(MNIBP)Chapter 46 - Extreme Elemental Wheel

The Highlands, New Jersey, USA.

Ben's P.O.V.

After the two stayed in each other's embrace for a while, the petite woman let go while commenting in a teasing tone. “Unlike you, I still need to eat something if I don't want to faint from hunger, so I'll go now.” With a slightly amused grin on his face, he replied. “Your appetite did grow a lot since you started cultivating, Love.”

Looking a bit frustrated, she replied. “I know, right? I've always been feeling hungry these past few days. Thank God for your increase in salary because the food budget has blown up so much with everyone eating so much more!” Chuckling lightly, he retorted. “Wait for the others to reach your Level! Especially the kids. I'm sure we'll have to go grocery shopping every day at that point.”

He could see her shiver at his words before she replied. “Oh God! Best not to think about it!” Shaking her head she added with a fake irritated look on her face. “Just go learn some spells instead of scaring me like that.” The woman then left through the stairs, while a mischievous smile adorned her face. As for Ben, he stared at her graceful back for a moment, while a few chuckles escaped his lips.

Shaking his head lightly, he then left for the office behind, swiftly moving toward one of the desks on which a Holo-Computer was resting. Once seated, he turned it on and started browsing through the different spells available. Since the middle-aged man had a Five-Element affinity, he quickly checked the ones under that tab.

'Offensive, Defensive, Others... Which one should I start with?' He pondered for a few seconds. 'I guess I could get one of each... As for 'Others', I can check if there's one that can hide one's cultivation base.' Having decided, the silver-eyed man selected the Offensive Spells tab.

'Let's start with the offensive ones...' He then proceeded to comb through every spells available in there until around half an hour later he had chosen those he felt suited him the best. Of course, since his time was limited, he would pick one to start practicing first and, since his most glaring weakness was his lack of long-range means of attack, it was easy to determine which one took precedence.

Sure, he had a gun provided by SHIELD, but what if that weapon were to malfunction? He would also outgrew it once he reached the Elite Rank. What then? When his enemies were physically faster than him or could fly while he could not, what was he supposed to do? After the previous attack on New York City, he knew that those situations were very likely to happen, which meant that it was an issue that he had to address very quickly.

Thankfully, the Five-elements characteristic was that, by achieving the perfect balance with the Five Elements, one could reach incredible 'firepower', whether offensively or defensively. He understood clearly that fact when he began memorizing the Novice part of the several spells he picked.

Indeed, all those magic spells present in the database were part of a full series, spanning from the Novice Rank to the Mythical Rank, with an increase in their power Level for each particular Rank along with an increase in difficulty in mastering them. Similar to his cultivation scripture, however, the Novice Rank Spells were relatively easy to learn. At least up to the Intermediate Proficiency. Going beyond that would depend on the cultivator's respective comprehension.

In any case, the middle-aged man would think about that later when he would cross that bridge. In the meantime, his mind was focused on recalling every word and punctuation describing the Five-element magic on the Holo-Computer. At one point, he was joined by his team of three and his wife. After a quick chat, they each went toward their respective desk for a few hours before leaving for the training room.

At one point, Madeline and the three kids also arrived in the room, prompting the silver-eyed man to stop what he was doing. Fortunately, with the photographic memory granted by his Cultivation base, it did not take him too long to remember everything. Understanding and applying it, however, were something else entirely.

When they showed up, he was actually reading some general things about the gunsmith profession, the latter being the professional path he thought about following. From the description, it seemed to suit him perfectly, strengthening his previous idea of using the gun as his main weapon. He already had some idea about the type, but he would need to increase his knowledge of Gunsmithing a lot more to get there, and with the new spells he planned to master, he had to shove that idea to the side for the time being.

In any case, the rest of his morning was mostly spent helping Gayle learn how to read and write, much like the previous day. The adults left for the Training room in a bid to reach the Novice rank as quickly as possible for those in the Mortal Transcending Rank, while those who were already there started training with their own spells.

All in all, it was quite a busy morning for everyone and after a hearty lunch, the afternoon was as, if not fuller. This time, Ben started teaching the three kids how to synchronize their movements and their breathing, while from time to time correcting the three women's mistakes he caught thanks to his Divine Sense.

Around two hours later, the silver-eyed man felt like the children were proficient enough to train by themselves, prompting him to declare. “Keep at it, kiddos. You'll soon become strong cultivators.” Pausing for a second, he added. “I'll be training my spells in the arena for a while.”

As soon as his words left his lips, he moved swiftly toward the closed-off ring close by, his heart filled with a childish excitement at the idea of finally being able to use magic spells. After all, who had not dreamed of throwing fireballs around while flying around with wind spells? Maybe not everyone, but he certainly did!

Shaking his head to disperse those youthful dreams, he thought, amused. 'Flying may be a bit too much for now, and fireballs are not really on my to-do list. The spells I chose are pretty cool, though.' As he penetrated inside the arena, he was suddenly assaulted by some loud noises coming from two sides of the sizable room.

