Eiden returned to Dormitory C to find Roan. He needed to go back to the quarry, and Roan was the only person who could take him there quickly.
He reached Room 3-17 and stopped outside the door. Usually, the room was noisy. Pax would be trying to stop Brisket from eating something. Voxanna would be arguing with someone. Roan would be laughing. This time, the room was quiet.
“That’s suspicious,” Eiden muttered.
He opened the door. One wall was covered with papers. There were maps, notes, arrows, circles, and crossed-out plans everywhere. Some papers were taped to the wardrobe. Some were on the curtains. One was even on the ceiling. Roan stood in the middle of the room with charcoal in his hand, staring at the wall.
He looked serious.
“No,” Roan murmured, not seeing Eiden. “If something comes from the north road, this line is useless. If it comes from the lower basin, that works. If it comes from the cliff side, everyone dies, which is not a plan.”
Eiden blinked. “Excuse me?”
Roan turned around. When he saw Eiden, his face brightened. “Good. You’re here. I have something you’ll like.”
Eiden looked at the wall. “What happened to the room?”
“Planning.”
“That explains some of this. Not the paper on the ceiling.”
“That one is important.”
“Is that why it’s on the ceiling?”
“Yes.”
Eiden decided not to ask more. “Where are Voxanna and Pax?”
“Class. Library. Maybe something with Brisket. I don’t know.” Roan waved his hand. “Not important.”
Eiden walked closer to the wall. The biggest paper was a map of the west cliffs and the abandoned quarry. Roan had drawn the broken platform, the wide basin, the narrow stone passage, the ramps, and the cliff edge. Eiden recognized the places from their first visit, but now the map had many more marks on it.
Some places were marked as observation points. Some were fallback routes. Several red circles showed kill zones. There were also possible portal points. One area was labeled BAD IDEA. Another was labeled BAD IDEA BUT POSSIBLY USEFUL.
Eiden pointed at that one. “What is this?”
Roan leaned closer. “That is where I thought about blinking a monster directly off the cliff.”
Eiden stared at him.
Roan shrugged. “I’m not saying it’s the main plan. I’m just saying cliffs exist.”
Eiden did not answer. The worst part was that it made sense.
Roan picked up another paper from the desk and gave it to him. “I went back yesterday morning.”
Eiden looked at him sharply. “You went to the quarry alone?”
“Briefly.”
Eiden looked at the new map. It was cleaner and more detailed. Roan had marked the slopes, weak stones, places with good view, and areas where rocks might collapse. The sketches were rough, but clear.
“You measured all this?”
“Estimated,” Roan said. “My father made me draw battlefield maps when I was younger. If I got them wrong, he made me walk the area again.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It was. But now I can do this.” Roan pointed at the wall.
Eiden lowered the paper. “I came here to ask you to take me there.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“You look like you need to do something dangerous.”
“Do I?”
“You do. Also your sleeve is burned.” Roan pointed at his arm. “What were you doing?”
Eiden looked down. His sleeve was burned. “I was trying to learn a new spell.”
“What kind of spell?”
“A trap spell,” Eiden said. “Fire Mine. I can put fire into the ground. If something steps on it, it explodes. It is not perfect yet,” Eiden added.
“How not perfect?”
“Sometimes it works.”
“And the other times?”
“It explodes early.”
Roan looked at the burned sleeve again. “That explains the sleeve.”
“I’m still learning it,” Eiden said. “But if I can make it stable, we can prepare the quarry before anything appears.”
Roan’s expression changed. He looked back at the map, then at the red circles on the wall. “So that’s what you needed the quarry for.”
“Yes.”
Roan grabbed his coat. “Come on.”
“Right now?”
“Yes. If something bad is coming soon, planning in the dorm is only useful until we need the real ground. And if you have mines, the ground matters even more.”
Roan raised both hands. Thin silver lines appeared in the air and formed a circle. Space shimmered inside it.
Eiden hated spatial magic. It did not feel like moving. It felt like the world folded around him for a second. Cold wind hit his face, and his boots landed on rough stone. He staggered, put a hand over his mouth, and swallowed hard.
Roan appeared beside him, looking fine. “Better than last time?”
Eiden gagged once, then forced it down. “Shut up.”
