Beginner fire mages would be excited to summon their first fire spirit. They should aim for the moltenzard. The weakest fire spirit is the cindertoad. However, students are advised not to summon cindertoads. Unlike other fire spirits that are contracted simply by providing them mana to be able to maintain their forms on the material plane, cindertoads are temperamental and are not easily attracted even if the mage summoning them have much mana to spare.

A cindertoad’s Malvar Ratio is also lower than one. This means that while the fireballs they can cast is more powerful than the fireball of a mage of the same level, the summoner would expend more mana for practically less damage. If a fire mage would want to deal more damage with a firespell, it is advised that they use a higher tier spell than summon a cindertoad and make it cast its own fireball.

Students should also be reminded that cindertoads can only cast fireballs and nothing else, making the moltenzard the fire spirit of choice for beginner fire mages.

So You Have Firepower: What to do Next

By Master Fire Mage Lorraine Amber

“Yes!” Orvin pumped his fist into the air while jumping up and down. The cindertoads around him also croaked happily, feeling the air with smoke rings with each croak. He then hastily grabbed some mana potions to replenish his energy.

“Yes what? There’s still some pieces of the rock left.” His teacher was pointing to the smoldering remnants of the third rock in a row of six.

Orvin has successfully melted the first rock, which was the size of a head with one fireball. His teacher was quite pleased with how fast he was able to summon six cindertoads. The ones he summoned were still misshapen sorry creatures, but he’s sure that as he improves, he will be able to summon more powerful ones, ones that actually looked decent.

He was amazed that he can actually use the flame essences extracted from nature by the cindertoads. They felt different, to say the least. Purer, more attune with nature; he can’t quite find the words to describe why they were different compared to when making fireballs on his own.

With the support of six cindertoads, Orvin was able to melt the first rock on his first try. He stood gaping at his success for a while until he felt faint from having his mana drained by the six cindertoads hopping around his feet. He was so surprised that he was able to succeed in his first try.

His teacher told him that there were many paths to become strong. Having a large mana pool does not mean that that mage will be stronger than the other. He was really happy that his teacher encouraged him to build up his talent of being able to connect easily with fire spirits.

“You did great with the first and second rock, but look at the third rock. You just melted a large hole right through it. Some bits and pieces are still there.”

The second rock was twice the size of the first rock. Nevertheless, with constant training he was able to strengthen the fireball and make it emit more heat that he was able to completely obliterate the second rock. He collapsed immediately after he succeeded in completely melting the second rock.

After a day of rest and recuperation, he tried tackling the challenge of the third rock. The third rock was as big as he was. It was also shaped like a column; it was a good substitute for a human target- and therein lies the problem. Orvin conjured his most powerful fireball yet and aimed for the middle of the target. He was able to melt a large part of the target, however, because the fireball is circular in shape, the upper and lower part of the column was not melted. The uppermost part of the column of rock comically shook in the air as a large chunk of the rock melted away beneath it, it then dropped to the base of what was once a column of rock.

“Still you did not faint. Good job on that one I guess.” His teacher stopped low and picked up the upper and lower pieces that were not completely melted. Their sides were still glowing due to contact with the heat emitted by the fireball.

“I don’t think it’s possible for me to melt all of the column yet. That would need a fireball several times larger than the one I can summon.” Orvin looked intently at the cindertoads hopping around him. He was satisfied that he was able to maintain their existence in the material plane. “I should aim in summoning more powerful cindertoads.”

“It’s good that you have thought about that. That’s actually one of my future lessons. You have summoned a named fire serpent before.”

“There are named cindertoads?”

“Of course there are. It’s hard to attract them though. They don’t like being ordered around. Compared to other fire spirits that will mostly follow a mage whose strength they respect.”

Orvin eyes sparkled at the thought of commanding a small army of named fire spirits.

His teacher waved his hand at him. “Don’t get your hopes up on that one. It will be quite a while before you are strong enough to start that lesson.”

“So what should I do to completely melt a target that’s not round shaped in one hit? I mean a fireball is round… if the target is not somewhat round there will be parts that will not be melted as the fireball passes through it.” Orvin scratched his head. “Unless I strengthen my fireballs, which would mean more cindertoads, or higher quality ones?”

