1977 Becoming a Magus (Part 3)

"Silverwing's legacy isn't faulty, just incomplete. Light and darkness are not the only two elements that are two sides of the same coin. All six of them are."

"Can you give us a demonstration?" Sylpha had countless objections to such a statement but magic wasn't about opinions.

If Lith really could do as he claimed, he just had to prove it. On top of that, the Queen doubted that he would try to con two expert mages like the Royals.

"I know that you are fake Awakened so feel free to use Life Vision. This way, you can make sure that I'm not using some trick." Lith said and his eyes lit up with mana, quickly followed by the Royals'.

"As a kid, I was amazed by Silverwing's teachings, and my surprise only grew once I met Scarlett the Scorpicore, the previous ruler of the White Griffon's Forest. She could freely switch the light element into darkness and later I witnessed even Professor Manohar do it."

While Lith spoke, a small spark of light energy appeared between his hands. It started to spin clockwise, turning darker with every cycle. The Royals could see with Life Vision that Lith wasn't casting a second spell.

The very same energy of the original spark had turned from light into darkness. It reinforced their wish to get Lith back on their side, but it was far from amazing. The late Manohar had achieved much more.

"That's because even though we perceive them as different elements, they are actually one and the same. Together, they represent the control over life." The spark of light nurtured the flowers in the room, making them more vibrant, while the darkness half made them wither.

"Without light, darkness turns into Chaos, and without darkness, light turns into Decay." With a little help from his eyes, Lith created a spark of both Cursed elements, breaking the balance.

Half the flowers rot while the other half simply disappeared.

"This is common knowledge." The King said. "Aside from showing off your mastery over the elements, you added nothing to Silverwing's legacy."

"I needed to establish a common ground or you wouldn't be able to follow my reasoning." Lith replied with a shrug. "You see, even though my natural affinities as a Divine Beast are fire and darkness, the first pair of elements I've mastered are air and earth.

"That's because in my line of work dimensional magic saved my life countless times. Even though dimensional magic requires more than two elements, it's air and earth that together represent the mastery over space."

"What?" The Royals said in disbelief while a small rock floated between Lith's hands and half of it slowly turned into dust.

Once again, it wasn't a second spell nor was Lith simply altering the rock's density. The dust turned into a fine powder, then into a yellow mist, and finally into a small thunderstorm.

Explaining with words to people with no knowledge of physics would have been impossible, but what he was doing was using air magic's control over the electrical charges to break the bonds in the rock and earth magic to keep the polarized matter split.

"You heard me." Lith said. "Air and earth allow the mage to control the distance between things. Enhance the attractive forces and you get solid objects. Enhance the repulsive forces and you get gas instead."

He stretched the cloud, turning the entire rock into the electromagnetic powder before condensing it again.

"The ability to bend the distance between two different points in space requires the assistance of the other elements, but air and earth are all you need to affect the space around you. Like this." Lith extended his hand and a jolt of electricity burst from the ground.

"Can you do it again?" Sylpha asked, scanning the surroundings with both Life Vision and Domination.

Lith nodded and created a constant flow of energy going from the sand to his hand.

"He's telling the truth." Sylpha nodded. "So far earth magic became pointless every time a fight moved into the sky and air magic was limited in presence of metals. This is a game-changer."

"What about fire and water?" Meron asked without bothering to hide his curiosity.

"I kept them for last because this might be the hardest part for you to understand. Fire and water don't control temperature as you might think. They control speed." Lith replied.

"That's plain wrong." The Queen shook her head. "Nothing is faster than lightning and air fusion enhances speed. How could water and fire control speed them?"

"As I said, it's hard to understand." Lith said. "As you know, by using earth magic to alter the density of a surface, we can turn it from solid, to sand, to mud.

"Fire and water can't influence the density of solid matter, yet fire can liquefy and evaporate anything, while ice can turn the strongest object into a brittle piece of glass. Have you ever wondered why?"

"It's simply thermal shock." Meron shrugged. "Everything has a melting and a boiling point, but that's a matter of temperature, not speed."

"That's where you are wrong." Lith shook his head. "I used air and earth to show you how even a rock is rich in electrical charges and can produce lightning. What you call 'air' isn't actually empty space, but it's filled with things so small that you cannot see them."

A wave of his hand made part of the humidity in the room condense in a small sphere of water that took place inside the dancing dark light and the thundercloud.

"There's water in this room, but you can't see it because it's too fast. I used water magic to slow it enough to make the water turn from gas to liquid. If I slow it more…" The sphere turned into ice.

"What I need you to understand is the underlying principle behind this phenomenon. There are forces that keep things together and those forces are affected by speed. When you provide heat to a metal, its components start to move quickly enough to break free of the forces that usually keep them together.

"The weaker bonds break first, and the metal bends. Then, once that any material receives enough energy, it can melt and then evaporate. The temperature of living beings increases whenever they make an effort because the movement converts part of the energy stored inside the body into heat."

Lith shapeshifted his hands into those of a Tiamat and started to rub them faster and faster until the friction produced a spark.

"What you perceive as a change of temperature is actually just a by-product of the change of speed. If you fail to grasp this concept, you can't do this." The frozen water turned into a flame whose heat rose in intensity from red to violet before going back to mist.

"The six elements control life, speed, and space, but when you also add even an iota of Spirit Magic, they can become anything." Lith emitted a spark of emerald light that joined the three elemental constructs, forming a blade made of pure energy.

Water and earth gave it substance, light and darkness formed several rune patterns on its surface, and air and fire coursed along its surface, manifesting the enchantments Lith had imbued them with.