Arthur nodded absentmindedly when she spoke. Then he asked, "Is your master usually in the state of a ball of lightning?"
His question made her chuckle. He didn't understand why she was laughing, so he asked her, "What's funny?"
She said, "You said ball."
He still didn't understand what was funny about that. Seeing that he was still confused, she decided to skip the matter entirely.
So she replied, "He is usually in that state most of the time. My master is a man of action. He believes in actions more than words. Unfortunately, because of the restriction of lightning, he can't act too many times, or he will be assimilated."
"Since he can't act and he doesn't like talking, he goes into a dormant state most of the time. It can't be easy for him."
Arthur sighed and said, "I can imagine that it is not a pleasant experience."
Stella said with a sad tone, "Yeah."
Arthur encouraged her. "But you don't have that problem. So you can be as active as much as you want."
Her tone picked up as she said, "Yeah."
She smiled, which seemed to make her golden hair glow brighter.
This prompted him to ask, "Why didn't your skin and hair change color?"
She replied, "The short answer is because of my god physique."
He raised his eyebrow in surprise and asked, "Please tell me the long answer. I would like to know how exactly your god physique influenced your foundation."
Then he added quickly, "Of course you don't need to tell me if you don't want to share information about your foundation."
She shook her head and said, "I want to tell you."
Then she began to tell him how her domineering body had cheated Lightning Mana and affected her foundation. This involved exposing some of the talents that she created with her foundation, but she didn't mind telling him about it.
Usually, people keep the mechanism and talents of their foundation a secret. The fact that she didn't keep them a secret from him made him feel better about her snooping on him all the time.
They spoke until they reached the edge of her island. At this point, he could fly again. So he bid her farewell and soared away.
As he flew away, he thought back to the moment she had smiled. Then he snorted and said, "What I said was 'ball,' not 'balls.'"
He knew why she was laughing. He just didn't want to concede that what he said was funny, so he feigned ignorance.
He would have agreed that what he said was funny if he had said "balls." But he didn't say that. All he said was a ball.
When he thought of this, he chuckled and said, "Maybe it is funny."
At the end of the day, he found the idea of one ball being as funny, maybe even funnier, than two balls. After all, the state of one ball means that one of the balls is missing.
After amusing himself with the thought for a while, he shifted his attention to more serious matters. The serious matter is how to perfect the fusion of the wood and lightning element.
He wasn't being modest when he told Stella that Patriarch Thunder Drake had been more than helpful. He found the advice enlightening. Especially what the patriarch said to him after he turned to leave.
He said to himself, "So the unity of the two elements must also involve a unity with him. So it is a trinity, not a duality. I never thought of it like that."
"Not only do I know what I am missing, but I also know what I must do to fix my problem. It all depends on the common ground between the three parties, and that third ground must be my divine sense, not my foundation itself."
Originally, he had thought that there was something wrong with his foundation. After all, that was where the lightning and wood element both resided and transformed into each other.
If he hadn't received advice, he might have tried to tamper with his foundation in order to perfect the fusion of the two elements. Now that he has more information, he can say with certainty that doing something like that would be disastrous.
The information he has gained has also given him a direction to follow in order to perfect the harmony of wood and lightning. This direction has three criteria that underpin it. As long as he meets the three criteria, his problem will be solved.
The first criterion is that the fusion must involve him. The second criterion is that the fusion should be based on a common ground that is his divine sense.
The third criterion is that the fusion of the two elements must create something new with properties that wood and lightning don't have. An optional criterion is that what is created from the fusion must be unique.
The fourth criterion is optional because he doesn't need to pursue it. In fact, regardless of what he does, as long as he meets the first criterion and factors himself into the fusion, he is going to create something unique to himself.
These criteria might look obtuse or sound daunting, but they couldn't be clearer and easier to him. In fact, it is so easy for him to meet these three criteria that he has already thought of a feasible solution.
When he thought of this, he grinned and asked himself, "What do lightning, wood, and divine sense have in common?"
The answer is energy. The energy in particular is mana.
All three elements have their foundation based on mana. They are three different expressions of mana, but they are types of energy.
Going from there, he asked himself, "Since they are all energy, what do various kinds of energy have in common?"
The answer that came to him is a force field. In particular, his mind was fixated on the electromagnetic field. An electromagnetic field is something that every type of electromagnetic energy has in common.