"…The what?" Asher responded, blinking dumbly at an exasperated Draken.

"The various stages people progress through as they unlock and develop their skills and elements?" Draken asked, pursing his lips as Asher remained silent. "This doesn't ring even the smallest of bells for you?"

"No," he admitted, before the flicker of a memory bubbled to the surface. "Wait… Moxy might have mentioned something about stages once or twice during our time together. She'd been impressed at my ability to fight while still within the Stage of Discovery, and then told me to come find her for a rematch once I was in the Stage of Honing. Though she didn't explain what any of that actually meant."

"That doesn't surprise me. I never met the woman myself, but from what I heard, she was far more interested in letting her fists do the talking," Draken said, picking up his glass and taking a rather deep swig from it before continuing. "From context, please tell me you have at least some semblance of an idea for what those two stages involve?"

"The Stage of Discovery is unlocking all fifteen of a person's skills?" Asher ventured, continuing as he saw Draken's nod. "…the Stage of Honing then would be, what, practicing those skills? Getting them all up to level 20?"

"Precisely. Then, if a person actually manages to evolve all fifteen of their skills to the second tier, they enter the third stage of elemental advancement. This third stage is known as the Stage of Bleed."

"All fifteen skills need to be evolved to move onto the third stage?" Asher asked, thinking about just how costly something like that would be. On top of already having to drop all the shards required to unlock the remainder of a person's skills, evolving all fifteen of them would cost one and a half million shards in total. And that wasn't even factoring in the cost of obtaining a person's second and third elements. "How do regular people ever hope to reach the Stage of Bleed?"

"They don't," Draken said simply. "'Regular people,' as you call them, rarely even begin the process of elemental advancement. Those who only have their origin element and nothing else, or only two elements to their name, are both lumped into the same category. Among the more powerful of the world, such people are sometimes referred to as Incs. Short for 'incomplete.' Crush and I would both fall under this category, as he has only two elements to his name, and I have but my origin element."

Crush nodded off to the side, evidentially not seeing the need to chime in.

"Once a person absorbs their third element, their body immediately begins to undergo the process of elemental advancement as they enter the Stage of Discovery. The benefits are rather small at this point and almost unnoticeable unless you know what you're looking for. Primarily, it's the body adapting on a base level to the strange, unnatural ways one's elements and skills interact with it. Tell me, did you use to have any significant issues with your skills that you no longer have?"

"Actually, yeah…" Asher admitted, thinking back to those first few weeks he spent in this world and the struggles he'd had with moving through compressed tunnels he'd created using Distortion. "Now that I think about it, using one of my skills was extremely disorienting. I managed to get used to it eventually, but I thought that was just from hours of practice."

"It's a bit of both," Draken nodded. "Though this is one of the reasons why people with only one or two elements are often not quite as dangerous as people with all three. Once you start the elemental advancement process, you start to naturally become more adept at using your elements, almost without even trying."

"Then why doesn't everyone with the means to do so pick up a third element and start this process?" Asher asked, thinking back to Trellis and Frostcut. From the number of shards he'd snagged from their corpses, it was clear they could have purchased another element to fill out their missing space whenever they'd wanted.

"Two reasons mainly," Draken said, running a finger along the top of his glass as he lost himself in thought. "The first is that most of the general public aren't even aware of elemental advancement. Of course, they understand one can evolve their skills if they have copious amounts of shards to burn, but they don't know about the other benefits that come from working one's way through the stages of elemental advancement. Second, would be the issue of uncertainty. It's common enough in just about every society that it's developed a term for itself, known as the freeze."

"The freeze?" Asher repeated, unable to stop himself from thinking again about the ice assassin he'd just fought and killed. Aptly named.

"It's when someone hesitates to pick up their third and final element, to the point where they never absorb one," Draken explained. "There are no methods to remove an unwanted element from a person's soul. Because of that, it's not at all uncommon for people with the means to acquire a third element to hesitate and second-guess their final choice. Some people get their hearts set on one very particular element and spend their entire lives trying to track it down and absorb it. Others are simply too afraid to commit to any one element and encounter a harsh form of decision paralysis. It's the main reason why you'll encounter so many people with only two of their three elements, even among the nobility or others wealthy enough to simply purchase a third element."

Asher listened carefully to Draken's explanation, nodding in agreement with most of it. He'd seen plenty of his fair share of people with only two elements despite having a decent chunk of shards to their name, so it certainly made sense. But there was one thing Draken said that confused him a little.

The demon back in the lich's tower clearly said that the wizard had some sort of ritual capable of ripping my element out of me… Is that not common knowledge?

Deciding to put that thought aside for the moment, Asher motioned for him to continue. "Okay, that all makes sense. So, if the Stage of Discovery involves growing accustomed to one's skills, what does the Stage of Honing do? Or the ones following it?"

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"Once a person has unlocked all fifteen skills and is working on evolving them, meaning they've entered the Stage of Honing, their body will begin ever so slowly adapting to their own elements. Someone with a Fire element may grow hot to the touch, whereas a Life element holder may find they are suddenly all but immune to basic diseases. These minor effects are unrelated to any skill or elemental passive, they are the body and soul working together to adapt to now having so many new skills jammed into them. In just about all cases, only a single one of the three elements exerts itself over the other two. Most commonly, it's the origin element."

