater story than the simple instruction of Aeromancy."
He reached out and lightly tapped the river stone. "It involves history, the weight of oaths, and sacrifices I made long before you were born. It is a story of why I am a master of two elements and merely a teacher of the others."
He looked from Tala to Kofi, his eyes serious. "The important thing for you now is the truth: the knowledge I impart is sound, effective, and drawn from genuine experience. I promise you this, when you are both strong enough to move beyond this theoretical foundation, when we step into the advanced schools of Integrated Elementalism, I will tell you the entire history and the true scope of my abilities. But for now, I ask for your faith. Can you trust me that the wisdom you receive today is real?"
Tala and Kofi exchanged a look, the promise of a future revelation satisfying their curiosity for the moment.
"Yes, Master," Tala said, settling back, her arms still crossed but her tension easing. "We trust you."
"Good. Then let us turn our attention to the great invisible sea we swim in every moment of our lives," Asa said, sweeping his hand over the space between them. "Let's talk about Air, the element of ubiquity, and ironically, the element that requires the greatest control for the smallest effort."
"Air is the easiest element to affect because it is the most disorganized," Asa explained. "Think of Earth magic. To move this stone [He tapped the granite], you must battle the fierce bond between its molecules. To move Water, you fight the cohesive pull of every droplet against the others. Air is different. Its parts are already loose, already in a frenzy of constant, chaotic motion."
"If it's already moving so fast, how is it easy to control?" Kofi asked.
"Because you aren't creating motion, Kofi, you are merely directing it. Think of the enormous wooden Bellows at the forge," Asa replied. "A single man can create a powerful, focused stream of air, turning a small ember into a blazing furnace, simply by moving a lever a few feet. He is not creating all that fire or all that air; he is just focusing the energy that already exists."
Asa held up his hand. "The air is constantly pressing on my palm. It's the weight of the entire sky pushing down, yes? And it pushes on your skin, your clothes, the table, everything, all the time. This pressure is immense, but because it is equal in all directions—up, down, and sideways—you don't feel it. Aeromancy is the art of creating imbalance in this invisible, ubiquitous force."
"The most common use of Aeromancy is, naturally, to fly," Asa continued. "And here, we find the first great divide in mastery, much like the difference between a blacksmith hitting iron with brute force, versus a watchmaker guiding a tiny gear with precision."
"The novice method, and the one most will learn first, is what we call The Kinetic Push," Asa explained, making a sudden, powerful gesture downwards with his hand.
"Imagine you want to lift yourself above the highest tower. The novice will focus mana beneath their feet and try to compress the air there, creating a continuous, rapid blast—a cushion of super-dense air pushing them up."
"This is like a man using the great bellows of a cathedral organ. He must pump constantly, pouring all his energy into the mechanism, just to keep the sound, or in this case, the lift, going. Every single moment you are in the air, you are fighting your own weight with raw mana. The mana expenditure is colossal because you are doing all the work."
"It's fast. It's immediate. It's devastating in a quick, short blast. If you need to jump over a wall, this is your hammer. But to travel from here to the capital city? You would exhaust your reserves and fall before you reached the first forest."
Asa then softened his hand and demonstrated a subtle, guiding motion over the table. "The master's method, the efficient path, is The Void Lift, or Atmospheric Harnessing. This is where we rely on the weight of the entire atmosphere, the invisible ocean, to carry us."
"How can air carry you if you're not pushing it?" Tala wondered, trying to replicate the subtle movement with his own hand.
"You don't push the air, Tala, you simply create a momentary weakness in the air pressure just above you," Asa clarified. "Imagine you are sailing a great Carrack ship across the open ocean. You don't blast wind from behind the sail to push the ship forward, do you?"
"No," Kofi interjected, recalling his coastal childhood. "The sail is set at an angle. It splits the wind, and the ship moves against the wind, not with it. The wind rushes past the sail, and the ship is drawn forward."
"Exactly!" Asa's voice showed approval. "The air rushes around the sail's curve, and in doing so, it creates an area of lower pressure on one side of the canvas. The air on the other side, being heavier, pushes the ship. The sailor isn't creating the wind, he is simply using the shape of the sail to encourage the immense, constant wind to do the heavy work."
"For the Void Lift, you use a small burst of mana to rapidly disperse the air immediately above your head, creating that momentary area of low pressure. The pressure below you, the 14.7 pounds of the sky pressing on every inch of your body, is now unopposed. It is the atmosphere itself, rushing to fill that weakness, that gently but firmly pushes you upwards and carries you along."
"It requires incredible precision. If your low-pressure zone is too wide, the pressure will simply equalize around you without lifting you. If it is too small, the effect will be negligible. But once mastered, you spend very little mana to sustain the void, and the world does the lifting. It is the art of letting the invisible ocean bear your weight."
"If we continue with the philosophy of manipulating pressure, we come to the most feared application of Aeromancy: Pneumancy, the magic of the pure void," Asa said, his tone growing serious.
"To create a vacuum is to create nothing in a place where there must be something. And when you create nothing, the world around it violently, instantly rushes to fill that gap. The rushing of the air, the collapse of the surrounding matter—that is the weapon."
"Like when a deep-sea fish is brought to the surface and it bursts," Tala whispered.
"A good comparison, Tala. But let's consider something closer to our time: the siege engine." Asa picked up the granite block. "Imagine this stone is an enemy soldier. If I were to use Earth magic, I would strike it with a stone club to shatter it. That is my force being used."
"But if an Aeromancer focuses a perfect, instant vacuum around the soldier's chest or head, what happens?"
