After my long stay with Master Elior Nareth, every sound and word around me seemed alive. I had learnt how knowledge could build or destroy, yet one question kept echoing in my heart: Where does knowledge come from in the first place?
When I asked Elder Aarion that question, he smiled and said, "It doesn't fall from the sky, Mukul. It grows from the earth. And now you'll meet the one who knows the language of the world itself."
He sent me into the heart of Aarvak Island—deep into the forest where light turned green, and every breath smelt of life. The path stopped near a waterfall that shone like liquid silver. Beneath it, a cave opened, glowing softly from within.
Inside was a figure sitting barefoot on a smooth rock. His body was lean, his dark bronze skin glimmering in the light of nearby crystals. He had long copper hair tied back with vines, and his clothes were woven from leaves and bark. His eyes, however, were unlike anything I'd seen — one green, one brown — like the earth and forest looking back at me.
He didn't move when I entered, but the waterfall behind him suddenly stopped flowing, frozen mid-air. The air grew still. Only his voice broke the silence.
"You walked softly," he said. "That's good. People forget the world can hear them."
I bowed respectfully. "Master Aarion said you were expecting me."
He opened his eyes fully, and a faint smile curved on his lips. "I am Master Sylas Thorn, the Guardian of Elements."
Right then, the waterfall resumed flowing, as if it too breathed at his command.
Elder Aarion stepped forward with respect. "Sylas Thorn once ruled the boundaries between man and nature. He controlled the storms over kingdoms, calmed volcanoes, and even grew life where death lingered. The ancients called him The Primal Voice, the one through whom nature listens."
Sylas chuckled softly. "They called me whatever they needed to worship. I'm only a gardener with too much responsibility."
That was how my seventeenth apprenticeship began.
His home wasn't a house at all—it was the island. We slept beneath tree roots that wove into the ground like veins. Birds brought food. Fireflies gave light. It was the first time I noticed how alive silence could be.
He began my lessons with the ancient art of Elemental Resonance. "There are no four elements," he said one morning while drawing circles in dirt. "That's what people were taught to simplify the truth. There are thousands — water, rock, storm, sand, root, even decay."
He placed my hand on the soil. "Every element has a rhythm. Feel how it breathes."
At first, I felt nothing. But as I learnt to quiet my racing mind, I began to sense faint vibrations beneath my palms, almost like a gentle heartbeat. "That's the pulse of the earth," Sylas said. "When you're one with it, you can shape it."
He snapped his fingers softly, and vines near us grew inches higher, blooming instantly with flowers. "We don't command nature, Mukul—we ask it."
Then came his modern lessons. Through strange devices built of rock, crystal, and glowing metal, he showed me how science could also read the earth's language. Satellites mapped weather, sensors measured magnetic fields, and computer models simulated rainfall. "Technology, he said, "is just another way for the world to speak. The problem is men stopped listening."
He made me merge both learnings. "Use an ancient chant when you plant. Use modern logic when you harvest. Both bring balance."
Sylas's personality was as unpredictable as the rain. Some days, he laughed loudly with the birds, feeding deer by hand. Other days, his silence was so heavy it felt like the forest held its breath.
Once, during a lesson, he asked, "If the island dies to save you, would you let it?"
The question struck me cold. "No," I answered quickly.
He smiled faintly. "That's easy to say. Hard to live."
Then, before I could ask more, a tree beside us cracked and fell — but instead of crashing, it dissolved into golden dust. "Every choice feeds something else," he said. "To protect one life, something always gives up its own."
Over the weeks, he taught me how to commune with the elements — how to draw energy from water, redirect lightning, and move stone through will alone. "Power isn't force," he would say. "It's a relationship."
He introduced me to an ancient exercise called Elemental Breath, where every inhale harmonised with one natural element. I learnt to breathe with the rhythm of waves, wind, fire, and soil. Through that, I could sense them—not control them, but collaborate.
Then he taught a strange modern practice called 'GeoSync Meditation'. With sensors connected to crystals, I could see my life energy displayed in light patterns on the ground. " This, he said, pointing, "is proof that your soul and the planet are one circuit. Break the rhythm, and both suffer."
One evening, we sat beneath the stars, and I finally asked him, "Why are you here on Aarvak Island, Master?"
He looked up at the constellations reflected in the water. "Because I once destroyed what I loved," he said quietly.
I stayed silent.
"I was the protector of a world that trusted me," he continued. "But when man waged war against nature, I chose sides. I saved the forests by burying cities. They called me a saviour, but I was only a murderer of balance. So I came here, where the island forgives what the world cannot."
When he looked at me again, his mismatched eyes carried sorrow — yet peace too.
Before I left, Sylas gave me a small wooden pendant shaped like a leaf split into five parts, glowing faintly with living energy. "This holds no spell," he said. "But when you forget yourself, press it to your chest. The world will remind you who you are."
As I walked away through the forest, the wind carried his voice like a breath of life. "Remember, Mukul — every step you take either heals or harms. Choose which footprint you wish to leave behind."
The vines parted around my path as if bowing goodbye. The waterfall shimmered behind me — and I realised, for the first time, that the earth itself was alive… and I had finally learnt to listen.
And that was how I met Sylas Thorn — the Guardian of Elements, the master who taught me that harmony is not about mastering nature but belonging to it, and that the world itself breathes with us — waiting only for us to breathe back.