But what if I wasn’t the eye of the storm? What if my techniques were?
I lifted a hand and pushed the smallest amount of Untamed Torch from my fingertips and fed it with my own internal power. A marble-sized fireball whispered from my hand and soared over the polished black floor toward the altar.
A simple manifestation of my own personal power. A tiny still area of power within a raging inferno of raw Vigor that formed the existence of everything around me. I let my focus detach from my own pathways, narrowed my eyes at the tiny flare of magic, and re-focused my senses on the Untamed Torch just before it hit the altar.
The tiny fireball flared outward, fed on the raw Vigor around it, and grew to the size of a basketball before it crashed into the altar. Orange flame washed over the front of the altar, melted a few of the candles into liquid wax, and fizzled out after a second. An excited grin stretched across my face as I checked my pool of Vigor. I’d taken practically nothing away from my own personal store, but I’d managed, for just a second, to dip into the environment around me and use it to increase the effectiveness of my technique.
“What are you doing, Disciple?” Tymo asked coldly. I hadn’t noticed him arrive.
I glanced over my shoulder at him. “I think I’ve figured it out.”
“You have not. All you’ve achieved is ignorance of my instructions. The environment must power your Augmentation.”
“It’s impossible to power techniques from raw Vigor on its own,” I said. “How does that work with the cultivation of channels? My bout against Xilarion showed me that you can certainly draw power from your environment, but every time he used it, he was channeling a technique. This is the same principle.”
Tymo's eyes narrowed. “Are you questioning my instructions, Swordslinger?”
I could have argued and risked expulsion from the monastery. Or I could let Tymo have his way and train this new discovery in secret. I decided on the latter and simply shook my head. The ancient Archpriest took up his position beside me, and I returned to the futile activity of trying to fill my pool of Vigor from the environment around me.
“This new method must be trained carefully,” Yono said inside my mind. “Its destructive potential is immense. The Vigor of the world is great, Master, but even it has a limit. You must flow from source to source and choose your places carefully.”
“Don’t worry, Yono,” I said silently. “I’ll be careful.”
Tymo asked me to enact the same forms that led to the same failures before he released me to dinner. I didn’t discuss my new findings with my friends just yet for fear the monks might overhear me.
I woke very early the next day for my meeting with Vesma. Mahrai had dropped a wineskin by my door the night before with a wink. I buckled on my Immense Blades and stepped silently into the corridor. Vesma was already up, and she gave me a subtle wave from the end of the hallway. I joined her side, and together, we crossed through the main hall, pushed wordlessly out of the front doors, and headed into the Vigorous Zone again.
I studied her as we strolled through fire-spewing cairns, graves of ancient monks, and rocky slopes of slate. She looked incredible. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, but the freezing air of the early morning gave her heart-shaped face a gentle flush, and her eyes sparkled cheerfully as she cast her gaze around the mountain path. We took a different route and found a quiet place on a small plateau facing the valley.
Vesma sat on the edge of the cliff and gestured for me to join her. I took out the wineskin, sipped at the heady liquor, and handed it to her. She drank a good dose before giving it back to me with an appreciative sigh.
“I’ve missed you,” she said finally.
I kissed her in reply. A glowing warmth crept into Vesma’s kiss as she empowered her body with Physical Augmentation. Her tongue slipped through my teeth, brushed against mine, and the warmth from her internal heating washed over me like a hot shower. A soft growl buzzed free from my throat, and Vesma pulled away with a satisfied smile.
“I missed you too,” I said.
She sighed and laid her head on my shoulder. “Sometimes, I think back to the old days. Back when it was just you, Kegohr, and me training at Radiant Dragon. No political battles, no cultists to fight. It was all about the training and learning.”
I laid a hand on her hip and laughed. “For you, maybe.”
“You studied harder than anyone else in the classes,” Vesma reminded me. “You wanted to know everything. Tell me something, Ethan. If you had the opportunity to stay at Dying Sun and learn everything you could from the monks, would you?”
I shook my head. “No. There’s people out there that need our help. I don’t think training is useless. Far from it. But we can’t stay here forever. Sooner or later, something’s going to fuck up, and we’ll get called in to fix it.”
“You mean that you will,” Vesma said, with a playful flick of my nose.
“Us,” I insisted.
She laughed. “Please. They only let us in here because of you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, maybe I should go off on my own and try to save the world without you. I’m sure that’ll go down well.”
“Well, I’m not sure you can,” Vesma answered playfully. “We’re married, remember?”
She kissed my cheek again and hooked her leg
