Chapter 66 – The Living Furnace
The sun hung high above the City of Sands.
Twenty-five alchemists stood in the arena's center, their cauldrons arrayed in a wide circle. The sand beneath their boots had been carved into runes that shimmered faintly with trapped heat. The air itself felt alive—ready to burn.
They stood in a wide ring on the arena floor, each at their own alchemy station—cauldron, fire-slot, and ingredient box.
Up on the raised platform, the three judges took their seats.
Elder Seraphine Vel—silver-robed, calm, eyes like polished glass—sat in the middle. To her right, Calvin Sparks of the Kingdom of Rina, a Tier 4 alchemist and D-Rank powerhouse, rested both hands on the railing, fingers like the jaws of a forge. To her left, Alex Burrow of Valin's Alchemist Academy also a D rank powerhouse lounged with academic elegance, a quill tucked behind one ear despite the heat.
They were old friends that bickered like children. But they were old enough and sharp enough to know when to be serious.
The announcer's voice rolled across the arena. "Second round! Live forging! No preset recipe! Contestants will produce the best potion they can sustain under pressure from one of our judges!"
There was a ripple through the crowd. People loved battles.
This was a battle of will.
Seraphine rose first, her voice carrying without shouting. "No one will be told what to make. You have one hour. Essence-control, flame-control, and stability will be judged."
Then she sat.
And, very deliberately, she turned to Calvin.
Every contestant's shoulders tightened.
The air itself seemed to kneel.
He walked to the center of the arena and sat down on the floor.
When Calvin Sparks released his aura, the arena didn't tremble — it buckled. Sand hardened into glass. Every rune carved into the coliseum's walls flared once, as though warning the weak to flee. The crowd, ten thousand strong, went silent. Even the banners above the dome stilled mid-gust.
Pressure fell like a mountain.
Twenty-five contestants stood in the ringed field, each inside a glowing circle of their own. Some clenched their jaws, others widened their stance; a few froze before the heat could even touch them. To stand beneath a D-Rank powerhouse's spirit was to feel the power of something you cannot fathom.
Calvin remained seated. His back was straight, his hands folded before him, a still point in a storm that existed because of him. His voice, when it came, was quiet — yet it rolled through the arena like thunder finding words.
"Begin."
Flames bloomed.
Glass hissed. Metal groaned. Alchemists bent over their stations and began the ritual of survival.
High above, in the judges' stand, Alex Burrow whistled under his breath.
"You always did love a spectacle, old man."
Calvin didn't reply. His eyes tracked the field, half-lidded, patient, and predatory.
Seraphine Vel rested her chin on one gloved hand, silver eyes reflecting the maze of light below. "You call it spectacle," she said, "but this is honestly a true test of skill."
Alex grinned. "You require resilience when you want to become a great alchemist."
"Yes," Seraphine said mildly, "you must be willing to push past boundaries to becomes a great alchemist."
From the eastern gallery, J-Crew pressed against the railing.
"Light," Blake breathed, his grin caught somewhere between awe and terror. "He's killing them."
"Quiet," Tamara murmured. Her hood was up, face shadowed. When Jackson Green had stepped into the light earlier, she'd gone still. Now, her hands were folded so tightly the knuckles were white.
Blake's gaze flicked between her and the ice-calm figure below. "You know him."
"Just watch John," she said.
Mara's eyes stayed on the rings. "They won't last long."
Lysa nodded. "Half of them are shaking already."
Sera whispered something under her breath — a prayer, or maybe just a wish. Ember crouched on the railing beside her, fur bristled, golden eyes reflecting the chaos below.
John's first breath under the pressure was a mistake.
It burned.
The weight pressed through his ribs, not on them. His pulse became a drumline in his skull. Every motion felt like it was being judged by the air itself.
"Steady," Alaric's voice echoed in his mind, low and calm. "Your body can take a lot more then you'd think. You must have a strong mind."
"I am steady," John thought back, teeth clenched.
"Good."
