—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
Ssshhh.
Silence finally broke.
With the apex predator vanquished, the forest began to stir with life once more.
Birds called somewhere in the distance. The trees creaked as wind returned to their branches.
Arion lay sprawled on the forest floor — battered, exhausted, eyes fixed on the drifting canopy above.
Complete stillness, broken only by the occasional blink.
Ghhhuuu…
Then came the groaning.
"Ugh… I think I may have broken something."
He exhaled, voice dry but amused.
"At this point, I deserve a rest fit for a king."
Pausing, he turned to his fallen foe.
"But first…" He smirked weakly.
For a while, he just sat there, listening.
The Forest finally exhaled along with him, returning back to its normal rhythm of chittering and distant birdsong.
Still Alive…
After dying once already… it kinda takes the meaning out of it.
His body felt heavier, as if he suddenly took on the weight of his slain foe. Every muscle throbbed, not yet used to his new body's limits.
Well… at least now I'm not just eating fish. I've got chicken to cook.
After a brief rest, he pushed himself up and went to retrieve his knife. Returning to the corpse, hesitation crossed his face.
"Well, it's not gonna skin itself. Let's… let's do this."
With wavering confidence, he got to work.
The hide was tougher than it looked — scaled and leathery, like cutting through a soaked boot. Arion leaned on the blade until it slipped through with a soft snap. Steam rose, carrying the smell of wet feathers and iron.
"Ahh, smells like otherworldly monster chicken. What could go wrong?"
He followed a seam where the scales thinned. The deeper he went, the more normal it looked — pale muscle, faint marbling, nothing glowing or monstrous.
"Well, I'll be damned. It actually looks like chicken."
He carved off a chunk and set it on a flat rock covered with a broad leaf. It hissed faintly in the heat.
"Chicken, fish, eldritch poultry — whatever. Protein's protein."
He sat back, knife across his knee, watching steam curl upward. Against all odds, it smelled halfway decent.
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
…
Days blurred together.
The forest settled into its own strange rhythm — and, eventually, so did he.
Mornings began with dew cold enough to sting his feet, the river's surface steaming faintly as sunlight fought through mist. Somewhere in the trees, birds competed in a kind of chaotic choir — every species apparently born tone-deaf.
Waking up in a different world, Arion flung himself out of bed and stuck to the routine he'd built, following his great-uncle's training to keep the body strong.
Like great Unc once said, "A strong mind needs a strong body."
When he finished his exercises, he rewarded his muscles with his new "chicken" protein, then satisfied his thirst. Down by the river, Arion would begin his morning fishing hunt; by now, he'd actually become quite decent at it.
Once satisfied with his haul, he'd make his way back to his home base. He laid the fish neatly on a large leaf he'd foraged — his makeshift platter — ready to be cooked and served.
The air hung thick with warmth and insects. The faint shimmer of energy still clung to the edge of Arion's senses like static.
Later, as the sun climbed higher, he returned to the river.
He sat by the bank with a stick, tracing diagrams into wet sand — heat vectors, pressure arrows, half-remembered equations that no longer belonged in this world.
He would catch himself talking out loud at times. Sometimes, even running mock lectures to the local inhabitants.
A two headed mutant blue bird sat tweeting, perched on a rock, followed by an amphibian reptile-like creature with scales and a horn. Finishing off the three students was a weird looking fish desperately trying to flop back into the river.
"Today's lesson: how not to die. Step one—don't be me."
The local inhabitants didn't seem interested.
Each day ended the same way — another attempt to coax the strange energies into doing something useful. He'd pull heat from the water, push it back, sketch new symbols, erase them with his heel. The more he tried, the more the process felt familiar — like exercising a forgotten muscle.
At least this version of me gets to fail in peace, he thought, watching the ripples reform after another failed pulse.
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
Another Day, another disastrous exciting spell session.
Arion stood at the riverbank, one hand extended, repeating the motion he'd drilled a hundred times over. The Frost Snap triggered cleanly now—each spell triggering with exact purpose; a thin line, cone of frost, area chill. Able to adapt to the situation, he could deploy the spell the way he wished.
He flexed his fingers, feeling the faint sting beneath the skin — nerves still adapting to the way internal energy threaded through muscles. With another flick of his wrist, ice webbed across the water in a perfect ring, a circular ice platform. No excess spray, no wild temperature swings. Just practicality.
He tested variations — through air, through soil, even with his waterskin flask of river water. It worked across every medium, though air and earth responded sluggishly, resistant to change. Water remained the most efficient conduit — the perfect variable.
