127 Another Path

Several hours passed as Ed meditated on his fight and thoughts on the nightmares. Soon, he finished and left his room, returning to the ship deck.

The espers were still busy melting the ice around the ship. They had started melting the ice at the top of the frozen wave and worked their way down so the ship wouldn't crash into the ground. By now, the ship was once again in normal ocean water. However, ice still surrounded them on all sides for an inestimable distance.

"Yo." Ed yawned as he walked towards Tai. "Any idea how long it's going to take?" He asked while glancing at the frozen waves.

Tai frowned. "The espers are running out of steam. I've never even heard of the Water Nightmare freezing large volumes of water before." He shook his head while sighing. "Who knows how long it'll take for this ice to thaw naturally. We could be here for months at this rate."

"Months?!" Ed replied in shock. "Can't we just... carry the ship over the ice or something?" He questioned.

"And how do you propose we do that?!" Tai scoffed while pointing at the ice. "We could probably pull that off if the ice was flat but look at all the waves. It'd be the equivalent of climbing thousands of mountains as we continued."

"Then abandon the ship?" He asked.

Tai grimaced at the idea of abandoning his ship but nodded. "We might have to, but that presents its own problems. What if we reach the end of the ice before reaching land? We'd be stuck, and the ice might melt before we make it back to the ship. We could probably pair up flying espers with nonflying, but it's unlikely we'd be able to carry everyone for long distances across the open waters. And even if we solved all those problems, there's still no telling if we could even acquire a large ship in Japan. China doesn't exactly have the best relationship with them after all."

"Tsk." Ed clicked his tongue. "What a pain." He looked over the frozen waves and watched the espers shoot continuous streams of fire, but it was like watching paint dry. Even if they were making progress, it wasn't obvious to the naked eye in real-time. "Forget it." He waved as he turned around. "I'll just stay in closed door meditation until we make more progress."

Ed returned to his room and sat in meditation, frustrated by the fact that he had nothing he could currently progress in. Time slowly passed, and before he knew it, a week had gone by. He occasionally returned to the deck to check on things, but they were moving at a snail's pace. He even tried helping by using his purple flames, but the difference it made was marginal at best. He managed to melt some of the ice into steam, but the steam quickly reformed into ice which then fused with the frozen ocean.

Finally giving into both temptation and boredom, he took out his 11 purple mana-cores he had obtained from Tai. He knew that meditating on them could cause more soul cracks and kill him if he wasn't careful, but he figured he was good for at least one more breakthrough before it would reach that extreme. 'This is so stupid.' He sighed to himself while shaking his head, but he swallowed down a purple mana-core anyways.

Ed appeared within a void. He could vaguely sense the 49 paths, of which he had already completed one. At first, he planned to meditate on the path of fire once again, in attempt to connect with the red fire that had ran from him previously. Yet surprisingly, he sensed a strong connection in another direction. 'Water?' He wondered as he focused on the paths opposite of fire.

He could sense seven paths of water. Of the seven, five felt extremely vague and intangible. One felt mostly unobtainable. But now, there was an additional path that seemed to loudly call for him. He slowly concentrated on it, attempting to connect with it. Soon, he sensed a reddish colored water. 'The red path of water? So, fire and water basically?' He thought as he tried to connect with it.

The red water gave him an interesting feeling. Like the red fire he had previously connected with, it was warm and kind. Yet beneath that warmness was a cold detachment, as if the warmth was really only a facade put on for others. Somehow, this made it far easier for him to feel connected with it, perhaps because he often put on the facade of Forge himself. Slowly, he grew closer to the red water, feeling as if it was him and he was it.

"Ugh." Ed groaned as he suddenly woke up from meditation. Only a couple hours had passed, but he had made tremendous progress. Lifting his hand up in front of him, a few drops of red water appeared. They were hot to the touch, and they soon evaporated into steam which he could also control. Pleased by his success, and almost obsessively desiring more, he hurriedly swallowed another purple mana-core and reentered meditation.

Again, Ed connected with the red water, the bond growing ever deeper. Much to his joy, he felt no resistance as all like he had with the red flame. Two hours passed, and he again finished the purple mana-core. Not wanting to be interrupted further, he directly swallowed the nine remaining purple mana-cores all at once, guaranteeing he would be able to stay in meditation for nearly a day.

As he meditated, his body slowly turned red, and wisps of steam rose into the air. A portion of the water section of his seven-colored mana-core slowly turned purple as he continued making progress. Soon, he finished and awoke from meditation, having mastered another of the 49 paths.

Red water covered Ed's body as he called upon the power of the path. The hot water was fully controllable by him, and he easily converted it to equally controllable steam. 'It reminds me of my early days when I relied on steam cores for my arms.' He chuckled to himself as he played with the power, forming the steam into various shapes and images.

Suddenly, Ed felt a shattering sound as new cracks appeared in soul. His eyes widened in fear for a brief moment before he quickly calmed down. 'That went much better than expected.' He sighed in relief. Nearly half his soul had cracked when mastering his first path, but surprisingly his 2nd path had only caused a few more cracks than he already had. 'Is it because my soul got stronger from the spiders' golden faith energy?' He wondered. 'No, that can't be it.' He shook his head, knowing his soul was already plenty strong from before the spiders. 'I doubt my damaged soul just got used to these types of breakthroughs either... then is it balance?' He rubbed his chin while nodding to himself. 'That must be it. The water element counterbalances the fire element, so I only got a few soul cracks with the new addition. Even those cracks are probably only because of the slight differences between the red path of water and the silver path of fire.'