They stood at the edge of the abandoned quarry. Valdenmoor was far behind them. The quarry stretched below, full of old roads, broken stone, pits, ramps, and dust. The wind was cold and dry.
Roan started walking down the path. He was different here. In the dorm, he talked too much and acted careless. Here, he kept looking around. He checked high ground, loose stones, slopes, cover, and distance. He was still Roan, but he was not joking all the time.
They reached the broken platform first. Roan stopped near the edge and looked down at the wide basin.
“So,” Roan said. “Before I keep guessing like an idiot, I need something from you.”
Eiden looked at him. “What?”
“Where are they coming from?”
Eiden stayed quiet for a moment. He did not like talking about it. Even saying too much felt dangerous. The woman had warned him before. He had to be vague.
“I don’t know the exact place,” Eiden said.
Roan frowned. “That is a bad start.”
“I know.”
“Do you know the direction? Road? Cave? Underground? Forest?”
Eiden looked up at the sky. “Most likely from above.”
Roan followed his gaze. “Above?”
“They’ll probably appear in the air,” Eiden said carefully. “Then fall down.”
Roan stared at him for a second. “Fall down from the sky?”
“Probably. Yes.”
Roan rubbed his face with one hand. “Of course. Why would it be normal?”
“I don’t know exactly where,” Eiden said. “Only that it should happen near me. And I don’t know how many.”
Roan lowered his hand. His expression became serious again. “Can they fly?”
Eiden looked back at him. “I don’t know.”
Roan let out a long sigh.
“Unknown is fine,” Roan said after a moment.
Eiden blinked. “It is?”
“No. It’s terrible.” Roan looked down at the quarry again. “If they appear like I do, just in the air, and if we don’t know the exact spot, then we can’t prepare one perfect trap.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“So we don’t make one perfect trap,” Roan said. “We turn the whole quarry into a trap.”
Eiden looked at him.
Roan pointed down at the wide basin, then toward the narrow passage, then the ramps. “If they fall into the basin, good. If they land near the ramps, still good. If they scatter, we make the easiest paths dangerous. If something flies, we need sight lines and high ground. If something climbs, we use the ramps and the throat.”
“The throat?”
Roan pointed toward the narrow stone passage. “That passage. I named it.”
Roan continued like that was normal. “This platform is not where we stand because I know where they’ll appear. I don’t. This is where we stand because we can see the most from here. If they land in the basin, we act. If they land near the ramps, we move. If they fly, at least we can see them early.”
“And if they appear above us?”
“Then we move very quickly.”
“That’s your plan?”
“Pretty much.”
Eiden could not argue with that.
Roan pointed to a flat stone behind them. “If something gets close, I can blink us back there. I marked it as Fallback One. I’m not saying it will save us from everything. I’m saying standing somewhere with a retreat point is better than standing somewhere stupid.”
Eiden followed his finger. “And if you can’t blink?”
“Then we run down the right path. Not the left. The left one looks shorter, but the stone is weak. If something heavy lands there, or if you hit it with a big spell, it might collapse.”
Roan crouched and drew on a flat stone with charcoal. “The basin is like a bowl. If things fall into it, they have three main choices. They stay in the pit and spread out. They climb the ramps. Or they move toward the narrow passage. We don’t need to control everything. We just need to make the easiest paths bad for them.”
“The narrow passage,” Eiden said.
“Exactly. The damaged ramp should not collapse too early. If it collapses too soon, they might scatter in a way we don’t want. If it collapses after some of them enter the basin, it removes one escape route. Then the stable ramp stays for us, and the narrow passage becomes their path.”
“You thought about this a lot.”
“Yes. That’s why the room looks like that.”
They moved down into the quarry and reached the narrow stone passage between two ridges. The walls were high on both sides. The wind made a thin sound as it passed through.
“This is the throat,” Roan said.
“Yes.”
Roan crouched and drew three circles in the dust. “If your mines work by pressure, don’t place them randomly. Put them where movement is easy to predict—corners, for example. If the first mine hits the front, the ones behind won’t keep walking in the same line if they’re intelligent. They’ll scatter. So the second mine goes where they scatter. The third goes where they run after the second.”
Eiden looked at the circles. “Yeah, good idea.”
