Aida lingered on Master Dih’s concluding lines of Master Jin’s Teachings: Volume 1: “It is important to know the history, because then can one understand the context in which Master Jin teaches. As one may observe, the two Masters have lived through tragic events, and it is those experiences that inform their lessons.”

  She leafed through the previous pages, rereading passages, trying to read deeper between the lines of what Master Dih had recorded.

  Her takeaway of events was that the Metal Masters’ tale was a classic love story. Master Jin had met Master Joo in his childhood as rivals from different tribes, during a time when nobody had any idea about how elemental mana worked. Jin was described as lonely, because even though his tribe didn’t outright ostracize him for his ability to pull metal out of the earth, children his age certainly felt he wasn’t normal enough to be a playmate or a peer. The adults valued him for being able to produce metal tools for them and therefore were kind to him, but that still didn’t mean he had friends in them.

  He met Joo one day while he was pulling metal out of a riverbank, doing the same thing. They recognized each other as strangers, yet the fact that the other child could do the same thing made them feel like they were kin. They weren’t able to communicate, since their tribes spoke different dialects, and they were reclusive as a matter of survival.

  Presumably Joo experienced similar feelings of loneliness, as the two struck up a friendship. Not by directly talking to each other, but by challenging each other to shape unique metal pieces, each child careful to stay on his or her side of the river. Eventually, they introduced themselves. Then taught each other basic words. Finally, they were able to communicate verbally, in some sort of broken, hybrid language comprised of their two dialects.

  As they grew physically, so did their mana powers. The two of them challenged each other, finding a friendly rival in the other. First it was to see who could draw the most amount of metal out. Then it was who could do it the quickest. Then who could make the sturdiest piece. Eventually, both of them just tried to impress the other by sharing small inventions or intricate art pieces.

  And yet neither one of them crossed the river.

  Finally, the day came when Jin’s tribe decided they had to leave. The area was getting overrun by monsters, and they were sustaining too many casualties, even with Jin’s improved blades and protective wear.

  Jin was torn. He tried to convince his tribe to cross the river, perhaps join forces with Joo’s tribe. Safety in numbers and all that. But his people adamantly refused, as their tribe elder insisted that crossing the river would mean displaying their weakness to the other tribe: they didn’t know the lay of the land, and would easily be taken advantage of by the tribe that had already established their roots there. No, it was safer to methodically move elsewhere, take time to scout ahead while they still remained in familiar territory.

  Jin tried to reassure them they would receive help, as he had made a friend in the other tribe, someone like him; but that seemed to cement their stubbornness even more. They maintained that his abilities were their only advantage over other tribes, and if the other tribe had one of their own, that meant they were definitively on the back foot.

  Heartbroken, Jin went to the river, contemplating crossing the river himself to find Joo, when Joo found him herself. She had apparently felt his distress, so made her way to their regular meeting spot despite it being late.

  Unfortunately, telling Joo his troubles did nothing to resolve his predicament, because Joo was equally bewildered. She promised to convince her people to come help, but they both knew she was also a figurehead: treated with respect because of her abilities, but ultimately that respect was rendered hollow because no one trusted her judgment when it came to making decisions about tribal lifestyle.

  Jin returned home, trying to maintain the fleeting hope that Joo would be able to come through for him and his people. But it seemed like the world was conspiring against Jin, as that night was when their tiny village was overrun by wolves.

  Jin fought valiantly alongside his tribesmen, demonstrating his fully developed skill with metal by transforming all the half-packed cooking utensils into deadly weapons and artillery, but the wolves were massive and coordinated, obligingly avoiding Jin’s maelstrom to hunt the more vulnerable of his tribe.

  Joo, across the river with her own tribe and faced with the very real prospect of losing her one and only true friend, faced the expected stonewalling from her tribe. They regretfully said they did not have enough hunting ground to share resources with another tribe, so they weren’t willing to encourage the tribe from across the river to join them. As Joo headed back to the river in a fit of anger, she again felt Jin’s distress - except it was much more frantic.

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  Not knowing what to expect, Joo forged her way across the river, honing in on Jin’s swirling mana like a moth to a flame. She arrived just in time to disrupt the ring the wolves made around the mothers and children, buying time for Jin and the other warriors to collapse upon the wolves.