With the flask as a backup, he could launch a jet mid-cast and freeze it on impact. Instant reaction. Hard to counter.
Each refinement shaved off instability. He focused on density instead of scale, compression instead of reach. Small, consistent tweaks — one after another.
Each adjustment mattered.
The reaction obeyed him now.
The frost ring spread again, smooth and symmetrical, faintly steaming where sunlight touched it. A breeze rippled over the frozen patch, scattering cold air like mist.
It was almost hypnotic.
It's almost like breathing. Like another sense waiting to be trained.
Satisfied, Arion lowered his hand and brushed frost from his wrist. The skin beneath glowed faintly where internal energy channels pulsed warm against the cold.
Energy level response steady… efficiency maybe thirty percent. Better than yesterday. That's as stable as it gets.
…For now.
He let out a quiet laugh.
"Still doesn't mean I won't turn myself into a popsicle."
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
By evening, the sun had mostly retreated, and the forest finally cooled. The orange light flickered through gaps in the trees, scattering across his small camp.
Arion sat beside his fire pit, poking half-heartedly at another dinner experiment — partly cooked "chicken," slightly burnt on one edge, raw on the other. He ate anyway. The taste didn't matter anymore; survival had no menu.
The fire hissed softly while he flipped through the journal he'd scavenged from the cabin. The pages still smelled faintly of dust and river mould. Some entries were unreadable — soaked ink or scrawled shorthand — but others revealed patterns.
A fair amount of it Arion found hard to digest, a mixture of handwriting and mannerism, of course neither helped. But this time, he saw patterns form, repeated words emerged from the mess.
'Vitalis.'
'Luminary.'
'Essence.'
The words kept repeating, scattered like coordinates.
"Luminary essence... found thick—essence saturated along the northern track, heart of the north forest..."
He read it aloud, eyes narrowing.
"Vitalis burn... Is that what I think it is?"
He flipped pages back and forth, chasing the phrases. Each mention linked to fragments of symptoms: drained vitality, body tremors, prolonged exhaustion... Then another note:
"Rested for two days. Break for Vitalis to renew…"
Arion frowned, tracing a line through the faded ink.
"Internal current... external field..." he murmured.
He leaned back, staring into the firelight. The distinction began to crystallise. Vitalis — the current inside the body. The muscle.
Luminary Essence — the external field it communicates with. The environment.
The two systems weren't separate — they were symbiotic. He wasn't conjuring energy out of nothing; he was manipulating what already existed, bridging inner force and outer medium.
He looked toward the open forest, where faint silver haze drifted through the canopy — thin strands of light bending when they met warm air. For a moment, he swore the mist pulsed.
Essence.
A new element? A new form of matter?
"Maybe... something else entirely."
He laughed under his breath, rubbing the back of his neck. "Guess I've been swimming in the stuff since day one."
The journal rested open in his lap, the firelight dancing over the ink.
Vitalis and Luminary Essence. Two sides of the same phenomenon. And for the first time, he wasn't just surviving this world — he was beginning to understand it.
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
Twin heads. Two tweets.
Arion's personal alarm clock from hell. He groaned, flung a pebble at the branch, and the birds scattered in offended harmony.
Morning again. Curiosity already chewing at his focus.
If Luminary essence strips heat out of matter… Can it push it in?
He crouched beside the river, staring at his reflection. "Just gotta reverse the transfer," he muttered.
"Same form. Opposite vector."
He shaped his hand like a spearhead, drawing Vitalis from his core until the veins in his arm hummed faintly.
Narrow the aperture. Keep the fingers fused. Tendons tight—kill the lateral bleed. If all goes well, the heat leaves in one clean vector.
The sensation felt familiar—like flexing a muscle in reverse.
"So this internal energy is Vitalis."
It's just heat flow. The body wants equilibrium, but Vitalis doesn't care about rules—it's pressure given will. Push instead of pull, and you flip the gradient. Reverse thermodynamics in practice.
He exhaled. "Alright… let's see what breaking physics feels like."
He pushed.
A faint hum built under his skin—pressure, vibration, a fever blooming from the inside out. The air rippled around his palm, distortion lines bending light. Dust motes danced, flung away by invisible force.
Then the air hissed.
His palm flared white-hot. The sound was a violent cross between gas escaping and flesh searing. Steam burst from his skin, wrapping his hand in a ghostly veil.
"Shit—too much, too much!"
The heat slammed into the river like a detonation. Water convulsed; bubbles ruptured in a rolling ring, spreading outward. The air filled with the smell of scorched stone and metal.
Sssszzz.
