dev 2 - spiritual exercise

Reggie took a slow breath in before exhaling to try and calm his mind. He needed to grow stronger if he was to survive the storm on the distant horizon that seemed to be hinted at in the actions of Isaac on the spire island expeditions. He could feel it coming, greater escalation when people fought over the spire itself. It would not be a peaceful time when the storm raged.

"I've been trying to weaponize the emotions in my heart. To use all the anger, the sadness and confusion rather than simply.. wallowing in them. Make my weakness into my power by expressing them upon the sky." A simple desire to harness the inevitable griefs that came with living.

"When myself and the chieftains challenged the spirit in a storm and I took it's lightning for my own I could feel it's rage.. And I took it's lightning after that repeatedly to strike it down with my own anger.. But I still cannot seem to.. create my own storm, only harness that which forms naturally. Even with the help of this artifact I cannot fully create a storm." He pulls free a small, tangible cloud that moved almost like gelatin, the water contained within refusing to pour outward without mana exchange. He takes a moment to look at the could before looking back at Keitaro.

"So I come to you in hopes that you can help me attain this power.. to forge a storm that I might fully harness both the weather, and myself."
(Reggie)

The times when war raged across Agartha were over.

But just because they were allied, no longer fighting.. it did not mean they were truly friends with the other side. With how many times he's been looked down upon, how many times he was disregarded, neglected or brought down, all because he wasn't born as 'gifted' as certain people back in Levengard, it all made for a difficult existence where he had to struggle for each and every piece of success he ever attained.

Even the promise of the rain and storms, of thunder cage he learned to unleash.

"Emotion is hardly enough."

It is spoken as immediate warning and advice. After all, if rage, frustration and bitterness were enough to do all of this.. then Keitaro would long become a master of his own element. And yet, that's not the case. Why? Because it's simply not enough.

"I learned to control thunder to a better degree when I learned to reach out to it better."

A brief confession, though.. considering his ancestry as Shenlong, and the way his lightning reigned supreme over anyone else's? There's no surprise in that. There should be none, at least.

"My own comes from tapping into my ancestral blood - but I also learned to make new techniques out of it entirely. My own lightning is not mere electricity that magi replicate, but the true thunder in its purest form. It matches that of Nature's."

Spiritual essence was also important. It is something that the Shaman learned.. and it is why he became so invested in the spirits as of late. Though, this? This could be useful. The spirit shards embedded in his chest could use their exercise, after all.

"If you wish to learn that, you should begin by searching something new about yourself, and branch out to more."
(Keitaro)

Reggie purses his lips as he pokes and prods the jiggling cloud in his hands as he listens to Keitaro's explanations. Emotion wasn't enough, he knew this was the case even as he had been wielding lesser elements gathered into the semblance of a storm. But a spiritual aspect? To reach out to the elements? These passed by him slightly, only slightly as he had interacted with the anger of a spirit, Hydrotha at the people that had failed to appease it. There was something different about it's anger, after all.

"Lightning isn't the whole of a storm.. the winds and rains are equally as dangerous or as bountiful.. I've known most about myself for quite a while but.. I'm unsure how to learn more of myself to branch out." He curls his fingers around the cloud, squeezing it slightly, he had gotten complacent with his lot, with his power. And now he was being left behind by the person he had found himself desiring the attentions of. He had to find a way to keep moving or else he'd be better off dead.

His teeth grit together slightly as his body begins to generate electrical sparks. He was becoming angry at himself for his stagnation.

"What.. should I do?"
(Reggie)

It's a difficult question to answer.

In truth, he imagined that someone like Reggie would simply need to be more 'technical' on the side of the storm- perhaps, even drive to utilize winds and water all more effective in conjunction with the lightning. Unlike Shenlong's raw power that allowed him to, quite literally, bend lightning a certain way, it seemed that Reggie lacked that.

"I'm not sure what you have to do, Reggie."

"It is your own magic. You should be planning ahead on what exactly you have to do. You have to actively seek for alternatives if you actually want to be something at all."

Something in this world. Agartha was unforgiving like that, even if the war has already passed. Unless you were able to reach out to greatness.. you would be left in the shadows of people that managed to climb out far ahead of you.

"Though.."

"I suppose you could witness my own, pure lightning, and then try to replicate it - then carefully craft the storms with the rest of magic involved. You could try and make it a mix, that way."

Of course, it's only one of the ideas. Whether Reggie wanted that, or if he wanted something else, that remains something only he would answer.

"Take a pick."
(Keitaro)

Reggei was presented with not one, but two options to follow, however the ookami was not one to back down or shy away from a harder path simply because it was harder. He relished in the challenges presented, knowing that succeeding often brought bounty to be shared. Sometimes overly generous, Reggie was already known for giving far too much to people he cared about, though the help he gave to others at times was less known. Like watering the fields of others when they were too tired, leaving small gifts of something that one person had been saying they needed without even having been asked.

