Chương 281: (276) 4.55. Fire Bad

Once they came to a better understanding of just how much sway the Trusted Ones of the capillans had, Vin experienced a startling realization. None of the capillans actually wanted them to be there. The only reason they were being put up with at all was because Forpurt had declared they were friends. During their walk back to the igloo Forpurt had lent them, the village folk had given them nods from afar, but not a single one had come up to talk to them.

In fact, it was rather easy to tell that they were being given a wide berth in general.

"So let me get this straight," Scule said, narrowing his eyes as they tried to explain why they'd returned back from the Shaman so quickly.

"The capillans… are all a bunch of racists?"

"Not exactly the word I would use," Vin said, rolling his eyes.

"I think other than Forpurt, due to his exploration of the surrounding fragments, they're just not used to people who look different from themselves."

"Yeah, that's what I said. Racists."

"I think it's more likely to say that they're scared of us," Lumel tried to explain.

"Think about it. There's not exactly a lot to do around here besides maintain their igloos, forage for food, and play in the snow. I'd be willing to bet that these people are rather set in their ways and are hesitant about anything new, such as a bunch of hairless people suddenly stumbling into their midst. If we hadn't saved Rickten's life, he probably would have reacted the same way."

"Why would anyone be scared of me?" Scule argued, gesturing down to himself.

"I'm no threat! I'm only six inch two with my shoes on!"

"Scule, you're a master of poisons and would literally steal the clothes off of a person's back if given the opportunity sometimes," Vin pointed out.

"…I'd hardly say master," Scule mumbled, kicking his foot in the dirt.

"Regardless, the point is, these people have nothing to offer us," Vin said with a sigh.

"At the very least, we can confirm that they're probably no threat either, as they have no interest in leaving the frigid conditions of their own fragment."

"You won't hear me complaining about this fragment being an in-and-out run," Scule said.

"So when do we leave?"

"Maybe we could stay for just one more day?" Lumel offered, looking hopeful.

"There's still so much I'd love to learn about them as a people. Even if none of them are comfortable talking to us, I'd be interested in observing them from afar."

"I'm fine with that," Vin shrugged.

"I've always got more magic I can work on. Scule? Reginald?" Reginald gave it some serious thought, before nodding his head with a resigned squeak. Hearing that, Scule rolled his eyes.

"Well now I'm going to look like the bad guy if I say no!"

"Glad it's decided then!" Vin grinned, laughing at the petian's glare.

"We'll head out first thing in the morning."

"Thank you all, I really appreciate it," Lumel said, beaming at them.

"Don't worry, I won't make you keep brushing away and repacking the snow by the entrance!" With that, she vanished in a flash of purple, no doubt off to go try her luck at finding a capillan actually willing to talk to her.

"Think she'll be okay?" Scule asked, looking a tad concerned now that she was gone.

"Based on what you told me, these guys seem to have a bit of an extra harsh reaction to Lumel's skin." Reginald joined him in his worry, nodding along with a small squeak.

"She knows what she's doing," Vin said, despite the sunken pit in his stomach that had been steadily growing ever since Rickten's first reaction to seeing Lumel's face after they'd saved his life.

"We just need to trust her."

"If you say so… Anyway, I don't have much better to do, so I'm going to do a few experiments on capillan hair itself," Scule decided, running over and plucking a few strands of hair from the extra fuel pile lying off to the side.

"With how bad this stuff smells while burning, it has to be poisonous or something." While Scule began pulling various alchemical tools out of his cape and got started on his experiments, Vin sat back and decided it was officially time to try his hand once more at creating a new spell. He had an entire day at his disposal with no Earthers coming to bother him or problems he had to solve, which was a rare opportunity.

He realized now that starting off his attempts at spell creation with Fireball had been a tad reckless. Not only was it a tier 2 spell, but it was also quite explosive and powerful, which had been proven multiple times over as he'd continued blowing himself up day after day. It was only because of his divine boon that his many attempts had finally worked, but this time around, he decided he wanted to try creating one that was just a touch less deadly.

And even if the Shaman hadn't actually given them any runic formations, she had in fact shown them some of her magic. Melt was an interesting spell in that, despite it sounding like it should have had a fire affinity, the Shaman's spell had been aligned with water. That alone gave Vin something of an interesting idea, and one he thought would be good to have long before any actual need for it ever arose. If one could simply wave their hand and get rid of a bunch of snow…

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Why couldn't he do the same with fire? Trusting in Scule and Reginal to wake him if any danger appeared, Vin slipped into Introspection and began examining the runic formations that he thought he would need for this new spell. First and foremost, the spell would be built off Sense Fire.

After all, if he wanted to be able to magically extinguish fire from afar, he would need to be able to pinpoint where it was in the first place. However, after that, he had two separate ideas for how to try and build the spell. The first and more reasonable idea was then somehow adding Create Water to the mix. Obviously, everyone knew that one of the best ways of putting out most fires was to dump a bunch of water on whatever was actively burning.

