Chương 41: You’ve never been hotter than this

Fire streaked toward Fabrisse's face. [Skill Detected: Cinder Thread — Rare, Rank IV] Fabrisse nearly fell off the stone. The spell stopped less than a handspan from his nose. A thin strand of orange fire hung between him and Liene, no thicker than twine. Tiny embers danced along its length like glowing beads sliding down a wire. Heat brushed against his cheeks. Fabrisse immediately squinted. He hated bright things hovering directly in front of his face.

There was something profoundly irritating about being expected to think while a source of illumination aggressively occupied his field of vision. The thread remained exactly where it was, perfectly steady.

"Oops!" Liene exclaimed, turning toward Lorvan.

"Did I get too close?"

"No," Lorvan replied.

"That is actually a very good distance. Your control is becoming noticeably finer, Miss Lugano."

"Why thank you!"

"Have you been attending practical sessions regularly?"

"Yes!" Lorvan waited. Liene coughed.

"I've only missed four this semester."

"Your semester began last month, Miss Lugano."

"Two of those were from my field excursion," she protested.

"You approved the field excursion."

"I also recall your mother inquiring about your academic performance." Liene immediately groaned.

"Mentor, please."

"She expressed dissatisfaction regarding your marks. She'd expected at least a Distinction, Miss Lugano."

"Ugh. You sound exactly like my brother." What did that mean? Lorvan was Liene's brother. Was this some sort of secret sibling banter? Fabrisse tried to follow the conversation, but that was rather difficult when there was still a thread of fire floating directly in front of his face. Liene wasn't even looking at it anymore, and somehow the fire remained perfectly stable. That was impressive. Liene was still arguing with Lorvan about something, so Fabrisse decided to remain still. Five seconds passed.

He wondered if this was some sort of advanced Fire affinity training exercise. Perhaps he was supposed to meditate on the flame, or contemplate its nature. Thaumaturges enjoyed doing things like that. Twenty seconds passed. Liene and Lorvan were now discussing grading criteria. Fabrisse cleared his throat. Neither of them reacted.

"Um, guys? Am I supposed to just stand here?" he asked.

"Oh! Sorry Fabri. Of course not!" Liene chirped. Finally. It was astonishing how much heat such a tiny flame could produce. Sweat had begun gathering beneath his collar. His cheeks felt warm. Maybe he could finally get a minute of rest and rehydration—"Can you increase the heat output without altering the perimeter?" Lorvan asked. Liene beamed.

"Oh, certainly!"

"Wait—" Liene was already chanting her new mnemonic, "Cinder thread, steady spread, ember fed, boundaries kept. Let the heat remain, let the flame forget." [Skill Detected: Cinder Thread — Rare, Rank IV → V] Then the temperature climbed. The dancing embers vanished. The flickering intensified. Great. There goes my rest.

"Is the mnemonic supposed to be that long?" Fabrisse asked.

"I thought it was something like 'Cinder thread, steady spread'."

"That was the Rank II version." Liene grinned.

"You should hear the Rank VI mnemonic. It has three stanzas and is lovely." He knew higher-ranked spells generally required more elaborate mnemonics. That was basic thaumaturgical theory. More complex spell structures required more anchors, more sequencing, more conceptual reinforcement. Still, there had to be a limit. At what point did a mnemonic stop being a spell and become a speech? He'd never actually heard anything above Rank V before.

Most instructors rarely demonstrated spells beyond that level, partly because the aether costs became ridiculous and partly because nobody wanted students copying advanced invocations they couldn't safely sustain.

"How much longer do I need to stand here?" Fabrisse asked.

"The longer the better," Lorvan replied.

"That is not a measurement."

"It is the measurement currently available to us."

"Look at the bright side!" Liene said.

"I am looking at the bright side. It's trying to cook me."

"No, I mean the other bright side." She added more flames to the thread of fire hovering before his face.

