"Hey, how's it going?"
"Pretty well," Kyle answered as Sebastian suddenly popped up beside him. "Look at this!"
Kyle summoned a grey flame and held it out to Sebastian, who looked at it with interest.
"That feels different," Sebastian said. "I've never felt this kind of Ether before, but I can tell that it has some Metal and Fire Ether."
Sebastian slowly moved his hand to the flame, and his eyes widened in surprise.
How was this flame so hard?!
"Crazy, right?" Kyle asked.
"This is so weird," Sebastian answered. "This thing doesn't even feel real. This reminds me of when I tried to get into quantum physics. That stuff just confused me to no end."
"You're progressing pretty quickly," Sebastian added.
"Yeah, no, I'm not so sure about that," Kyle answered with a snort, dispersing the flame. "This is just the fusion of Metal and Fire. I still gotta do metal and wind, and fire and wind. Then, I gotta do all three."
Sebastian sighed. "So, I have to wait longer, huh?"
"Yep," Kyle said. "I don't even know how long I've been here, but I'm probably not even close to done."
"It's been five years," Sebastian said.
"Wait, what?" Kyle asked with surprise. "Five whole years?"
Sebastian just nodded.
Kyle blinked a couple of times. "Huh, wouldn't you know? Time really flies when you're having work."
"Isn't it supposed to be fun?" Sebastian asked.
"Nah, this is not fun," Kyle said. "It's just trial and error without any tangible reward. It's cool that I can do this stuff, but my power hasn't increased."
"You don't enjoy the process?" Sebastian asked. "I love discovering new stuff. Sometimes, I even lament a tiny bit when I understand a Law."
Kyle snorted. "You're one of THOSE, huh?"
"One of THOSE?" Sebastian asked with a raised brow.
"People who claim they enjoy lifting weights and doing sports," Kyle said.
"Nah, I'm not a fan of sports," Sebastian said. "I just like discovering things."
"Speaking of, how did the Biological Laws go?" Kyle asked.
"I don't even have a single Fragment yet, and I'm nowhere close to understanding any," Sebastian said with a sigh. "It is so different from what I'm used to. I thought I would be able to get the Fragment of Nerves pretty quickly since nerves use electric signals."
Sebastian snorted. "Fat chance! Turns out, bodies here, at least our bodies, don't use electricity to transmit signals."
Kyle blinked. "But your lightning still works on the nerves, right?"
"Yes, but they don't really use electricity. You can also manipulate iron with electricity. It doesn't need to have a current to get stuck to a magnet."
"Then, what do nerves use?" Kyle asked.
"Fucking Biological Ether," Sebastian said.
"Huh, makes sense," Kyle said.
Sebastian looked at Kyle with surprise. "How come you're not surprised?"
Kyle summoned the grey flame again. "I realized that you need to make a new kind of Ether to comprehend a Complex Law. I'm not surprised that there is also a kind of special Ether for bodies."
"Anyway, I gotta get back to work."
"Already?" Sebastian asked.
"I mean, yeah, I wanna finish this thing," Kyle said.
"Don't you want to take a break sometimes?" Sebastian asked.
"What's the point?" Kyle asked with a shrug. "I don't have anyone to talk to besides you, and I also don't mind. I kinda don't want anyone else to talk to. Also, what am I supposed to do? Look at the wall?"
"I dunno," Sebastian said. "Do something fun. Like, looking at the world or something."
"But I'm not interested," Kyle said.
"Make friends?" Sebastian asked.
"Not interested."
"Party?"
"Not interested."
"Romance?"
"Nah."
"Learn something new?"
"I'm doing that right now."
"Search for ancient ruins?"
"That doesn't improve my power."
"Yeah, but it feels fun to find ruins that humans haven't seen for thousands of years."
"No, it doesn't. If I wanted to know about the past, I would just ask the Duchess."
"Go fishing?"
"Why? I can enter the water and just grab the fish."
"But don't you feel stifled by only looking at Laws the entire day? Don't you want some variety?"
"Eh," Kyle answered with a shrug. "It's not fun, but it gets the job done."
Sebastian was running out of suggestions.
"So, you just want to look at Laws?" he asked.
"Best use of my time," Kyle answered.
"Say, Kyle," Sebastian said. "When was the last time you had fun?"
"When I killed that Harald guy," Kyle said with a small smirk.
"And before that?" Sebastian asked.
"I dunno. Probably when I understood the Law of Fire and experimented with it."
Sebastian scratched the side of his head. "You don't seem to have a lot of fun."
"It's not about quantity but quality," Kyle said. "Understanding a Law is like killing a difficult boss you've been fighting for hours. Feels satisfying as fuck."
Sebastian looked at Kyle with interest.
It was interesting to see that, compared to the beginning of the conversation, they had switched places. In the beginning, Sebastian had said that he loved learning Laws, while Kyle had said that it was work.
But now, it sounded like Kyle wanted to do it more than Sebastian.
It was almost like Kyle wanted to work more than Sebastian wanted to have fun.
"Yeah, well, seems like everything's going alright," Sebastian said. "Guess I'll leave you to it. You know where you can find me."
"Yep," Kyle said with a smile. "If I get bored, I'll come over."
"Sure thing," Sebastian said.
The two of them said their goodbyes, and Sebastian left again.
Meanwhile, Kyle returned to experimenting with Wind and Metal Ether.
'Still crazy to think that five years have passed,' he thought. 'Doesn't even feel like that long. I would've guessed that, at most, one year has passed.'
'Fucking time inflation, man. One year isn't worth as much as it used to be. I still remember when one year could be exchanged for twelve months. Now, a year feels more like a month.'
'Time economy is going downhill.'
'Anyway,' Kyle thought as he looked at the small pile of broken metal debris on the ground. 'Gotta continue.'
tg://resolv?domain=StrongestHammerGod
The author's patreon. If he gets more than 1000€ per month, he will increase the number of words in the chapter.