“I never said anything about melting it in one hit. I just said melt it using one fireball.”

“Wha- what? Isn’t that just the same thing?”

His teacher smiled slyly. “Go back to the first and second rock. Put the second one behind the first.”

Orvin drank some more mana potions. Their school has provided them with plenty of supplies before they travelled to Krysperium. Too bad there weren't any passive mana regeneration items. That would be too expensive to just give away to students without any supervision. Orvin doubted if even the schools in Krysperium could give away such items to students. Not that they needed mana regeneration items; student training rooms in the capital city were probably enchanted to regenerate the mana of the one using it.

He manipulated the earth to form two rocks, one twice larger than the other. This was easy, he thought. He was quite sure that the power of his fireball can melt through the two rocks in one go since they are arranged in a column.

He then looked at his teacher for the next instruction, but the latter was looking somewhere in the upper levels of the city. His teacher looked back at him and nodded, a signal to cast his fireball.

Sure enough. His fireball melted the first rocked, continued its trajectory and hit the second rock as well. Orvin can sense that some power of his fireball was spent on the first rock, he quickly fed more mana to it and manipulated his cindertoads to extract more flame essences as base for the fireball. The fireball completely engulfed the second rock and melted it.

Wait, what did I just do? Orvin then fell back and collapsed. The cindertoads disappeared into little puffs of smoke.

His teacher picked up the book that he was reading titled “The History of the Church of the Dragon” and a mana potion from Orvin’s pouch. He set the potion beside the exhausted Orvin.

“I…I got, I got it,” Orvin mumbled softly. He was fighting the impending unconsciousness due to exhaustion.

“Oh, you realized something. We are progressing quite fast, ” he said as he began walking back to the villa. “Of course, you also have a good teacher. It’s good that you understood why one fireball is not one hit.”

Orvin could only grumble in response. He slowly reached for the mana potion.

"You know, I might just enter you in the beast-taming competition.

Ethani’s tattooed lips curled as she detected the presence of a person following her. “Bhorg, you should not be here.” Her glowing tattoos coiled around her lower lip and chin down to her neck.

A huge cloaked man suddenly appeared out of the heavy traffic of people behind her. It seemed that he materialized out of thin air for the mass could not have hidden his gigantic physique along with the rectangular cargo he had on his back. He walked towards Ethani, who was sitting on the balcony railing of a park overlooking the lower levels of the city.

“You should not use stealth magic in this city. There are many detection wards. It is hard to explain why a dangerous looking man is sneaking around their capital,” Ethani said coolly. “Lady Lantana forbade us from using our magic while we are doing our mission here.”

“You used your magic to detect me.” Bhorg nodded towards her glowing tattoos.

Ethani just grunted and turned her gaze back to her target. Her tattoos slowly dimmed their glow.

“He is interesting,” Bhorg said.

“Why do you say so?”

“You were there when he banished the demon.”

“Ah. That. I did not even see what sort of attack he did,” Ethani said. “Of course, I wasn’t using my runes at that time.”

“Even if you were using your runes, I doubt that you will know what he did to exorcise that demon.” Bhorg sighed. “Roghinian warriors does not have much experience in dealing with demons.”

“If we did, we won’t be sneaking around this city.”

“The curse afflicting the mind of the warrior-king came from an ancient demon lord. The priests kidnapped by the clans were able only able to weaken its effects. Even if the priest caste was not abolished, I doubt they can do anything about our current crisis,” Bhorg said.

Ethani looked up at the sky. “Kidnapping priests, sneaking around foreign lands…ah…when had Roghinian warriors sunk so low.”

“Lady Lantana is correct in preparing for war amongst the clans. I follow Lady Lantana, even at the cost of my honor”

“Honor won’t mean much when the wars begin anyway. There’s no honor in killing your fellow Roghinian warrior for control of the Warrior’s Throne. Yet, we must do it for all of Roghinia.”

“It is only a matter of time,” Bhorg said.

“Thankfully, the priests of Ke’zhul were able to slow down the rate at which the warrior-kings mind is devoured. When he finally succumbs…”

“I doubt the royal sword will choose a new successor before that happens.”

