He picked up the weapon. An atlatl, he placed the arrow and tried shooting it. The arrow slid off without traveling any distance. He quietly put it back in. He still had too much on his plate and with the little time he got, he would rather focus on the spells. It was not like he could even use it, certainly not on the ground, these monsters were difficult to hit even at close ranges but nor could he use it when he was crawling on the tree. He did not have clawed fingers and toes that seemed to allow them to easily find purchase on the tree trunks.

With a slight bit of regret, he placed it back inside the inventory wondering how fun it would be if he shot out an etched arrow with the Incinerate, that exploded within the target.

He quickly ran away, finding a hidden place to rest it. He was now getting a knack for finding them. He started wandering through the world of the spell module trying to find the mechanism that controlled the process of manipulating and moving energy and his physical hand during the etching process.

The thousands upon thousands of the previous repetitions that he had already gone through helped him. The structure of Spark, and Cloak of Fire, contained many similarities. Some of them were present even within the Incinerate. This allowed him to remove many of the options from the start.

Hovering above his palm was a flame. It looked weak as though a small blow of air would be enough to extinguish it. It only seemed that way though. Spark was his most used spell and the one that he had come to rely upon in most situations and even though he had no fear of it exploding due to air he was faced with a consistent problem. The flame always appeared above his palm. It required him to keep his hands free making it especially dangerous high up in the trees.

Closing his eyes he sharpened his senses and cast the spell. It was instantaneous just like always but his time he could feel the flow, blindingly fast. One after another he kept on casting the spell and he felt the growth in terms of energy hit him now.

It was difficult to cast ten to fifteen spells one after another. He started experiencing severe headaches. The crystal within his mouth was slowly sending its energy to his reserve but it was still not at the speed which would make an impact during a fight.

With time he could feel himself becoming better at sensing the energy. He kept on repeating the etching process on the pieces of wood. He still had quite a lot remaining from the stockpile he had stored to use as torches. All that hard work was now going into something useful.

With each repeat, he could feel himself inching closer. It was boring, exhausting. He wanted to just give up as he was fed up with it. His head was filled with these clashing emotions each and every time he started practicing. His worsening headache only made it worse. It could not stop him though because he had already decided he was going to do this and he would do anything to accomplish it, just like he would do anything to enact his revenge.

The light throb became constant. The veins on his forehead and skull became visible as a pulsating pain overtook the throbs. His hands trembled, the etching he was performing going haywire. He tried controlling his hand with his newly enhanced strength but it seemed to have evaporated. The strength that made it effortless to cut off the necks could not even control his trembling hand.

He was forced to take a rest, the crystal within his mouth. The moss was soft, much softer than even his pillow that he remembered he had bought specifically because of it. How far off those memories were. The soft sensation tried to lull him into sleep but no matter how much drowsiness attacked him it was all nothing compared to the headache.

He focused on the crystal thereby speeding up the recovery process. It took a few, agonizing, hours for his reservoir to refill. As soon as the last bit of the headache went away he was out.

***

Waking up he quickly cast a Spark spell. Closing his eye, he held an energy crystal feeling it being sucked into his body. The energy moved within his fingers, rushing towards the rest of his body. It could not even cross the arm when the whole of the energy was absorbed. With time it started gathering and the energy started circulating all over his body, he could sense it. There was no apparent place where it was headed too, it just circulated within his body until all of it was absorbed.

He fought, experimented, he rested, and prayed. His life became a cycle of these steps. As time progressed the fire started making its presence known. The forest started becoming illuminated in some parts though most of the places he visited were still draped in darkness.

After hundreds of fights, he became more and more comfortable and as the motions and patterns were further imprinted into his muscle memory he started shifting his focus. How could he make it even quicker but with lesser risks? On each iteration he changed something, observing the results and then incorporating if it seemed helpful. This allowed the fights to end quicker, though sometimes it instead took much longer, lowering the number of times he needed to take rest which in turn kept him ahead of the fire that kept chasing him which, by now, had grown to a massive monstrosity.

Whenever he did rest he spent most of the time upon the Spark, feeling closer and closer each time. Each time he spent nearly half of his usable energy inspecting the Spark. The remainder was used on the other projects.

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He could feel the progress happening slowly filling him with unknown happiness. The bottleneck felt like a prison, the time just passed away without any improvement. All his efforts seemed to be meaningless, spiraling his thoughts down into the negativity. The only reason he could operate in this abysmal environment was the rush that swept through his system during each fight. The adrenaline made him excited, allowing him to perform feats he would never have performed otherwise.

The battle swept his mind clean of all the worries, the rush becoming something he had started looking forwards to.

Finally, after a long, he started seeing some hope for growth in his skills and this pushed him to try even harder. Despite the improvement in his skills, he was not satisfied. It was not enough, that he was sure of.

