He has plenty of raw power already. His attacks may be straight forward, but they were effective. Movement isn’t too much of an issue either so far. Ever since he finally achieved being able to fully coat his body in lightning, he’s had no problem getting around. But still, a movement technique is absolutely on his list to tackle.

  A sensory ability is also high on his list. The expression knowledge is power isn’t an expression for nothing. The more aware Will can be, especially without his enemies knowing, the better.

  He also wants to find out what other properties lightning has in this world that it doesn’t in his old world. Find out what more he can do with it. Although he thinks that’ll be something that will take a while and will be something he’ll have to work on over time.

  An area of effect attack wouldn’t be a bad idea to learn, nor would an ultimate attack.

  He knows a lot about lightning in nature, but he hasn’t really ever thought about lightning in its other forms like a more condensed electricity or static electricity. Mankind has been using the former for hundreds of years and their entire society basically runs on it. He knows it’s used to power things obviously, but he doesn’t know much more than that.

  Think Will. What else does electricity do?

  It’s not really used for much else, at least nothing that Will knows of. He’s sure there are fields of science that use it for all hosts of reasons, but none he knows of.

  He thinks back to a few educational shows that were shown during school of how things work. One of them was a circuit breaker in a house. One of the warnings was to always make sure the power was shut off before messing with it. And if someone ever was getting electrocuted, not to try to grab them, but instead shut the power off. That if you did try to grab them you’d be electrocuted as well and held fixed in position…

  Hmm. Can I use that?

  Could he figure out a way to run a current of low power lightning through the ground to lock someone in place? Well he wouldn’t know until he tried.

  But he comes back to the same question. As useful as an ability like that would be, would he be better served by it or by trying to figure out techniques for any of the other areas?

  Will thought long and hard about it, weighing the pros and cons for both.

  At the end of it he decided, as nice as the versatility would be of being to hold people in place, a sensory ability would serve him better.

  But how to go about it?

  How could lightning be used to sense others?

  One idea that immediately came to mind of having a very thin sphere of lightning around him that when people walked through, he would be aware of it.

  An interesting application of static electricity, but there were three problems he could think of. One was that he’d never even tried to generate static electricity before. He quickly realized that he’d never even attempted to use his element with such fine tuned control before and wasn’t even sure if he could. Another problem was that he didn’t think the technique would even work.

  He had a decent understanding of his element and while a sphere of lightning around him had interesting applications, using it as a way to sense others wasn’t something he thought would be practical.

  And finally the third problem, anyone entering that field would probably be able to feel it. That kind of warning almost defeated the purpose of the ability in the first place.

  He mediated on the issue for a long time. Wracking his brain of what he knew of his element. Both from his old world and from what he’d managed to learn so far in this world.

  After a while and still coming up with nothing he sighs in frustration.

  “There a problem sparky?”

  He smiled ruefully despite his disappointment and anger in himself.

  “I’ve decided on a new technique I want to develop. But for the life of me I can’t figure out a way to apply my element to it to make it work.” He said.

  “I can tell. By the end there it looked like you were straining so hard you were about to crack a tooth and pop a blood vessel.”

  He looked over to Alea. She was lounging against her pack, feet crossed in front of her, socked feet close to the fire, her deep black hair pulled over one shoulder.

  “I’m sorry. Did I mess up your meditation? I sometimes get so lost in it that I don’t realize that I’m doing things like that.”

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  She smiles, seeming to find the whole thing funny.

  “Not at all. I’ve been done for about an hour.”

  He quirks an eyebrow at her. “How long have we been meditating?”

  “Four hours for me. About five for you.”

  “Dang. So weird how time can fly when you’re lost in thought like that.”

  “That’s meditation for ya.” She says as she tilts her head back and gazes up at the stars. “But, to help with your little problem.” She says as she lets herself take in the majesty of the night sky; a majesty that just recently got a little more breathtaking. “You’re trying too hard.”

  “And how exactly does that work?”

  “You’ve never heard of that before?” She scoffs good-naturedly. “Finally found something mr knowing-it-all doesn’t know.” She rolls her eyes with a big smile on her face.

  “Yea yea. Out with it flame girl.”

  “Flame girl? You’re horrible at this.” She says as she starts laughing at his attempt at a nickname.

  “Ok ok.” She says as her laughing calms down. “There’s a weird phenomenon that happens when you’re trying too hard to find an answer. To combat this people figured out that if you let yourself relax, the answer may come easier to you. People have even found success by doing other things. Taking a walk, engaging in a craft, or even just laying back and relaxing. Sometimes, after a little bit of time goes by, the answer just comes to them.”

