Wait. Waiting. And even more waiting. After what felt like four days, the oven dinged. One of his mental hands opened it carefully, gently taking out the two clay bowls within. Now that the clay was nice and dried, he had to fire it.

Alwin's consciousness looked at the two clay halves, he shook his head and let out a deep sigh. "Hi clay bowls, thank you for meeting with me today. We need to have a serious conversation about your performance. While I know you've been trying, your current productivity levels are below par for this position. I'm sorry to say that we've made the difficult decision to terminate your employment with Alwin's Mana Making Spell Company (pending final name) effective immediately. We greatly appreciate all that you have done for this company. I know this is tough news, but I wish you all the best in your future endeavors."

Alwin looked at the clay bowls waiting for some sort of reaction. Nothing. There was a new revelation made today: clay bowls could reject an employer's firing. Too bad, so sad. Good thing Alwin was versed in multiple ways of firing. And by multiple, he meant just two. But, good thing he had tons of practice with the second form of firing when he made all of those Fire Mana and Fire Essence.

Anyway, off to the kiln these two pieces of ceramic headed. One small problem, Alwin didn't have a kiln inside of his Core, nor did he know what a kiln looked like. All he knew was that you had to fire the ceramics to make them durable. Maybe he should go to the library and borrow a book about making ceramics. That was a problem for future Alwin. That was also a problem for memory Alwin because chances were he was going to forget about this thought in about five minutes.

What was he thinking about? Wow, that must've been a new record. Four point nine seconds, congrats to Alwin. Congrats to himself. Pat yourself on the back. Praise yourself. Give yourself a handshake. You deserve it. Okay, getting back on topic now.

A bucket was just as good as a kiln in his expert opinion—just don't ask where he got his credentials from. In fact, two buckets, since he had two bowls. They were placed side by side floating above the swirling mana pool. Below them was the most crucial expert of the whole process. You can't fire ceramics without fire. Two campfires, one for each bucket materialized themselves below them.

Now, he just had to make sure the flames were hot enough. To do that, it was time to bring back his good old friend: bellows. Hello, Mr. accordion-looking fellow, time to create the hottest hit piece of all time. A symphony of flames. An ode to fire. A celebration of combustion. A song of burning wood and glazing pots. Alwin beat upon the bellows, increasing the oxygen flow as the flames burned brighter and brighter.

From tiny licks of flames, it grew into a bonfire. Deep breaths Alwin, stay calm. Breathe in slowly through your nose, breathe out slowly through your mouth. Alwin breathed in deeply, letting oxygen fill his Core. He breathed out, exhaling carbon dioxide. The fire continued to grow, consuming the bucket whole.

If this felt a tad bit repetitive from when Alwin was creating Fire Mana and Fire Essence, that's because it was. Repetition was the key to success, after all—said by some guy whose name wasn't relevant to this story.

A couple more breathtaking moments passed before the clay bowls were sufficiently fired. That would teach them to be bad employees. Oh, wait, wrong kind of fire. No wonder Alwin's business never flourished—definitely not because he had never even started one in the first place. Bad Alwin. Anyways, moving on.

Now that the container was completed, he just had to fill it in with some compressed mana. That was easier said than done. How do you even compress mana? A few options floated through his mind. What if he turned his liquid mana into a solid and called it a day? If he did that it was technically compressed mana already. Or what if he transformed his mana into a gas and packed in as much as he could in the containers? Maybe he could just throw a bunch of liquid mana into the ceramic bowl and then seal it off, but that was basically a Spirit Burst Blast.

Yeah, maybe he should have paid more attention when he was reading that book. Oh well. Alwin wanted to say that it was future Alwin's problem, but it looked like the past had caught up to him and he was now future Alwin. Man, that stupid past Alwin, giving him so much extra work.

So, the key idea was that he had to compress the mana to the point it would explode with even the most minor of disturbances. In order to compress things, there was a key ingredient that Alwin needed. Good thing he had plenty of it.

That key ingredient was... Drum roll... Pressure!

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The pressure of living up to expectations. The pressure of becoming Valedictorian. The pressure of becoming a Minister. The pressure of saving the world from the treacherous humans. The pressure of failing everyone who believed in him. The list went on and on. There was plenty of pressure to go around—and then some—to compress the Spirit Mana.

