The Birth of Flame Path
A mind eased by technical proficiency began to influence my daily life as well. Fwoosh. Upon arriving at my personal training room, I approached my practice with a completely different mindset.
Should I even bother creating a martial art? It wasn’t that I had decided never to make one. Looking back now, I couldn’t help wondering if there was any real reason to be so obsessed with inventing a martial art in the first place.
The root of that obsession could be summed up in one phrase: outstanding. That single word had tangled my thoughts into knots. But since I still had no clear idea what “outstanding” actually did, I decided there was no need to rush. After all, I wasn’t weak even without a martial art. It felt perfectly fine to take things at a more leisurely pace.
With that in mind, I trained with the intention of creating techniques rather than martial arts.
Having more techniques is better anyway.
In truth, developing techniques was both easier and more practical than crafting martial arts. Unlike martial arts—which refused to manifest no matter how many sleepless nights I poured into them—techniques came together surprisingly smoothly. Just look at the current situation. Swish—! Arrows came flying from every direction. This was one of the new features I had asked Elena to add to my personal training room.
A new idea sparked while dealing with something that seemed trivial yet somehow wasn’t—arrows flying at me from all sides.
Is there no way to block all of them?
Until now, whenever an attack came I would either block or dodge. But this was the first time my only real option had been to evade.
Hmm…
I kept pondering while continuing to dodge.
How should I do this?
Actually, the answer was simple. I just had to block every direction at once.
I’ll just try it.
What was there to lose? The training room existed for exactly this kind of experimentation. There was no point in having it if I didn’t use it.
Srrng. I drew my standard-issue sword and raised my flames.
I’ll need to match it with the sword, though.
An opportunity would probably come soon. The academy would arrange it.
Fwoosh. Hazy flames rose across my entire body as I slowly organized my thoughts.
Should I try it this way?
Several methods had occurred to me, but I had no confidence any of them would actually work.
Hwoook! I swung my sword using the first method that came to mind. It was an incredibly simple and brutish approach—rotating 360 degrees with the blade.
Thud! It really was a stupid method. The arrow pierced straight through both sword and flame before embedding itself in my thigh.
“……”
I endured the pain and left the area. The place I arrived at wasn’t the infirmary but the white space—a room that also had healing properties.
I trudged over and sat down. The wound on my thigh began to close gradually.
As expected, it didn’t work.
I had known it wouldn’t. The reason I tried such an idiotic approach anyway was the faint hope that maybe—just maybe—it might.
What about this one?
The second method was one that somehow filled me with confidence even as I considered it.
Swish. Once I could move properly again, I walked back into the arrow zone.
Swish—! The arrows recognized my presence and immediately began flying toward me.
I moved exactly as I had envisioned. Fwoosh. The flames that had enveloped my body concentrated onto the blade of my sword. The heat radiating from it was intense enough to feel just by looking.
Swish. The hand gripping the sword slowly rose. The moment the tip pointed toward the sky and the arrows were about to strike me, I spun the blade in a single circle.
It was a simple motion, but the circular wall of flame that followed the sword’s path protected my body from attacks coming from every direction.
Flame Path.
Flames that blocked attacks from all sides. The instant I confirmed it worked, I stepped out of the arrow zone.
It’s easier than creating martial arts.
Martial arts that refused to form no matter how long I agonized over them. Yet I had created this technique after just a day of thought. At this rate, it felt like I could make them as easily as eating meals.
Flame Path, huh…
The technique had formed exactly as I imagined, and with surprising ease. And so, I gained a new defensive technique—Flame Path.
Today’s sparring session with Shane was underway as usual. Kaaang! In the middle of our bout, something flashed through my mind when her lightning-wrapped spear clashed magnificently against my blade.
I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere before.
Just as I wasn’t using Sword Qi, Shane also wasn’t employing her full strength.
What was it again…
I couldn’t recall clearly. In a state where I hadn’t even properly digested the recent knowledge I’d gained, nothing was likely to surface easily.
Crackle. Hearing a sound like the prelude to lightning, I pulled my sword back and created distance.
“Shall I go again?”
Crackle. Shane smiled brightly and hurled the red lightning toward me. It had grown so fast that even tracking it with my eyes was becoming difficult.