“It has to be,” Roan said. “If this thing spreads, the first minutes are important.”
Eiden did not like how true that sounded.
They moved into the wide basin. Roan climbed onto a ledge and pointed down.
“You do not stand in the middle.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Roan looked at him.
Eiden looked away.
“You stand here,” Roan said. “Or on the other ledge. The basin is for enemies and explosions.”
Roan drew a crescent shape in the dust. “If they fall into this basin, we place mines like this.”
“And the gap points toward the throat.”
“Yes. Then the throat becomes the real killing lane.”
“What if they don’t land in the basin?”
“Then this is only one trap zone,” Roan said. “Not the whole plan. We make more zones. Basin, throat, ramps, platform approach. The quarry is big.”
The plan was simple and clear. For a moment, the Wave felt less like an unstoppable wall and more like a problem he could actually prepare for. It was still huge. Still terrifying. But now, it felt doable.
They spent another half hour walking around the quarry. Roan showed him another fallback route, stones that could collapse, a ledge that looked safe but was cracked…
They returned to the lower basin. Eiden stood near the center and looked up. The sky was clear now, but he could imagine it tearing open.
“How much time?” Roan asked.
Eiden looked at the air. “How much time until the next Wave?”
A panel appeared.
[Time remaining until the next Wave: ~82 hours]
[Current survival chance: 27%]
“Eighty-two hours,” Eiden said.
Roan became quiet. It was the first time Eiden had said the number to him.
Roan looked across the quarry. “Untill they appear here, then we start now.”
Eiden crouched and put his palm on the ground. “Fire Mine test.”
Roan stepped back several meters.
Eiden glanced at him. “Afraid?”
“Yes,” Roan said.
Fair enough.
Eiden closed his eyes and followed the steps in his head. Small fire. Push it into the ground. Set the pressure. Move away before it exploded in his face.
A faint orange glow appeared under his hand. It stayed there even after he pulled back.
Roan leaned forward. “Is it done?”
“Maybe.”
“That is not a good answer.”
“It is not a good spell yet.”
Eiden threw a stone at the glowing spot. The mine exploded in a rough circle, smaller than he wanted, but strong enough to push dust across the ground.
A panel appeared.
Repeat successful pressure test: 1/10
Current achieved radius: 3.1 meters
Stability: Unstable
Eiden smiled a little. “Again.”
The next attempts were mixed. One mine fizzled. Another sank too deep and died. A third exploded early. Roan marked each failed spot on the map and wrote down what kind of ground caused the problem.
After forty minutes, Eiden had only two successful pressure tests and almost no mana left. Fire Mine cost fifty mana every time it worked properly, and his maximum mana was only eighty. Even with Mana Sense restoring ten mana every five minutes, he could not just keep placing mines whenever he wanted.
He sat on a flat stone and meditated while Roan measured distances between possible mine spots.
Fifteen minutes later, a panel appeared.
[Current Mana: 50/80]
“Enough,” Eiden said, standing.
Roan frowned. “That’s enough?”
“For one mine,” Eiden said. “That’s the problem.”
They moved to the throat and started placing mines according to Roan’s pattern.
By the second hour, they had a rhythm, but it was a slow one. Eiden placed one mine, then had to sit down and recover mana before he could place another. Roan used those breaks to mark positions.
By the end of the third hour there were six active mines in total. That was all he could manage with the mana cost. Each one had taken fifty mana, then another long pause to recover enough for the next. Eiden’s knees were dusty, his palm hurt, and his head ached from repeated meditation. But when he stood on the broken platform and looked down, he could see the start of a battlefield.
He opened the Fire Mine blueprint.
Fire Mine Prototype
Status: Unstable Prototype
Repeat successful pressure test: 6/10
Field placement: Successful
Active Mines: 6
[Warning: Unstable mines may detonate early, fail to trigger, or trigger from unexpected pressure changes.]
Eiden stared at the last line.
Roan noticed. “What?”
“Unexpected pressure changes.”
“What does that mean?”
“I think we’re about to learn.”
The wind shifted. A low sheet of dust moved across the basin. It looked harmless. One faint orange glow pulsed.
Eiden’s stomach dropped. “Roan.”
Roan followed his gaze. His face went blank. “Don’t tell me...”
