The next few days passed quietly on the island.
Aren and Daniel kept mostly to themselves, surviving off the rations they had managed to bring from the crash. Daniel spent most of his ti in the glowing clearing, occasionally taking a breath to hang out with the surrounding animals and magical beasts.
anwhile, Aren returned to the lake again and again. Each day, he tried...and each day he failed.
The Reverse Waterfall rejected him every single ti. Sotis he tried approaching it slowly, easing his body toward the rising current. Other tis, he rushed in, hoping montum might help him endure the force.
Once he even tried entering the stream from a different angle entirely... nothing worked.
The mont his body touched the current, the sa thing always happened—water would violently throw him back out like a loitering intruder.
Now, on the third day, Aren sat on a flat stone near the lake’s edge, staring at the towering column of water flying into the sky.
"...This doesn’t make sense at all."
He rested his chin on his hand, watching the endless spiral of water.
It couldn’t be incompatibility. If anything, his water elent should have made this place perfect for him.
And the current itself wasn’t impossibly fast either. Powerful, yes—but not beyond sothing a Mystic should be able to endure.
So what was the problem?
Aren’s eyes narrowed slightly as he studied the phenonon again. Because clearly...sothing about the way he was approaching it was wrong. Aren’s gaze wandered absently along the edge of the clearing as he thought.
That was when he noticed it.
A small bat hung upside down from the branch of a nearby tree, its wings wrapped around its body as the creature slept peacefully...right beside the waterfall.
Aren’s eyes lingered on it.
"...Huh."
The bat didn’t seem disturbed at all by the violent flow of energy nearby. In fact, if anything, it almost looked comfortable.
More than that, he could clearly feel the surrounding water energy flowing through the air... and gently drifting toward the small creature.
"...Wait, how is that—?"
The energy wasn’t resisting the bat. Instead, the energy flowed into it naturally, almost like it belonged there in the first place.
Aren frowned slightly.
Why?
The answer ca almost imdiately after he pondered.
"That’s it...gravity."
Without realizing it, he had been circulating his ether the way every Mystic normally did—letting the energy flow through his body from top to bottom, following the natural pull of gravity.
But the Reverse Waterfall was a phenonon nobody could understand, and Aren was willing to bet that it didn’t follow the conventional rules.
"Worth a shot, I guess?" Aren muttered as he slowly stood.
He stepped back into the lake and approached the edge of the spiraling column once more. This ti, before reaching out, he closed his eyes.
Inside his body, the flow of ether shifted. Instead of letting it fall downward through his channels, Aren forced the current in the opposite direction, matching the direction of the waterfall itself.
For a mont, everything felt strange, like switching your dominant hand after decades of using it. Then he reached out. His hand entered the current, and this ti...energy flowed right into him.
Aren’s eyes snapped open.
"Haha! It worked! It really worked!" he yelled in excitent.
But just as quickly, he could feel the sa energy leaking out.
Shit, gotta concentrate on absorbing and refining it.
Aren closed his eyes. Within his internal world, he found himself seated in the familiar lotus position upon the quiet expanse of his Internal Canvas.
To his side, the faint outline of his Dragon template stood dormant, almost like it was waiting for this.
For a mont, the incoming energy behaved exactly as expected. The massive stream of water energy rushed like a roaring river to the Fertile Core.
"Give so of that."
With deliberate control, he intercepted the current. The massive stream of water energy split in two.
One portion continued flowing into the Core, slowly replenishing its reserves. But the rest—Aren guided it away from the core entirely, redirecting it toward the Canvas itself.
The mont the energy reached it, the shallow pool beneath the Dragon template began to change.
The once-murky water slowly cleared. Ripples spread across its surface as the energy settled into it, the small pond growing purer with every passing second.
Aren remained perfectly still in his lotus position as the process continued. After a while, his channels were beginning to ache.
The steady stream of energy pressing through his body was starting to reach its limit. Even with the dampener keeping the Fertile Core restrained, the sheer density of ether from the Reverse Waterfall was beginning to saturate his system.
With a soft sigh, Aren checked his Records.
[Water Elent: Stage 3 → Stage 6]
Satisfied, he murmured. "...That’s enough for today."
With careful control, he cut off the flow. The roaring current outside imdiately faded from his senses as he withdrew his hand from the rising water.
"That’s a lot more effective than I thought," he said slowly. "If I stay here for a while longer, I could master my Water Elent."
The thought alone was tempting. Most Mystics either spent copious amounts of ti or money to refine their elent, slowly pushing through each stage with painstaking effort.
Yet here, after only a few days beside the Reverse Waterfall, his Water Elent had already jumped three full stages.
"...Still," he murmured quietly.
Sothing about it bothered him. When he had first managed to touch the current, he expected the pressure to be overwhelming.
But that wasn’t what he had felt. If anything...it had felt strangely thin.
Aren frowned slightly as the mory replayed in his mind. The water had pushed against him, yes. The force was powerful, but there had been a mont when it felt almost hollow—like sothing was missing.
"...Weird."
He stood up from the rock and walked back toward the base of the rising current. This ti, instead of just touching the edge, Aren pushed deeper into the spiraling column of water. The upward current wrapped around his body imdiately.
He expected the force to pick him up and send him flying into the sky, but strangely, none of that happened.
Aren stumbled forward as his feet suddenly t solid ground again.
"...What?"
When Aren looked up, his eyes widened slightly. He was standing inside a small cavern carved into the cliff face. Behind him, the entire Reverse Waterfall rushed upward like a massive curtain of water.
"...No way."
Aren slowly turned around, staring at the hidden space concealed behind the rising current.
A cave—
Hidden inside the waterfall itself.
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