Aiden sifted through old man Li's memories, perched with his legs folded on the coarse rock floor. The unsettling quiet was broken by the Mana Fire he sparked now and then. The shadowy flames illuminated the cavern in bursts, deepening the darkness in his eyes each time he stared at the dull stone walls.
Taking a deep breath, he pondered on the experiments old man Li had done. Old man Li belonged to this world, so he didn't really understand the system or RPG aspect of the system. The old man had built his hypothesis entirely on his experiments, and those were helping Aiden now.
This world worked on an RPG system, and one could learn a skill through a skill tome. Old man Li was fixated on the fact that every skill had a cost and one couldn't use less or beyond that, and he never considered the channeling or variance cost of the mana and qi. This world also had a cultivation system which couldn't fit exactly into the RPG system, so that needed to be put into consideration as well. Although Aiden hadn't delved deeper into the cultivation system, he realized one thing. Not everything worked at a fixed cost. The simple example was Qi Fire, which looked like a channeling skill, but it had more aspects to it.
Old man Li had understood it perfectly through his experiments with the size, shape, control and manifestation, and that's how he had invented the Alchemy Fire.
And Aiden was going to use that knowledge to control the Mana Fire.
A black fire burned on his finger, fizzling out and then reinvigorating as he poured more mana into it. On and off. He used his mana pathways to block and release the mana. The black flame danced as per his control, but producing a fire wasn't enough to control the red card fire control.
For more than one hour, Aiden toiled with the mana pathways, juggling the flow in and out. By the time the system alert finally popped up, a puddle of perspiration had formed beneath him.
System: You have learned the finer control of the mana. +1 Mana Control.
System: +1 Perception.
Aiden chuckled. He had achieved the first obstacle.
Letting out a long, deep exhale, Aiden reached for the worn leather water skin at his side. The warm water flowed down his parched throat, soothing the dryness that had built up during his intense focus. As he swallowed, he could feel the liquid spreading a comforting warmth through his chest and belly. The fresh water did more than just quench his thirst; it seemed to wash away some of the mental fatigue that had settled over him during his mana control exercises. With each gulp, Aiden felt a small surge of renewed energy, his mind clearing ever so slightly as the simple act of hydration revitalized both his body and spirit.
It was now time to move on to the second part of the fire control, and this was more difficult. Old man Li called it as Shape Manifestation.
Old man Li had arrived at it through the meditation and shape imagination. As per the memories, Aiden only had to imagine a shape in his mind and the fire would take the same shape.
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Based on the memories, Aiden began with the simplest shapes: a delicate thread of fire. All he needed to do was conjure the Mana Fire as a thin, luminous filament, dancing in the air before him. He closed his eyes, focusing intently on the image in his mind, feeling the warmth of the mana coursing through his body.
However, the task proved far more challenging than he had initially imagined. The fire flickered and sputtered, refusing to hold its shape. Sweat beaded on Aiden's brow as he concentrated, the air around him growing thick with the scent of ozone and the faint crackle of energy. His fingers twitched involuntarily, as if trying to physically mold the elusive flame. The struggle was palpable, each failed attempt sending a ripple of frustration through his chest.
"Damn it. Old man Li needed years to achieve this and I'm trying to achieve this in a day. It's not going to work." If only he had an example in front of him, he could have done it as well.
Wait, he could really do it.
"Alchemy Fire." The fire burst out of his right palm and turned into a single thread at his will. It was a machine with all functionality present as a knob. All he had to do was to learn from it.
Closing his eyes, Aiden focused on the process of creating the thread. There was no mana used for Alchemy Fire, but it still needed his concentration to make the shape, and the concentration was done inside his mind.
Manifestation - that's what old man Li called it.
Imagining a thread of fire inside his mind, Aiden poured mana into his left palm and conjured the Mana Fire. It burned like an untamed beast, refusing to change its shape. All he could do was to control the output with mana.
Aiden conjured Alchemy Fire on his right hand and it bent to his will and turned into a thin thread of flame.
Suddenly the Mana Fire reacted to his will and changed into the thin thread like a small cat scared of a big scary dog.
Wow! What happened? Could he control Mana Fire using Alchemy Fire?
Aiden willed his Alchemy Fire to convert into a cube that slowly rotated over his palm, and the Mana Fire followed the will. It was a replica of the blue cube.
For the next ten minutes, Aiden made the Alchemy Fire take many shapes, and the Mana Fire followed the path like a small kid following on the steps of the big brother.
After getting a hang of the process, he cut the Alchemy Fire and then used the Mana Fire to make shapes, but it didn't work. He kept burning mana to channel the Mana Fire, but it didn't obey his command. It was a wild beast that just refused to obey him.
"Fuck! Why isn't this working?" His frustration was mounting up, but he wasn't going to give up. He had this old man Li's memories, and he realized one thing from among those memories. Old man Li never gave up. Old man Li had a bad aptitude for cultivation. He had a worst spirit root, and very poor qi quality and meridian quality, and yet he had climbed to the highest cultivation level of the sect.
It was all because of his persistence and experiments. Aiden would follow the same steps because he believed in the persistence. It had helped him to survive ten years in the bat-shit prison, so why not in this new world?
A crazy idea played in his mind - what would happen if he conjured Alchemy Fire on the same hand?
Aiden cut off both the fires and then took a deep breath to calm down his nerves.
"Mana Fire." He conjured the black flame in his right hand and then conjured Alchemy Fire on the same hand.
System: You have combined the Alchemy Fire and Mana Fire, giving birth to Heart Fire.
System: You have reached a new combination of the skill. You have received a title.
Recombinator: An experimentor. +5 to all stats.
As he read through the properties of the new skill, a smug smile played on his lips.
Awesome. He had finally got what he needed in his current predicament.