The first mine flashed.
“Oh no,” Eiden said.
It exploded. The blast threw dust and small stones across the crescent. One stone bounced twice and landed on another mine. That one exploded too.
For half a second, Eiden thought it might stop.
It did not.
The second explosion triggered three more. Fire spread across the basin in quick bursts. Dust flew into the air. Heat rolled over the ledges. Then the throat exploded too. One mine triggered from debris, the next from the shockwave, and the third followed right after it. Roan grabbed Eiden’s sleeve and pulled him back from the edge as hot air rushed past them.
Eiden stood still and watched three hours of work explode.
The damaged ramp cracked and part of it collapsed too early. Stones rolled down into the basin. A bird flew out from a crack in the cliff wall and escaped into the sky.
The last mine exploded with a heavy thud. Then the quarry became quiet except for falling pebbles and small fires.
A panel appeared.
Active Mines: 0
Field Test Result:
Catastrophic Chain Trigger
[Cause: Improper sensitivity calibration.]
Eiden stared at the panel. “Do not do that.”
Roan pressed his lips together.
Eiden turned his head slowly. “If you laugh, I will throw you into the pit.”
Another panel appeared.
Fire Mine Prototype Updated
New Required Calibration:
Set trigger threshold more clearly.
Add shockwave ignore layer.
Add debris tolerance.
Increase shell stability before multi-mine placement.
[Recommended: Do not place more than three unstable Fire Mines within linked blast range.]
Eiden lowered his hands. “Now you tell me.”
The woman did not answer.
He sat down on the platform. For a few seconds, he said nothing. The quarry smoked below. All that work was gone. But it was not useless. That made it harder to be angry. He had learned what was wrong. A chain of mines could kill enemies, or it could waste hours.
The difference was control.
Roan sat beside him and stayed quiet.
Eiden looked at his palm. The skin was red and dusty. He wanted to rest. He wanted to go back to the academy, eat something, and sleep. But the countdown did not care.
He stood.
Roan looked up. “Already?”
“If I wait, I’ll think too much.”
“That is usually useful.”
“Not right now.”
They climbed down into the basin again. The ground was still hot in some places. Eiden crouched near the edge of the first blast mark and opened the blueprint again. This time, he adjusted the trigger more carefully. It had to ignore dust, wind, small stones, and shockwaves unless real weight pressed on it.
He placed the mine again. The glow was fainter than before.
Roan rolled a pebble across it. Nothing happened.
Eiden threw a heavier stone. The mine exploded in a clean burst. It was smaller than he wanted, but controlled.
After another long meditation, Eiden had enough mana for one more proper test. He placed the mine with the same careful settings. Roan tested it with a small stone first. Nothing happened. Then Eiden threw a heavier stone. The mine exploded cleanly.
A panel appeared.
Repeat successful pressure test: 8/10
Fire Mine Prototype Progress Updated.
When the sun started going down, Eiden sat on a stone near the basin. He was exhausted.
“How much time?” Roan asked quietly.
Eiden did not want to check, but not checking would not stop it.
The panel appeared.
[Time remaining until the next Wave: ~79 hours]
[Current survival chance: 28%]
“Seventy-nine hours,” Eiden said.
Roan looked down at the marked zones. “Then we keep going.”
Eiden glanced at him.
“We have seventy-nine hours,” Roan said. “That is enough time to make more mistakes and fix some of them.”
Eiden laughed once, tired and unwilling. “That may be the worst encouragement I’ve ever heard.”
He stood again, even though his legs hurt. The first attempt had failed. The second had worked. The third would be better. The Wave was still coming, and the only thing worse than preparing badly was not preparing at all.
“Alright,” Eiden said. “Fewer mistakes this time.”
Roan picked up the map and followed him down into the basin.
Above them, the sky was still clear. Somewhere behind it, the clock kept ticking.
Seventy-nine hours.
Eiden crouched, placed his palm against the ground, and began again.
By the time night fully settled over the quarry, Eiden could barely feel his legs.
They did not waste the remaining hours. After the failed field test, Eiden rebuilt as much of the mine layout as his mana allowed. It was slower than he wanted. So the work became a cycle: place one mine, step away, check the mark with Roan, sit down, use Mana Sense for recovery, then place the next one when he reached enough mana again.
