The moment Vance made contact with the water, he snapped back to his senses. Then, he panicked. The water rushing past his ears did nothing to help his instant disorientation. For a moment, he reverted to the helpless youth that he'd hated being in his younger years.

At that moment, he realised his fear of being that person was greater even than his fear of drowning. No longer did he have to rely on luck for situations like this, so he waved his fears and anxiety aside and got to work like Leon would.

He pushed out his mana sense and his awareness was filled with water mana, no surprise there. What he needed was to find out where the water mana ended, so he pushed through it.

He turned his body to face the direction where he sensed neither water mana nor earth mana.

Vance was most certainly not an expert swimmer. He was fairly certain this was the first in his life he'd ever actually swum. He kicked his legs in a random pattern and tried to move his arms synchronously. It was largely ineffectual, but he could tell that he was making slow progress.

that's when his back slammed into a stone.

Vance was so focused on his task that he'd failed to pay enough attention to his mana sense. He was moving fast enough with the rivers current that the impact knocked a good amount of air out of his lungs, the water threatened to carry him around the rock, but he grabbed onto it and wrenched himself upwards.

He felt himself break through the surface of the water but the rock was too slippery to climb properly and he was bobbing with the waves.

He held onto the rock until he heard his friends running along the side of the river a few moments later. Vance felt a large concentration of water mana gather as James tried in vain to combat the flow of the river with a flow of water mana of his own. It was an impressive attempt, but the river was some 40 foot wide, there was no way he could stop its current.

He did manage to slow it down, localised around Vance. It was enough for Thomas to wade into the river and help pull Vance to safety. Mariah caught up a second later and helped in the effort.

Once he was out of the water, he stayed on his hands and knees for a second, giving a few enthusiastic coughs.

"What was that?!" Mariah shouted at him, she sounded pretty angry.

"I Have no idea," Vance answered through a few coughs. "One minute I was examining the earth mana, the next..." Vance didn't really want to say it out loud, he hesitated.

"Well?!" She seemed incessant.

"I thought I was a tree. Okay?!" He snapped.

Her eyes went wide, and she reeled backwards as if she was surprised that Vance would shout at her. Vance only became aware of her reaction when she buckled over and started laughing so hard that she nearly passed out.

James, on the other hand, seemed a little more intrigued.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what I said." Vance turned a little red in the face. "I felt this weird...connection with the trees, and the earth mana. Then, before I knew it, I was obsessed with finding water, or maybe water mana, I'm not entirely sure."

James' eyes went wide, for a totally different reason to Mariah, he looked to Thomas who had the same expression on his face.

"Vance." Tom began. "I need you to do me a favour. Can you try and shape earth mana, please?"

"I've never tried, I wouldn't even know how to start."

"Just do it, please."

"Please," James added.

He hesitated for a second, but he could hear they sounded sincere.

"...Alright."

He held out his hand and focused on the ground under his feet for reference. He didn't really know where to start. Wait, that wasn't strictly true. He didn't know why, but when he pictured the earth mana in the ground below him, he felt that strange connection again, but this time it was like a memory. He could only liken it to something he hadn't done for a really long time, but he'd never forget. Like how he knew the layout of his bedroom at home so perfectly that even if he didn't visit for forty years, he'd be able to draw you a perfect map.

After a minute of sorting out the confusion rolling through his head, he set his will to the task. After thirty seconds or so, he sensed the ambient mana he was holding begin to congeal, coming together into a clump. There, it gained a semblance of solidity and ceased to flow like ambient mana. Instead, it began to crumble.

James was the first to react.

"Holy shit."

"Yeah, no kidding," Thomas added.

Vance had no idea what was going on. "I don't understand, I've never tried this before, was I lucky or something?"

"Yeah, you could say that." Thomas, being the more experienced Arcanist, was the one to speak up.

"So, Vance, there are these stories that Arcanists like to tell. The basic idea behind all of them is that an Arcanist, like us, finds their way to some sort of source of powerful natural mana, maybe it's a location with a particularly large concentration due to natural conditions, or maybe it's the nest of some magical creature or something, whatever the circumstance, the stories tell of Arcanists tapping into that mana and experiencing it on such a fundamental level that they are enlightened. If my memory of these tales is correct, it's similar to what you're describing, a brief sense of existing as the mana does."

"Enlightened? That sounds pretty far fetched." Vance chimed in, folding his arms, dismissing the earth mana.

"Coming from the guy who just shaped earth mana on his first try?" James chided.

He couldn't argue with that. Vance focused inwards, looking for signs of change. Nothing. Although, On a whim, he tested a theory. He focused his mana sense on the river, feeling its flow, then held out his left hand.

He pictured that movement, that all-encompassing, constant motion that followed natural law. It had a destination and a home, though no living being could tell exactly where either was. It was one of nature's most powerful expressions of its own freedom and it carved out the land to fit its purpose.

Vance gathered ambient mana and slowly but surely, he moulded it into a violent, swirling vortex of water mana. He felt the sensation of standing near large waves impacting a cliff face, that gentle spray you felt all over when you were just the right distance away.

"You've got to be kidding me," James said, exasperated. "That took me months!"

By this point, Mariah had stopped laughing and had made her way over, perching over Vance's shoulder.

"How..." Thomas started to speak, then closed his mouth, he had no idea what to say.

"Wait, there's something to this..." Vance dismissed the water mana. He focused on a point in the centre of his palm and gathered ambient mana. He put his will to task and caused the mana to gather closely together, where it formed a point. It was a form of mana compression, but nothing absurd. He then willed the mana to grow, pushing it upwards. It stretched out upwards a tiny fraction, then his will shattered and the mana dispersed.

