Theron lost himself in a trance. Honestly speaking, he didn't expect to find something so easily. But when he was reading it… it was just so…
Gale and thunder. They were both so aggressive, so forceful, so violent, in a lot of ways.
Just now, Theron had found something interesting about the Gale Clan. They were only mentioned briefly in the book he just picked up, and it was clear that whatever was happening in earnest had been censored heavily. But what Theron read was enough.
They were a Wind Mancy Clan, and yet they struggled with something very interesting…
It was truly peculiar, and the mention of it was nothing more than a brief aside that Theron almost skipped over himself, let alone everyone else.
But there was a reason Theron latched onto it. It was because two separate times now, he felt something about his Resonance deepen when he almost lost control of his emotions and then stabilized it.
There was that moment he was "running" away from the Thistle's Spirit Mancer old man, leading him into a trap to be killed by the old man of the Daggers of the Night. And then there was that moment not too many days ago when a fiery heat came from his throat.
Theron was someone who paid into every little meticulous detail of everything, including himself and his own body. If not for the fact he had been experiencing that frosty breath since he was a youth—quite literally a baby in his mother's arms—he would have noticed that as well. But even he had his limits.
It wasn't as though he had been born as some overly meticulous savant.
These two times alone weren't enough for Theron to grasp much of anything… until he recalled the necklace.
Those hot and cold energies, that overwhelming clash in his mind that made it feel like his soul was being ground away.
Theron's eyes flashed with a blinding light as he pulled on something that shocked him.
It was just by a few degrees, barely perceptible at all, but he was certain.
His Water Mana just now had gotten colder.
With a snap, the Water Mana on Theron's finger vanished.
'This… this is far better than ice…'
Theron wasn't even close to being at the point of producing Mana anywhere near the frostiness of ice, but he saw the potential. He wasn't producing ice, he was producing cold water.
That didn't sound very impressive until you understood the science behind it.
Adding salt to water, for example, lowered its freezing point. That meant that you could bring water below zero and still have it stay in a liquid state. And, because it was in a liquid state, this water was far better than ice alone would be at lowering the temperature of surrounding things because its surface area was just so much greater, as were its contact points.
The best example of this was how someone could use mounds of snow to insulate themselves and survive a harsh winter storm, but if you tried to do the same with the same amount of water, even if you could somehow breathe under water, you'd die of hypothermia long before the storm could pass.
But Theron's chilly Water Mana… was far beyond just salt water.
Salt water had a lower specific heat than normal water, meaning not only was its freezing point lower, but it was also easier to heat up compared to normal water as well. This was the trade-off.
Didn't have this weakness.
Not only could he lower the freezing point, but it retained the exceptional specific heat of water, making it very difficult to budge even a single degree.
Theron's finger rose into the air again and he drew it across the air. This time, there was something about him that changed and he saw it shift in real time.
He snapped his fingers.
There it was… he was sure… his Water Mana had ticked up a few degrees this time.
Each time, the change was small, minor. But with Theron's control, he was sure that he hadn't made it up.
He seemed to have forgotten about the world around him entirely, feeling like a new world was opening up.
Theron suddenly stood to his feet, brushing past the young woman, he leapt down the ladder and kicked at the ledge, sending it soaring past where she was standing.
The eyes of the young woman widened.
How the hell was she supposed to get down now?!
Theron sat in silence, a book about the Bell and Harmon Clan before him… they too were known for their violent tempers and inability to control themselves.
'Is this a curse? Is this just a natural extension of who they are? What is this…?'
Gale and Thunder… they were both violent forces of nature, often used to depict just how furious the mother of all was.
Each was relentless and suffocating in their own way, but one came with a chilling sense of doom, while the other sparked a point of superheat more condensed than even the surface of the sun.
And yet the name still just felt so… empty. There felt like better names you could pick for such a thing, and if not for the fact Theron had experienced the changes to his Water Mana himself, he would have thought that he had made it up, as though he was trying to find meaning in a place there was none.
Just what was his family really? Was he just too young at the time for his father to find the right opportunity to tell him?
The confusion in Theron's eyes slowly faded into something else.
How strong would this make him in the future?