The rains did not care who stood to benefit, only that their cycle continued. Prosperity at times, devastation at others depending just on the formation of the cloud.

Some were less fortunate when they met an upset Reggie, meeting harsh words and sour thoughts under the shifting backdrop of events in his life.

"Rain.. I can bring about rain easily. Winds are easy to shift around too. Lightning for me.. that is difficult. Lightning flows with my anger, my indignation and excitement. But I don't.. really know how well to control it. Not in a way you're suggesting.. But I do know that winds and rain.. those I can easily do."

He let out a small chuckle as he tucked away the small cloud, not wanting to lose track of the object he had earned from the slain spirit.
(Reggie)

So it was the lightning.

Where two elements were working in proper motion with him, the lightning, which could substitute for the refined fire, was the most difficult. He couldn't really blame him on that - after all, where he actually tamed the storms and developed new techniques altogether, there was something about mastering this element which was a lot more difficult to do. Just how much he would have to try until there's an evident progress in what he does?

"The lightning is difficult to control, yes."

"I could show you how it goes - whether in combat or outside of it. The trick is to let it flow with you, because lightning is much akin to... 'liquid' fire, where it becomes refined to follow your motion."

"It does help to me that it's typically charged with the spiritual essence of mine."

The spirit shards in his chest begin to hum. It's hardly visible to Reggie as anything but a subtle glow of white beneath blue robes of drakanite. It's difficult to tell for him, without seeing the shards themselves, as to why exactly this glow occurs. But.. he could take a guess.

"Perhaps once you had that insight, you might as well come up with what to do next."
(Keitaro)

The ookami nods slightly. He had no attunement to the spiritual world that he knew of, the cloud itself simply viewed as a means in which to flow his mana and amplify it for both the subtle farming usage of crop watering, and cloud formation itself. What little remained from Hydrotha was not something he was fully aware of. The spirits had abandoned him in his eyes, leaving his family and most of his village to die in a drought turned famine.

"Control and conjure both.. When it starts and the lightning begins I can barely control what I do bring forth. The shifts of wind are easy, the pace and weight of rain is easier still.. but lightning.. that is where I do lack." He reaches into his jacket again, pulling free the small cloud. "Watch.. the clouds?"

He closes his eyes and inhales before flowing his mana into the cloud, enforcing his will through it's masslike a spiritual lens. A sudden shift in barometric pressure sourced from above signified the rapid multiplication of water molecules in the sky. Coming almost out of nowhere the sky darkened as light was diffused through increasingly numerous intermingling droplets of water around pockets of air with different conductive charges alternating to create a vast and dark cumulonimbus cloud.

In his hand, the hand-held cloud took on a similar shape to the one in the sky, slowly floating out of his hands and coming to rest over his head. Perhaps one reason why he so loved his hat, the cloud itself beginning to drizzle over the hat as a light rain began to fall from the sheer weight of the cloud itself, the cold air pockets pulling molecules of water together into a harmless payload of rain.

"This part.. is easy. It's.. mostly the lightning that is difficult for me."
(Reggie)

"Watch, then."

If the lightning was what Reggie asked for, then Keitaro would display it; while his own lightning was much more different, it also provided for a necessary insight on how things can work overall. Even though Shenlong's innate capacity for such lightning would usually suffice.. the spirit shard embedded in his chest begins to glow even stronger, lending the spiritual essence in the matter of all things.

So much, that when Keitaro raises his hands, they seem to slowly become transparent.

Was it the side-effect of trying to become half-spirit in his scenario? Perhaps. The truth of the matter is that when the lightning begins to seep from his fingertips, it creates something azure. Where Reggie sought to create the necessary storms above his head in order to bend the lightning this way..

It bends to Keitaro's will without much resistance offered. The beautiful, blue glow of lightning begins to form, charged with the spiritual essence of would be half-spirit; it seems to flicker in and out of this world, a mysterious conjunction on its own, and slowly begin to take shape of the 'cage' between the two.

Until it finally stretches to the skies.

There, the darkened skies that Reggie created would be blasted into bright colors, removing the aspect of darkness as a whole; where he had created the dark, Keitaro's lightning forced impossible light to appear, so much that it would almost blind anyone who dared to look at it.. only for the pure, cerulean lightning to crash down to the earth.

Blowing up a sudden hole in the ground.

The impact is clear. If anybody dared to stand under that lightning, they would feel the bite of spiritually charged thunder, of true replica that belonged to Nature, rather than a mere copy of electricity as to what magi do. Only when the dust settles, the Shenlong's hands steadily return to reality, no longer flickering actively.

"...There."
(Keitaro)

Reggie watched as the shenglong's arms seemed to become ethereal, watching as they raised to see the sky suddenly brighten with the spiritually charged lightning. The flash of light bringing reggie's pupils to tighten near to close as the bolt crashed through the air in an unprecedented boom, not only through the air in thunder, but into the ground as a crashing surge of an electrical explosion where charges met and dispersed. Above his head the miniature cloud seemed to react to the lightning, though not produce anything on the smaller scale.

