Chapter 64 — The Nature of Fire

  Sweat soaked the interior of Toren’s armor, and his barrel chest pumped air like forge bellows.

  The charred log, now bearing the scars of countless cuts and stabs, was still burning fiercely hot. He had been careful to keep his strikes shallow enough to not cleave all the way through the log—a feat he was sure he could readily accomplish now with a sufficiently long blade.

  The insights provided by 10,000 XP were no joke. It really was the only way he could explain his continued rapid increases and now a second hidden achievement.

  He had started by continuing to imbue the purifying properties into his blood with Warrior’s Spirit and [Empower] but, as the magical fire ate at the tier-2 wood, he had been led from insight to insight—fire didn’t just consume, didn’t just produce heat. His own [Burning Blood] Ability was proof enough of that, granting him everburning stamina, protection from cold, and powering his physical renewal, but that was just the surface.

  Toren continued to breathe in deeply as he watched the fire blacken the wood, changed the wood. His lungs burned with countless tiny flames of their own, changing the air into fuel for his blood and his body. His understanding of fire had been and still was far too limited.

  The realization had taken a journey to arrive at, but he had arrived at a powerful truth, a truth confirmed by the World Spirit. Fire was the elemental manifestation of change, and maybe even the essential ingredient for life without which there would only be the ice lich’s cold of changelessness. Horevi and Fovesh really were destined to clash, each’s truth of their existence anathema to the other.

  Understanding fire as a tool of creation was still outside his reach, but he could glimpse the very edge of the possibility. More importantly, the realizations had allowed him to grasp in a very small way understanding of a way for fire to restoratively heal through directly changing what was damaged back to how it should be—and maybe the change wasn’t even limited to a past ‘healthy’ state. It was not a passive, regenerative, or defensive healing, but very much in line with his initial concept of burning away the damage.

  Changing the focus of his [Mana Sensing] was a large part of how he was able to achieve his newfound understanding. For so long, he had been pushing his [Mana Sensing] to increase his accuracy and sense of density over a larger distance, but as was clear with intent-infused mana and elementally-aspected mana, mana wasn’t uniform in density, types, or qualities. Observing the alchemical fire causing changes to the wood and the mana-induced changes to his blood with such intensity of focus, he had begun to see that he could sense more, that mana had something akin to colors and textures and harder to define innate or imbued concepts.

  How he could sense or see a ‘concept’, Toren was still trying to wrap his mind around, but having been so focused on only density was likely why increases in his [Mana Sensing] Skill had stagnated even with ongoing significant improvements in range and accuracy. These new ways of ‘sensing’ were an entirely different direction for him to develop the Skill, one he would have to explore more once he was past his immediate task and could properly think about such things.

  After understanding the fundamental nature of fire, the change in thinking brought rapid Skill increases. [Empower] took another significant step forward, and with [Berserker Weapon Arts], his weapon intent could now make changes to what he was cutting—taken to an extreme, he would be able to cut and heal, leaving no wound, or cut and make the wound unhealable as Laiya had been attempting to achieve.

  The second Constitution increase and the second increase in [Constitution of the Phoenix] had come when the [Empower]-ing he was doing to his blood reached a critical density and ‘settled’ somehow, becoming permanent—as far as he could determine. That was what had prompted him to stop and evaluate the change.

  Had he done it? Had he succeeded?

  He could continue on to forcing the same change to the rest of his body, but… he was emotionally and physically exhausted, and it might be enough. Could his body even sustain the mana-density of his blood if he pushed only his blood further without completing the elemental-infusion for the rest of his body?

  He was also on the verge of a [Burning Blood] breakthrough. He could feel it. Especially with the truth he had gained, he had enough accumulation to evolve the Skill to grant the purifying aspect, but to add a broader healing aspect, he was still missing sufficient accumulated XP and accomplishments from using his blood to heal others.

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  Attempting to heal Laiya might be the remaining piece. Then he would have a direction to continue adding to the Ability as he pushed [Burning Blood] to the peak of the first rank, a direction that would be included in the rank up.

