POV: Greg

  We walked on. More accurately, she walked, while I levitated beside her. I lay on an invisible bed, my back to the ground, hands behind my head—maximum comfort level.

  "How do you do that?" Secret asked suddenly, not taking her eyes off my floating carcass.

  "Do what exactly?" I lazily opened one eye.

  "Hang in the air."

  "Oh, that... Well, I'm levitating."

  "What does 'levitating' mean?"

  "It's when... well, you know... basically, it's when you can push off and hover in space without any visible force."

  She stopped.

  "What do you mean?"

  I reluctantly assumed a vertical position and stood on the grass.

  "Well, watch."

  I concentrated. Two powerful, invisible streams of air burst from the soles of my feet. The dust on the road swirled into a pillar, and I hovered ten centimeters above the ground.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Right now, I'm not levitating. Technically, I'm just pushing off with the wind. You can see it, you can feel it on your skin. Got it?"

  A second later, I cut off the wind. The air grew still, but I continued to stand on the void just the same.

  "And how do you do THAT?" she stepped closer, trying to slip her hand under my soles.

  "Weeeell..." I scratched the top of my head.

  "Can you do without your 'wells' or 'basicallys'?" she grumbled. "Explain it properly."

  "Weeeeell..." I sighed. "I'm just gathering my thoughts. For me, it's like... I don't know, breathing? I don't really think about the process. But generally speaking, there are different ways."

  I started counting on my fingers:

  "If you can't levitate directly, you have to know how to control gravity. That's a whole separate topic with its own subcategories. You can increase the pull in a specific spot so that all objects start being attracted to or repelled from the earth. But that's a hassle."

  I folded a second finger.

  "There are tricky methods. Just push off the ground with pure energy. True, very few people can use it in its 'raw' form without turning it into fire or light. The third option is to push off absolutely anything, even reality itself."

  I looked at her and delivered my signature method:

  "Or the fourth path, like me. You just need to free yourself from gravity, while not losing your weight."

  I fell silent. My own words echoed in my head, and I realized: I had no idea what I just said.

  "To be honest, I didn't even understand that theory myself," I admitted. "With questions like that, you need to go to some boring magister with glasses. I'm a pretty lousy teacher."

  I smirked and flopped onto my side again, soaring into the air.

  But I noticed something interesting. This girl was listening to me so attentively, as if I were laying out a plan to save the world. No mockery, no anger. Just pure interest in her white eyes.

  And that was... nice. After all, when a beautiful person listens to your nonsense with a face like that—it's incredibly flattering.