The more I watched and the more we sparred, the faster it became. The reason was simple—as I grew stronger, she was gradually lowering the limits of her own power. I suspected that in the near future I would be facing Shane’s full strength on a daily basis.
Fwoosh! A technique was essentially a form of storage. Using it was simply locating the saved folder. I unfolded Flame Path quite naturally. Rather than spreading it wide, I focused it on a single point—shaped specifically to block only the red lightning.
Kaaang! The violently colliding lightning and flames seemed to melt into one another.
Seeing this, Shane halted her charge.
“What is that? Just a regular technique?”
“Yeah. A technique.”
“Hmm… I see.”
With a slightly uneasy smile, she formed red lightning in her hand once more and threw it. I created Flame Path to block it, and only then did I understand the unease I had felt.
…It bent?
The red lightning suddenly veered in mid-flight as if performing an inertial drift, slipping past my flame barrier. It continued to twist and turn in a zigzag pattern as it rushed toward me.
An attack that had been coming from the front suddenly flew at me from behind. I turned instinctively and thrust out my sword without thinking.
Kaaang! The intense impact from an incomplete stance sent pain shooting through my hand, and my body toppled backward.
Thud.
She really is a genius.
The moment she saw my Flame Path, she had instantly decided on this method of attack. Making such a judgment in less than five seconds—she really was the genius I already knew she was.
“Adel? Are you okay?”
Shane rushed over to my fallen form, worry clear in her voice as she reached out.
“Yeah. I’m not hurt.”
I took the hand that carried her warmth and stood up. Feeling the tingling sensation of lightning through her palm, I asked,
“What kind of technique is that?”
“The bending part?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm…”
Shane formed lightning with her free hand.
“I’m doing it purely by instinct, so I can’t really explain it properly. How should I put it? It feels like raising my dominance to the maximum and bending it according to my will?”
“……”
It made sense, yet somehow didn’t. To demonstrate, she launched the lightning.
Crackle! A slightly more powerful bolt of lightning flew in a straight line.
I focused on Shane’s hand rather than the lightning itself.
Will…?
Dominance. Her will to dominate the lightning was controlling it exactly as she desired.
Bang! The lightning that had been flying forward suddenly embedded itself into a rocky mountain.
“……”
A perfectly round crater was visible. Its power was clearly different from the flames I had produced.
It’s different now, but…
That didn’t mean I was stronger than Shane.
“Did you understand at least a little?”
Shane gave an awkward smile after her explanation.
“I understood.”
Whether I could actually do it was another matter. Still, she seemed delighted just by that. Her eyes widened.
“Really? As expected of you.”
“……?”
I was curious about the words she swallowed, but I let it pass. It didn’t seem important.
Shane intertwined her fingers with mine. Holding both my hands now, she said,
“Adel.”
Her eyes were round and pure, as if she wanted something.
“Won’t you… drink with me?”
“That’s…”
I nearly nodded unconsciously but caught myself.
I already have plans.
I had almost agreed the moment she said “drink.”
“I have a prior engagement. Let’s drink next time.”
I never imagined that “next time” would come so soon.
“Ah…”
The way Shane looked at me with the disappointed eyes of a child made my heart sting for no reason. There was no need for me to feel guilty, yet her sincerity was so obvious that I did.
“With who?”
“Tina and Siris.”
Her eyes returned to normal.
“What kind of promise is it?”
“I agreed to visit their personal training rooms.”
I had been secretly curious. What the training rooms of the other four—excluding myself—would look like. I had visited Banya’s before, but not the others’.
I couldn’t make plans with Daren since I haven’t run into him.
That was why I had met with Christina and Siris and asked if today would be all right. They had smiled brightly and accepted without hesitation, so I was heading there today.
“Then can I come too?”
Shane squeezed the hand she was holding as she asked.
“Hmm, I don’t think they’d mind?”
She was close with both of them, and given their personalities, they probably wouldn’t refuse.
“Really?”
She gave a somehow mischievous smile. It made me slightly uneasy, as if she was plotting something.
“Then when are we going?”
I glanced at the clock briefly before answering.
“I’m going now.”
“Really?”
She took my hand and led me toward the door of the personal training room.
“Then let’s go.”
“……”
Shane smiled brightly as she took the lead. And so, our somewhat strange trio began.