His friends looked at him, dumbstruck.

"Was that..." James asked, voice shaking.

"Wood mana, I think. Couldn't quite get it, that one's much harder." Vance felt that even though he'd made a start, he was nowhere near pulling that shift off, the process was much harder than anything he'd tried so far.

"I'm going back to the camp," Thomas said, turning on his heel.

"I hate you." James sounded bitter, he joined Thomas.

"Ignore them," Mariah said. She was standing behind him and had leant up against his back, draping her arms over his shoulders so that she was looking down at where he'd been gathering mana. "They're just jealous. So am I as a matter of fact, how did you do it? Do I just have to kiss the trees? Because I will."

"Honestly Mariah, I have no idea."

Back at the campsite shortly thereafter, Vance caught Mariah talking to a nearby tree, asking it to tell her various secrets.

James and Thomas were angrily explaining to Brad how "stupid Vance over there fell in love with the ground or something and now he can perform two new shifts, nearly three!"

Vance could tell they weren't really mad. Brad didn't really notice a problem and just gave Vance a grumbled "Nice."

Then he produced a small bundle of food and snacks from his pack, handing small sandwiches out to the group. Vance was busy mulling over the events of the last hour in his mind. He didn't feel any different, but he had this instinctual knowledge on these particular mana shifts like he'd always known how to do them. He just felt rusty like he just needed to brush up on an old skill.

It was probably the strangest thing he'd experienced so far as an Arcanist, but it raised too many questions which he couldn't answer, so he decided to take it at face value. For now, it was a good thing.

He waited for a while for his will to recover, he realised he definitely was not ready to handle wood mana yet, it felt like it was on an entirely different level of difficulty to the other shifts he'd learned.

He began to practice his new shifts. He decided to try a wind shift to see if his enlightenment had just given him some sort of "Universal Mastery".

It hadn't. As per normal, he couldn't quite get the shift right. After a while, Tom and James came around and gave him some sincere congratulations, though they snuck in a few jabs while they were at it.

The group practised together well into the evening, at which point they collectively decided that it'd be fun to stay out here for the night, so they prepared the camp. Vance asked to take on the task of gathering firewood, he thought it'd be an interesting exercise for his mana sense.

The floor was so dense with scattered natural elements that it was very hard to pinpoint specific items, but he did his best. It took him nearly an hour to bring back enough firewood for the fire, but the important part was that he'd been able to it at all. Brad taught him the proper way to stack the firewood for the best effect, then Vance spurred the fire into life once again.

The group pulled a wide selection of camping supplies from their packs. They'd brought blankets, James had a pillow, they even had a couple of lanterns and knives, Oh, and apparently Brad has an axe.

Vance sat a few feet from the fire, he was prodding at it with a stick, listening to the occasional cracking sounds. He found that he enjoyed the sensation of the warmth on his front, but cold on his back. The contrast made him more grateful for the warmth, like how it was always easier to get to sleep when you could hear it was raining outside.

His legs were outstretched and getting pretty toasty. He was considering dragging them closer when Mariah plonked herself down in front of him, facing away. She threw her blanket dramatically over herself and leaned back up against him.

He put his hands back behind him on the ground to prop himself up with the extra weight, which was much less than he'd expected, she was very light.

Thomas gave a little wolf whistle from the other side of the fire. Mariah stuck her tongue out at him and Vance glowed red like heated metal. James gave Thomas a little slap on the arm, followed by a silent gesture with his hands that said "Come on, shut up, man." Thomas smiled at him and they went back to playing some card game Vance didn't know.

"So, you're in classes with us now, huh?" She asked quietly.

"Apparently Noelle wants me more involved in the college, something about being an investment."

Mariah huffed out a breath.

"Ask." She said. "I know you want to."

"About wha-" He caught on. "Right, Naomi."

"Mhmm."

He gave it a second, then replied "It's fine. I might be blind but even I can see that's a bad idea." That earned him a little giggle, which let him breathe a little sigh of relief, which she probably felt.

"You really need to cut your hair, by the way. It's getting really long." She said, lifting an arm and giving one of his locks a little tug. She wasn't wrong, it was nearly down to his chin.

"You know, I had barely noticed. Of all the things I've been worried about, that hadn't even been close to making the list." He raised a hand and check it out himself. "Be honest, how bad does it look?"

"Looks fine, just long."

Things were quiet for a moment, Brad came over to the fire to try and find a place to balance a small metal dish, which he'd placed a fish inside.

"You went fishing?" Mariah asked.

"Yep."

"Ah, Brad the Articulate Barbarian, smooth-tongued king of the expressionists." Thomas did his best impression of a stage voice.

Once he was happy the fish was situated properly, Brad made his way back to his seat and the sounds of the forest took over once more.

Then, Vance had a small internal conflict before making what he believed was the hardest decision of his young adult life. He wrapped one of his arms around Mariah, underneath the blanket and across her stomach. He experienced anxiety, doubt, embarrassment, full-on terror and about every other emotion his young brain could muster.

Then she laid her own arm over the top, putting her own hand on the back of his. He'd never felt such relief.

"Huh." She said. "This time, it was me who didn't see that coming."

They both tried to keep a straight face. They failed miserably at roughly the same time.

They had a long, hearty laugh about that, turning the heads of everyone else in the camp, who seemed puzzled by whatever little inside joke had set them off.