Well I guess I throw my bones in here as well.
1) Ral is now an old creep T-T
2) About the Techs, I do get the point with mastering a tech but in a world where people are so short lived who would go through the difficulty mastering a tech which most likely takes years? I would then rather wield a lot of them to be prepared to fight also half baked persons like oneself than studying it, even if there would come a tech master to challenge you....ypu just have your variety.

This bring me to part three.
3) The elements: while I do like the avatar concept here I must firstly destroy the druid circle of elements for my characters sake xD.
In a just plain scientific view it does firstly seem that every element has a connection with each other but then~
There are plants who does not need water, they feed on insects to maintain their household, fire which equals heat....now there are plants resisting the cold harshness of tundras. Air, said to be the base of everything, sadly shamans here only the whole lot, forgetting it is a mixture of many seperated gases.
I know science and nature, an ongoing war.

All that aside, while creating Ral i did not stick to nature mana cycle but rather to personalities fitting for someone.
Fire= hot blooded, passsioned
Water= calm, wild,deep with a nick of changing moods quickly
Earth= static, unbending will, calm
Wind= quick to act, intelligent, sneaky
Light= happy, outgoing, careless
Dark= moody, grumpy

The other, sub categories are adding extras to the bases I mentioned above.
Like lightning, while Ral is not hot tempered he sure is passionately and here cones lightning.
He is jumpy, while advancing for his goal he will make many steps to the left or right to just see what's there and what's not, in the end for him the way itself was the goal.
A quote fitting for him would be "The only opportunity worth taking, is the one with unknown outcome" He will explore everything, swooping the "what could happen aside". He does not care about consequences and if they are bad, he has to dealt with it.
That's were I decided to get my ideas from.

Now what I originally wanted to say is: in a world of magic, where magic is forged by ones imagination, I personally think the spectrum of personalities are defining what magic a person can do or not, it would be weird to act or think against your own nature and so the spell would cost an high amount of stamina or would crumble.
Here I am saying that person could still learn more than their element and their sub-class but that it would need a lot of energy and concentration.
That is my opinion, also I have to say that when magic can influence weapons, tech users are highly disadvantaged.
Here I mean that a magic user than do the very same as the tech user. Why not crossing the "one element" rule for tech users? Here people are infusing mana to a tool. Sure the right amount and the "how" has to be get the nick of to master it but still.....what element the weapon is gaining would mostly come from the techno an who developed that tech. There is no imagination behind, no emotion!