On one side, he could see Marco manipulating the floating sand around his body to attack a metallic pillar. On the other side, Ben spotted Andrew's body flickering in and out of sight while attacking another similar pillar. 'Those two seemed to have progressed really well with their respective spells... I really need to hurry up with my practice!' He thought as he activated another pillar on one of the arena's sides from the Holo-Display on the door's side.

Soon after, a human-sized and grey-colored column silently emerged from the ground not too far from his location, prompting him to leisurely walk toward it. Once in front of it, Ben closed his eyes and recalled the spell he planned to practice first. 'Extreme Elemental Wheel. A fitting name.' He thought while sporting an anticipatory grin.

Shaking his head lightly, the silver-eyed man then focused his mind on trying to recall the process of creating the magic. 'First, I need to be able to balance the five elements until I can create a static wheel. Then, I need to make it spin at a certain speed. And the last part is to throw it toward my target, all the while keeping the Elements balanced and the wheel spinning... I guess I've got some work to do!'

After taking a deep breath, the middle-aged man started to move his inner energy toward his right hand. Once there, he tried to turn it into a Five-Way Wheel. Unfortunately, as he was about to succeed the disk suddenly exploded violently, pushing him back a few steps and burning a part of his shirt.

Luckily, even Mid-Caliber bullets would not be able to hurt him with his current physique, so the explosion only left some red marks on his right hand which started to fade almost instantly. “My shirt is done for, though...” He mumbled as his gaze met what was previously a blue short-sleeve shirt and now could barely be considered scraps.

His pants were fine, though, as his mind instinctively moved a small portion of his inner energy to protect them when he felt the balance in his spell faltering. 'I truly need sturdier clothes, or I might run out very quickly.' Shoving that thought aside, he ripped the few fragments still hanging on his upper body and threw them on the floor a few feet away before thinking about what went wrong.

'The Fire Element was too strong, and the Water too weak. The rest had a good ratio. More or less.' He thought seriously, not intending to give up. Now aware of his mistakes, he refocused his attention on moving his energy toward his right hand, then started shaping it into a Five-Element wheel.

Similarly to his previous attempt, the wheel exploded right before forming a disk. This time, however, he noticed that it was the Earth and Metal Elements that did not want to behave, creating an imbalance in the energy construct. Letting out a sigh of mild frustration, the middle-aged man summed up the previous two experiments. 'Balancing three Elements is relatively easy, Four is a challenge and Five is incredibly hard. Well, no one said it'd be a walk in the park, I guess.'

Despite the two failures, Ben did not feel too bad. Would he prefer being able to master the spell on his first try? Obviously! However, he learned throughout his 44 years of life that simple did not mean easy, and braving the difficulty could lead to amazing things, sometimes completely unexpected. 'It should be the same here.' He thought with a small grin on his face, excited by the challenge in front of him.

With a strong determination, the middle-aged man then proceeded to practice again and again despite the constant blasts. Nonetheless, his intuition told him that he was coming closer to success with each attempt. And indeed, around half an hour later, he finally succeeded in balancing the Five Elements to form an Elemental Wheel. It was still static, but it still delighted Ben, the latter wearing a joyful grin on his face.

'The first step is done and it didn't take that long! From the spell's information, the higher the purity of my inner energy, the easier it becomes to balance the Elements. Since it only took me 30 minutes instead of hours, it's probably true.' He thought while admiring the five-colored energy construct hovering over his right hand.

'Now to the rotation!' He inwardly stated before using his mind to slowly rotate the wheel. The first time, it blew up again as balancing immobile Elements and moving ones were two completely different concepts. Fortunately, as the middle-aged man already found the trick to materialize the energy wheel, it only took him less than a few seconds to succeed a second time and try to rotate the disk again.

The following half hour was pretty much a repeat of the previous one with several explosions at first, followed by the wheel moving a little, stopping, then moving again. It was a bit tedious for the middle-aged man who felt that the theory was simple, but the practice seemed to elude him every time.

Despite his previous failure, his familiarity with the spell kept growing along with the number of tries, until at one point the disk finally rotated smoothly, creating a blended picture of five colors in a disk form. Letting out a sigh of relief, he mumbled. “Finally! I've only got the last step to follow and I'll be able to use it in combat, even if I'd have only reached Basic Proficiency.”

An hour later, the silver-eyed man was looking at the spinning wheel hitting the metallic pillar with a loud noise. The disk kept spinning until all the energy inside was spent. Once it disappeared, the column looked completely intact. It did not disappoint Ben, however, who sported a satisfied smile on his face. “Basic Proficiency achieved!”

As the feeling of relief washed over his tired body, he could not help but sit down to recover his spent inner energy, something he had to do multiple times during the training session, despite limiting its output when using the spell. 'Now, I only need to lower the energy cost and increase the firepower. Piece of cake!' He thought, amused.

Shaking his head, the middle-aged man decided to stop his spell training for now and rest for a few minutes before going to the girls to help them train their close combat skills, something they were in dire need of.