"You've never been hotter than this." Fabrisse sighed. Eidralith's notification appeared. [Fire Affinity Training Progress: 8%] [Current Progress: 21% → 22% to 9%] One entire percent. That had taken nearly a minute. At this rate he would be old enough to teach Fire Thaumaturgy before he qualified to study it. Surely there had to be a better method than standing in front of increasingly dangerous campfires. On impulse, he focused on the notification. To his surprise, it expanded.

[Fire Affinity Training Analysis] [Training Efficiency: Poor] Cause: → Fire Resonance Exposure: 77% Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. → Intensity: 33% → Duration: 44% → Environmental Compatibility: 18% → Artifact Assistance: 0% The Intensity score made sense. Liene was using a single spell. A very impressive spell, admittedly, but still a single thread of fire. Environmental Compatibility made sense too. They were sitting beside a pond.

In hindsight, perhaps training Fire Affinity next to several tons of water was not ideal. A dedicated Fire Chamber would probably score far higher in both categories. The entire purpose of those chambers was to flood the environment with elemental resonance until students either learned something or complained loudly enough to leave. Then his eyes landed on the final entry. → Artifact Assistance: 0% What's that?

If zero percent Artifact Assistance was being counted against the training, then non-zero percent Artifact Assistance presumably existed. By definition, there should be artifacts capable of accelerating affinity development.

"Mentor Lugano?" Fabrisse asked.

"Hm?"

"Can we take five minutes? I need to discuss something with you." Before Lorvan could answer, the thread of fire vanished.

"Yes!" Liene declared. The sudden absence of heat felt almost divine.

"Perfect timing. I was actually running low on aether." Lorvan slowly turned toward her.

"Running low?" Liene smiled nervously.

"A little."

"Miss Lugano, you have been sustaining a single Cinder Thread for approximately one minute. You need to spend more time on aether preservation exercises."

"I've been meaning to!" she protested.

"Learning advanced healing matrices, accessory crafting, and decorative rune embroidery takes up a lot of time!"

"Miss Lugano."

"And I started learning enchanted ribbon shaping." The partially enchanted ribbon in her hair bounced as she spoke. Lorvan pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Your mother was correct to be concerned."

"You always take her side."

"You're the last one to tell me that."

"Stay where you are. It won't take long." Lorvan gestured toward Fabrisse.

"Kestovar. Walk with me." He followed Lorvan farther down the pond path while Liene remained behind, apparently attempting to negotiate with her ribbon. Once they were far enough away, Fabrisse lowered his voice.

"Mentor, I think I found something."

"Oh?" Fabrisse explained the affinity progression training analysis, and how the last line had caught his attention. Artifact Assistance. Lorvan listened for perhaps half the explanation before raising a hand.

"Kestovar. That won't happen."

"What?"

"No."

"Why?"

"You know why." Lorvan sighed.

"You witnessed how much trouble Miss Montreal endured after the Council discovered her artifact research." Fabrisse winced. That had been, admittedly, partially his fault. Mostly his fault.

"Artifact utilization is prohibited within the Synod."

"But why?" Fabrisse asked.

"They're just spellcasting aids."

"The official position is that dependence on artifacts weakens a thaumaturge's natural development. A practitioner begins relying upon the object rather than improving themselves." Fabrisse frowned.

"But Liene is still studying crafting."

"She is taking the course because it is being discontinued."

"Discontinued?"

"At the end of the academic year."

"Why?" Lorvan was quiet for a moment.

"I don't know."

"Mentor—""I genuinely do not know," Lorvan interrupted.

"Do not ask other mentors. Do not ask instructors. Do not ask department staff. They will tell you exactly what I just told you."

"Fine." He was fairly certain it wasn't even remotely fine. But every time he encountered a mysterious institutional rule, somebody eventually informed him that questioning it would be bad for his future. At this point, that warning had become so common it was practically a greeting. So he let it go, for now. When they returned to the pond, Liene was still engaged in what appeared to be intense negotiations with her ribbon.

"I'm serious," she was telling it.

