315 Elemental Theory

The two new fighters got onto the stage and stayed on either side of the stage. Once the referee gave the go, the man immediately made a fireball in his hand and threw it towards the other man.

The other man created a veil of a large amount of water that worked as a barrier. The fireball was snuffed out by the water. He then sent a blast of wind towards the other man.

Up on the seating area, Wen Cheng started talking to Alex.

"You know the elemental theory, right?" Wen Cheng asked.

"The elemental theory?" Alex asked in confusion. "The same one as the one in Alchemy?" he asked.

"Oh right, you know Alchemy, so you must understand it easily. When two people that use elemental abilities instead of physical fight, if their skill and cultivation base is the same, the one that wins will mostly depend on their element of use."

Alex felt like he could understand what he was saying but was still generally confused.

"Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain from the beginning. Remember when I told you about the spiritual roots, and how one is  compared to the other?" Wen Cheng asked.

"Yes. The ones with lesser elemental roots are perceived as better," Alex said.

"Yes, exactly. Perceived as better, not are better. As I explained last time, The lesser the spiritual root, the stronger the effect of the spiritual root becomes. However, the more the spiritual roots, the more elemental affinity one has."

"So, keeping this in mind, I want you to tell me. Who is stronger of the two, A cultivator with Metal and Water roots, or A cultivator with Wood and Fire roots?" Wen Cheng asked.

This was a very strange question Alex had never encountered before. He tried to think but he wasn't used to elements interacting with one another.

Even during alchemy, he only did what the recipe said, and never truly learned the elements themselves. That was one of the reasons why Ma Rong wanted him to buy disposable cauldrons and learn the interaction between elements alone.

With no choice, he thought back to the first lesson with Ma Rong where she taught him the elements.

'Metal and Water, Fire and Wood,' he thought.

"Um, if they have the same cultivation base then the one with Wood can Weaken water, and Ruin Metal. Even with Fire, he can Ruin Water and, and Control as well as Overwhelm Metal."

"I think the man with the Fire and Woo—  wait, But Metal can Ruin Fire as well and Control as well as Overwhelm Wood, while Water can Control and Overwhelm Fire."

Ale looked up to Wen Cheng and said, "I am very confused right now, Master." It was very hard for him to make sense of what he was learning.

"Don't be. I asked that question especially to make you confused," Wen Cheng said. "The reason you are confused is that you know what Elements the two cultivators are using, but you don't know anything else."

"There are 3 things aside from elements alone that influence a fight between cultivators of the same cultivation base," Wen Cheng said.

"The first is the Elemental Strength. This all depends on what type of spiritual roots you have. The lower the spiritual roots, the stronger the Elemental Strength gets."

"The second is Qi amount. This is how much Qi the cultivators use during an attack. As you might imagine, the more Qi one uses, the more damage they can deal."

"The third is Qi density. The denser your Qi is, the more power you can pack behind it."

"Their order of importance would be Element, followed by Elemental Strength, followed by Qi Density, followed by Qi Amount."

"So, every elemental attack has these 4 things that will influence the result," Wen Cheng continued explaining.

Alex was fully engrossed in the explanation. He felt like he was seeing stuff he knew with a completely different eye.

"Now, each Element interacts with other elements in one of the 5 ways. They can Empower, Control, Overwhelm, Weaken or Ruin the elements."

"The thing you need to learn is not what element interacts with what elements. You already know that from your alchemy probably. The thing you need to learn is how one of those 5 interactions can occur," Wen Cheng said.

Wen Cheng started explaining a very lengthy topic about elemental interaction. Elemental Strength, Qi Amount and Qi Density, when all of these things were combined, whoever had the better one would be the winner.

Say a man had wood spiritual root, and another man had metal spiritual root, regardless of whatever else spiritual roots they had, and they both attacked each other with an elemental attack.

If the man with the wood spiritual root had a better combination of Elemental strength, Qi density, and Qi amount than the man with the Metal Qi, then the Wood attack would destroy the metal attack thus inducing Ruin.

However, if the man with the Metal spiritual roots had a better combination, then the Metal attack would either control the wood attack or overwhelm it.

If Control was induced, the controlling element would regulate the other element and stop it from advancing.

If Overwhelm was induced, the overwhelming element would rip apart the other element and go past it.

If Weaken was induced, the element being weakened would slowly exhaust until it was no more.

If Ruin was induced, the winning element would violently destroy the other element, most of the time leading to explosions.

Empower was a weird one and normally wasn't induced. The only way to induce it was when helping an ally attack by adding the element and Qi to the forming attack.

One of the 5 was always induced in one way or another, except on a single case. That was when both the opponents had the same element.

In that case, it would be a pushing battle, and whoever had the stronger combination of the other three aspects, won.