It took a few moments for Reggie to regain full command of his senses, the overwhelming light and dissonant air-quake of the thunder clap having dislocated his mind a slight bit from the rest of his senses. As the ringing in his ear finished he pursed his lips. Such an act would be hard fought to live up to, to match a lightning draken's lightning alone was something that could almost not be done as it were. But how Keitaro created such with what looked to be a calm mind?

Perhaps it was simply his own measure of connection to the storm that made it look effortless and little more than capability opposed to what Reggie had been trying to achieve.

To control the rains and bring bountiful harvests.
To become the storm and bring ruin to those who would challenge gehennan peace.

"That's.. quite amazing, truly. I'm not sure I'll ever be capable of doing something like that. Just so.. calm. I can't.. be calm so easy.." The rain above begins to slow down to a similar drizzle as the cloud above his head before it worked itself back up once more, the rains coming down harder as the sound began to make itself known, hard rock and already pooling puddles of water beginning to make the rain louder.

The bright flashing light of the controlled lightning once more drowned out in the darkness of his self doubt and worry.

A slow breath was taken in to try and control the emotions once more. To which he though of a single moment, a brief tenture of rain brought upon a measure of crops in need. The calming feeling of hard work that would lead to a bountiful harvest, those in need fed and provided with herbal medicine.

The rains slowed slightly as he took another deep breath, the emotional projection amplified through the clouds lensing. It was not a part of him, as Keitaro's spirit shards were part of him, it was merely a boon earned through hard work for the betterment of his people. Even at cost to himself he marched forward to provide.

"It takes effort for me to calm.. to control my inner storm as it were.. But unleashing it? This.. this is what I can do." He looked up at the falling rain as he reached up, curling his fingers slowly as the cloud's mass suddenly shifted, darkening even further in a focal point. A funnel forming within the cloud.

The rains fell heavier as the ookami grit his teeth tightly once more, letting his emotions flow into the cloud above and into the storm itself. His passions, his anguish, his confusion, everything that he was, projected into the sky.

The funnel cloud came down swiftly as if it were syrup flowing through water, water and wind billowing down into a massive tornado wreathed in bits of his rage turned lightning, ionizing the ravenous winds whipped into a frenzy. Where Keitaro's clap of thunder was controlled and precise, Reggie could only direct the power that was sourced from himself. He did not need to make the winds dance, he did not need to make the rains fly upward, or encapsulate a single bolt of lightning into a loop with precise control. He merely needed to control himself.

The swirl of wind dug into the hole left behind by the crackle of the shenglong's lightning, tearing at that which he envied. Pushing and pulling at the wind through both spiritually magnified power and raw elemental control, he steadied the tornado over the single spot until his heart stopped pounding, the winds calming slowly and the rains falling lighter, feeling far more refreshing than the heavy drops that had been falling. Electrical energies in the air slowly dissipating and normalizing through the faling rain.

The grass seed that had been flung around both within and outside of the dug by the two magi's magics was slightly invigorated by the rain, encouraged to grow and once more take over the spot that had been assaulted by magics in it's aftermath. Not quite as powerful as a nature magi's encouraging power, or a holy magi's direct regeneration, it simply felt like the cycle of life was urged to continue.

"Th..that's.. what I can do.."
(Reggie)

At some point in the past, much of his own practice relied on this anger.

This desire to feel whole, to be able to catch up with other people that were so far ahead of him back then.. and only after he managed to calm himself and try his best to instead learn what he's meant to, he was capable of achieving some heights. Needless to say, where his own lightning crashes, the spirit shards in his chest cease to hum and glow, eventually settling down.

The ethereal hands slowly fade back to normal, physical state.

Keitaro was still far from becoming true half-spirit, but.. there were certainly first steps taken in that direction. Whether he would succeed or not remains to be seen, but his eyes look up to the sky where Reggie begins summoning myriad rains, winds and other parts of the storms, where the storm is made - potent in its own right, but imperfect, flawed.

It doesn't take long for Shenlong to gauge the necessary components that he was lacking. While he tried his best to ensure that the replica would be powerful, there was certain lack of control, one that Keitaro exercised to a greater degree. As such..

"You lack patience."

"Storms are rage, fury, but they're also control amidst that anger. What you feel most become cold - you need to tame that anger, so that you can direct it in calculated, precise manner. Otherwise, you'll fall short each time."

"It would also be preferable that you devise a proper technique, but that's something you would have to do on your own."

A pause. What else could Keitaro possibly say that would aid him in mastering these storms? It's difficult to tell what exactly would be most beneficial thing.

"I don't think there's much for me to say to you. Try following these directions, and see if it takes you anywhere."
(Keitaro)