Roan used every waiting period to improve the layout. He moved marks farther apart, erased lines that were too risky, and kept saying things like “connected explosions are funny only when they happen to someone else.” Eiden did not laugh, mostly because Roan was right.
He opened the blueprint one last time.
Fire Mine
Status: Field Prototype
Active Mines: 7
“Seven,” Eiden said, staring at the number.
Roan looked at the dark quarry. “It is still better than zero.”
Eiden hated that too, because it was also true.
“I’ll be back,” Roan said.
Eiden opened one eye. “Where are you going?”
“To save us from sleeping on rocks.”
Then he vanished.
Roan returned twenty minutes later with two rolled sleeping bags, a small lantern, a waterskin, and a cloth bag full of bread, dried meat, and something that looked like hard cheese. He looked very proud until he nearly tripped over a stone and dropped one sleeping bag into the dust.
“Successful mission,” Roan said, picking it up.
“You stole those?”
“Borrowed.”
“From who?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Eiden stared at the sleeping bags, then looked toward the direction of the dorms. “Why did you bring these here instead of taking us back to the dorm?”
Roan unrolled one sleeping bag and pressed it flat with his foot. “Because if we go back, you will sleep properly.”
“That sounds like the point.”
“It is the problem,” Roan said. “Your mana comes back on its own if you rest, right? Slowly, but it comes back. So you sleep here, wake up every few hours, place one Fire Mine, then sleep again. One mine, sleep, one mine, sleep. By morning, we have more traps than we would have if we wasted the whole night in the dorm.”
Eiden wanted to argue, but the plan made sense. He ate while sitting on the ground, drank half the waterskin, then watched Roan spread the sleeping bags near the broken platform where the wind was weaker. Roan checked the surroundings one more time, made sure they were not lying directly on or near any marked mine paths, then collapsed into his sleeping bag like someone had cut his strings.
“You’re sleeping already?” Eiden asked.
Roan’s voice came muffled from inside the roll. “Yes.”
“What are we going to do about tomorrow’s class?”
“Meh.”
A few minutes later, Roan was snoring. One hand rested outside the sleeping bag, still holding a piece of charcoal like he might wake up and continue planning in the middle of the night.
Eiden sat with his back against a stone and looked at the quarry.
He should have slept too.
His body wanted it. His arms ached. His palm still hurt from the mines. His head felt full of warm sand from too much mana use and too much meditation. If he closed his eyes, he knew sleep would catch him in seconds.
But his mind would not let go.
Ember Core.
He remembered the panel from the practice room: a permanent… something. He didn’t really understand it, but he could use it to convert fire into mana.
If it worked, the whole Fire Mine plan changed.
Right now, every mine was expensive.
But if Ember Core let him recover mana from fire left behind by explosions, even a little, then every failed mine, every burning patch could become useful.
He looked at Roan.
Roan was asleep. Completely out. He had spent the whole day walking, mapping, calculating, arguing with Eiden, and teleporting around.
He opened his character panel quietly.
Character Panel
General Information
Attributes
Abilities
Inventory
Quests
Affinity
He selected Affinity.
Fire Affinity Stage I: Ember Core
Status: Unlocked
Trial Access: Available
[Recommendation: Do not begin while exhausted.]
Eiden stared at the last line.
He rubbed his face with both hands. “I know. I’m exhausted. This is a bad idea,” he said.
He took a slow breath.
“Begin Ember Core trial.”
The panel changed immediately.
[Entry confirmed.]
[You will be transferred to an isolated trial space.]
Trial Type: Mental Affinity Trial
[Failure: No permanent penalty.]
[Trial may be attempted again after one day.]
[Warning: Pain response may be simulated.]
[Do you wish to continue?]
Eiden swallowed.
“Simulated pain, huh,” he whispered. Eiden looked back at the panel. “Continue.”
The quarry sound faded. The wind went quiet. Roan’s snoring disappeared. The cold stone under Eiden’s legs became warm.
Then the world folded inward.
Eiden opened his eyes and stood in darkness.
He looked down and saw no ground, but his feet were standing on something. A faint red glow pulsed under him, like an ember buried under ash.