"You can't just leave." The ribbon attempted to leave.

"See? This is what I deal with." The training resumed. Unfortunately, the remainder of the session was approximately as productive as standing beside a pond while somebody pointed increasingly sophisticated fire at his face. Liene demonstrated three additional versions of Cinder Thread. One of them somehow braided itself. The last one produced decorative sparks in the shape of tiny flowers whenever she lost concentration. Lorvan repeatedly informed her that decorative sparks were not part of the spell.

Meanwhile, Fabrisse stood in front of progressively hotter fire. Sweat accumulated. His eyes hurt. His collar became damp. Several nearby fish appeared to vacate the area. By the end of the session, this was what he had to show for. [Fire Affinity Training Progress: 8%] [Current Progress: 22% → 32% to 9%] According to the Affinity thresholds, he needed twenty percent before Basic Fire thaumaturgy stopped fighting him every step of the way.

At this rate, he would require approximately twelve hundred additional sessions. He would definitely not get there in time. Eventually Lorvan checked the time and stood.

"I need to supervise another practical session." Liene immediately saluted.

"Have fun being educational."

"Return to your studies. Especially you, Miss Lugano. You have another lecture at four." Lorvan looked at Fabrisse.

"Do not do anything regrettable."

"That is an extremely broad category."

"Yes." Then he left. The moment he disappeared around the bend, Liene whispered, "Good news."

"What?"

"We are no longer being supervised."

"I'm not sure that's good news."

"It usually is. Soooo…" She leaned closer.

"What were you two talking about?" Fabrisse opened his mouth, then immediately remembered Lorvan's earlier warning about not telling Liene about the Eidralith's functions. So he said nothing. Liene narrowed her eyes.

"That was suspicious."

"It was just training notes."

"Training notes?"

"Yes."

"What kind of training notes?"

"The boring kind." Liene stared at him for another second, then shrugged.

"Oh well. Do you have anything else to do today? Maybe we could pick up where we left off last time and actually get pie."

"Actually, there's something I wanted to ask you." Liene brightened.

"Is it academic? Academic questions are my favorite kind of questions." They weren't. Fabrisse lowered his voice.

"Do you know of any artifacts that can improve Fire Affinity training?" Liene blinked, then grinned.

"Oh? You know that's against the rules, right?"

"Do you care?" Her grin widened.

"Not especially. But you won't find any artifact within the Synod."

"Then—" She tapped her chin.

"But you're still allowed to craft your own projects… For now." Liene set her books down and immediately began flipping through one of them. Pages flew by so quickly Fabrisse couldn't even see the titles.

"Let's see..." Flip.

"No..." Flip.

"Too dangerous..." Flip.

"Definitely illegal..." Flip.

"Oh!" She stopped. Fabrisse leaned over. The diagram looked incomprehensible.

"What is that?"

"A Resonant Ember Vessel."

"You understood that instantly?"

"No. But it sounds exciting enough to try." Liene pointed at the diagram.

"In theory, it stores ambient fire-aspected aether and releases it slowly over time."

"You don't sound confident."

"I've never built one, but we can change that now." Liene pointed at a small notation near the bottom of the page.

"We'd need embermoth crystal." Fabrisse read the line.

"Embermoth? The Aether-touched insect?"

"Yes. It's also mildly dangerous."

"Mildly?"

"It occasionally sets things on fire."

"That sounds more than mildly dangerous."

"Only if you're the thing being set on fire."

"They don't live within Synod grounds. How are we going to—" Fabrisse stared at her. Liene stared back. A slow realization began dawning.

"Oh."

"Yep."

"Oh no."

"Yep."

"We're sneaking out of the Synod." Liene beamed.

"We're sneaking out of the Synod." [Sidequest Received: Moths to a Flame] Objective: Obtain (1) Embermoth Crystal Reward: +250 EXP 5 Fire Thaumaturgy Mastery Points Note: Probability of this remaining a simple material-gathering trip: Low. Magnificent. He was going to break two rules in a day.