Vin had seen firefighters responding to burning buildings in plenty of movies and television shows growing up, so the idea seemed sound. The Gods, however, disagreed. No matter how Vin tried to spin it, his Spell Weaver title refused to activate with this first idea.

He didn't know if it was because he was attempting to merge a fire-aligned spell with a water-aligned spell, or if water wasn't actually the best general method for putting out a fire, but for whatever reason, his title was telling him it wouldn't work. Seeing as that was a bust, Vin went with his second and slightly more confusing idea. Making whatever was currently on fire resistant to the flames themselves.

Protection from Fire was an interesting spell in that it involved spreading a fine layer of mana that was resistant to heat over something. From what he could gather, rather than acting like some sort of fire blanket, the mana seemed to simply remove the heat entirely, which was why he always felt the temperature drop when using his amulet. Where that heat ended up going he had absolutely no idea, but that didn't really matter at the moment.

If he could figure out a way to cast the spell at range and made it much wider, he could, in theory, have a method of magically putting out fires from afar. While most of the buildings in Terra were constructed from stone and concrete, there were plenty of other settlements, such as Shia's village within the Sacred Forest or the infernals' village in Alka's old fragment, that were far more susceptible to fire.

The infernals had already lost their homes once, so he'd feel a lot better if he had some method of preventing this new town of theirs constructed from dense grass blocks from going up in flames due to some sort of accident or attack. Luckily, Spell Weaver was giving him a thumbs up, letting him know his idea for using Sense Fire and Protection from Fire to accomplish his goal was sound. Granted, it didn't actually offer him any help with the actual magic, but it was still a massive time saver.

Now that he knew the idea was possible, Vin could throw himself at the attempt again and again for as long as it took until he finally got it. Let's get started… As he began fiddling around with the runic formations, Vin quickly came to the realization that there was a second reason he was an idiot for trying to start off his spell creation attempts with Fireball. Creating a brand-new spell from two different spells of the same affinity was far easier than trying to use spells of different affinities.

Stone Shot and Create Flame had been earth and fire-aligned respectively, which meant he'd needed to devote a decent chunk of effort toward adjusting the portion of the runic formation that dealt with a spell's affinity. Seeing as he was starting with two different fire-aligned spells this time, he was able to skip over that bit all together.

It needs to sense the flame, and then drop a thick layer of mana on it, dissipating the heat and erasing the flames, he thought, slowly tweaking the runes to make the spell do just that. Sensing the flame is easy, I barely even need to touch the root spell. I just need to adjust Protection from Fire to make the mana layer far heavier and last a split second rather than thin and a few hours…

Rather than extinguishing the small, foul-smelling fire burning in their igloo, Vin's first attempt at the spell failed, resulting in him simply dropping the temperature within their room like a rock and earning him some angry noises from Reginald and Scule. The failed runic formation wasn't lethal, however, which meant he had all the time in the world to continue tweaking it and make it better.

His second attempt sort of worked, but rather than extinguish the flames, the blanket of mana pushed them outward, spreading the fire in all directions and nearly setting his own pants on fire. His third attempt ended in similar results, albeit more of the fire was consumed that time around, showing he was headed on the right track. It wasn't until his fourth attempt hours after he'd begun the process that Vin finally felt his newly crafted runic formation click together.

As his mana flowed unimpeded through the structure, he grinned as the small fire burning in the center of the room winked out without anyone so much as touching it. New spell learned! Tier 1 Fire Spell (Extinguish). 5, 000 exp gained. Level up! Adventurer of the Arcane level 42. +3 attribute points +1 skill point Introspection lvl 18! 3, 600 exp gained.

Giddy at the confirmation that creating his own spells still resulted in gaining experience, Vin jumped up and pumped his fists, laughing at his second successful spell creation. The combination of it being only a tier one spell this time around, using two different spells of the same affinity, and it being remarkably similar to a spell he already knew, had allowed him to not only construct this newest spell without killing himself a single time, but to do it in a single day.

It was quite the step up from blowing himself up time and time again for the better part of a week.

"Congratulations, we're freezing again," Scule drawled, shivering as he pointed at the clump of oily hair sitting in the center of the room.

"Do you mind?"

"Sorry," Vin laughed, casting Create Flame and igniting the pile of hair once more.

"Good news, though! I managed to create another new spell! And without blowing myself up this time around!"

"Wait, that was a possibility? And you chose to work on this inside an enclosed space with me and Reginald here?!" Before Vin could explain that he'd been pretty sure there was nothing to worry about, Lumel suddenly popped back into their igloo in a flash of purple. Still excited from his recent success, he went to eagerly tell her about his latest creation, before catching sight of the expression on her face. Lumel's eyes were bright red, as if she'd been crying.

"If you guys don't mind," she said softly, sniffling despite herself.

"…I'd like to go home now."