A panel appeared in front of him.
Ember Core Trial — Stage I
Format: Mental Affinity Trial
Objective:
Form a stable ember inside your mana flow.
Rules:
Do not overpower the flame.
Do not let it die.
Do not let it consume you.
“That is very dramatic for ‘make a small fire.’”
The darkness answered by getting warmer.
A spark appeared in front of his chest. Tiny. Orange. Barely alive. It floated there, pulsing once every few seconds.
Eiden reached for it.
The spark flared.
Heat slammed into his chest. He stumbled back, except there was nowhere to stumble. The dark space bent with him, keeping him in place. Fire crawled across his ribs and into his throat. He gasped.
The spark grew into a fist-sized flame.
A warning appeared.
[Affinity pressure rising.]
[Do not force it.]
“I’m not doing anything!” Eiden snapped, clutching his chest.
The flame pulsed again and grew larger.
Eiden clenched his jaw. “Okay. Make it a little smaller.”
He tried to suppress it.
The flame shrank too fast. The heat vanished from his chest and left behind a hollow cold—almost gone.
“Shit! Shit!”
He breathed and tried to use Mana Sense.
He did not know if it would work, but he tried anyway. He closed his eyes and felt for mana around him.
At first, there was nothing.
Then he felt it.
A thin flow inside his body. Not around him. Raw mana moving like slow water through narrow channels. When it reached his chest, it warmed and turned toward fire. That was the conversion. Raw mana becoming Fire-aspected mana.
Usually, he shoved it toward his hands.
This time, he did not move it.
He let it pass near the spark.
The spark brightened, but did not explode.
Eiden opened his eyes slowly.
“Why is magic harder than it looks? Couldn’t I be a sorcerer instead of a mage? They get their power without training, right? C’mon—turn me into a sorcerer instead!”
[No. Continue training.]
“Wow, what an ethical woman you are.”
The flame hovered in front of his chest. Stable for now.
He imagined it inside him, but not like swallowing fire. That sounded stupid and painful. He imagined it like placing a coal inside a lantern. A protected place. Air could reach it. Fuel could reach it. But it would not roll around and burn the house down.
The darkness shifted.
The flame moved closer to his chest.
Eiden’s body tensed.
The flame touched him.
It was not normal burn pain. This went deeper. It felt like someone had placed a hot coin behind his ribs and pressed down. Eiden gritted his teeth and bent forward, but he did not push it away.
The flame entered his chest.
For a few seconds, he could not breathe.
A panel appeared, but the words blurred.
Trial Step 1:
Accept the ember.
Status: In progress.
“Easy for you to say…” Eiden forced out.
The ember pulsed inside him and tried to grow.
Eiden felt it swelling behind his ribs, wanting to become the biggest fire it could. Wanting to fill his chest, his arms, his throat. It would be easy to let it. He was tired. Angry. Afraid. There was so much to burn.
The flame grew.
The darkness around him turned orange.
The ember pressed harder.
“Nope! Stay in!” Eiden said.
The ember inside his chest steadied.
The orange light dimmed around him until only the small glow inside remained. It pulsed with his breathing.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The pain lowered. It did not disappear, but it became something he could stand. Like holding a hot cup carefully. Like knowing it could burn him if he got careless.
A panel appeared.
[Trial Step 1 Complete: Accept the ember.]
[Trial Step 2: Feed the ember without increasing output.]
Eiden stared. “That sounds like a contradiction. How would I do that?”
Small red sparks appeared around him. Dozens at first. Then hundreds. They floated in the darkness like fireflies. Each one felt familiar. Fire-aspected mana. Residue. The kind left behind after a spell hit something. The kind Ember Core was supposed to absorb.
One spark drifted toward him.
The ember in his chest reached for it.
Eiden almost let it.
The moment the spark touched him, the ember flared too bright.
Heat rushed up his throat.
He coughed and dropped to one knee.
The sparks floated around him.
He watched them more carefully this time. Fire residue was not the same as usable mana. It was messy. Hot. Directionless. If he just pulled it in, it fed the fire directly and made it grow. That was dangerous.
He needed to run it through the ember, not dump it onto the ember.
