Chapter 1
Northern Water Tribe
I woke up to sunlight streaming through the icy walls of our home. Looking around, I didn't see anyone. My mother had a lot of work to do after the unsuccessful hunting expedition to the northern tundra. She was a good healer, so there was no need to worry about all the wounded warriors. They were strong and often brought meat or fish, so they could be called a strong support for our tribe.
As for my father, he was neither a warrior nor a healer. He worked in a library, preserving and studying ancient scrolls. He said that without the keepers of knowledge, all mages would suffer spiritual decline. But as for me, without healers and meat, we would suffer decline, and the scrolls were just clumsy attempts to draw water magic techniques.
Oh, right! The scrolls were actually quite well drawn. I just had something to compare them to - in the distant past, before I realized myself in this world, I had a dream of becoming an artist. I devoted all my free time to this dream and persuaded my parents to go abroad so that I could enjoy truly beautiful landscapes in real life. Since in addition to the desire to become an artist, I had a talent for drawing, my request was quickly satisfied, and we hurried into the jaws of destruction.
An ordinary person is not able to withstand the horrors of the water element. The flood swept away everything: from lamp posts to trucks. And this was only the first day of the natural disaster. A couple of days later, the flood reached our hotel and we were met with death. I was a little unlucky: I was not thrown out of the window, and I did not die from the fall. A very cruel death from suffocation by water. And ironically, after death, I became a magician of this very water.
I am not very familiar with this world, because the original was watched in snatches a long time ago. I also watched the sequel to that story, but only a couple of images remained in my memories. How can I explain it more simply... For example, learning English! You can quickly learn every word, but only ten percent will remain in your head. And even those will continue to fall from time to time. Even before my death, I remembered only a couple of moments, and after it, I can't remember anything at all. Only sometimes something like that slips into my head.
Okay, no need to ruin your day with memories of the past. I live here and now - in the present. And in the present, you need to quickly get dressed and leave the house. It was fresh and clear outside, and also cool. It is always cool in the North, but in a couple of hours it should warm up a little. And until that happens, you can run around freely and enjoy all the joys of being a child.
I quickly ran to the canal - an artificial river created by water mages, where my friends were waiting for me. It was much more interesting to play water mages with them than with my teacher - a harmful and eternally dissatisfied old man. He spent a lot of time on useless moralizing, but with friends there were no such problems. We practiced water magic, inventing various techniques and techniques, as well as games related to them. This was our calling and our pleasure.
By manipulating the water with our movements, we created snowballs, fountains, waves and various water figures. The spirit of competition filled us to the core. And even though my progress had already reached good heights thanks to an experienced mentor, I was ready to give in so that the competition would be relatively fair.
"Oh, I lost," I fell to my knees in mock defeat as my eight-year-old friend built a taller snowman. I was about a metre short, but it's like cards. It's best to let your opponent win a couple of times to take home the jackpot.
- Oh, yes! Victory is mine! - Nuruk exclaimed, cheerfully clenching his fist and pointing it towards the sun. Interestingly, his name was translated as fish or fisherman. His whole family was a fisherman: his father caught fish, and his mother helped to cut it up.
"I'll definitely take revenge," I laugh, stand up cheerfully, and shake the snow off my knees. I could have cleansed myself with magic, but any physical activity is very important at the initial stage of a magician's path.
In this world, most elemental techniques are based on certain styles of martial arts. Each element has its own martial art, and all mages use hand and foot movements to manipulate the elements. In a fight, a trained mage has a better chance of winning: manual dexterity and leg strength will not pump themselves up. However, my teacher told me that you need to remember not only about the body, but also about the spirit. Control the energy inside your body, allowing it to flow through it and interact with the environment.
However, as he said, some masters can manipulate their elements without physical movements. I don't know what kind of monsters they are who can control the same water with just willpower or concentration. They certainly have amazing power and capabilities, but I'm as far from them as the Earth is from the Sun. It takes a lot of strength and energy for me to perform many body movements. What can we say about controlling the elements with purely mental power.
"Moon, Nuruk, I have an idea," suggested Taruk, the strongest and tallest of our three-man group. His name translates as bear, which suits him very well. "Let's go see how the real warriors of our tribe train."
"We'll get into trouble again," I tell him, scratching the back of my head.
"Don't worry, all we can do is what you show us," Taruk said, placing his broad palm on my shoulder. "I want to summon icy whirlwinds and crush icebergs by chewing on the debris!"