Huh… Asher thought as Draken paused and motioned for Crush to refill his glass. That would be the Spatial element for me. What on Earth would my body 'adapting' to the element even look like?

"So what comes next?" Asher asked once Draken's glass had been refilled. "You said there were four stages, right? What does the Stage of Bleed entail, or the one after that?"

"After evolving all of one's abilities to the second tier, a person's elements will start to synergize and bleed together in unique ways they hadn't before while they work their way toward their third tier evolutions. As such, we call this the Stage of Bleed."

"Wait, I have a skill right now that functions together with another one of my skills, and I got that back in the Stage of Discovery," Asher said, thinking about how Recall seemed to require his Eternal Marks to function. "Is that unusual?"

"It's very unusual, though not entirely unheard of," Draken admitted, giving him a curious look. "There have been reported incidents of elemental bleed as early as the Stage of Discovery, but they are nearly all limited to people who were given two elements to absorb almost immediately after receiving their origin element, and then instructed to carefully balance out their skill unlocks. Did you end up doing something similar?"

"Actually, that's almost exactly what I did," Asher admitted. "I hadn't done it for any reason, I just thought it made sense to try and keep my elements balanced."

"Well, regardless of the reason, doing so may have given you a leg up over most people. Experiencing elemental bleed so early on in your advancement can only be a good thing. However, that's not the end product that makes this stage so inherently powerful," Draken said, taking a long, hard swig from his glass, his face beginning to look ever so slightly flushed from all the drinking. "The Stage of Bleed's true threat is the three new skills that a person ends up unlocking."

"Hold on, new skills?" Asher blinked. "I thought people only had fifteen?"

"They do. Until this point," Draken said, the hint of a smile on his face. "During the Stage of Bleed, a person will naturally end up forming three entirely new skills. These are called blended skills, and are often trump cards in a person's arsenal due to their immense power. They blend two different elements together into one devastating combination. Though oftentimes, they can be so powerful they have drawbacks as well, so they must be used sparingly."

"Drawbacks…?" Asher repeated, his mind immediately flashing back to when Loratta caused her own hand to explode, raining bits of poisonous, acidic slime all over the place. It had cost her a hand, but the skill had put him down hard, and he would have died without his Complete Resilience. "I think I saw Loratta use one of those! It definitely looked like a skill that incorporated both her Slime and Poison elements."

"It doesn't surprise me in the slightest to hear Loratta had hit the Stage of Bleed," Draken nodded, sounding slightly jealous of all things. "She certainly had the shards to reach it. Slimy bastard…"

"Boss," Crush said, standing up and taking the glass that still had a bit of whiskey left in it. "You've drunk enough. You should get some rest."

"Once we're done," Draken said, waving away his concerned elite. "Where were we? Yes, the Stage of Bleed. Once a person has their three blended skills and has evolved their skills to the third tier, they hit the Stage of Power. At this stage, the body adjustments that began in the Stage of Honing are taken up a notch, becoming even more prominent and noticeable. Someone with an Iron element like Crush might literally start turning to iron, to give you an idea. But you'll probably go your entire life without encountering anyone in this stage, as the shard cost to evolve all of one's skills to the third tier is astronomical."

"So, is that it then? Once you've evolved them all to the third tier you're done?"

"Supposedly…" Draken said, hesitating. He tried to reach for his glass and have another drink, only to slowly blink at the realization that his glass was missing. Asher didn't know what he'd been drinking during their conversation, but it seemed to really be affecting the man as he began slurring slightly. "I have heard a rumor that there's a legendary fifth stage, but it's just a rumor, and I don't know anything about it. Lousy nobles wouldn't tell me anything about it when I asked."

"Boss," Crush said, walking around the desk and helping Draken to his feet. "Let me help you to bed. You shouldn't have had a second glass."

"I can drink as much as I want," Draken slurred, stumbling before accepting Crush's help. "We'll finish this later… Reaper. Still need to talk about… Ressur… Ressurrr…"

"Resurrection," Crush finished for him, looking worried and just the smallest bit guilty for some reason. "Don't worry, you can finish your discussion later."

"Yesh," Draken nodded, letting Crush lead him away. "We will!"

"I'll be right back," Crush said, glancing over his shoulder at Asher as he led Draken away. "Don't go anywhere, and please don't touch anything. Draken will know if you do."

"Got it," Asher nodded, deciding he was more than content not antagonizing the currently drunk man capable of killing people with but a thought. Hell, was Draken drinking even safe? What if he got confused and started throwing out his Death Aura left and right?

While Asher was lost in thought about the dangers of drinking with a Death element and all of the various stages Draken had just told him about, Crush returned a few minutes later, closing the study door behind him and letting out a deep sigh.

"Sorry you had to see that," Crush said, walking up to him and looking down with a hard look on his face. "He doesn't normally drink like that, but I needed him out of the way for a bit so you and I could talk. Privately."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.