  “And this works?”

  He thought he remembered a teacher talking about something similar once, he thinks the condition even has a name, but he can’t be sure.

  He shrugs his shoulders.

  “I guess it can’t hurt. Nothing lost but a little bit of time.”

  Alea nods at him. “Alright, I’m turning in. We probably stayed up way later than we should have and we still have a long way to go.” She gets up and makers her way into her tent.

  As she crawls in the fire extinguishes on it’s own.

  “I guess I’m going to bed to.” He mumbles to himself.

  “Say something?” Alea’s raised voice says through the fabric of her tent.

  He grumbles to himself a little more but makes it much more quiet this time as he makes his way into his own tent.

  The next morning the two of them break camp quickly and are soon on their way again.

  They’re not in enough of a rush to run or jog, but they keep a quick and steady walk. The miles went by faster than Will would have thought.

  As the day progresses and the noon sun shines down on him, warming him through his coat, Will found himself in a weird state.

  He found his legs didn’t feel sore at all and were almost in an automatic state where he didn’t have to try to put one foot in front of the other, it just happened and seemed to take no energy.

  His mind was oddly clear and his vision weirdly focused. The trail in front of him and Alea’s back about a dozen feet in front of him was all he could really see.

  An unknown amount of time went by with the sun warming him, and this odd trance soothing him.

  Suddenly he gasped and came to a sudden abrupt stop. Which felt oddly disorienting to him, because it felt like his feet wanted to keep going.

  “Electrical impulses!”

  Alea stopped when she heard his gasp and turned around to look at him.

  She had both hands gripping either strap of her pack, and her hair was tied up into a high ponytail. She looked at him with a questioning look.

  “Electrical what?”

  He stared wide eyed at her. “Electrical impulses! In the body-“ He quickly closed his mouth, cutting himself off.

  Is it a good idea to tell her this? He’s not sure if it’s secret knowledge, Taleya suggested things like this are considered such. He didn’t know if knowing would put her in danger, or if it would maybe even hurt her cultivation in some weird and unknown way.

  He looked at her and saw her waiting calmly for him to work out whatever internal struggle he was going through.

  He shrugged. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. But honestly the information would came out one way or the other. They traveled together too closely for any other outcome. And besides, did he trust her or not?

  So he spilled.

  “The body runs off of electrical impulses. The brain, the heart, the muscles, all of it. Through communication between organs and even motion, the body naturally generates electricity.” It wasn’t something he knew a lot about. Really he just knew surface information, and the only reason he even knew that much was because his teacher thought Will would enjoy knowing other facets of the element that he seemed to be so interested in.

  She frowns slightly and turns to face him fully.

  “Are you sure? How is that even possible?”

  “I’m sure. And I don’t know. I don’t understand it really myself. An old teacher of mine mentioned it to me once and it took me a while to remember. You were right though. I just needed to get my mind off it for a while. And then it came to me!”

  “Wait, this is a solution to your new technique? How does this help?”

  He thought it odd that she was just coming out and asking him that. A person’s techniques were supposed to be held incredibly close to the chest. Something that they generally didn’t share with basically anyone. That she asked either showed a deep level of trust or a deep level of disregard. He thinks he knows which one she means though.

  “I was trying to think of a way to develop a sensory technique. Some way to keep track of those around me. Especially because I seem to be having such a hard time with aura.”

  It wasn’t something he had thought of until just that second, but once he did he realized his choice of technique was the right one.

  “So say you’re right, and people do naturally produce lightning.”

  He was going to correct her on the terminology but let it go.

  “You think you can learn to sense it? And even if you figure out a way to do it, you think you could manage to keep the technique going at all times and devote enough of your attention to it to make it viable?”

  Well then…

  Alea had her faults, but she was insanely insightful and intelligent. She was able to immediately discern the issues with such a technique and poke holes through it.

  “Maybe? It’s worth a try at least. And from the few ways I could think of to make a sensory technique work, this seems like my best shot.”

  She shrugged one shoulder.

  “If you think so then I believe you. Good luck, and tell me if you need any help.”

  Will smiled. “Thanks. I will.”

  They continued back on their way, Will’s mind lost in thought as he tried to figure out how he might apply what he remembered to the new technique.

  After another hour or so he accidentally stumbles into Alea. She had stopped and he noticed it too late.

  “Alea what’s the problem? What’s-“ He stopped talking as he suddenly realizes why she had stopped walking.

  They had finally reached the road.