4th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle

Newt slotted his spirit gem into the spell formation and activated it. The ambient energy grew denser, and Newt started with his first item on the agenda. He created one tendril of fire-aligned spiritual energy, letting it drift and sway in the phantom wind, like a jellyfish tentacle in the ocean, and at the same time he formed another tendril of earthed energy and let it sink into the stone.

The earth-aligned tendril smacked into a barrier as soon as it tried to pierce the spell formation’s floor. It slid off, like caressing glass, and Newt did not force the issue. The tendril crept along the ground, like a root searching for fertile soil, absorbing the ambient earth-aligned energy along the way.

Newt grew the fire-aligned thread of energy, but it too soon reached a barrier.

I’m sitting in an invisible half-dome. It took a mere split second for Newt to realize what was going on and guess on how the spell formation worked. It stops ambient spiritual energy from leaving and probably creates an area that resembles a void, drawing surrounding energy into itself until it hits an equilibrium.

The concept was very similar to what Dandelion suggested Newt could make to make separate stores of differently aligned spiritual energies within his realm. That thought naturally led to the next.

Magma or dual fire-earth? Newt was leaning towards the former. He had inherited Magmin’s spirit roots, or at least some variation of them, and he had a realm blueprint to help him sculpt his realm beyond human ability.

The only drawback was that at each step of the way, he had to prove himself a slayer, someone who could fight a fully evolved spiritual beast that matched his power. Worse, he had to fight the spiritual beast inside its own realm, where it was at its strongest, and its stamina and energy were infinite. And he had to do so several layers weaker than his opponent.

Magmin would always be at the peak of the realm, just before advancement, and the surge of energy Newt got from defeating him, could push Newt over the edge of his realm before he got to cultivate it, thus weakening his foundation.

The other path doesn’t suffer from this drawback. I could cultivate my realm, prepare for advancement, and only then fight Magmin, but the extra spiritual energy isn’t really worth the risk.

But deep down, Newt knew this path was the inferior one. The first path would make him a respected slayer over and over again, while the latter one would make him someone who would not dare challenge a fully evolved spirit beast, because he lacked the power to land the decisive blow.

Magmin at his peak was powerful enough to fight the emperor, the strongest human cultivator. And with a bit of luck, Newt could inherit that power. Would giving up on the path of magma out of fear form a heart demon?

He supposed it would, but it was irrelevant. He would walk the more difficult path, challenge Magmin’s realms when he was at the seventh or eighth layer, and with time, he would raise his clan to an even greater glory than his ancestor.

That decision was easy enough to make. Now for the task Master gave me, what can I do with tracing? She said there are five uses, and each correct answer would net me a spirit gem.

Newt first summoned Granite Crust the way he always did, then by using tracing. Tracing was slower, but allowed finer control. It was easier to change the technique’s direction, but was that really useful for all techniques?

I guess I’ll submit that as one of my answers if I can’t think of five others. And is it really slower? The speed at which Granite Crust forms has increased as I used it. When I started I had to prepare, but now, I can just will it into being when I see a blow coming. Maybe tracing becomes just as quick after months of practice?

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Newt summoned a double layer of Granite Crust to cover his hand, focusing on the traces throughout his arm, then started to expand his defensive skill towards the elbow. The main channels of traces sprouted a capillary system, reaching his skin, and giving birth to new layers of Granite Crust.

The work was slow, and Newt felt like a new vascular system spread throughout his body, but after an hour, the network of spiritual energy channels covered his body. Thick central veins blazed with energy, bright enough that Newt’s third eye could see them for a fraction of a second before Granite Crust formed and obscured his vision.

What happens if I just constantly circulate a bit of my spiritual energy through a closed system of traces?

Newt made a thread going up his arm, into his hand, and back to his second heart, then started running spiritual energy through it. He expected he would see an increase of spiritual energy in his flesh, but it was the opposite.

It’s drawing the loose energy back into my spirit root. My arm looks like I’m in the second realm, but the rest of me still glows like I’m in the third. Newt just stared at his arm, a deep, focused frown splitting his forehead. He was on the cusp of understanding—.

That’s it! This is what the elders use to look like voids in the ambient spiritual energy, but they do it better in some way. That means they are constantly circulating spiritual energy through their bodies—

Wait, that means they can release their techniques faster, because the spiritual energy is already there, their techniques primed and waiting all the time. They just have to form the thin traces—

Why would they form the thin traces? They could have those active too, just a thought away from activating.

Newt’s mind jumped from thought to thought, abandoning one train when another, more interesting appeared.

How would that work with two different elemental energies? Can I run fire and earth through the same trace?

With hardly a thought, Newt sent a surge of fire-attributed energy from his second heart. Fire flooded the trace which, until an instant ago, was formed of pure earth. Newt screamed in pain.

The channel burned, searing his heart. The ambient fire-attributed spiritual energy ignited, and something in Newt’s chest tore. With wide eyes, he spewed a mouthful of blood, drowning his agonized scream.

Newt wanted to send a stream of fire-aligned energy towards his feet, to propel himself forward with Fire Burst, but the mere thought of releasing more fire into his body made his head spin.

“Help!” he gurgled, but the chamber was soundproof, isolated from the rest of the world to offer maximum privacy and perfect concentration.

“… if you are doing anything new or risky, do so near the training field, where Elder Elmshade can intervene…” Elder Alabaster’s words echoed in Newt’s mind. Too late. His lung burned like someone was crushing the breath out of him.

With superhuman effort, Newt threw himself at the door. A mortal material would have exploded into splinters under the force, but the door merely smashed against the wall, the boom echoing down the corridor.

“Help,” Newt screamed again, but mere gurgles trickled out of his mouth, along with blood.

The world grew fuzzy, darkness creeping up the edges of his vision, when a door somewhere far away opened with a bang.

“Healer!” A distorted voice hollered from the depths of the abyss. Darkness crept forth, covering half Newt’s vision.

A yellow-green blur touched Newt. Water trickled through his body, misting over his organs.

“He charred his lung, and half his heart burst.” The speaker paused, his icy hand drawing Newt back from the brink of unconsciousness. “I can keep him stable for a while, but the wound is complex, and there might be problems if I heal him. Summon Elder Goodhunt from the Chamber of Healing.”

Newt watched the desk clerk run out the door when his savior spoke. “Listen, Junior, I have no idea what mistake you could’ve made drawing spiritual energy to explode your own heart, but I must assure you it’s the most spectacular injury I have seen in this part of the building.”

Newt looked at the bald man, his face free even of eyebrows. He was grinning at Newt. Coherent thought had trouble forming. The pain sitting on Newt’s chest had shrunk from a titanosaurus to a mere triceratops, and the spreading heat had stopped, doused by the healer’s water-attributed energy.

Newt opened his mouth. He wanted to say something, but only blood left his throat.

“See?” Concern flashed through the baldy’s eyes, but he kept grinning, a joking smile that did not reach beyond his lips. “Just stay conscious, and you’ll have an exciting story to tell your friends. Seriously, you’ll have to tell me later how you managed to burn your heart, lung, and a straight line all the way to your hand. What kind of strange technique were you practicing?”

The healer kept talking disconnected gibberish, or maybe Newt’s hazy mind failed to connect the thoughts, but whenever Newt’s eyes drooped and started to close the bald man’s voice turned a higher pitch.

“Hey, hey! Do you want the sect to learn you fainted from something like this? No master will accept a weakling like that.”

Blessedly, another figure appeared above them, blazing with spiritual energy, and Newt’s consciousness finally gave out.