  Jin and Joo fought back to back, drawing upon each other for inspiration on the creative ways they could use the metal in their surroundings to kill the wolves.

  Unfortunately, the wolves weren’t the biggest threat. As soon as everybody relaxed after the fight, nocturnal scavengers arrived, drawn by blood. Creatures with sharp, snapping pincers burst out of the ground underfoot, making it nearly impossible for Jin’s people to predict where to flee. Winged beasts with glowing eyes swept upon them, so they couldn’t even climb trees to avoid the living traps on the ground.

  Jin and Joo looked at each other, and drew the same conclusion: it was up to them to save Jin’s people.

  They reached for each other, and held each other’s hands for the first time. After years of training, playing together, they were completely familiar with each other’s mana. Where they had objectively noted weaknesses in the other’s technique, but were unable to explain how to rectify that weakness, they were able to fuse their mana together and cover those weaknesses.

  As one, they were able to sense all the life forms in Jin’s village, and repel the creatures with their overwhelming united power.

  The story didn’t end there, however. Having witnessed Jin and Joo’s combined might, Jin’s tribe was terrified. They saw it as stealing power from the gods, and were certain doom would be visited upon them if Jin continued to dishonor the heavens by using their powers as a mere mortal.

  Worn down by his tribe’s will, Jin saw Joo off at the river, convinced leaving with his tribe was the correct course of action.

  Again, the story didn’t end there. Jin and Joo both said goodbye, expecting to never see the other again. But the further Jin traveled with his surviving tribe members, the stronger the yearning to be with Joo became. Until eventually, Jin crept away in the middle of the night, heading back to the river that had seemed so impassible for the entirety of his life.

  Fortunately, Joo felt the same way: life wasn’t worth living if he wasn’t there. They managed to find each other, each having abandoned his and her tribe, in utterly unfamiliar terrain. Despite not knowing what danger would come for the two young adults, they weren’t afraid; they were convinced as long as they were together, they would be fine.

  And that was true, for a long period of time. Jin and Joo saw several sun cycles pass, the two of them in blissful isolation. They deepened their understanding of mana, able to see how every living creature’s mana was tied to the earth. They experimented with and perfected mana techniques, such that they didn’t have to lift a finger in order to hunt and gather food.

  But eventually, as Jin and Joo became veritable masters, they realized they had been in isolation for too long. In one of their meditative trances, they saw too many things had changed while they continued to play with each other. Their tribes, as well as numerous other unknown groups, had perished. They also saw several other people with elemental aptitudes (most of them children), which piqued their curiosity.

  The natural next step, driven by guilt over their selfish pursuit of their own indulgences, was to step forward and make a difference: find the children who discovered their aptitudes, and pass on their learnings; grow the next generation of practitioners, because they were to be the future if humanity was to survive.

  They tried traveling together, teaching the children practitioners they’ve discovered, but found it was far too easy to be lost in each other’s comforting presence, keeping their mana intertwined, than focusing on the more secular events happening in the world.

  Eventually, they had to admit to themselves that they couldn’t continue living the way they had been - not if they wanted to improve the plight of humanity. They had to go their separate ways, and focus on the children. Ignore their desires in order to serve the greater good.

  Aida exhaled. She wasn’t sure how accurate the retelling of Jin and Joo’s origin story was, because their motivations sounded overly noble. And based on the language Master Jin’s disciple used, she could easily imagine his image being elevated beyond reality.

  Regardless, now Professor Bruce’s concerns were more tangible. It sounded like the two Masters were out of commission for several years, as they enjoyed their lovey-dovey arc. Losing two mana practitioners during such a critical time would be a massive setback to their survival effort.

  Fortunately, Aida wasn’t feeling any crippling longing for Dev.

  Aida sighed, gazing out her bedroom window, her throat catching again as she imagined Ezra’s silhouette outlined in moonlight.

  She wondered if Ezra knew about the Metal Masters’ lore. He must have - he had so many books on his shelf in his room.

  Aida snorted as she compared Ezra’s character with the two Masters’. They’re all pretty stubborn. Unable to balance love and duty at the same time.

  Angrily flipping the book shut, Aida tucked herself into bed. At least she didn’t have to worry about the problem Bruce raised. As long as she and Dev didn’t have reason to combine their mana anymore, they could avoid any risk of becoming codependent on each other.