#ancient powers

So, like, even though they yell or complain or worry sometimes, most of the time the vibe is just: "Oh, thank goodness, he's doing exactly the thing I wanted to see done."

Because. I mean. What's more agonizing than being a spectator stuck in the body that doesn't do anything you want?

The Ancient Powers are living their best second-lives, getting to vicariously have all the experiences they crave because Cale is as crazy as all of them combined.

No matter how much he acts like he doesn't, he would rather die than fully absorb them and lose their voice and companionship forever, and this is canon.

My headcanon is that he does this because he does not like listening to his own thoughts. At least, ONLY them.

With how double-edged his ability is, it definitely must be painful for him when Record plays up memories he would rather forget.

They discussed it without Cale knowing.

They had an entire conversation, where they probably discussed all the possibilities about what to do regarding Blood-Soaked Rock, inside Cale's head without him knowing.

Now I can only imagine the ancient powers doing the most random things possible somewhere inside the redhead (like playing cards or watching what Cale is doing as if it were a reality show and commenting on the redhead's absurdities) while Cale isn't using his powers without him having the slightest idea.

So Cale got hit by a Mind Reading Spell/Power that was supposed to broadcast his thoughts out loud. But instead of his thoughts, it broadcasted the voices of his Ancient Powers that were inside his mind. Everyone around him just felt dumbfounded at this.

No, Cale definitely doesn't possess the ability to breathe under water, nor any other sort of elemental immunity.

It wasn't exactly clear in the fight in the lake, but the way I see it, he either 1) lasted long enough through the fight not to need breathing since it was a very fast-paced confrontation, 2) had some sort of spell supporting him courtesy of Eruhaben or 3) surrounded himself by air with his wind power. The power of fire never protected Cheapskate from his own power, he in fact burned himself to death using it. Same with water, the Sky Eating Water has the power to manipulate water but not to the extent of being unable to be harmed by it. Just because you control an element doesn't make you immune to it by default, as is the case for most fantasy series (think pokemon for example). Same way waving a sword doesn't protect you against blades; unless you use your own to deflect them.

Also on the Cale being-burnt-by-fire scene, that is a good point BUT you have to remember Cale only had like, 3 Ancient Powers at that point? He had the Indestructible Shield, the Vitality of the Heart and the Sound of Wind, but his water power was in a bottle (Fire-Suppresing Water)... or did he already have the Dominating Aura as well? So 4? Yeah I think it was 4 in that scene in the jungle. It was still way before he got Cheapskate and Super Rock.

Anyway, the only powers that grant Cale any sort of protection are the Shield (obviously) and Super Rock (that one time when Cale almost exploded, and also the reason why the OG Super Rock was able to go into that monster tunnel connecting two continents). The second one is rarely utlized in the story, since Cale isn't a front-line fighter as much as support and AoE damage dealer so he doesn't have much use for it. The Shield protects him better, and has a larger range letting him protect allies, too. So it would be kind of redundant. I suppose you could also count Dominating Aura as a "protection" of sorts, since it can defend against god-level intimidation, but the point stands.

Cale might indeed be "absolutely not the normal human being that he strives to be" as you so nicely put it, but he is still made of flesh and as vulnerable to injury as any other person; the way Instant harms him proves it. It's well established in the story that just because he can heal doesn't mean he can't be hurt or even die from his own powers or their side-effects. Luckily, Cale has a ton of people willing to protect him, so usually the only person who can harm him is the one he literally cannot avoid: himself!