Bhorg and Ethani stayed silent for a time. They both looked at the garden of a small villa several levels down from their position. They saw the BasketSlayer reading a book while a young mage, surrounded by frogs made out of molten rocks was trying to melt a column of stone.

The BasketSlayer stood up and was talking to the young mage about something. The young mage made more rocks to melt using earth magic.

Their quarry’s head turned to their direction.

Ehtani felt a cold prickly sensation taking over her body. Her heart became constricted, as if barbed vines were wrapping around it tightly.

Bhorg and Ethani jumped back from the balcony, immediately activated their runes, and disappeared.

A few blocks away, two cloaked persons emerged in a narrow alley.

“So much for not using magic. Did he see us?”

“He saw us. He directed his killing intent specifically at us. The people around us weren’t affected by it,” Bhorg said. He straightened the large object on his back and walked towards the entrance of the alley and looked around.

“Who knows, he probably was just emitting his killing intent randomly.” She was met with the stern face of Bhorg. “I’m joking!” Ethani said while raising her hands.

Bhorg stuck his head out of the alley and observed the people, his runes were still glowing, although faintly.

Ethani whistled. “We’re a few kilometres away from him yet he saw us.” She stretched her body and sighed. “I have never felt that sort of pressure before. And taking the distance into consideration…”

“His skills are considerable.” He looked at Ethani after checking their surroundings. “I believe that his skills as an exorcist are even greater than his fighting prowess.”

“What are you getting at, Bhorg?”

“I will meet with him.”

Ethani snorted at the foolish idea. “You want him to exorcise the curse of the demon lord on our king? Lady Lantana told us to keep him under surveillance. Now, you’re actually going to meet him-”

“He already saw us. There’s no way you can shadow him again.”

Ethani paused and bit her lip. “Lady Lantana is going to be disappointed.”

“Why? We have found someone that could potentially stop the civil war.”

“How can you be so sure that he can do it? How can you be sure that he would even help?” Ethani asked. “The clans are already preparing for war. I’m sure that it is not only our clan that is stocking up arms. But we will win because of the equipment from this city’s manaforges.”

“You won’t try to stop the war amongst our people because we will win in the end?” Bhorg slowly shook his head.

“It’s…It’s not that. I did not mean that.”

Bhorg nodded towards the street outside. “Let us go. We have nothing else to do here.”

People were going about their daily business, clogging up the streets. They parted easily at the sight of Bhorg, like waves of the sea split by the prow of a ship. Ethani followed him in silence. She allowed herself a slight smile as she noticed the people scampering away from Bhorg, carrying their wares. This city looks like a giant anthill, she thought to herself. Busybodies everywhere.

It has been four months since she left her clan. She was surprised that she was chosen to be a part of the team that would be under the command of Lady Lantana. Then her surprise turned into dismay as she realized that their mission would be to secure weapons and armors for the clan. She has completed the tattoo formations on her body only a year before the mission. High hopes for dangerous missions to prove her worth as a warrior filled her heart. Yet, barely a year after she became a full-fledged warrior, it would seem that killing her fellow Roghinians would be her mission.

Another matter that added to her dismay was the reason that she was chosen. She admits that she was not a prodigy, yet, she is better than other warriors her age. However, the reason that she was chosen was that no one has seen her face outside the clan. It would have been better if she was chosen based on merits, no matter how distasteful the mission turned out to be.

When she left, the clans were already eyeing each other with suspicion. So nothing really changed. The clans were always suspicious of each other, unlike the people in the streets of Krysperium that don’t even care when they bump of each other. Well, they take care not to bump into Bhorg, Ethani though while staring at his massive back.

Bhorg was one of the fiercest warriors in her clan, but he was the one who does not kill unless it was necessary. He was strong, no doubt about that. Yet, he avoided unnecessary fights and only stood up when his honor is on the line. Ethani was sure that Bhorg joined this mission with a heavy heart.

Perhaps, Bhorg was right? If they could get rid of the warrior-king’s curse, everything else would fix itself. Wishful thinking? Or not? She saw how, in the blink of an eye, the BasketSlayer banished the demon. Admittedly, she did not see how he did it. He’s surely more powerful than any priest that they were able to…procure. Why did they have to kidnap priests anyway? She was still an infant when the priest caste was abolished and its members exiled from Roghinia.

