127 Another Path (1/2)
Several hours passed as Ed meditated on his fight and thoughts on the nightmares. Soon, he finished and left his room, returning to the ship deck.
The espers were still busy melting the ice around the ship. They had started melting the ice at the top of the frozen wave and worked their way down so the ship wouldn't crash into the ground. By now, the ship was once again in normal ocean water. However, ice still surrounded them on all sides for an inestimable distance.
”Yo.” Ed yawned as he walked towards Tai. ”Any idea how long it's going to take?” He asked while glancing at the frozen waves.
Tai frowned. ”The espers are running out of steam. I've never even heard of the Water Nightmare freezing large volumes of water before.” He shook his head while sighing. ”Who knows how long it'll take for this ice to thaw naturally. We could be here for months at this rate.”
”Months?!” Ed replied in shock. ”Can't we just... carry the ship over the ice or something?” He questioned.
”And how do you propose we do that?!” Tai scoffed while pointing at the ice. ”We could probably pull that off if the ice was flat but look at all the waves. It'd be the equivalent of climbing thousands of mountains as we continued.”
”Then abandon the ship?” He asked.
Tai grimaced at the idea of abandoning his ship but nodded. ”We might have to, but that presents its own problems. What if we reach the end of the ice before reaching land? We'd be stuck, and the ice might melt before we make it back to the ship. We could probably pair up flying espers with nonflying, but it's unlikely we'd be able to carry everyone for long distances across the open waters. And even if we solved all those problems, there's still no telling if we could even acquire a large ship in Japan. China doesn't exactly have the best relationship with them after all.”
”Tsk.” Ed clicked his tongue. ”What a pain.” He looked over the frozen waves and watched the espers shoot continuous streams of fire, but it was like watching paint dry. Even if they were making progress, it wasn't obvious to the naked eye in real-time. ”Forget it.” He waved as he turned around. ”I'll just stay in closed door meditation until we make more progress.”
Ed returned to his room and sat in meditation, frustrated by the fact that he had nothing he could currently progress in. Time slowly passed, and before he knew it, a week had gone by. He occasionally returned to the deck to check on things, but they were moving at a snail's pace. He even tried helping by using his purple flames, but the difference it made was marginal at best. He managed to melt some of the ice into steam, but the steam quickly reformed into ice which then fused with the frozen ocean.
Finally giving into both temptation and boredom, he took out his 11 purple mana-cores he had obtained from Tai. He knew that meditating on them could cause more soul cracks and kill him if he wasn't careful, but he figured he was good for at least one more breakthrough before it would reach that extreme. 'This is so stupid.' He sighed to himself while shaking his head, but he swallowed down a purple mana-core anyways.
Ed appeared within a void. He could vaguely sense the 49 paths, of which he had already completed one. At first, he planned to meditate on the path of fire once again, in attempt to connect with the red fire that had ran from him previously. Yet surprisingly, he sensed a strong connection in another direction. 'Water?' He wondered as he focused on the paths opposite of fire.
He could sense seven paths of water. Of the seven, five felt extremely vague and intangible. One felt mostly unobtainable. But now, there was an additional path that seemed to loudly call for him. He slowly concentrated on it, attempting to connect with it. Soon, he sensed a reddish colored water. 'The red path of water? So, fire and water basically?' He thought as he tried to connect with it.
The red water gave him an interesting feeling. Like the red fire he had previously connected with, it was warm and kind. Yet beneath that warmness was a cold detachment, as if the warmth was really only a facade put on for others. Somehow, this made it far easier for him to feel connected with it, perhaps because he often put on the facade of Forge himself. Slowly, he grew closer to the red water, feeling as if it was him and he was it.
”Ugh.” Ed groaned as he suddenly woke up from meditation. Only a couple hours had passed, but he had made tremendous progress. Lifting his hand up in front of him, a few drops of red water appeared. They were hot to the touch, and they soon evaporated into steam which he could also control. Pleased by his success, and almost obsessively desiring more, he hurriedly swallowed another purple mana-core and reentered meditation.
Again, Ed connected with the red water, the bond growing ever deeper. Much to his joy, he felt no resistance as all like he had with the red flame. Two hours passed, and he again finished the purple mana-core. Not wanting to be interrupted further, he directly swallowed the nine remaining purple mana-cores all at once, guaranteeing he would be able to stay in meditation for nearly a day.
As he meditated, his body slowly turned red, and wisps of steam rose into the air. A portion of the water section of his seven-colored mana-core slowly turned purple as he continued making progress. Soon, he finished and awoke from meditation, having mastered another of the 49 paths.
Red water covered Ed's body as he called upon the power of the path. The hot water was fully controllable by him, and he easily converted it to equally controllable steam. 'It reminds me of my early days when I relied on steam cores for my arms.' He chuckled to himself as he played with the power, forming the steam into various shapes and images.
Suddenly, Ed felt a shattering sound as new cracks appeared in soul. His eyes widened in fear for a brief moment before he quickly calmed down. 'That went much better than expected.' He sighed in relief. Nearly half his soul had cracked when mastering his first path, but surprisingly his 2nd path had only caused a few more cracks than he already had. 'Is it because my soul got stronger from the spiders' golden faith energy?' He wondered. 'No, that can't be it.' He shook his head, knowing his soul was already plenty strong from before the spiders. 'I doubt my damaged soul just got used to these types of breakthroughs either... then is it balance?' He rubbed his chin while nodding to himself. 'That must be it. The water element counterbalances the fire element, so I only got a few soul cracks with the new addition. Even those cracks are probably only because of the slight differences between the red path of water and the silver path of fire.'
Standing up from his bed, he exited his room and returned to deck, knowing that it was likely little progress had been made. Walking to the ship railing, he sighed. 'We're still stuck...' The espers were no longer working as hard, having split into designated shifts for melting the ice. The non-fire espers had it even easier, as they couldn't help much even if they wanted to.
'I might as well give it a try too, I guess.' When he had tried his purple flames previously, they didn't make a big enough difference to make it worth his time. He also hadn't bothered attempting his silver flames upon the ice, as he had already watched Tai fail when using all seven paths of fire. 'I wonder how my new path will work on it?' Determined to speed up the process, he flew down from the ship and landed atop the frozen ocean. Red water swirled around his body, and he fired it forward.
The ice melted slightly when coming into contact with the hot water, creating steam in the air. Unfortunately, the remnants of the water quickly froze, and the steam turned to ice as well. By the time he was finished, there was more ice than he had started with!
”Damn it!” Ed frowned as he kicked against the icy ground in frustration.
”Ed!” A voice called from the ship.
Ed turned around to see Tai flying towards him atop a flame dragon. ”What's up?” He questioned.