158 Twenty Waterfalls
Emma was pleasantly surprised when she checked her backpack in the travs and found that Atila had indeed put everything she needed there. She found a set of one-piece swimsuit inside her bag. The material was soft and the color was blue with a beautiful design. She could imagine how good it would look on her.
Finally, Emma decided to change her clothes with the swimsuit in the rear cabin of the travs. Before long, she too was walking toward the big river ready to jump.
The river cut through the savanna at the top of the cliff she was on and cascaded down the cliff as a waterfall, along with several other smaller waterfalls from the other cliffs.
Emma looked down and found the two young men swimming excitedly in the river below. Their faces looked fresh and happy.
Ah ... Emma also missed playing with water like this after 3.5 months of staying in the ship with limited water. Back on Earth, she and Haoran would go out to sea every weekend and enjoyed being surrounded by water and stay close to nature. They also used the pool in Haoran's mansion frequently. She and Haoran loved swimming there when they were not at sea.
With beautiful movements, Emma dove into the river below. She deliberately jumped inside the waterfall so that her body was wet before she reached the river in the canyon.
When they heard the sound of Emma's body plunging along with the waterfall, spontaneously, Therius and Xion looked up.
The ray of Daneria's sun, which was still bright enough, created a rainbow on the water. They could see a beautiful body between the colors of that rainbow jump gracefully.
The two men looked amazed for a few good seconds until Emma's body reached the river and caused a large splash of water to hit their faces hard.
"The water is so refreshing," Emma commented to no one in particular as her body returned to the surface. Without waiting for a response, she dived and swam to her heart's content. She was enjoying herself very much.
This place was truly a paradise just like Xion said. The water was crystal clear, and Emma saw various aquatic animals that reminded her of fish. All the animals swam happily. Their bodies looked healthy and lively.
After she was satisfied playing underwater, Emma then returned to the surface and swam toward the riverbank, filled with big rocks to sit down.
She saw Therius was already sitting on one of the rocks gracefully. The man had been watching her movements all this time.
"You're right, Atila prepared a bathing suit for me," said Emma as she swam toward Therius and reached up her hand to climb onto the rock.
Spontaneously, Therius took her hand and helped pull Emma up. At first, Emma felt awkward, but then she let Therius help her. After all, they had agreed to be friends for the rest of their journey. She had no reason to refuse his hand.
"How did you guys find this place?" asked Emma as she sat nicely next to Therius on the rock.
"It was a coincidence. Xion and I decided to explore the area around the space base and find this place. Do you like it here?" asked Therius.
"I do," Emma nodded. She lifted her gaze and looked up. There were three cliffs around them. All of them had some waterfalls that made this canyon seem surrounded by curtains of water.
All the waterfalls flowed into the big river with clear water they were on now. The big river cut through the massive valley, green with various lush plants and trees.
"How many waterfalls are there?" asked Emma. "Twenty?"
"If we included the small ones, yes, there are 20 of them," Therius nodded. "There's a big one over here, two medium-sized waterfalls over there, and the rest are small ones."
Suddenly Therius clicked his tongue as if he was reminded of something. Emma ??immediately turned toward the young man and asked what happened.
"What's the matter? Looks like you're thinking of something."
"I just remembered you are also a hydromancer, aren't you? You control the water element?" asked Therius.
Emma nodded. "Yes. What about it?"
"Hmm ... one of the reasons I brought you here, apart from taking a short vacation from the ship, is to give you a space to train your powers."
"Train my powers?" Emma immediately realized what Therius meant. "Ahh..."
That is true. In nature like this, she could find all the elements she could control and train herself to use her powers.
"You can practice controlling the waterfalls. You can try to counter the movement." Therius pointed to the largest waterfall in front of them. "You can play around a bit. You can reverse the direction, or slow down the water flow, and do whatever you want with it."
"Ah, you're right," Emma nodded. She focused her gaze toward the largest waterfall, then raised her right hand and move it upward as if holding back the water.
Slowly the waterfall flow rate became slower and slower. And finally, it stopped altogether.
Then the water flow was slowly reversed, and it started moving upwards instead.
"Ah .. I can do it!" exclaimed Emma happily.
"Try to hold it for ten minutes," said Therius.
"Ugh .. alright," Emma bit her lip. She was delighted to be able to reverse the course of the waterfall, but soon her hand felt tired. She felt like she was holding something really heavy on her right hand.
"The gravity here is greater than that of Earth because this planet has so much more mass than your planet, that's why the pressure feels heavier on you," Therius commented. "Hold on a little longer. I want to check your energy level..."
Emma now also raised her left hand, to help ease the burden on her right hand.
Ugh ... how heavy.
She kept trying to hold back the water and force it to move in reverse.
Sweat started to run down her forehead.
"Hey, guys! What are you doing!!!!"
Aaaaaaaaaaahhhh...!!!
When Emma was busy concentrating on reversing the water flow, Xion, who had been diving and playing with water animals underwater, decided to show up suddenly and mischievously pulled Emma and Therius' legs from the rocks into the water.
Without warning, the two of them were immediately drawn into the water. At the same time, Emma's concentration broke, and she lost control of the thousands of cubic meters of water she had been holding in the air.
When her body and Therius entered the river, around ten thousand cubic meters of water that had been held back in the air immediately crashed down like a rushing flood pouring from the sky.
"Xiooonn!!!" Emma growled in the midst of her shock when she realized that the water she was holding back was crashing down on them and caused a giant wave in the river that immediately washed away their bodies.
Panicked, she became stunned. For a moment, Emma couldn't do anything. She suddenly forgot all her abilities to swim, and her legs refused to cooperate.
Her body was quickly swept away by the massive wave into the valley, away from the cliff.
Emma didn't have time to think. Everything happened so fast and she was in shock. When she regained her consciousness, Emma realized that her legs went numb and unable to move. Frantically, she tried to reach out to keep her body on the surface.
"Let me help you."
Out of nowhere, Emma suddenly heard Therius' calm voice from behind her, and suddenly the man's strong hands had hugged her waist.
At that instant, Emma's panicked mind calmed down.
Her panting breath gradually became more regular, and her numb legs finally started to move.
"Xi-Xion.. that rascal..." Emma grunted between her panting. She automatically wrapped her hands around Therius' neck so she could hold on to him. Slowly, she began to move her legs, which were numb a while ago.
"Ugh, please forgive my mischievous friend. We often annoyed each other this way whenever we are playing in the water. I think he forgot, this time there is a woman here," said Therius with a smile.
Emma subconsciously fluttered her lashes when she saw the calmness on Therius face. He even showed a genuine smile on his usually stoic face. The smile was wide enough this time for Emma to see his dimples.
Damnit .. why did she pay attention to this guy's dimples? Her focus now was to save herself, so she could get out of here.
"You want to get out of the water?" Therius asked, looking at the girl, only inches away from his face. The girl nodded. Therius nodded back. "Okay."
In an instant, he shot up to the sky, while holding Emma by the waist. The next second, they were already flying in the air.
This suddenly reminded Emma of the moment when she took Haoran flying on his birthday and they kissed in the air.
But instead, this time, it was Therius who took her flying. Subconsciously Emma's chest was pounding very hard when she realized that her body was sticking so close to Therius' body and her hands were wrapped around his neck, while Therius' hands hugged her waist.