“There isn’t that much to it,” Ellian said casually. ”Really?“ I asked, ”it’s pretty hard for me.“ ”No, it really isn’t,“ Ellian said. ”Look, “ he drew on his third passive ability, Master of the Arts. That meant he could use the skills of anyone close to him. ”Spiritual Enlightenment!“ The left part of his body let out an eerie blue sheen, his core and chest shone red, and his right arm and leg became pale, so pale in fact that it almost glowed white. The next part was even cooler! He floated up, then his body burst, not literally, but you could see his spirit, glowing red, white and blue, the next second he was gone, and in his place was a blue crane, large red dragon, and a sleek white tiger. They all leapt—well, the crane did some sort of a mastery Tai-Chi walk, the dragon flew, and the tiger leapt—away from where Ellian had just been, and I thought that if I squinted really really hard, I could just barely see a faint faint outline of him. “Hey Steve, where’s Ellian?” Alex called over, walking out from behind a large spruce tree. “Hey Alex!” I called back to her, “he’s using Spiritual Enlightenment.“ ”Oh very nice, I’ve been working on Blazing Dream,” she replied. “Woah! Can you show me? Pleasepleaseplease?” I asked her, making my pleading face. “Okay fine,” she relented with a small smile. She twirled her staff around her head, little sparks that floated like fireflies popped into existence around her. She pulled the staff in a wide halo around her head, spun it on her palm, rotated it and slammed the point forward into the air, but it stopped with a sizzling sound, I couldn’t see anything but it was obvious that she was concentrating. “Go Alex!” I shouted, trying to encourage her. It seemed to help as the air warped around her, and finally I could catch a glimpse of a bright magma block. Then she shouted; “Charged Blazing Dream, Rank 4!” A circular disc of air in front of her crumpled like burnt paper, and beyond it, I saw Lavaland. It wasn’t the typical, hot Nether I was expecting, instead it was amazing. Scattered magma blocks over deep red netherack, a flaky burnt sienna sky and lava so clear you could see the bottom of it. Mind you, I usually hate the Nether, but that wasn’t the Nether, no more than a dark forest was a pale garden. Remember the magma blocks I mentioned? They weren’t normal, they were bright bright orange and wouldn’t hurt you if you stepped on them, the netherack complimented them really well, a deep red, almost the same shade as the shiny redstone gem in the tip of Alex’s staff.
“Whatcha doing?” Veera called over to us. “Hey Veera!” I replied, “yeah, Alex is showing me Lavaland!” “Very nice,” she said, glancing around. “Why aren’t you with Ellian? You do know that we don’t have much time, we’ll have to catch up to Captain FrogLord400 sooner or later.” “Sorry,” I said rubbing the back of my neck sheepishly. I’ll head over to him now.“ I walked over to where he was…but I couldn’t find him. ”Ellian? Ellian where are you?“ I asked the air, but if he heard me he didn’t reply. Well, I still need to work on using my skills… I thought to myself. “Spiritual Enlightenment!” I waited for the energy to burst out of me, for my True Forms to come out. Nothing happened. “Ugh!” I cried, curling up on the ground, “why won’t it work? No fair! How come Alex gets all her skills first try and I don’t?” Alex heard my pouting and came over to comfort me…Or so I thought. “Get up!” She said, her eyebrows scrunching. “Mmmmmmmm…” I said, barely paying attention. “I said…” She paused for dramatic effect, “GET UP!!” “Aaaaaaah!!” I shouted, hopping up to my feet as she stepped my foot. “Owwwww! What was that for?” “For being a big baby,” she replied calmly, “50 jumping jacks and 20 push-ups, now.” “Wait what? Whyyyy?” I asked her, sitting back down. “Because they’re good for you, I promise you’ll feel better after you do them.” “No I won’t! I don’t wanna work out, I’ll do them later!” She kicked my shin. “Okay okay,” I said reluctantly. I got up and did the jumping jacks and push-ups. Then a smile slowly crept across my face. “Wow. I do feel better!“ ”Now some sit-ups,“ she replied, going to the ground and starting to do crunches. ”Okay!“ I said as I joined her on the grass. I used them to work out my anger. ”Why!“ ”Won’t!“ Spirit!” “Tual!” “Enlight!” “En!” “Ment!” “Work!” Alex tapped me on the shoulder. “You already did 40, good job.” “Really? I didn’t notice, happened so quickly.” I said as I stood up—and fell right down again. Alex giggled. ”And I think the reason you can’t use Spiritual Enlightenment is in the name, maybe you have to be spiritually enlightened to use it.“ ”Ohhhh. I guess that makes sense…Do you mean I should go and meditate for 24 hours?“ I asked her. ”Not necessarily, but something like that,“ she replied, ”well, I’m gonna go back to practicing my spells.“ ”Okay, that sounds good, I’ll go and look for Ellian.“ True to her word, she went over to Veera and they started chatting about spells in Elvish. Feeling a little left out, I went deeper into the forest to try to find Ellian.