The first thing I do, as usual, is pull up my status screen – I always find it better to see the effects of whatever’s happened first and then check out the reasons for the changes afterwards.

  Apparently burning that forest was worth a significant amount of Energy, I say to myself, staring a little dumbfounded at the numbers at the top of my status sheet. Getting to a hundred percent towards the next level isn’t too surprising; the amount of overflow that went into my debt is. As is the fact that apparently the debt isn’t capped at a hundred percent. Though, what that means in practice, I don’t know.

  I eye my stats, pretty sure that something has changed there too. Aren’t my mana and health pools larger than they were? Though why is there a three hundred and sixty in brackets after my maximum health? There’s also a new line on my status - ‘Special’. What’s ‘fire affinity’? I wonder. Obviously, I can tell that it’s something to do with my experience of getting closer to fire, but what does that mean in a practical sense?

  Finally, as expected, there’s been some movement in my Skills lists, though not completely what I’d expect. Fire-Shaping has made a leap into the next rank, which was expected – if controlling an inferno wasn’t enough to make it rank up, I don’t know what would be. Fire-Taming appears to have been changed, but it’s in those italics that Lay-on-hands once was – I guess that means it’s waiting for me to make a decision on whether to change it to another Ability. If my past experience is anything to judge by, anyway.

  The one change which surprises and pleases me is to Energy Manipulation: it’s gone up a level. While that might not seem like a lot, the fact is that it’s been stuck at Master one for a long time; going up even a single level at that rank is an achievement. But why?

  It’s unlikely to show up in my messages so I spend a few minutes trying to work it out. Could this be something to do with how I was manipulating fire? No, it must be to do with how I manipulated the fire magic.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  It makes sense – I got to Master in the first place by transforming mana into health and health into soul-healing energy. Today, well, yesterday, I created a cycle of transforming mana into fire magic, then excess fire magic back into mana. That must be why I ended up advancing a level.

  Satisfied with my theory, I switch over to my messages tab and select the oldest unread notification.

  Interesting, I find myself thinking. Is this rank up the reason why I found that second wind while controlling the inferno? Because what I’d previously experienced was that the bigger the fire, the harder it was to control. This is turning that on its head. Well, sort of – it doesn’t give any numerical indication of just how much it’s improving my control, after all. It could simply help me keep an even keel when the inferno threatens to consume me along with whatever it’s burning – which would match my experience, honestly.

  Either way, it’s a good little update. Though, I do notice one thing: it mentions ‘the destructive power of fire’. I remember how a long time ago, before I had either Fire Taming or Fire-Shaping, I thought about how fire isn’t only destruction. Maybe I need to explore other things that fire can do before I get too trapped in one aspect of fire alone. At least, that’s how it seemed to work with Flesh-Shaping, anyway.

  Finally, some answers! So, from the sounds of it, the process at the end of my time here will be a bit different from when I arrived. When I arrived, the emblem had done something to pull me through worlds – but it only applied to me and whatever I was holding.

  This seems to be different, which I’m relieved about. Trying to have all my Bound perched on top of me would have been a bit of a difficult proposition. Sending them through a ‘gateway’ – if indeed it’s a doorway like I’m imagining – seems a lot more likely to succeed. Of course, that is assuming that I can send them through the ‘Gateway’, but why would Nicholas have sent me this Class if he wasn’t expecting me to bring others with me?

  Because if he expects me to leave everyone behind and be happy about it, he has another thing coming.

  So, while it’s relieving to know that I’m not going to die at the end of this year when all my Energy is wrenched out of my body or something horrible like that, it looks like the debt still isn’t done: the longer this ‘Gateway’ can be kept open, the more room for error we’ll have.

  Still feeling rather thoughtful, I look at the next message.

  So that’s what it means by Fire Affinity, then, I muse to myself. Something happened during the inferno; something changed. I felt it then, and I can still feel echoes of it now. Closing my eyes and trusting in my Bound to keep me safe, I dive into my Core space.

  At first glance, nothing has changed. It’s still a glittering mandala of lines of golden light which encircle and embrace the glowing Core in the centre. But when I look closer, I see that the pattern of the mandala has shifted very slightly. It’s slightly more jagged, the places where it twists and turns slightly sharper.

  The mandala still has more in common with the centres of dense pattern which make up my Core Skills, but now there is inspiration from the patterns which make up Fire-Shaping too. I would say that it’s similar to Fire Taming too, but that Skill is oddly…blurred. It’s hard to look at directly, and even when I succeed in snatching a glance at it, I find it hard to identify exactly what it looks like.

  That must be to do with the choice which is probably waiting for me.

  Feeling that I’ve got the answers I came for, I pull back out, my mind whirling. I suppose that the most important question I’ll need to answer next is how much Flesh-Shaping is affected: that’s one of my most important Skills and it’s already heavy on mana usage and the need for concentration. If having a Fire affinity makes it harder to use that then I might be in trouble.

  I’m definitely going to have to test exactly what Fire Affinity means, but at least I’ve got more idea of what the implications probably will be. And I suppose it’s not too surprising that I gained it: I rather was filling my body with converted fire magic, and spreading my mind and soul through the inferno. It would have been more surprising if that hadn’t had any effect.

  The next message confirms that my thoughts about my mana pool and health pool growing were correct. While the percentages I’d received with the last achievement will probably help me in the long run, the two points I’ve just received towards Constitution are very welcome. It doesn’t explain about the brackets, though. And actually, why is my maximum health three hundred and fifty? At twenty-four points of Constitution and each point being worth fifteen health points, I should have three hundred and sixty points as my maximum capacity – the number in brackets.

  I frown, confused but hoping another message might reveal the reason.

  I guess that there must be tiers of achievements – and this one is on the lowest of them. Survivor, my first achievement, gave me three stat points each to Constitution and Willpower. Then there were the two Masochist achievements I’ve had which increased my mana and health pools by half again on an ongoing – and retroactive – basis. Healer gave me percentage increases to my mental and soul stats. This one, with its total of three points given, is not nearly as good as any of them. Still, three points which I haven’t had to ‘pay’ for are better than nothing – though how Achievements give anything is still a question I can’t answer.

  Other than that, it’s good to know exactly what the little ball of fire is – since I assume that’s what it’s talking about when it’s referring to ‘elemental’ – and to know how exactly it came about.

  Like with Fire Affinity, I guess I’ll have to discover anything more than that for myself.

  The next message gives me a little more information about the Fire elemental – and the reason for my maximum health being ten points lower than what it should be.

  here!

  here!