“Bhorg, what if it’s a trap,” Ethani asked softly.

Bhorg stopped in the middle of the street and looked behind his back. The flow of people parted this way and that, never daring to get near him. At the distance, a couple of city guards were eyeing them to see if they will cause any trouble.

“It’s not.”

“How can you say that? Other clans might have set this up to lure us out. I’m sure many clans would want to stop us from acquiring weapons.”

“If he is allied to other Roghinian clans then why just not ask him to try and cure the warrior-king?” Bhorg resumed walking. He was heading to the portal leading to other levels of the city.

“Other clans may not want to have the warrior-king cured…”

“True. And now they’re luring us to take us out of the playing field? However, an opportunity presented itself to us. Whether he can cure the king or not remains to be seen. We will continue preparing for the war. Yet, don’t you want to try and stop it?”

“Of course, I want to stop it!” Ethani kept pace with him. “We just don’t know if this is a trap or not.”

“We may never know. Will you stop me from meeting with him?”

Ethani smirked and said, “I won’t be able to stop you anyway even if I wanted to. What do we tell Lady Lantana?”

“I’ll meet with him to see if he has the capability to help our kingdom’s problem. If it turns out to be a trap, I am confident I can extricate myself from most situations.”

“And if he’s the real deal-?”

“Then we go tell Lady Lantana.”

“Fine.”

It has been a long time since he has looked at the world with his real eyes.

A gigantic boulder flew over his head, followed by a thick tree trunk, and another, and another. They’re getting quite rowdy over there. The screeching calls of ironback apes hurt his ear. They were warning their pack of incoming danger. Not that it would do any help.

A couple more boulders flew towards his direction; both were deflected by the shields surrounding him. Oh well. Let them throw anything they want. They won’t last long anyway.

He touched the cold metal band covering the upper half of his face, covering his eyes and sitting just above his nose. How many years has it been since he started wearing it? Nearly a couple of decades? Has it really been that long? The metal mask was painted white. It was smooth, except for a small circular carving in the middle.

A stylized eye.

A carving of a highly stylized eye superimposed on a hexagrammic seal in the middle of his mask.

He began tapping a tune with his fingers on his metal mask. Bored. Just a mission requested by the merchants’ guild. They have a shipment going through this forest and they want to keep it safe. Simple enough. Except that the forest is the Cursed Donorian Forest.

The forest wasn’t actually cursed. However, the strange arrangement of the Great Donorian Mountain Range somehow concentrated the flow of tainted mana into this forest, which was located in the lowest valley. A catch basin for all residual energy runoff from the mountains. The unique mana flowing through the area attracted all sorts of beasts that made passage through it unfeasible. One of which are the ironback apes who were not very happy to give way. Yet, the one who contracted them wanted to pass through here.

Why did the Baccarat brothers agree to this? Seems like a menial task. They probably know what the cargo is. Not my business though, he thought. As long as he gets paid.

Wearing a hooded layered robe, he stood on top of a large crate, one of the many that are transported across the mountains using levitating carts.

The piercing shrieks echoed once again. Closer this time. An answering call came from the clump of trees to their side, another answered from behind the caravan of crates.

“Huh, looks like I’m about to get some action,” he said with a drawl. “Two to my right and one at the back. Plus a three-headed diamondcrest asp up ahead. The asp was probably stalking the ape pack when we came along and started driving them away.”

The beasts were still a two score meters away from him, yet he could see them, no need to turn his head, the whole world is reflected in his mind. A thick growth of foliage, nor a large mound of earth can block his sight. He was a Master Scryer.

Trees were ripped up from their roots; pieces of earth flew in all directions. The ironbacks did not care for whatever is in their way. They have come to their brethren’s aid. Their knuckles pounded on the ground as they headed for the seemingly defenceless human standing on a slow moving line of carts.

He was ready for them.

Scryers perceive the world differently. People just call their power Magesight, but they don’t just see through different eyes. Feeling colors and tasting emotions, smelling the souls of every living creature, see even the softest sound. Every permutation of the senses and sensation, they have experienced, and so much more.They can sense the minute streams of energy wrapping all the creations of Paximillon. What they perceive can drive an ordinary person insane; many scryer novices actually suffer this sad fate.

