Sayuna of the Dual Clans
an excerpt

A Note about Elementalism

In the year AD 2012, humanity was exposed to the greatest calamity it had thus far endured. An asteroid nearly three hundred kilometers in diameter was spotted by astronomers no less than eighty million kilometers away from Earth, and it was on a direct course to collide with the planet. It sent waves of panic throughout the globe; it was too close for Earth’s military forces to do anything to change its path. It had evaded detection for two simple reasons: the first was that it was comprised of highly non-reflective material on its outer crust, and was undetectable in the visible spectrum for most of its orbit. The other reason was more regrettable – due to insufficient funding, the organizations responsible for detecting objects such as this were not monitoring the area of the sky from whence it approached. When it was detected, Earth had only twelve days before impact. When the information was finally leaked to the public, there were only five days remaining.

The panic that ensued was horrendous; the lives lost from the riots and lootings alone peaked in the millions. By the time the asteroid entered the earth’s atmosphere, most people had fled underground, although many remained above, having accepted the inevitable and decided to at least be where they could see the fireworks.

True to predictions, the asteroid arrived right on schedule. Now a meteor, the gigantic mass of ionizing rock and iron hurtled through the layered atmosphere above the Americas, scorching the earth as it passed overhead, before it slammed into the center of the Atlantic Ocean and embedded itself deep into the oceanic crust.

Waves of steam, ash, and fire radiated from the impact site, and they traveled at frightful speeds in all directions around the globe. The continents closest to the impact site suffered most; the Americas and much of Europe were utterly obliterated, as was most of the western half of Africa. Asia, Australia, the Arctic, and Antarctica suffered the least amount of damage and casualties, although the damage in those places was severe enough to wipe out more than half of the population within the first couple of days.

In the span of the two and half days it took for the waves of superheated meteoric blast to dissipate, no more than one third of humanity was left alive. Believing themselves fortunate, those that remained emerged from their shelters and did what they could to rebuild and recover. However, life is very fragile, and so is the balance that governs the climates of the planet. The years that followed were very harsh, as clouds of ash and dust particles kicked up by the blast blanketed no less than eighty percent of the planet, blotting out the sun and sending the globe into a drastic cooling period that lasted many years. Many more died in the some twenty years that followed, and by the time the climates began to restore themselves, no more than five percent of the world’s former population remained. It was the greatest disaster in recorded human history, but somehow, humanity had managed to survive. Slowly but surely, the people that remained began to multiply, and new generations took hold and began to explore the ruins left in the wake of “The Great Meteor,” as it had been called (it was also called “TGM,” when it was shortened).

Over the next two hundred years, technology slowly began to redevelop. As it was, most of the technology humanity had possessed prior to TGM had all but vanished. There hadn’t been time to ensure the safety of such things; preservation of life had taken top priority. As a result, medical, mechanical, and physical sciences had been sorely handicapped, and the few who were still versed in the ways of science were highly prized members of society. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until just after the second century post-TGM that humans had finally regained sufficient mobility to explore other continents.

One man in particular, by the name of Luis de Marco, led one such expedition. He, along with a group of archeologists, machinists, and linguists, set out on a ship from New Zealand in the hopes of reaching South America and trying to discover who – if anyone – had survived.

When his team arrived on the western side of what used to be Chile, they were delighted to discover that tribes of people were flourishing all along the coastline, and they informed him that there were more people farther inland, beyond the mountains. De Marco and his companions continued to sail northward until they reached what had been Colombia. Once past the mountains, they made land and set out through the jungle to see what they could find.

There were many reminders here and there that told of the TGM incident so many years ago. Ancient, crumbled structures – now overgrown with vines and trees – could be found everywhere near sources of water. In the times before TGM, there had been many, many cities here. Now there were only sparsely scattered tribes of people, most of which were shy and easily frightened, but many of which were curious enough to speak with them.

Occasionally, de Marco and the archeologists would inspect some of the caves and buildings as they passed them by. On one such occasion, the group found a large, simple box made of granite while exploring a cave. Thinking at first that they’d found a tomb, they opened the box, fully expecting to find the mummified remains of some unknown person. Instead, they found only four scrolls, each marked at the ends with a different symbol. The paper looked ancient, but it was surprisingly strong. So strong was it, in fact, that nothing they had could damage it. Nothing they tried could put so much as a mark on any one of the scrolls, and additionally, none of them could open any of them – none that is, except a Chinese doctor named Joseph Zhang. As soon as his hands were upon them, the scrolls unfurled themselves for him, and each member of the company was able to see their contents.

They were surprised to find that none of the scrolls contained any writing. Instead, a series of images was portrayed on each scroll by means of what appeared to be ink drawings. In each picture, a human-like figure was shown emitting a strange kind of aura, and next to him was a kind of event or object. On one scroll, nearly all the pictures showed what appeared to be different manifestations of flames or fire. On another, it was the same, with the exception that each image pertained to water. On another, they involved earth and rocks, and on the last, the figures seemed to be interacting with lines in the air, which the party decided had to be wind or air.