He yanked his hand back, gasping. Skin bright red, veins glowing faintly like molten filaments.
"OWW—owe-owe-ow—you backfiring bitch!"
He plunged his hand into the river. The hiss that followed was instant and vicious, like quenching steel. Steam roared over him, beading on his face and hair.
For a few seconds he just sat there, half in pain, half laughing through his teeth.
Skin reddened, but intact.
Vitalis had ignored every safety limit his body thought it had.
He exhaled, eyes narrowing. "Okay… less amplitude. Same direction."
…
Attempt number two.
He built the pulse gently this time, pressure guided instead of forced. The water rippled, a faint halo of warmth blooming beneath the surface. Fish scattered. Not perfect—but stable.
He grinned. "Better. Flow's steady if I meter it."
Palm forward again, Vitalis channelled in a tight coil. The current shimmered; heat carried through the water instead of dispersing. Steam rose in a clean spiral.
Still wrong. No conduction delay, no thermal lag.
Luminary Essence is skipping the queue—transmitting energy like a direct circuit.
He flicked a pebble. It struck the current, hissed, and shattered into vapour.
His eyes lit up. "So I can draw a line—literally a vein of heat."
Leaning close, he traced the faint distortion running downstream until it dissolved. "Not self-sustaining yet," he muttered. "Need a stabiliser loop… maybe a flow anchor."
He raised his hand once more, feeding a finer stream of Vitalis. The motion felt like threading silk. This time he pictured it as a living vein, pulsing rhythmically—heat not as fire, but as blood moving through water.
The river pulsed gold for a heartbeat, then faded back to silver.
It worked.
Not perfect. Not efficient. But real.
He stared at his hand, satisfied, finally able to see progress.
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
…
Minutes crept into hours.
He tested the experiment again.
A soft ripple spread across the river's surface. Molecules quivered, light bending in rippled lines as the air shimmered. Steam hissed upward, wrapping around his wrist in lazy coils.
A grin crept across his face—unapologetically smug. In the end, his hypothesis had been right.
So this... Luminary field—it acts like a conductor. It gathers heat, reroutes it, amplifies it.
That shimmer in the air? Entropy buckling. Space itself, complaining about what he'd just done.
He laughed quietly. "Well, look at that. Reverse thermodynamics by hand. Take that, high school physics."
He pulsed again—small bursts, deliberate modulation. Each flare left a faint imprint on the surface: a ring of boiling water that vanished almost instantly, erasing itself before the next.
The principle was elegant.
Vitalis behaved like muscle fibre.
Luminary Essence like fluid resistance.
Pull, and energy displaced outward.
Push, and it drew back in.
Equal and opposite. Creation and negation in rhythm.
The steam rose higher, carrying heat that shimmered like liquid glass. He felt the vibration run through every nerve, like his body had become part of the reaction.
"I shall name you…" he whispered, hand trembling slightly from exertion,
"…Scald Burst."
The water hissed one final time, a quiet applause from the river itself.
Frost Snap drains energy; Scald Burst feeds it back. Two sides of the same equation.
He smiled at the symmetry, breath fogging faintly in the cooling air.
"If Luminary Essence is everywhere—air, soil, water—then there's no limit to what can be shaped."
He looked at his palm, faint light still pulsing beneath the skin, and laughed softly.
A grin spread across his face, bright, tired, and hungry for more.
"Endless fuel. Unlimited possibilities," he whispered.
The thought both thrilled and frightened him; the same way open sky unsettles a man who's never flown.
"All I need…" he looked to the river, steam drifting toward the rising dawn, "…is time."
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
Field Entry:
Scald Burst — Thermodynamics / Control
──────────────────────────────
Instead of pulling heat away, I push it in — Vitalis reversed, phase vector inverted.
Water flash-boils on contact, but Luminary Essence amplifies the reaction, skipping normal conduction delay.
On Earth, phase change requires ~2260 J/g for water. Here, Luminary bypasses that limit — multiplying thermal flux until matter breaks phase instantly.
Vitalis sets the direction; Luminary obeys.
Science:
Luminary Essence acts as a perfect conductor of energy transfer, allowing heat injection with zero resistance. Vitalis pressure + Luminary resonance = controlled thermal detonation.
In Layman Terms:
I turned boiling water into a mini explosion. Vitalis lets me shove heat straight into matter instead of waiting for physics to catch up.
It hurts like hell, but it works.
Maxim: "Pain without flame still wins a second."
—— ❖ ——
Author's Note:
Thanks for reading!
Next Chapter: "Theory of Heat and Fire" — Arion learns how easily fire can bite back.