"The air inside the lungs would try to escape into the vacuum, but the air outside—the entire weight of the sky—would crush the soldier's body to equalize the pressure immediately," Kofi realized, a flicker of horror in his eyes.
"It's not your strength that kills them; it's the weight of the heavens pressing down unopposed," Asa confirmed. "A swift, silent, catastrophic internal crush. And the true terror: Pneumancy doesn't only crush a body. It instantly starves a fire of oxygen, plunging a battlefield into darkness and neutralizing an entire flank of Fire mages."
Asa picked up the pewter cup again. "Also consider its defensive capabilities. If a master creates a sphere of pure vacuum around themselves, what happens to sound?"
"Sound requires air to travel, so it would be silent inside," Tala reasoned.
"And what happens to a fired arrow or a crossbow bolt, assuming it is too slow to punch through the sphere?"
"It would hit the vacuum, lose all air resistance, and then hit the sudden wall of pressure on the other side of the sphere. It would be thrown off course, or perhaps even shatter, like a ship striking an invisible, solid wall," Kofi suggested.
"Exactly. It's a wall of non-existence, a perfect shield of nothing, capable of stopping sound, fire, and kinetic projectiles, provided the mage has the immense mana necessary to maintain the instability of the void," Asa concluded.
Asa moved on, placing the cup and stone aside. "Air also carries sound. Sound isn't magic, it's just the air vibrating in an organized fashion. But if a mage can organize that vibration with perfect precision, they can use sound as a devastating, targeted weapon. This is Echomancy."
"In every town, there is a great Church Bell built from tons of thick bronze. If a master bell-ringer strikes it perfectly, the sound can travel for miles, right? The air vibrates the sound, but what keeps that heavy bronze bell whole?"
"The metal itself is strong," Tala said.
"True. But every object has a natural frequency—the specific note it wants to ring at. If you were to strike that bell repeatedly, not with a clapper, but with a series of rapidly focused, low-mana bursts of air, always matching the exact note of the bronze—what would happen?"
"The vibration would grow too intense," Kofi murmured. "Like a small ripple becoming a tidal wave. The bell would eventually crack."
"It would shatter, not from a powerful single blow, but from the constant, invisible kinetic stress applied by the air. That's the subtlety of Echomancy," Asa said, nodding slowly. "The mage doesn't create a shockwave of sound to damage the outer wall of a castle. They find the resonant frequency of the castle's granite foundation, and force the air to vibrate at that precise note, turning the castle's own material against itself, shaking it apart from the inside."
"And there is sound we cannot hear, like the deep rumble of an earthquake or the groan of a mine shaft collapsing. This low, slow vibration, known as Infrasound (below 20 cycles per second), is not heard by the ear, but is felt by the body. Many have reported feeling intense nausea, sudden dread, or muscle paralysis in deep, damp places where the earth itself seems to rumble."
"An Echomancer can focus this silent frequency directly at an opponent's internal organs—your stomach, your diaphragm, your heart. The opponent feels no visible impact, only immediate, paralyzing sickness and terror. It's a way to neutralize a large group of men without drawing a sword or even making a noise."
"Finally, Aeromancy is the bridge. It connects the other elements by manipulating what is in the air: moisture and raw energy."
"Air always carries moisture, what we call vapor. How does a cellar in a summer manor stay cool, and why does the stone sometimes weep water?"
"Because the air cools rapidly in the stone cellar, and the vapor turns back into liquid water on the cold stone," Tala answered. "That's how we collect clean water during the dry season."
"That is the dew point—the temperature at which the air can no longer hold its water vapor. A Hygromancer doesn't conjure water; they conjure cold using air magic."
"If you suddenly pull the plunger out of a simple Syringe or Water Pump quickly, the air inside cools dramatically because it has suddenly expanded into a larger space. A Hygromancer uses mana to create a massive, instantaneous expansion of air within a confined area. This rapid expansion causes the air temperature to plummet far below the dew point."
"The result is instant, localized condensation. You can generate a thick, blinding fog for miles in seconds. More impressively, if focused, you can drain all the moisture from the air inside a castle's great hall, causing a localized downpour—not of magical water, but of the very moisture that was suffocating the air, instantly dousing fires and creating a blinding, sudden chaos."
"The last link is to the ultimate element: the raw electric charge in the heavens. Air molecules, when rubbed together, can create charge. That static shock you get when touching a metal handle after walking across a wool rug—that is a small, everyday instance of ionization."
"A mage uses extreme, controlled kinetic air friction—think a focused, invisible hurricane—to strip electrons from the air molecules. The air, which is usually a terrible conductor, instantly becomes an effective pathway for massive energy."
"When a great storm rages, the sky-fire is random. But if a mage first casts an Aeromancy spell to create an ionized channel in the air, that channel becomes a massive, invisible lightning rod, leading directly to their chosen target. The mage isn't creating the bolt, they are simply guiding the raw, colossal power of the natural storm, guaranteeing the strike is powerful and accurate. Aeromancy, in this final sense, is the art of acting as a perfect conductor for Fire and Sky-magic."
Asa looked at them both, his eyes twinkling. "Air is the great enabler. It is pressure, sound, cold, and a path for pure energy. Without it, the other three elements would be sluggish and incomplete."
He tapped the table again. "The four foundations are set. Earth, Water, Fire, Air. Now, go and sit outside the monastery walls. Close your eyes and, for one hour, simply feel the pressure on your skin. Tomorrow, we take the first tentative steps into combining the elements."
Kofi, still pondering the crushing power of the vacuum, looked up. "Master, the story. When will you tell us why you only demonstrate two?"
Asa smiled, the lines around his eyes deepening. "As I said, Kofi. In due time. When the pupil is ready to hear, the master will speak."