It had taken Aldin three years to learn how to breathe underwater. When he reflected on the hours upon hours of delicate dissection; the clinical probing of gilled creatures, the failed experiments which left him soaked and seething; it made Aldin chuckle. So many disappointments and hiccups, and the answer had been so simple he nearly cursed at the breadth of his ignorance. It had never been a matter of breathing underwater, but displacing it.

It was a simple spellwork. A potion of Hardened Air purchased from the underground market created the crux of the spell, and afterward was merely a tweaking and bending to create a human-sized permeable shell – one which sapped the oxygen from the surrounding waters, and left the hydrogen. An ingenious creation. It was disappointing that Aldin would never be able to present his creation to the Atoms of The Unyielding Cell. He was sure that the Atoms would only reward him with prying questions, instead of the accolades he deserved.