Liam stood across the hall from the giant bundle of sound waves, who was still keeping a healthy distance from his weapon. Luckily, his Attributes and the creature's nature made it so that neither of them had to shout or strain to be heard by the other, though that didn't stop the elemental's voice from reverberating around the room. Hal, the man who had caused the two to meet, stood off to one side, interested in the conversation but unwilling to interrupt after the giant's earlier outburst.

  "You see my axe doesn't only absorb energy, but it also produces it. It has a constant generation of Fire Mana that it can either use to strengthen itself or it can expel into the surroundings."

  "That might be useful to you but Mana is useless to us and a higher concentration of one energy can push away others."

  "Interesting. Well, I have seen that you can bless the people here to increase their Elemental Energy reserves, could you do the same for my weapon? It's Soulbound and it already has a Title."

  At that, the Greater Elemental fell into a ponderous silence. The waves of its body slowed so much it almost appeared as if they were still. Slowlyrhey began to pick up speed again until they returned to the state they once were.

  "We can certainly try, though you'll have to wait a bit until our Fire Elemental gets back. Until then, feel free to look around and someone will get you when they're back. Just stay away from the Rift without me there. Can't have you accidentally closing it."

  It declared before leaving the room with a speed that looked comical when compared with its size. Liam guessed that it didn't want to be anywhere near Pyrae Mortalis whenever it could help it and he understood. If he was putting things together right then his weapon was the bane of creatures like this, ones that were made of of energy and would likely have their lifeblood absorbed to fuel the axe's edge. Still, he was satisfied with the result of the conversation and turned back to Hal.

  "Do you mind showing me around?"

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  The man seemed startled that he had been addressed and took a second to respond.

  "Of course. And while we're at it you can tell me what any of that meant. When I saw you I thought I would know more about everything that's going on and you needed my help but now, as I understand it, you have far more information than I do."

  "I'll answer what questions I can but I need to ask some of my own in return. For starters, did you not [Analyze] me when you let me in?"

  "No, I don't have that Skill. I think only the people who got their first ones by killing a monster have it. The rest of us got ours from the Elementals and that was just [Elemental Lore]."

  "Interesting. You should think about using them as sentries. Its really useful, especially when it improves."

  "I'll think about it, but when everything settled down, they were some of the more traumatized ones since they tended to have lost someone to the creature that they killed. It might take them a while to be ready for that sort of thing."

  Liam nodded along as he observed the castle. The accomodations were a bit Spartan as he saw when he was given his own room but he couldn't deny that the it was safe inside this veritable fortress. There were no sharp points on the inside and somehow the metal seemed to be soft to the touch, not that he would know. He even saw kids running around playing and when one of them tripped and fell they got right back up as if nothing had happened.

  He was introduced to a couple of people and shown the walls but there wasn't really much to see and he already knew everyone's names from practicing his [Analyze] on them. Most of those inside the castle were Level 1 but the ones on the walls ranged between 3 and 5 and all followed a Path related to an Element, be it Metal, Lightning, Fire or a myriad of others. Almost all of them were [Elemental Blessed] as well, which said good things about his hosts' generosity and practicality.

  After the tour, he settled in his room for a bit, sitting on the metal bed that deformed slightly like a mattress from his weight. He kept up the coating around his axe at all times but he also drew some of the Fire Mana from it through the protective layer to continue his practice with it. He didn't feel tired or need to sleep at all but he knew his body needed rest or else he would never get rid of his [Fatigue] condition and it would just keep stacking up and up each sunrise until it took over all of his Stamina Regeneration and he was forced to rest. So, he kept his body propped up against the wall whilst he played with the relic's new function.

  It still proves to be impossible to grasp but he found himself making some small progress in directing where the cloud of Mana would float aimlessly about, now able to give it a general location to mill around. He kept trying to force it to do as he said but if he was improving it was so slight that he couldn't notice at all.

  It was a couple of hours later that Hal was back, knocking on his door.

  "Come in."

  Liam called and the door was slid and slot into a gap in the doorframe that hid it away, only its embedded handle poking out so that it could be closed.

  "The Fire Elemental is back and Noisy wants to see you."

  "Noisy?"

  "The kids' nickname for the Sound Elemental. Since its not given us a name its what we're going with for now."

  "Ha! Well then, lead the way. It's time to see if this will work."