He turned to his station — the familiar layout, the same glass, the same flame — but nothing felt normal. His fire refused to hold its shape; it quivered under Calvin's aura, colors bleeding together like bruises. He adjusted the dampener rune, trying to keep what little control he had, but the heat fluctuated again.
Around him, the first explosion bloomed.
A young apprentice from the Merchant branch lost his grip — the mixture imploded, showering the nearby rings in violet sparks. The crowd gasped. Two attendants rushed forward, dragging him out before the fumes turned lethal.
"Twenty-four," Calvin murmured.
Frank Gottem was the first to adapt.
He worked as though the pressure were a heavy rain: inconvenient, but irrelevant. Each movement was small, efficient, deliberate. He didn't fight the weight; he let it slide off the edges of his focus. The flame beneath his cauldron remained narrow and blue, perfect. His face was calm, breath slow, body balanced.
Alex Burrow smiled faintly. "That's my boy."
Seraphine tilted her head. "His willpower in commendable."
"You should see the boy train. It's almost like he enjoys the pain."
Calvin's gaze flicked briefly toward Frank as he murmured to himself. "He endures because he was taught to."
Jackson Green worked three rings away — the opposite of Frank's quiet rhythm. His movements were surgical, mechanical, almost arrogant. Every tilt of his wrist was exactly the same as the last. His aura, faintly visible around him, shimmered like frost under sunlight. When the pressure increased, he simply widened his stance and kept going.
He didn't even blink.
Seraphine's mouth curved. "Prodigies are so tedious."
Alex laughed. "Says the woman who raised three of them."
"And buried two."
John's flame guttered again.
Sweat ran down his neck. His arms shook. The rune-etched spoon in his hand clinked once against the rim of the cauldron — and he heard Calvin's voice, soft and distant.
"You're going to fail at this rate."
It wasn't mockery. It was truth spoken like gravity.
The words hit harder than the aura. His shoulders sagged for half a breath — but then Alaric's tone sharpened in his head.
"Good," the spirit said. "Let him think you will
Fail. Once you show him what you're capable of he will regret it."
John exhaled, slow.
He reached inside the mess of heat and noise and found the rhythm again — not by control, but by feeling. The flame was wild, but it still had a pattern, a pulse beneath the chaos. He matched it, breath for breath.
The potion began to settle. Faint threads of gold rippled through the clear liquid, aligning themselves.
"Good," Alaric said. "Now prepare yourself it's going to get harder boy"
Calvin added more weight.
It came like a silent avalanche. The arena's runes flickered; several contestants buckled to their knees, blood at their lips. Their potions turned murky or boiled over. Attendants hurried to pull them out.
"Eighteen," Seraphine said quietly.
"Seventeen," Alex corrected as another ring went dark.
John's vision narrowed. His knees wanted to give. He forced them straight. His mind screamed, but his spirit — the thing that lived deeper than breath — refused to kneel.
The fire wavered again.
Not yet.
He pressed both palms over the cauldron, channeling light through his skin into the brew. The runes flared gold, then blue, fighting to stay coherent under Calvin's pressure. He could feel his own essence fracturing — and mending itself stronger each time.
Frank finished first.
The final line of runes sealed with a clean tone, the potion inside his glass settling into perfect translucence. The measuring crystal beside him pulsed: 87% completion.
The crowd erupted.
Alex Burrow leaned back, smug. "And that, gentlemen, is grace under pressure."
Seraphine didn't answer; she was watching Jackson.
Jackson's station glowed like an altar.
He had one hand over the cauldron, the other guiding a thread of light through the mix. Every movement was exact. When Calvin pushed the aura again, his flame only flared brighter. The air around him shimmered — a perfect balance between control and defiance.
The crystal pulsed: 89% completion.
Tamara's breath caught.
Blake noticed and frowned. "He must be the alchemist prince?"
She didn't answer. She just pulled her hood lower.
John was still fighting.
His flame had collapsed twice and reignited each time. His arms trembled uncontrollably now. Blood trailed from one nostril, caught in the corner of his mouth, and he didn't bother to wipe it away.
Alaric's voice came low, steady, relentless. "He's trying to make you give up."
