I couldn’t help but share their concerns. But rather than complain, I devoted myself to perfecting the techniques I already possessed.
After enduring a month of grumbling, Master Xilarion addressed the whole guild. “I have deliberately chosen to keep you from monster hunting,” he announced from the podium at the front of the great hall. As always, he stood straight with shoulders squared, his hands clasped behind his back as he looked out across a throng of frustrated faces. “I have done so to teach you two lessons—one in conservation and one in the nature of your own skills.
“Our resources are not infinite. The Ember Cavern is like a tree, and we are the foresters who tend it. Every time we take a piece, we diminish it a little and so make it weaker. If we trim away its buds and branches carefully, selectively, then we encourage it to grow back stronger, and so our tree grows. But if we cut too hard, too hastily, then we risk forever damaging our most vital resource. We drew heavily from the cavern this autumn; now, we must give its fires time to rest and regrow.
“For you, farming beast cores is important in improving your Vigor and accessing new arts and techniques. But it is not the only way, nor often the best. Now that you have pathways within you and the fire to fuel them, the way to improve yourselves is to exercise those pathways, refine them, make them stronger. Improve on what you already have. Once that is done, you will again be given the chance to gain something new.”
Xilarion’s talk of improving ourselves struck a chord with me. I had always striven to be the best that I could at any task I was given. Now, I was being challenged to improve the skills I had been learning at the guild, and I was determined to do well. I had already been into the cavern more than most of my classmates, and I’d taken more steps than anyone toward perfecting and enhancing my skills. But I could always get better.
I knuckled down and focused on physical training on the plateau, or Augmenting practice in the great hall and the dojo. I had always taken good care of my body, but the relentless regime of the Radiant Dragon Guild was making me stronger, faster, and more agile than I had ever been. I’d never had much body fat, but now, the striations on my muscles were visible beneath a thin layer of skin. Meditation during fighting became like second nature. I could easily divorce my mind from a fight, as though I watched from outside my body.
My understanding of the world I now lived in grew with each passing day, so that I seldom had to seek explanations during conversations with my classmates. My fire Augmentation was some of the best in the class, and I prided myself on being able to show my tutors unexpected new variations on Flame Shield, Untamed Torch, and Fire Empowerment, the last of which let me increase existing flames thanks to the power of the daji cores. The Burning Wheel was my crowning jewel, and I never practiced it while other initiates were around. It was an ace up my sleeve, a secret technique that would give me an edge in the rumored tournament.
I also possessed the ash pathway now, but figuring out exactly how to combine my wood and fire techniques into abilities of this new element was difficult. Every evening, after a short rest to start digesting my dinner, I returned to the dojo or, if that was occupied, to one of the outdoor training spaces, where I braved the snow and icy wind so that I could practice unobserved. There, I worked on my ash Augmenting.
As those winter months passed, I mastered three different uses of my new-found power.
I practiced using Flame Shield to burn the wood from Plank Pillar, and then, I mastered the technique of taking those ashes and covering my body in a thin film. The ash pathway inside me allowed me to manipulate the reduced remnants of wood into an armor that fire could not penetrate. It was almost invisible except for adding a dull gray sheen to my clothing and skin. I called this ability Fire Immunity.
But such protection came at a huge cost in Vigor. Though I Augmented myself before stretching my hand into a fire or asked Kegohr to strike me with magical flames, I could never sustain the immunity for more than a few minutes. After that time, the ash-like layer covering me cracked open and fell to the ground.
Next came Ash Cloud. I created it by molding together the channels for Stinging Palm and Untamed Torch. Instead of launching a volley of wooden thorns from my palms, this new technique summoned a cloud of ash particles. If I used the technique on an enemy, it became a suffocating fog that left them choking and made it hard for them to see. If I could deprive an opponent of oxygen for long enough, then I could take them out of the fight without even trading blows.
Rather than simply combining my existing wood and fire techniques, I sought to further my ash prowess. This mission to grow stronger in the combination element led to the discovery of Compress Ash. The more advanced technique let me compact ash particles down into a solid with metal-like hardness. I spent hours trying out different approaches. First, I started with a formless lump no bigger than a button before I built up to larger and more refined pieces. By the time the snows melted and the first spring flowers poked their heads from the frost-hardened ground, I could incinerate my Stinging Palm into ashes and create a knife. The weapons I produced were brittle and ill-fitted for combat, but molding objects in what seemed like telekinesis was