Our jaws dropped simultaneously, opening our mouths wide to let the cold air clear our brains. This big guy was clearly aiming high. How old was he? Eight years old, and he already wanted to be a northern barbarian - summoning blizzards and munching on the bases of icebergs for lunch. If things had gone this far, we simply had to learn from the older generation.
So we went to the Northern Water Tribe training camp. The mages training there inspired my friends with their courage and coolness. They skillfully created large ice walls, sharp icicles and ice disks. Many of them split into pairs and launched water projectiles at each other, and then reflected the projectiles back.
It was really inspiring. Having noticed a couple of new movements and techniques, I decided to try to repeat them a little later. My friends were too engrossed in admiring the result of their movements, and not the movements themselves to call up water techniques. Forgivable at their age: after all, commercialism and intelligence appear in people with age. In childhood, nothing interferes with creativity and enjoyment of the full picture, and not its details.
An hour later, we finally headed to a new play area. I asked my friends to help me form ice walls, adjusting to the movements of my partners while creating a fence. There was nothing stopping me from creating a fence alone, but it was better to stay at the level of my friends, so that I could share most of the credit with them. This is how friendship is known - in respecting the feelings of the entire inner circle.
Having finished creating the play area, we all started practicing the techniques we had seen today. As expected, Taruk and Nuruk started improvising their movements. It took me telling them everything and waiting for half an hour until they started to get something right. After that, I started demonstrating my achievements, divided by two or even three. And so it went on, but at one point some teenagers came to us. They were four years older than us and looked unhappy. Yeah, I get it: they decided to take over the play area.
- Small fry, get out of here. This is our territory! - exclaimed one of the disturbers of our peace.
"The nose hasn't grown up to the rights of ownership," I said, smiling broadly, and immediately turned our relations into hostile ones. I have a real talent for this: you have to stand up for your place in the sun.
"Oh, you, I'll…" the guy began to mumble.
Time for a light brawl. Nothing dangerous can be used, but the water whips are like twigs: they hit your ass really hard. So while I was practicing using a water whip on their leader, my comrades helped to neutralize the rest. They threw water projectiles at the other three guys, which they practiced for half an hour.
Two fell into the snowdrifts, but among the violators there was one guy who intercepted the projectile and sent it back. Not bad, but it's a pity that the "bear" was very surprised and forgot about the second interception. Taruk rolled on the snow and, to the surprise of his opponent, got up as if nothing had happened. Our bear is not so easy to crush.
— What's going on here? — We all heard a loud shout from outside the playground. I was the first to figure out the identity of the newcomer and immediately began to cover my tracks. At the very least, I put away the water whip and started whistling a cheerful tune, looking at the clouds.
As expected, the ice barrier melted and sank into the snow. And the whining leader of the playground raiders attracted the attention of the old man, who began to examine each of us in turn. He was surprised that my friends, Taruk and Nuruk, were standing on their feet, while among the second group, only one guy was standing. The rest were lying in the snow.
- Master! - As if accidentally seeing the mentor, I bow innocently. - You won't believe how I got lost during my trip to your lesson. I'm walking like this...
"Enough…" the mentor twisted his cheek, put his hands behind his back and shook his head. "Okay, I've given you too much free time. Now your class time is doubled to make up for the absences."
— You doubled it last week, — raising my index finger, I try to make a small remark to the teacher. If you think about it, I simply don't have any free time. This tribe has a different training system for magicians of all ages. Well, like everyone… Not earlier than 10-12 years old, when children reach a certain maturity and control over their body and energy. Starting from the age of ten, every year the training time increases by half an hour. However, this old devil makes me train eleven hours a day, despite the fact that I'm only seven. In other words, if he doubles the training time… Two hours for sleep, and by the age of eleven I'll start to slowly go into the minus.
"He attacked me!" Holding back tears, the leader of this gang, who had been beaten by me earlier, pointed his finger at me and complained to my teacher. "Master Pakku, please punish him!"
- It's a lie, they attacked first! - my friends almost simultaneously refuted their statement. Since there are no witnesses, and there are only our words against theirs, there should be no consequences.
- Punishment... Nothing can be done, - stroking his goatee, Pakku looked at me with a villainous look. - You like whips... You should also like frozen water whips. You will work on them until you learn to control them.
"It's a shame," I say, grimacing as if from a sour lemon, trying to find a way to salvation. I want to continue having fun, and not hang out in the company of an elderly and harmful old man.