Will turned to the sound of her voice. She was braced against a tree, hair frazzled, a small cut under her left eye, and absolutely drenched. Her hair was plastered to her face, water still rapidly dripping from her face, clothes and hair.

  “Alea! I think I figured it out!” He jumped up excitedly. He tamped down his excitement though as he fully took in her state. “Uhh, are you ok?”

  She looked like she was about to rip his head off.

  “What do you mean am I ok?? I almost got blasted with lightning! A lot of lightning! And how are you just standing there without a scratch on you? I have never seen lightning strike such a small area that many times in a row.”

  He ran his hand through his hair and rested it on the back of his head.

  “Gunna be honest here I have no idea. But! That lightning gave me exactly what I needed! I need a favor.”

  Alea just raised an incredulous eyebrow at him but let him make his request.

  “Can we stay here instead of traveling tomorrow? I want to try and fully realize and…” he struggled to find the word. “Consolidate, what I’ve learned from those lightning strikes.”

  Her look slowly turned from incredulous to appreciative.

  “Well..I guess a break wouldn’t hurt. And if you’ve really learned something from whatever freak of nature event that was, then you need to jump on it. We’ll hang here for-“

  Before her sentence was through Will immediately went back into a seated meditative stance and state. It was difficult to maintain it at first, and he really should get some rest before trying to jump back into this. But he was too excited! And he didn’t want to risk losing any insights by letting too much time go by.

  Suddenly he suddenly felt warm and dry. Which was crazy, but with the lack of shivering and the sudden comfort of a fresh sense of warmth, Will slipped easily back into a deep sense of meditation.

  Standing over Will with a tolerant smirk and shaking her head, Alea continued to slowly and softly apply heat to Will’s clothes and skin.

  Hours passed as Will continuously went over what he learned from the storm.

  The feel of the lightning, how it moved, how it behaved, how it traversed different materials. How it branched, the routes it took; and why it did each of those things. Each and every one gave Will incredible insight into the nature of lightning on a level that he’s sure not even his world’s scientists ever truly achieved.

  The biggest breakthrough this gave him was a real solid sense for and example of how lightning felt.

  This by far being Will’s greatest take away from the opportunity the storm presented.

  You can’t build a structure without a foundation, and Will feels that being intimately familiar with lightning in it’s smallest form, along with being able to simply sense it in that form, is a foundation he can build off of for all his future growth.

  When finally at his breaking point, Will let himself fall out of his meditation and without even trying to lay down, he simply fell back and was asleep.

  He awoke sometime around what he assumed was noon the next day. His body a little stiff but no worse for wear otherwise.

  A healthy fire was also burning, and more importantly a healthy amount of meat was roasting over the large fire.

  Instantly Will could feel his mouth fill with saliva as the delicious smell hit him. As he went to move closer to the meat, a bowl was shoved into his lap.

  “Down boy.”

  “Huh?”

  “You look like a ravenous animal who hasn’t eaten in weeks. The meat isn’t done yet, and even if it was it’s not healthy to put something so heavy in your stomach right away. Eat.” Alea gestured to the bowl in his lap and he realized it was filled with berries.

  As his sleepy mind began to clear he realized how badly his stomach was growling and how crazed he probably looked. He gratefully started to eat the berries as he settle back down.

  “Thank you for building the fire. And for keeping me warm last night.”

  Alea’s face remained neutral, but in her mind she went through a slight panic. She hadn’t thought he’d noticed that.

  “If you’d gotten sick it would have held us up. We might not be up against the wire, but we can’t afford to take our time either.”

  Will smirked. “Understood.”

  Will finished off the berries and then quickly went back into meditation. Confident that Alea would rouse him when the meat was done.

  He reevaluated what he had learned and reasoned last night, making sure he had all his ducks in a metaphorical row.

  Now the real work begins. The storm was a gift, the mediation after was unwrapping that gift. This next part was trying to actually be able to use that gift.

  He now had a decent grasp on the feel of not only his own lightning but natural lightning as well.

  With that in mind, Will lets himself fall deeper into meditation. Slowly letting his senses relax and subconsciously spread to the area around him.

  He didn’t actively search for anything, didn’t try to futilely push his mind to try and use a skill he didn’t even know how to use. He just relaxed, regulated his breathing, focusing his mind on what he now knew about infinitesimally small workings of lightning. He just breathed. Not in the way his master had shown him to best cultivate, but simply in through his nose and out his mouth. Slowly, deeply, calmly.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  In…out. In…out. In-

  His eyes bolted open in shock. He felt it! He felt it!

  He closed his eyes again and began to re-regulate his breathing. Attempting to bring himself into at least a little of the calm mind he just had.

  Once he reached that same level of a calm mind and body, with that same internal focus, he suddenly felt something again. Like the movement of a muscle he didn’t know he had, he extended his lightning sense and felt for the area around him.

  Lightning sense…

  Why does that name feel so right? Why did it come to me so easily?

  Immediately he felt a beacon blaze to his lightning sense. Like a shout to someone’s sense of hearing, a flash of a bright light to their eyesight, a stab of pain to their sense of touch, something flared against his newly formed lightning sense.

  He cringed and put a hand to his head. A headache already starting to form. He felt like he was going through sensory overload but had no idea why.

  He refocused, fixed his breathing, and tried to get a grasp of what was going on.

  Slowly a picture in his minds eye began to form. Almost a visualization of some people’s sixth sense, he seemed to be able to pinpoint where this flare of sensory overload was coming from.

  Unless he missed his guess, it was coming straight from Alea.