  The price for failure…

  Toren gazed up at the sky. Horevi had moved toward well into the afternoon. Much longer and they would have to put off tracking the still-lurking stalker until the morning. The hounds had calmed down sometime while he had been in his [Focus Rage]-assisted [Meditation], and Falma was back inside the farmhouse.

  “Warnel!” Toren boomed out.

  The critical remaining unknown was whether his changed and intent-imbued blood could only be used to purify himself or whether it had reached a stage where it could purify and heal others.

  At this point, there was only one way to find out.

  Warnel was prompt to come out, even if the man looked to be holding a grudge for earlier. “What? Some of us are productively engaged rather than chasing the impossible.”

  “Before I try this on Laiya, we should test it.” Toren gave Warnel a meaning-filled look, which the anxious father readily guessed the meaning of.

  “You really…” Warnel’s eyes widened before his shoulders and expression firmed with determination. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Cut your hand and hold it out.”

  The [Haberdasher] slipped a knife out and the deed was quickly done with only a brief wince, blood welling up through the cut to drip onto the ground.

  “Now pull back your mana from your hand and try not to resist my mana.”

  “Alright…”

  Forcing through Warnel’s natural magic resistance, Toren took control of the man’s blood and sent it back into the cut so it wouldn’t be in the way.

  “That’s never not going to be creepy,” Warnel grumbled.

  Drawing upon his gains in understanding, Toren concentrated an imbued intent ‘to burn away the damage’ into the blood in his own hand, pouring in mana until his veins were glowing and flames began to lick over his skin. He cut his own hand and squeezed out a steady dribble of intent-infused blood onto Warnel’s cut.

  “Wha-?” Warnel’s question cut off with a sucked in breath. “Hells, that burns!”

  But both of them intently observed through the licking flames as Toren directed the blood to more efficiently cover the damaged flesh.

  “You can share your healing Ability?” Warnel exclaimed in surprise.

  Holding his breath, Toren continued staring at the cut. It was slow, but the cut was indeed healing. “Seems so?”

  “And you think this will heal what’s wrong with Laiya?”

  “If the cut heals without weird changes or scarring,” Toren hedged.

  Warnel kept watching the cut shorten in length, and when the hatter was no longer grimacing, Toren drew back the remaining blood.

  The healed skin was blemishless.

  Both of them exchanged a look.

  ~~~

  Toren's stats:

  Name: Toren of Theravos

  Race: Human

  Age: 20

  Profession 1: Level 8 Burningblood Berserker (6800/16000)

  Mana: 17/115

  Strength: 16

  Constitution: 15 → 16

  Dexterity: 15

  Agility: 13

  Wisdom: 12

  Intellect: 8

  Will Power: 18

  Perception 15

  Appearance: 9

  Charisma: 8

  Luck: 10

  Attribute Upgrade Points: 7

  Traits:

  Sacrificial Guardian

  Abilities:

  Burning Blood (WIL, Rank 1, Proficiency: Mid)

  Control Blood (WIL, Rank 1, Proficiency: Low)

  Flurry of Blows (DEX, Rank 1, Proficiency: Low)

  Ability Upgrade Points: 7

  Profession Skills:

  Constitution of the Phoenix 3 → 5

  Empower 6

  Focus Rage 8

  Combat Awareness 6

  Berserker Weapon Arts 5 → 6

  Pain Tolerance 8

  Intimidate 5

  Skills:

  Danger Sensing 3

  Stealth 18

  Mana Sensing 14 → 16

  Wilderness Harvesting 12

  Theravos Language 11

  Religion 10

  Divided Focus 7

  Meditation 6

  Hunting 20

  Archery 19

  Running 15

  Wound Binding 8

  Arithmetic 4

  Fire → chemical change → molecular rearrangement

  nuclear change → matter to energy/energy to matter → creation

  existential change → manifesting laws of reality → divinity

  ??