John's breath came ragged. "I won't give up."
"Then show him what you can do."
Calvin's aura pressed again — and something inside John cracked.
For a moment, he thought it was his will breaking.
But the pain in his chest wasnt physical. It was something else.
His light surged. The world went white at the edges. He felt every vein of energy in his body flare and re-weave itself, the boundaries of his spirit hardening, expanding. His limbs steadied. His flame, which had been stuttering in panic, suddenly aligned to his pulse — one unified rhythm.
Alaric's voice softened with rare pride. "Good boy make use of the pressure."
The shift was instant.
Where before he had fought to hold the flame, now it obeyed. The fire rose in a perfect column — white-gold, silent, hungry. The potion responded, clearing into a crystalline amber that glowed from within. The rune-marks across the glass pulsed in sequence — 1-2-3 — like a heart finding its beat again.
John didn't notice the crowd anymore. He didn't notice the pressure. His world was flame and breath and the whisper of Alaric counting the seconds.
John knew he had made a break through.
The pressure spiked one last time.
Calvin's eyes had narrowed. He could feel John's spirit shift — the resonance of leveling up their light.
"Step Four," the old man muttered. "Impossible…"
Alex leaned forward, startled. "Did he just—"
"Quiet," Seraphine said sharply. "Let him finish."
Below them, John exhaled.
The fire dimmed. The last swirl of light inside the cauldron stilled, and the crystal beside him flared — not white, but gold.
90% completion.
For a heartbeat, there was silence — the kind that exists right before thunder learns its name.
Then the crowd exploded.
The sound hit like a wall. Thousands of voices roared, a living sea crashing against the glass-stone walls. Ember leapt from the railing, barking furiously; Blake shouted something that got lost in the noise; Sera laughed and cried at once. Mara just grinned. Lysa exhaled a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Tamara looked beyond happy, her eyes shining.
Alex Burrow laughed first, the sound bright and disbelieving. "That's kid is going to be a monster."
Calvin didn't know what to think. His aura had already vanished. For the first time that day, the old man looked… pleased.
"He actually used my spiritual pressure to grow," he said simply.
Seraphine's silver gaze stayed on John. "I will have to update the higher ups in the main branch."
Alex tilted his head. "Step Four during the final round… I'd call that poetic, if it weren't so dangerous."
Seraphine smiled faintly. " he definitely did something most would be scared to try."
Calvin rose slowly to his feet, joints creaking like shifting stone. "Looks like we have our king of this tournament."
Down on the field, Frank and Jackson were both watching John.
Frank's expression was composed, but his jaw worked once — a small, human flash of frustration. Jackson's was colder. For the first time, his perfect calm cracked — not in anger, but in curiosity.
He tilted his head slightly, studying John like a puzzle that shouldn't exist.
John met his gaze and didn't look away.
Alaric's voice was a whisper in his mind, satisfied. "You finally look like someone worth fearing."
John's answer came slow, quiet, unshaken. "Good."
The announcer's voice tried to rise above the chaos.
"Final results of the City of Sands Alchemy Tournament—!"
The crowd drowned him out.
John stood in the center ring, hands scarred, coat scorched, blood drying along his jaw. The cauldron beside him glowed with the light of something new — the light of mastery born through punishment. Every muscle screamed, but he stood tall.
Above, the three judges raised their hands in acknowledgment.
Seraphine's voice, amplified through rune-crystals, cut through the noise.
"Three remain. Frank Gottem — eighty-seven percent. Jackson Green — eighty-nine percent. John Caster—" she paused as the echo of the name rolled through the stands, "—ninety percent."
The crowd's roar returned, louder than before.
Calvin looked down at him one last time, lips curved in something that might have been respect. "Good job."
John wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. His voice was hoarse but steady.
"Thanks."
The bell rang. Flames died. The final light bled from the air.
John's potion cooled on the bench beside him, still shimmering faintly — perfect, defiant, alive.
And over the noise, over the chants of his name, came the sound that carried through the entire city:
a single, unified roar.