Alwin filled both halves of the ceramic bowl with some mana from his pool. Next, he gave the embodiment of all his pressures a physical form within his Core. It took the form of a dark storm cloud, thunder booming within. Bolts of lightning flashed here and there, illuminating the swirling mass.

He commanded the storm cloud to gather round the mana within the ceramic bowl. It didn't need any further instructions from there. The storm cloud of pressure began to fill the mana with its burdens and fears. Suffering filled the space as the weight of everything forced the mana together. The more the mana resisted, the more pressure the storm cloud added, pushing and squeezing it, until finally, the mana gave in, unable to withstand the force. What was once bright and blue became a murky gray as the stresses of life found a new home. The mana was teetering close to its breaking point. One small little nudge would send it careening over the edge, reigning hell on whoever dared to cross its way before it would eventually take its own life.

One down, one to go. The process repeated itself for the other half, the storm cloud of pressure wrapping its cold, uncaring embrace around the mana inside. More and more suffering piled upon it as the pressures mounted up and up and up. Until the moment came, the pressure finally won over, crushing the mana's spirit until it was nothing more than an empty husk of its former self. A dull, murky gray colored its formerly vibrant surface. It was ready.

Great! Now that the mana had been compacted, all that remained was putting the two parts together. Since they were shaped like bowls, that made things rather simple. Just slip one bowl piece onto the other bowl piece and boom! Ceramic bowl explosion vessel completed. Now, all he had to do was get some glue to put it all together.

Glue, glue, glue, where could Alwin find some glue? The answer was simple, he just had to dip a brush into his mana pool and through some mental mumbo jumbo that Lapis was terrible at explaining, voilà—glue. Or at least something close enough. If it worked for paper mache it would probably, presumably, likely, maybe work for ceramic.

That was what Alwin did—and by Alwin, he meant his mental hands. Dip the brush into this mana pool, trace it along the rims of the ceramic bowls, and connect the two pieces together. He just had to make sure not to rattle the bowls too much, lest he wanted to go boom early. Easy peasy lemon squeezy—like lemonade, but sweeter.

Slowly, the hands brought the pieces together, moving them millimeter by millimeter at a time. Alwin held his breath in anticipation. This could all go wrong at the drop of a hat. Was there anything worse than having to wait for everything to dry again? Actually, yeah there was something far worse. Having to wait for everything to dry three times!

Once the bowls were perfectly aligned, the hands brought the two halves together, smooshing them side by side. The glue or paste or adhesive—there was no proper term as of yet—oozed out of the cracks as they stuck the two halves together. All that remained was for them to dry. And no, Alwin couldn't use an oven this time.

After an untold amount of time spent waiting for it to dry, Alwin was ready. Everything was lined up perfectly, except for one thing. A fuse. Just kidding. Alwin's bomb was special. It didn't need a fuse to be ignited. Just a little bump was enough to trigger the explosive potential hidden within the ceramic sphere.

Now, he had to transport his latest and greatest creation out of his Core. The sphere-shaped bomb was taunting him. It was begging to be batted out of his Core. Sure, Alwin was stupid, but he wasn't that stupid.

Thus began another drag. When Alwin evolved, his Core grew larger, which meant that his mental hands and his consciousness had to travel a greater distance just to reach its edges. After what felt like an eternity of floating through the vast, swirling expanse, Alwin finally reached the fringes of his Core, his mental hands carefully carrying the payload along with him. He really needed a faster way to travel. One day, but not today.

The hands tossed the bomb past the threshold of his Core, and the familiar tingling in his throat signaled his success. Victory never tasted better. With a triumphant grin on that cheeky face of his, he yelled out the skill name—because no proper move was complete without it—and opened his eyes, eager to behold the fruits of his labor.

In front of him, lay the round ceramic ball of death. Sweet destruction and mayhem, all contained within a single, compact sphere of pure chaos. Alwin couldn’t help but marvel at it. A masterpiece, really. He just hoped that this one didn't accidentally explode on him. That wouldn't be fun. Time to test it out.

Time seemed to slow as Alwin inspected his masterpiece. Something about its movement caught his eye—subtle, creeping, like a bomb about to go off. Wait. No. It was moving.

The bomb was falling.

Yeah, maybe Alwin was a bit stupid. His skill had materialized in the air, not on the ground.

The Spirit Bomb struck the floor. For a heartbeat, everything was silent. Then came the explosion.

A tsunami of pressure erupted, rippling through the air. A wave of blistering heat and energy washed over Alwin, consuming him.

Then, everything went black.