Standing up from his bed, he exited his room and returned to deck, knowing that it was likely little progress had been made. Walking to the ship railing, he sighed. 'We're still stuck...' The espers were no longer working as hard, having split into designated shifts for melting the ice. The non-fire espers had it even easier, as they couldn't help much even if they wanted to.

'I might as well give it a try too, I guess.' When he had tried his purple flames previously, they didn't make a big enough difference to make it worth his time. He also hadn't bothered attempting his silver flames upon the ice, as he had already watched Tai fail when using all seven paths of fire. 'I wonder how my new path will work on it?' Determined to speed up the process, he flew down from the ship and landed atop the frozen ocean. Red water swirled around his body, and he fired it forward.

The ice melted slightly when coming into contact with the hot water, creating steam in the air. Unfortunately, the remnants of the water quickly froze, and the steam turned to ice as well. By the time he was finished, there was more ice than he had started with!

"Damn it!" Ed frowned as he kicked against the icy ground in frustration.

"Ed!" A voice called from the ship.

Ed turned around to see Tai flying towards him atop a flame dragon. "What's up?" He questioned.

"Ed!" Tai excitedly landed and grabbed him by the shoulders. "Was that the red path of water I just saw you using?!"

"Mm." He nodded. "I just mastered it and figured I'd give it a try, but it only made things worse." He sighed while shaking his head.

"What about purple water?!" Tai questioned excitedly. "Did you manage to obtain it?"

"Purple water?" Ed rose an eyebrow while rubbing his chin. "I haven't tried it yet." He admitted. "I've tried using the other purple elements in the past but have had no success." Knowing that a seventh of the blue section of his mana-core had turned purple, it made sense for him to now attempt it again. He rose his arms towards the ice and concentrated. Purple mana flowed through his body and concentrated on his hands. At first, purple flames appeared, likely due to force of habit or his body's memory. Focusing carefully, the purple flames vanished and were replaced by swirling balls of purple water.

"You did it!" Tai yelled ecstatically. "Chimera bodies are truly amazing! A shortcut like this is a godsend! To obtain the origin element after mastering just a single path. Most espers must master seven paths before obtaining the origin element, and even then it isn't guaranteed. Someone is considered a genius if they can obtain the origin element in just four or five paths, but you only take one!" His eyes sparkled with envy as he stared at Ed.

"Right..." Ed nodded while returning to the task at hand. Shooting the purple water forward, he again managed to melt away some of the ice. Fortunately, it seemed the ice couldn't manage to freeze the remnants of the purple water, meaning that just like the ice, the purple water would remain in place until all of its mana naturally evaporated.

"Damn." He sighed while shaking his head. "It works, but it's still too slow. It would take weeks at this rate."

"A pity." Tai sighed as well, waving his fan towards his face. He thought for a moment before hesitantly making a suggestion. "Why not try both purple fire and water at the same time?"

"I don't really see it making a big difference." He shrugged. "But why not. Not like we have anything to lose." Concentrating again, he created purple flames in one hand and purple water in the other. Slowly, he brought his hands together and shot a stream of both elements forward. The purple water and flames mixed, quickly turning into purple steam that spread in all directions. Surprisingly, it seemed to work fairly well. It was accomplishing less work in a single small area, but more overall work in a large area.

"Interesting." Tai's eyes sparkled with interest as he watched. "It's still a bit slow though..." He waved his fan while glancing back at the ship. "What if we have you concentrate only on creating steam while the other espers use ordinary wind to spread it forward?"

"Alright." He agreed, choosing not to negotiate a price for once. He didn't wish to be stuck in the middle of the ocean any more than the rest of the espers.

Tai returned to the ship and began giving orders. Soon, nearly a hundred wind espers joined Ed on the ice. Ed concentrated on creating large quantities of purple steam. He wasted no effort in controlling the steam nor directing it. Instead, he left that job to the horde of wind espers.

The wind espers struggled to keep the purple steam contained and going in the correct direction. Their green and other colored winds were inferior in quality when compared to the purple origin elements, making their task extremely difficult. Fortunately, what they lacked in quality they more than made up for in quantity. Together, they worked to keep the steam just wide enough to form a path for the ship to take. They held the steam in place for roughly fifteen minutes at a time, melting the ice to open a stretch of the path forward.

Days passed as the espers and Ed continued their work. Over time, their efficiency and teamwork improved, greatly speeding up their progress. Finally, after nearly a week of effort, they escaped the frozen waters and returned to the normal ocean.

"Finally!" A esper screamed in celebration.

"I swear to god, once we reach China, I'm never stepping foot on another boat again!" Another esper yelled.

Many other espers celebrated or complained atop the ship until Tai interrupted them. "Enough!" He shouted. "Get back to your stations. All wind and fire espers can take a break, but the rest of you have been on vacation for two weeks! We're way behind schedule! Chop, chop!" He clapped his hands.

Much of the crew returned to work, unfurling sails, pulling ropes, directing the rudder, and more. Soon, the ship was sailing on its way, leaving the land of the nightmare far behind.

...

Later that night. Ed sat with Tai, Rubi, and some other important espers at a dinner table.

"A toast!" Tai raised his wine cup. "Without Ed, god only knows how long we'd be trapped in that hellish frozen wasteland."

"Cheers!" The other espers yelled as they clinked their glasses.

Ed sipped on his wine, internally wishing it was a bottle of rum instead. "So, where are we heading next?" He questioned. "I figured we'd need to stop for repairs, but the ship is in better shape than I expected."

"We're going to make a pit stop at Japan." Tai replied. "We may be able to recruit some newly awakened espers from the nightmare attack, though we missed the best opportunity since we were trapped for so long. Besides." His eyes narrowed as he smiled. "The mutant we're hunting just so happens to be in Japan."