“There is one for each of the four basic elements,” Luis commented. “See! Fire, water, earth, and wind. But what can it mean? And how do these figures relate to the pictures beside them?”

“If I might hazard a guess,” Joseph wondered aloud, “they seem to be a kind of manifestation of chi. Notice how each of these figures is shown with trails leading from within them to the objects and events beside them. These lines within the body seem to follow the lines mapped out by the Chinese to be chi lines.”

“Chi?” Luis laughed. “Surely you’re not serious! You’re a scientist! Do you honestly believe in something so paranormal?”

“I’m not saying that,” Joseph replied with a laugh. “I’m only making an observation.”

They continued to argue about the drawings for several hours before they finally decided to pack up the scrolls and take them along on their expedition. They continued on throughout the continent for the next five years, meeting many new people, facing many dangers, and losing more than half of the party to wild animals, attacks from unfriendly tribes, and general mishaps. By the time they had made their way back to the ship and made all the necessary repairs, they had quite forgotten about the scrolls, and they remained in Joseph’s possession long after the remaining party members had returned home to New Zealand. It wasn’t until several months after his return that Joseph remembered them, and he showed them to his grandfather – the man to which he’d owed his knowledge of Chinese lore and other such things as chi.

Together, the two worked to decipher the riddles contained in the effigies on the scrolls. It wasn’t long before Joseph’s grandfather determined that the drawings were not only maps of chi lines, but were very specific maps at that. Each figure showed a different combination of illuminated lines, just as each was shown beside a different elemental picture. All at once the answer came to him, and Joseph excitedly told his grandfather, Chun, what they meant.

“Each of these figures has a different set of chi lines mapped out, right?” he asked excitedly. “I think that each of them is performing some kind of technique, or spell or something. They’re using their chi to control an element in a very specific way!”

“Of course!” Chun cried. “It’s so simple! Concentrate your chi in just such a way, and you can cause the element of your choice to do what you want it to! It sounds so easy!”

“Yes, but how many people do you know with that kind of chi control?” Joseph laughed. “That’s the stuff of legends, Grandfather. You told me tales like that when I was a boy, but I’m too old for that now. There is no such thing. These scrolls must be from some lost civilization that worshipped the elements. It doesn’t make any sense otherwise.”

“It makes no sense the way you put it,” Chun disagreed obstinately. “The evidence is plain. You found these things in South America, far from our ancestral land of China. So why is it that these people – whoever made these scrolls – seemed to know all about chi lines? I was of the impression that such ideologies were from our side of the globe.”

“Well, it could have been a civilization that was versed in Chinese mythology,” Joseph argued. “There’s no telling how old these scrolls are.”

“That’s another thing,” Chun continued. “These scrolls aren’t to be explained away. When was the last time you encountered something so indestructible? There is a force beyond our reckoning protecting these things, my boy; you mark my words.”

In the weeks that followed, Chun and Joseph continued to study the scrolls. At the same time, Chun invited a Kung Fu friend of his to help them out. This man, Sun Cheng, just happened to be a Grand Master in an old style of Kung Fu. He was very well versed in the arts of chi manipulation, and when he beheld the scrolls that Joseph and Chun showed him, he was most definitely intrigued by them. He instructed the pair on the principles of chi in the body, and explained to them that only someone with extraordinary power would be able to control their chi flow in the way that these pictures portrayed. However, he added, it was a possibility. His great grandson, a boy of only thirteen, had already shown a tremendous amount of potential with regards to control. He asked Joseph’s and Chun’s permission to keep the scrolls in his dojo, where he could use them as an experimental study aid for his students.

At first the two men were reluctant to just give away their find, but when Cheng agreed to credit them with the ownership of the scrolls, and that they could claim them at any time, they finally agreed, on the condition that whatever Cheng learned, he would keep them informed.

Over the next dozen years, Joseph and his grandfather gradually fell out of touch with Cheng, as Joseph’s job took him to other places where he was more needed, and Chun grew older and more senile. By the time Joseph was sixty years old, the scrolls had already passed on into the most incredible human achievement since the discovery of electricity. The young boy to whom Cheng had introduced the scrolls had already unlocked their secrets. He had become the first elementalist.

As Chun had surmised, the secret to elementalism was indeed chi manipulation. This boy, Jing Cheng, had from a very young age been very aware of the power within himself and the others around him. It was only natural that he take to martial arts, since it relied so heavily upon the fundamental principles of chi mastery. When his great grandfather – and master – presented him with the scrolls and hinted at their meaning, Jing was more than intrigued. He studied them day and night, and finally, after months of dedicated study, he successfully managed to use the first of the earth techniques.