He reached for one spark with Mana Sense. He touched it lightly and pulled only a thread from it. The thread entered his chest, passed around the ember, and lost some of its wild heat. The ember brightened, but did not grow. A tiny amount of mana flowed back into him.
“That worked.”
Another spark drifted near him. He did it again. Slow. Thread by thread. Pull, pass, convert, release. The ember became a small center of heat inside his mana flow.
He kept going.
The darkness filled with more sparks. Some were calm. Some were violent. Some tried to rush in all at once. When he grabbed too much, the ember flared and hurt him. When he took too little, the spark vanished before he could use it.
It became a rhythm.
Breathe in. Pull a thread.
Breathe out. Let the ember convert.
Breathe in. Hold the size.
Breathe out. Release usable mana.
Time became strange. It might have been minutes. It might have been hours. His body was not in the quarry, or maybe it was. He could not tell. All that mattered was the ember and the flow.
A panel appeared.
[Trial Step 2 Complete: Feed the ember without increasing output.]
[Trial Step 3: Hold the ember under pressure.]
Eiden slowly looked up. “I knew there would be a third part.”
The darkness cracked.
Heat poured through the cracks like sunlight through broken doors. The floating sparks became streams. Then rivers. Fire-aspected mana rushed toward him from every direction, too much and too fast.
It hit his chest.
The ember tried to become an inferno.
Eiden screamed.
He heard it echo, but it sounded far away. Maybe his real body had made the sound. Maybe not.
The fire inside him pushed outward.
His arms lit up with orange lines. His veins, or something like veins, glowed under his skin. The trial space shook. The ember wanted to use everything. All the fire. All the fear. All the pressure.
For one terrifying second, it felt like his chest had become a furnace with a locked door. Heat roared behind it. The door shook. The hinges screamed.
Eiden held it.
The fire streams slowed.
The cracks in the darkness began closing.
The ember matched his heartbeat.
The trial space went silent.
A panel appeared.
[Trial Step 3 Complete: Hold the ember under pressure.]
[Final Evaluation: Stable internal ember formed.]
[Ember Core formation possible.]
Eiden stood very still.
“Possible?” he asked. “I did all that for possible?”
The ember inside his chest sank deeper. A small, warm center behind his sternum, connected to his mana flow by thin channels he could feel but not see.
Then it locked into place.
Eiden gasped.
The darkness vanished.
He was back in the quarry.
Roan was still asleep in the sleeping bag, one arm over his face. The moon had moved across the sky. The cold night air hit Eiden’s sweat-soaked skin and made him shiver.
For a second, he thought nothing had changed.
Then he felt the lantern.
A tiny pool of Fire-aspected mana sat inside the flame, weak and warm. Normally, he would not have noticed it. Now it felt like a crumb of bread on an empty table.
The ember in his chest stirred.
A thin thread of warmth left the lantern flame and drifted toward him. Not enough to dim it. Not enough to matter to anyone else. It entered his chest, passed through the ember, and became usable mana.
A panel appeared.
Ember Core Trial Complete.
Fire Affinity Stage I: Ember Core — Formed.
New Passive: Ember Core I
Effect:
You can absorb residual Fire-aspected mana from nearby flames, burning surfaces, and recent Fire spell impacts.
Absorbed fire mana is converted into usable mana.
Current efficiency: Low.
Range: Short.
Warning:
Large or unstable fire sources may overload the core if absorbed too quickly.
Eiden stared at the panel.
Then another line appeared.
[Current Mana: 34/80 → 35/80]
Eiden looked at the lantern.
The flame flickered innocently.
He smiled despite how tired he was.
Roan shifted in his sleeping bag and muttered, “Not there…”
Eiden slowly turned to him.
“What?”
Roan did not wake up.
Eiden sat there in the cold night air of the quarry for several more minutes.
He should have gone to sleep.
Instead, he looked down at his palm and formed the smallest possible flame.
The ember inside him answered.
For the first time since the countdown began, Eiden felt like fire was not only something he threw at problems.
It felt… familiar. Safe.
A panel appeared one last time.
Time remaining until the next Wave: ~78 hours
Current survival chance: 31%
Eiden let the small flame fade and leaned back against the stone.
“That was worth it,” he whispered.
Above him, the sky was still clear and peaceful.
He finally gave in to sleep.