  What is going on?

  If what is happening is what he thinks is happening, then Will is sensing the electrical charge and current running through Alea. The one being generated by her brain and running through her synapses and nervous system.

  But that’s supposed to be so small as to be almost impossible to measure. If Will had really figured out a way to sense it shouldn’t it be barely perceptible? Why is Alea lighting up like a metaphorical bonfire? Does it have anything to do with her being a cultivator? Would a non cultivator or a weaker one show up differently? Questions to definitely try and figure out later.

  One thing was for sure though, he would not be able to practically use this technique unless he refined it. If a person who couldn’t hear, all of a sudden got a pair of hearing aides that made it sound like everyone was screaming or shouting, it would effectively be useless.

  However, Will allowed himself to feel the excitement of his achievement. He actually developed a technique!

  It was rough, needed a lot of work, and wasn’t even close to being something he could use in combat, but a win was a win, and he’d take it. He pivoted his mind back to his new sense ability and kept trying to tone down or at the very least filter the information his new sense was projecting into his mind. He wasn’t even sure which strategy, if either one, would work. He knew he wouldn’t make any significant progress today, but you had to start the process sometime.

  Will didn’t mind when he hit a wall trying both techniques. From Amos, to Taleya, to his own practice, Will genuinely enjoyed training. Not making immediately progress was fine. The feeling of satisfaction and achievement from seeing growth after and through struggle to get better was a unique reward and a rush.

  Strength was something he didn’t have in his old world. He was weak and alone. No strength, no friends, barely any safety. He’s not sure when, but he realized that he had lost all passion for life back then. He had had no hobbies, no joy during a warm and sunny day. No joy period. His life had become an overcast of fear and crushing loneliness.

  Here in this new world, he’s found joy not just in living, but in…can you call training a hobby? He’s not entirely sure, but there’s no reason why not right?

  He felt a tap on his shoulder as he tried to work through the sensory problem.

  “Food’s ready.”

  A big smile stretched across his face. “It looks delicious! Make you a deal. Sterilize my knives and I’ll cut it up for us.”

  She smirked and took both blades, running a rich orange flame from her fingers back and forth over them. When she was done she handed them back and he got to work.

  …

  Alea sat back against her pack and watched Will attempt to slice the meat apart. He had his jacket off and the sleeves rolled up his forearms. She could see his forearms flex as he manipulated his blades.

  His back looked broad as he worked, broader than it was back in the glade. His brown hair was falling into his eyes but he didn’t seem to notice.

  She started as she realized she had been staring and immediately averted her eyes, blushing slightly. What is wrong with her? She’s no better than a man.

  She hesitantly looked back at him after a minute went by and Will was still working.

  She focused her gaze to stay fixed on the meat and when she did she raised an eyebrow. Will was extremely skilled in using those long knives in combat but…he seemed to struggle with simple meat carving.

  “What..are you doing?”

  He looked sheepish as he answered. “People always made it look so easy when they carved up turkeys.”

  “What’s a turkey?”

  Will looked up at Alea with a bewildered look. “You guys don’t have turkeys?”

  “Is that some animal native to the area your village is in?”

  “Uh, yes. Something like that. It’s a kind of flightless bird.”

  “People carved them up a lot where you grew up?”

  “It wasn’t an incredibly common food but not rare either. Mainly a meat eaten on certain times of the year. I’ve seen them carved up and served and it looked easy. I guess it takes more skill than I thought.”

  “Meat carving is supposed to be easy.” She laughed as she saw his look of embarrassment. “It’s ok bumpkin. Everyone isn’t supposed to be good at everything. It’s good to see some flaws from you. Humanizes you a little.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m a bumbling idiot half the time. I challenge you to find someone more flawed than me.”

  Alea was in the process of getting up but paused in shock. Was he serious?

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What? I’m just saying. I’m not that talented, and I’m constantly screwing up. Sure I enjoy training and I guess I’ve been getting better at fighting. But with how much I train it makes sense I got at least a little better. I don’t have many other skills though.”

  “Will..” She sat back down and fixed him with a firm look. “Where is this lack of self confidence coming from?”

  His face dropped. The usual playful smirk, face full of mirth, fell away. She always thought his eyes sparkled. Either in fierce passion while fighting or in genuine joy when their masters and them spent time together. But all that was gone now.

  Now she saw a face she barely recognized. A face she’d seen on those who’ve been through a lot through life. Mainly a life filled with abuse. But that couldn’t be true for him could it?

  “Look. I won’t ask you about your past.” She said. “Everyone is entitled to their secrets, but I can see you might’ve been through some things. So from one friend to another let me be blunt. I think you’re amazing.”

  He looked up at her and his eyes widened in surprise, his cheeks turning red.

  She barreled through before she lost her nerve.

  “You’re a great fighter. Your control over your element is incredible. And to have been able to create your own technique that quickly while this early in your cultivation journey? I don’t know why you don’t realize this, but that’s a big deal. You show incredible skill in the use of multiple weapons. You took down multiple fighters at our own level in that tournament without having to use your element! Heck, the only thing I’ve seen you struggle with so far is aura use. You’re a talented cultivator, and I’m glad I have you to protect my back.”

  She averted her gaze as she finished, flustered despite herself. Why did he make her say all that? He’s being so stupid. He should have known all of this already.

  When she looked back up at him he had a soft smile on his face.

  “Thank you. You’re a good friend.” He said.

  “Yea well. You’re not so bad yourself.”

  She smiled back at him and then they both started laughing.