The cycle continued; fight experiment, rest, and repeat. The fire kept growing, its speed increasing with time. It forced him to stop the experiments and focus on resting as much as he could within the limited time.

He took in large gulps of air. It felt warmer now. Looking behind he did not stop for a rest this time as the fire showed no sign of slowing down. His head moved up towards the top which too had now become light orange in color.

The fires blazed forward, suddenly reaching towards the unburnt trees and enveloping them. He quickly ran and hid behind a tree while the hot winds swept by. The crystal within his mouth, he resumed his journey.

As he traveled he took out a small, circular wooden disks etching Incinerate upon them. Its power was reduced to the extent that it took even less energy compared to the Spark.

A hum sounded, and he sped up moving in a zig-zag motion. Placing the disk back in the storage he pulled out knives from the makeshift sheath one on each arm. Like routine, he chased after the archers forcing the fighters out. Determining all of their locations he kept an eye as they moved while escaping from the arrows. He got the opportunity soon, one of the fighters jumped its needle mouth from which he had been bitten uncountable times opened savagely. He grinned, ricocheting towards another tree and dodging the arrows. He spun mid-air positioning his feet upon the tree and his arm jerked. A sharp cry sounded out as the disk cut through the air and into its mouth. It bit upon the disk. A headless body fell down. A rush came in again making him feel giddy. It took a lot of willpower to refocus. He turned his attention toward others. Using the smaller disks he kept interrupting their movements, hitting their limbs or when they were mid-air. Due to their size, it was difficult to hit them but once they exploded the small explosion was enough to send them crashing down. He left the rest to the gravity.

The fight ended. Though dangerous fighting high up in the trees became more advantageous for him once he became adjusted. He exploited the 3d space to its fullest as he slipped through the hoard of monsters whilst all he needed to end them was a good shot while they were mid-air, letting the gravity do the rest of the work.

He panted running at the highest possible speed. The longest straight strip was no longer than a meter or two, afterward were sharp cuts that forced one to slow down. This pattern repeated throughout the forest making it difficult to sprint.

Feeling his limit approaching he slowed down, took out a disk, and started etching while on the move. Connecting with the spell module, he started adjusting the energy level when he stumbled and fell down. His focus was still upon the matrix so he became confused but the energy was already moving and due to the sudden interruption the adjustments he was concluding messed up causing all the parts to be messed up. He caught himself and in sudden anger kicked at the root, a bit chunk of root and the nearby moss were torn apart, flew, and crashed against a trunk.

Something unexpected happened. The flow of energy had increased and it was coming out of his knuckles. Surprise, then the elation. He prostrated, thanking God, and then got up laughing merrily. Remembering how he kicked it, he became apologetic feeling a sense of guilt at forcing the result of his own mistake upon another but it was then quickly forgotten.

With urgency, he went back into the module and quickly searched for the changes that had been performed. One by one he started tweaking the mechanism. Finally, he had found a concrete lead.

The search started. It still took a long while. Despite the field of search being narrowed down, there was still a lot to search through and his inability to understand what the mechanisms were, it was like a blind person walking through an unknown environment. He needed time which became harder and harder to find as he needed to be on the run from fire most of the time. When not on the run, he had to rest and this place now actively sucked out his energy.

One stab after another, he slowly climbed down the trunk. The ground became visible. When he was just a few meters above the ground he jumped down. The fire was burning. He connected to the Incinerate module and once again observed the mechanism. Closing his eyes he connected to the reservoir.

Even after all his time he still had not been able to find the location of the reservoir within his body. He focused on the spell module and separated the mechanism connected with the manipulation of energy. Activating them in isolation the energy started moving and he could feel it reach within his fingers. Shifting his focus upon the Spark module, he searched for the mechanism that focused the energy out of his body, converting it into the flame that hovered above his palm. He isolated it and then activated it upon the other mechanism. He felt tingling within his fingers and a headache suddenly struck him.

Sweat covered him from top to bottom. He felt sluggish, the double vision making it difficult to navigate. Sitting against a tree he looked at the white-washed forest. The bright orange fire was visible behind him, inducing fear within him as he felt his skin burning like a hot gust of air passed through.

He stopped. Just ahead the moss was crushed as though something had fallen. He looked around, alerted. Moving further he encountered a few more similar bumps in the moss. All of them were near the trees, he observed. Inspecting them he could see the moss damaged in some areas.

There was nobody, most likely it had already disintegrated after the archer crashed to the ground. He picked up their weapons. After moving further he found a trail on the ground of the moss being torn as something moved. Around the trail was a red color that popped out in the sea of white. He took out a spear and a sword and started following.

At the end stood an archer. Its scales were broken, bones piercing out and blood dying the body and the area around it.