Next on Sparrow's list was fire. Sure, fireballs and large beams of flame were great but he felt there had to be more scope to the ability.

For instance - could he catch something alight without directly throwing fire at it?

And so Sparrow gathered a small pile of driftwood from the shore of the lake. He didn't pick up any small fibre or tinder, only little sticks. He wanted this to be a challenge. He set up the little pile of sticks in a bonfire shape then took ten steps back, crossed his legs and sat.

He focused on the small pile of sticks, he imagined they were growing warmer, starting to smoke. He imagined there was a hot beam of flame billowing inside of them. He imagined that flame spreading to the outside, burning everything within reach. Then he opened his eyes and looked at the pile. Nothing.

He walked over to the pile and held his hand over it. There wasn't a single ember, if anything, it seemed colder than before.

'Oh man,' Sparrow kicked the small bunch of sticks into the air, 'This is stoneskin all over again.'

He decided that was enough training for the time being. He leaped into the air and flew, closing his eyes and just letting the wind blow through his hair.

It was only as he circled towards the island that his stomach started to rumble.

While it was great getting food from the earth the way a tree did, it took quite a while and there were times when he missed the taste of food on his lips.

Sparrow dove towards the lake, keeping his eyes out for a flash of silver. There - one appeared beneath him as a school of fish leaped from the water. The fish were large and untamed and chasing a slow-moving pod of turtles.

The turtles were trying to head for the shallows but the fish were cutting them off, circling them, herding them towards the deeper water. He watched as the turtles sank into the water with the fish following them. The fish used their mouths to flip the turtles onto their backs. One turtle tentatively poked his head out from the shell and instantly one of the large fish was upon him.

The fish swallowed the turtle's head whole and rolled. The turtle's fins poked out and another fish grabbed onto them. The water became a frenzy of blood and fighting. One of the turtles had a fish's tail in its mouth. It was clamping down on the tail as the fish tried to shake it off. Another fish grabbed the turtle's fin and swung it around until the turtle let go. Then five fish were on turtle, dragging it beneath the water.

Sparrow decided to even things up a little. He flew high, far higher than the tower and then dropped head first towards the water. He moved his arms into a diving position, sent stoneskin to cover his body, his speed increased faster and faster until he hit the water, plunging through like a knife. There was a ripple of silver in front of him, but the silver was not fast enough. Sparrow grabbed a fish which spun and wriggled in his hands, he pulled it to the surface, pinched a nerve to kill it and brought it to the bank.

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On the bank, he set up a fire, sharpened a stick with two rocks and then cooked the fish over a flame.

Beside the bank were large bulb-like plants that Sparrow recognized from his childhood - they used to call them Troll Tubers. They were kind of like potatoes but had a tough almost musty taste similar to a troll. He dug a few up, washed them in the lake and then split them into pieces.

Fish and Chips, he thought, Not a bad wanderer's lunch.

****

Sparrow sat cross-legged just a few feet away from a small handful of sticks. It was now day five of him trying to improve his ability with fire and he was still getting nowhere. He'd even added some super fine dry tinder to the stack. A single ember or spark would have sent the entire thing alight and yet there he was sitting, waiting, nose bleeding as he tried to focus all his energy and might on the tiny stack.

There wasn't even a wisp of smoke, Sparrow balled his fists up, walked over to the pile and kicked it.

'Perhaps it simply cannot be done,' he said, 'perhaps there are just some abilities in this world that one cannot cultivate.'

He peered down at the sticks beside his feet. There was one that was perfectly rounded and straight. He picked it up and twisted it in his fingers. The size of it - a quarter of an arm's length reminded him of the stories that flowed across the land - the stories that spoke of the cultivators in the West who used short round sticks to provide a focus for their abilities.

Sparrow coated his hand in stone skin, then used his slightly rough palm to rub either end of the stick until it was smooth.

Then he held up the stick, pointed it towards the dismantled pile of sticks and focused on producing fire. He closed his eyes, focussed and pushed.

A giant ball of flame erupted from the piece of wood. The flame was so large and violent it threw him off his feet and blew up the pile of sticks he had been aiming at. Sparrow wiped the soot from his eyes. 'Whoa,' he said, 'That was impressive.'

He held up the wand he'd just made to the light, But why does it work?

Sparrow found another stick, this one bent and crooked, he aimed it at a dead shrub sitting a few meters away, focused his power through it and felt the recoil as a bolt of flame nearly blew his arm off.

When he recovered he saw that the shrub's branches were cracking and breaking as fire climbed the dead plant.

The next thing Sparrow tried to use as a wand was a small turtle shell poking out from the mud of the lake. He washed the mud from the shell then held it between his hands and focused all his energy and power and ability on a single spot on the end of the shell.

Sparrow felt something warm and sticky start to run from his ears. A headache split across his head and then a beam of flame leapt from the edge of the shell, billowing a hundred meters into the sky before dying away.

Sparrow cheered, then wiped the warm, sticky patch that had grown on the side of his head. When he looked at his hand he found it was coated in blood.

Sparrow washed off the blood in the lake and while his head buzzed he thought about what this meant.

This meant that he could use at least two different materials to conduct his abilities - turtleshell and wood.