People wrongly assume that the scryers just have very good eyesight. They don’t. He can’t remember when he last used his eyes. His real eyes. Of course, there are times when he takes off his mask. But he doesn’t dare open his real eyes again. There’s a sense of helplessness, seeing through your own eyes without all the other information that he can sense with Magesight. It’s better to keep himself in the dark rather than see the world with his own eyes. Those two pieces of balled flesh.

Deranged apes burst from the trees, snapping the trunks like spindly twigs. They raised their fists and thumped their chests. Three of them. Nearly seven meters in high. Their backs were carpeted with serrated iron spikes; their forearms were also covered like so.

They reached out for the weak looking human standing on top of the crates. Their fingers, thicker than the branches of the trees they have been ripping apart, stopped short of reaching the shields protecting the crates. Bones crunched and muscles tore as the fingers bent back at impossible angles. The arms, shoulders, the torso, the legs, all of them twisted and stretched.

Feebly, they tried to call out for their pack, but they necks also twisted itself, their throats wringed like wet clothes. No one would answer their call anyway. Their entire pack has been disposed of. They were probably the last ones to die.

The Master Scryer looked at their mangled forms. Looked with his eye, the one not bound by the limits of the flesh. In the middle of his mask was a blinking eye, the etching before has turned into a real eye. It was jumping excitedly in its socket, looking to and fro, then back at the corpses of the ironback apes.

The three-headed diamondcrest asp, seeing the fate of the three apes, slowly coiled back into the forest. It had been watching from afar and was waiting to for the apes to attack so that it can attack the three of them when they were distracted, one for each head. Yet, they suddenly contorted themselves and died. It did not understand what happened, but its instincts were screaming to run. So it did.

The scryer snorted at the feeble attempt to survive. A cyclops of death, no one escapes his presence. The eye focused towards the direction of the escaping reptile.

The asp stopped slithering and coiled into itself, its muscles were straining against the unknown forces trying to control its body. Its three heads and tail intertwined, pulling tighter than a hangman’s noose. The humongous asp tied itself into a knot of death.

“Looks like the others are still pushing forward.” His head was filled with images of Ogrunts spilling out of their cave, swinging their spiked clubs, a swarm of steel-beaked dartwings, thick vines of the carnivorous tree Nepenthorn; his companions were serving death to all that had mistakenly attended their own funeral.

He shares their senses, and he shares his senses with them as well. It was proof of how powerful and experienced their team was for no ordinary warrior and scryer can link their minds.

“Ah, I best get moving along then.” The floating carts lurched forward and floated over the dead apes. They entered the forest through the pathway opened up by the asp.

A Master Scryer with an adventurer team. Laughable, he scorned himself. Scryers were looked upon with admiration in Krysperian society, for they can experience the manifestations of the creations of Paximillon in ways that a normal human can’t even dream about, can’t begin to comprehend. It can be said that they are the ones who are closest to experiencing existence itself. They are blessed by Paximillon, given the talent to comprehend the world, and as such, they should care for all of creation. They should not use their powers to kill.

Unlike him. If the Church knew that he has killed, many times in fact, using his Magesight, they would hunt him down to the edge of the Blighted Lands. They will probably chase him into the Blighted Lands. Killing using the gift of Paximillon merits nearly the same level of hatred as the void mages, traitors of humanity.

He slowly closed the eye that materialized on his metal mask. It was not normal. He knew that. It wasn’t there before. Before he killed. He actually wasn’t sure what it was. It probably isn’t an aspect of Magesight. He had been enlightened as to several, quite unorthodox, uses of his powers, and he has gained more as he killed more.

As its eyelids met together, the eyeball slowly melded back into his mask, leaving the etching of an eye on a seal formation where it once was. He massaged his temples, closing the magical eye always gave him headaches. Perhaps he should just let his third eye be…

“Huh?” His head snapped back; a message was transmitted to him from the capital city. His contact in the adventurers’ guild, specifically a renegade scryer, like himself, immediately informs him of important happenings in the city.

A sneer appeared on his face as he examined the contents of the encrypted message in his head.

“So, he failed and bit the dust. Spectacularly failed,” the scryer said. “I should tell Logan and Lucas of Sicarius’ demise.”