บท 77: Too abnormal

"Why won't you go, it might help you empower your soul" said Lilia with the same mischievous smile.

"Even then, I won't go!" Replied stubbornly Alex.

"Umm, where is this place you are talking about?" Asked curiously Scarlett.

"The place I'm talking about is the Elysian Mountains in the Elysian Kingdom. Every two years, a rumored portal emerges, leading to a pocket dimension believed to house treasures and an elixir capable of enhancing soul power," explained Lilia.

"All of these are mere lies, how could people know what is in that dimension pocket while it's been hundreds of years that no one managed to come back alive, people are just saying nonsense, I'm telling you!" Exclaimed Alex.

"Whether it's true or false, no one knows. What we know is that there is definitely something in that dimension pocket, so it would be good to check it out, maybe there is really something that can empower the soul" said Lilia, then added:

"We should forget about it, we need to restart your training, we barely have three remaining days to train, we should make better use of them".

Alex nodded his head and Lilia continued:

"Before anything, we should see if you can really control the smoke element, to do that, we will be setting fire to those dried leaves over there, and you will try to manipulate the smoke that will emerge" said Lilia, pointing to a pile of leaves.

"Okay, let's start!" Replied Alex, already making his way toward the pile.

"The least we can say is that he is excited" said with a chuckle Scarlett.

"Well, we shouldn't keep him waiting" replied Lilia.

Once they were at the location of the pile of leaves, Lilia said to Alex:

"We will start now, concentrate", she then looked at Scarlett and nodded.

"Hehe, it just means I'm amazing!" said Alex with his nose in the air, reveling in his own perceived brilliance.

One moment later, smoke started to be emitted from the burning leaves, seeing this, Alex extended one of his arms and willed the smoke to stop spreading.

Just like that, the spreading smoke stopped moving, making a smile appear on Alex's face.

He then willed for the smoke to take the form of a round ball, then a cube, then into a chair, a bike, and even a car, he had once thought that manipulating the smoke element would be difficult or that he would struggle, but it was none of that, in fact, controlling smoke was like moving his arms, it was like the smoke was just an extension of his body and he could do anything with it.

Each time that the smoke moved like he wanted it to, the smile on Alex's face grew, conversely, each time he shaped the smoke into something new, the girls looked more bewildered.

They looked at each other and Scarlett said, "he is not supposed to do that so soon, right ?"

"No, he isn't" replied Lilia.

Meanwhile, Alex continued playing with the smoke like some kid playing with his favorite toy.***

When the fire went out, he finally stopped playing and turned around. However, he did so while ensuring the smoke didn't vanish. To achieve this, he infused some of his mana into the smoke.

"Did I do good ?" Asked Alex with a beaming smile as he looked at the girls.

"...."

After some silent, Lilia sighed and replied "you did well, actually you did too well"

"What do you mean?"

"Honestly, I didn't think you'd manage to control the smoke, let alone shape it as you wanted. Usually, it takes people a few tries to control their element, but you did it on your first attempt, and you can even give it any shape you want. It's really astonishing," explained Lilia.

"Hehe, it just means I'm amazing!" said Alex with his nose in the air, reveling in his own perceived brilliance.

'I guess he deserves to boast a little' thought Lilia.

After Alex finished praising himself, Lilia informed him of their next test, which involved determining the range he could manipulate the smoke element. To achieve this, they used devices created by Scarlett.

Those device released smoke and were placed some distance away from Alex.

At first, they positioned the devices 100m away from him, and he attempted to control the smoke from that distance. However, he couldn't manage it. Yet, this was anticipated; the ability to control one's element typically expands with training, it's not like there was a fixed range for ranged for everyone.

After the 100m test, they shortened the distance to 70m. Despite this, Alex still couldn't control the smoke. Consequently, they further reduced it, placing the device at 60m.

At 60m, Alex could sense the presence of smoke nearby, yet he still couldn't exert control over it.

When they brought the range down to 50 meters, Alex could finally control the smoke. This surprised Lilia because a 50m range was uncommon for someone who hadn't trained their abilities.

However, the girls got even more shocked when they realized that he can control smoke from different location as long as they were in his range, a novice shouldn't be able to do something like that.

Shaking her head, Lilia thought, 'I don't even know if I can refer to him as a novice, he's just too abnormal'.