It hurt when Dan said that he wasn’t strong enough.

He apologised, and Hyun could tell by the look in Dan’s strange silver eyes that he was truly sorry, and worried that he wouldn’t be forgiven. That’s Dan’s biggest problem, Hyun thought, well, that and acting before he thinks.

“It’s not a bad idea, though?” Hyun was watching Dan, who was in turn looking up at the clouds. It was hard to tell if Dan was listening or not. Honestly, it was a little annoying sometimes, but Hyun knew that Dan couldn’t help it any more than he did and he knew that Dan’s ability was an absolute lifesaver. Even if Dan himself had no confidence in it. Imagining how it must look to the somewhat quieter, smaller boy was something Hyun enjoyed doing in his spare time.

“No,” Xiaomei murmured, following Hyun’s eye line, “it might even be the right idea.” She brought her hands to her face - Hyun thought they were such lovely hands - and covered her eyes before sitting down and falling back into the grass in a similar position to Dan. “Everything got so complicated so quickly.”

Her last words were a whisper that Hyun wasn’t sure he was meant to hear, but he agreed all the same. Was it even a week ago that Hyun was talking to his friend and teacher Lee Chung-ho, worrying about how to spend more time with Xiaomei and less time worrying about Dan’s problems? He had managed the first, though it felt a lot like doing the second.

Not that Hyun minded helping Dan. Hyun Soon didn’t have much to do for himself. With no family and no responsibilities, even having a dream was a slightly strange idea. So when Dan arrived and made things interesting, Hyun had followed him first out of curiosity and then out of instinct.

Xiaomei was definitely right. Things had gotten confusing so fast that Hyun hadn’t even noticed they were confusing at the time. If he could ask Fa Lian’s grandmother some more questions, he felt like she would be able to explain things, but that chance had also passed. There was no one left to tell them what was the right thing to do. They just had to… do.

With that decision in mind, Hyun Soon lifted the monster core from his side. Xiaomei had told him how to use it, though he doubted that she expected it to be right now. That was alright, it would be a fun surprise. The looks of consternation and worry on his friends - and Fa Lian’s - faces suited much older people, so Hyun simply decided to act.

With a side eyed glance at Dan, Hyun ignited his mana and smiled. Dan hadn’t even flinched. He’d been getting better and better at controlling his mana around the sharp eyed boy and Hyun was feeling the benefits. Dan didn’t know that he was being used as a training dummy, but that was for the best. He would either get upset if he knew or would make it more difficult and Hyun wasn’t ready for either.

Around his fingers, orange silhouettes appeared. It was a finer control than he usually needed, but it felt good to focus his power like he was. The density of his “fingerguards” were impressive. By condensing the area he would normally cover on his arms and making it smaller, the gloves that he created were magnitudes stronger. Using that solid grip, Hyun tightened his fingers around the orb.

With one last look around, met only with the clearly overthinking faces of his friends, Hyun decided to just get it over with. The monster core cracked like thin glass in his hand, but made no sound. For a moment, nothing happened and Hyun began to worry that he had done something wrong.

As he made eye contact with Xiaomei, he saw fear in her deep brown eyes and the world went black.

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Like he had been placed underneath a mountain and asked to carry it, Hyun was suddenly assaulted with more pressure than he thought he could bear. It shoved him to his knees quickly, pushing all of the air from his lungs and daring him to move. For an agonising few seconds, he couldn’t, but the burning became too much. He buckled slightly, but managed to take a deep breath of air.

“It’s fine!” He shouted, not knowing where his friends were but knowing how they’d react. He couldn’t see himself but, even if the only thing the others could see was himself kneeling, he expected they’d run to help him. If someone moved him now, made this feeling Hyun was fighting any harder, then he would collapse. “It’s okay. It’s fine.”

It absolutely was not fine. Hyun Soon’s nose filled with the smell of stagnant water and blood. As though he were back in the cave with the manticore, except this time the monster was invisible. As he braced against the unyielding weight on his back, Hyun felt the sadistic mana start to pierce him. It was a bizarre feeling, a painful stab followed by actual power being made his own. It wasn’t pleasant, and he would definitely never use another monster core, but each stab of pain seemed to add fuel to the fire within.

The ignition of Hyun’s mana within himself was not conscious, but desperately welcomed. Against the crushing mass of energy bearing down on him, the blazing inferno of his core was needed. It wasn’t in the right places though. His mana was taking too long to travel through his channels. He needed it everywhere, so he did the only thing he could think of.

Do it like Dan did.

Dan had described the process of using his own mana, and it sounded so strange to Hyun for it to be viewed like water. The mana within Hyun Soon could be described as nothing but fire, and when Dan used Hyun’s technique, he told him the same. If Dan could use Hyun’s technique, even though they feel so different, shouldn’t the opposite be true?

Instead of burning his energy, he tried to push it. Instead of lighting a line of powder in his channels, Hyun pushed the fire itself. Alongside the stabbing, painful agony of the weight on his back, Hyun forced the burning through his mana channels. Where the stabbing, wriggling pain of the outside mana was forcing itself in, he met it with the burning of his own energy, a torrent of flame soaring through his mana channels.

There was a heat haze around him, though the world itself was still blackness. Within that heat, Hyun could feel other flames burning that weren’t his own. Three fires, all feeling strange and unrecognised but that must be his allies. One of the flames burned with a dark smoke, heavy enough that Hyun Soon couldn’t see the colour of it properly. Another was a will-o-wisp of blue, dancing energy that made Hyun feel happy. The final, brighter light started to move closer and Hyun barked at it. Whatever he said worked, because they stopped trying to close the gap and instead Hyun saw the clear white flame start flickering and growing in power.

Good. Leave it to me, or I’ll tear your head off. Hoping he was directing those thoughts to Dan or Fa Lian, Hyun focused on himself once more. His own bonfire was spluttering. He had no experience moving his mana like this and was just as likely to be doing damage to himself as helping. The stabbing pain wasn’t stopping, the crushing pressure wasn’t letting up. The monster core itself was trying to kill him, wasn’t it? Yet again, Hyun thought angrily, it’s just one confusing thing after the other.

“Enough!” That was what he tried to shout. The roar that erupted from himself may not have sounded anything but animalistic. He felt his mana burn hotter than it ever had, scalding him on the inside and turning his muscles into pure, unstoppable magma. It felt incredible as well as agonising. With a shove, he rose from the ground and threw away the colossal mass over his head.

With nowhere to send the energy he now felt, Hyun directed it down. His fists felt like meteors as they dropped into the dirt, the tail end of his angry shout cut off as he closed his mouth from the dust. For a while that was all he could do, sit breathlessly amongst the churned earth, muscles screaming. Finally, something had to give and despite the air being filled with debris, he took some regretfully deep breaths.

His vision returned in full and Hyun Soon saw three worried faces looking down towards him. Dan asked a stupid question so Hyun caught his breath instead of answering, downing as much of the water from Fa Lian’s flask as he could manage. When he finally felt like himself again, and was ready to talk about it, Hyun first looked at his soul badge.

The amber and red crystal which he kept on a bracelet was now engraved with a star, denoting Hyun’s growth and proving the ordeal was worthwhile. He smirked, feeling happy that his gamble had paid off and deciding he would never ever tell anyone how scared he just had been.

“Ouch,” Hyun said as casually as he could, “why is it always me?”

Due to the mental and physical drain on himself, Hyun asked for another hour or so in the pretty meadow before they left, which was met with a mixture of happy approval from Dan and Xiaomei, with a sprinkling of expected eye roll from Fa Lian. Eventually though they did set out.

The labyrinth awaited.