Ethan replied, "Honestly?"
Sansa took a bite out of her sandwich. Chew. "Yeah, tell me. Be honest."
"I honestly have no clue," Ethan said, with his smile that always made him look like he was joking.
Sansa stopped chewing and looked at him. "Did you live under a rock before you were awakened?" She turned to Alan, who was focused on a fight to the death with a huge piece of meat. "What about you? Do you have any clue what elemental energy is?"
Alan, shaking his head, said, "No clue."
Sansa immediately facepalmed and muttered, "I should have collected 150 points.... How can they even survive in the Soul Born rank? They might steamroll the Initiate rank, but the Soul Born rank isn't anything like that." For the first time, she looked a little worried about the future of the geniuses.
Putting her food down, she immediately focused her pressure on both of them, making them feel the temperature of their table rise to an uncomfortable level, but it didn't go past this.
"Listen carefully," she began. "Now, according to what I know, the Path of Ascension didn't always exist, and the gods weren't always in existence. But with their presence came the Path. Initially, we humans were never able to affect the ambient elemental energy around us in any way until the breathing techniques came into existence. Understand that the discovery of those steles coincided with the appearance of the Gods. Some people believe the steles were sent from the gods; others believe that the ability to interfere with the elemental energy gave us the ability to finally perceive the gods. There are a couple of other theories, but the key is understanding three things: elemental energy, the Laws, and the soul."
She leaned in. "The Ascendant Path begins in the soul. It is believed that every soul is attuned to a Law that exists within this world. I've found it hard in my studies to understand this concept, but so far, I can say for sure that elemental energy doesn't exist in any singular form. In fact, it's purely neutral. But the addition of a Law to this energy changes its form, and that is what the breathing technique does. It pulls in the ambient energy and, with the influence of your Law contained in your soul, changes this energy to the type your soul recognizes."
"So the steles that control the techniques are man-made?" Alan asked, still shocked by this information.
"No, they aren't," Sansa replied. "Even Creation-affinity Ascendants haven't been able to deconstruct them or discover their composition for years. It's still being studied, but not as much as before—everyone now thinks it's a dead end for research. The ones who actually have the energy and resources to decipher anything from these steles are far above ranks of our understanding." She continued eating.
"I still don't understand why our souls are related to laws," Ethan asked. "Was everyone born this way?"
Sansa replied with a shrug. "I don't understand this point either. In fact no one below the mystic rank can fully interfere with the mystery of the soul. I was only able to grasp a little understanding during one of my experiments involving the elements. The Path of Ascendance deals with knowledge, and the power is only a result of the comprehension of the knowledge you have. Forget about this for now, you don't need it."
Ethan pondered this for a few minutes before deciding to ask a different question. "Can you please tell us what the Initiate Rank is about?"
Sansa put down the last bite of her sandwich. "Hmnnn... there are two things you need to look out for in the Initiate Rank. But first, try focusing and using your breathing technique."
"Right now?" Ethan was confused.
"Yeah, why not?" Sansa asked.
Ethan decided not to answer, as he didn't really have a reason. The crowd had left him unable to focus for a while, but as he got used to it, he found it was almost like he was back in his silent room, practicing the technique again. Immediately, he began to absorb the ambient elemental energy in the air. He noticed something. "Hmnnnnnn?"
He opened his eyes and stepped out of meditation, about to ask a question, when he heard Alan say, "I'm sure I absorbed more than this back in my room a few hours ago. Why does my soul feel empty now?"
Sansa, who had expected this, immediately responded. "Don't worry, you're not wrong. The reason for this is because your body lacks the existence of a core."
Ethan, hearing this word for the first time, immediately asked, "Core?"
"Yeah. Core." She paused for a minute, gathering her thoughts. "I want you to imagine the body as a vessel with a lot of holes. Now, imagine pouring liquid into this vessel. Do you think it will hold its contents, no matter how much you put in?"
She took a breath and continued. "It's exactly the same on your ascendant path. The body wasn't built to accommodate this path, so as a solution, what we call the elemental core came into existence."
Alan's eyes widened. "Wow, that makes so much sense. The core becomes the store for energy in the body."
Ethan leaned forward, asking the next logical question. "So how is this core formed? Is there a procedure or something? Maybe a guide to make us understand the process?"
Sansa replied with a wry smile. "You know, you're lucky I'm interested in you, and you were sensible enough to hire me as a tutor. I spent two years during my time as an Initiate figuring out how to continue after saturating my soul with enough energy." She shook her head, remembering the points she spent and the dangers she faced to earn them.
"We'll count this as a favor you'll owe me. Tutor or not, the information on how to proceed after full saturation isn't free anywhere."
Ethan and Alan exchanged a look and nodded. They were acutely aware they were getting the best deal anyone in the Order could ever receive.
Sansa, seeing their agreement, nodded and continued. "Now, let's return to the example of the leaky vessel. The core is the permanent solution for storing energy. But to create a core, you need a massive amount of energy—far more than one full saturation cycle can provide. To fix this, you change the form of the energy inside you."
Ethan's face lit up with sudden understanding. "Why didn't I think of this? It's the most obvious solution." He looked straight at Sansa, who was smiling knowingly. "The answer is to compress the energy, right?"
Once again, Sansa realized her bet on these boys wasn't in vain. She nodded, the smile still on her face. "Yes, it's just as you said. You compress the energy. But the obstacle has never been what to do; it's more of a how question. Finding the correct method was incredibly difficult when I started."
Taking a tissue and patting her mouth, she looked at the two curious boys. "Are you done? I'm done eating, we should leave soon.