Being an Earth-Shaper had a lot to do with strengthening foundations, and wasn’t necessarily limited to physical structures. If one borrowed the principle and applied it to the bremetan body, it was possible to augment the senses by magnitudes while retaining stability. The trick was to balance the augmentation of one sense by depriving another to maintain the balance between mana shifts.

That was how Zuken Banksi, from up in a private gallery, was able to watch the defeated spiritist being taken away on a stretcher by a pair of medics. He could spot every perplexed wrinkle on Lukas Aguilar’s forehead, every crease of his eyebrows as they were narrowed.

The Outsider was surprised by the outcome. Disappointed, even.

“Well?” Zuken asked the only other person in the room. “What do you think?”

“About what?” asked Tatun. Given the way his lips twitched, Zuken has a fairly reasonable idea of what was going on in the Secretary’s mind.

“You know what.”

Tatun snorted. “What do you think? He dropped the damn fool with a single hit. I owe you another bottle now. This kid is going to bankrupt me by the end of the day, I just know it.”

Kid. Not that Zuken was surprised. Aguilar made it all too easy to forget that he was barely a young adult — he was younger than Elena, which was saying something. For someone so young to wield such power and potential was hilarious, but he was also encumbered by his age. He was brash, adamant, cocky and prone to acting out. Zuken couldn’t fault him for being independently-minded, as both of them shared the attribute.

With all those traits, it was simply too easy to treat him like a child at times.

Until one looked at his eyes.

His eyes were old. They had seen things, faced things, lost people they cared for. Behind that prickly exterior, Zuken knew there was a person trying to claw out some breathing room for himself.

“I know better than to bet against Aguilar,” Zuken finally said. “He will always come out ahead when he has to. In fact, I doubt he even knows how to lose.”

“That will get him killed on the field. Be practical, Banksi!” Tatun snapped. “We need adventurers capable of thinking smart. People who choose their fights accordingly, and do so only when they can definitely win. A brawler who throws in with everything in their path isn’t a warrior. He’s cannon fodder.”

“He defeated the genius loci of a Class-3 anomaly all by himself. Plus, the svartalfars have already made a move on him. I doubt he even realizes it yet.”

“Employed by svartalfars. More like they saw an opportunity and took it. I’m surprised you let him have his way and gave him a position at your new guild.”

“I have my reasons…” Zuken mysteriously finished.

Tatun rolled his eyes. “Of course you do. Don’t get too cocky though. Los has always been a braggart. I’ve known him since he was an apprentice at the Guild. Seeing him dropped like that will only make things more difficult for your boy wonder.”

“What do you mean?” Zuken asked.

“The Guild cannot afford to injure all of its adventurers just to test the mettle of one. So most likely, they will now put him through… an accelerated course.”

“Which entails what, exactly?”

Tatun’s lips quirked slightly. “Keep watching.”

There were three opponents. Two of them were spiritists, both wearing the crimson wristbands that symbolized their statuses as pyromancers. The third was a monster tamer accompanied by a creature that, oddly enough, reminded Lukas of a bison…

If said bison had eight legs. And two heads. And was double the size of a regular bison.

The Guild’s already taking off the kid gloves. They sure don’t waste any time.

Compared to the previous battle, this was already shaping up to be exponentially more difficult. He wondered if the upcoming battles would be following the same pattern.

“This looks like a juicy piece of meat,” Arah whispered. “Do you mind if—”

Actually, Lukas interrupted, I want to fight them all myself. Let’s see what it means to be a fire-shaper in Haviskali. Maybe next, we will actually get something worthy of your presence.

“Stroke my ego, why don’t you,” the ifrit complained, but ultimately acquiesced.

I’ve had lots of practice, trust me.

The horn suddenly blew.

“Rall’a!” the monster tamer hollered. His bison let out a furious cry and galloped in Lukas’s direction. Meanwhile, the two spiritists took positions on either side of him and raised their hands in unison, creating a ninety-degree angle between each other with him as the focal point.

Then came the fire.

Spiraling torrents of flames erupted from their hands — or rather, from inches away from their hands — and rushed behind him. They were attempting to cut off any possible exit, leaving him no choice but to face the incoming bison that was blindly charging towards him.

It was a remarkably commendable tactic, one that probably would have worked against someone else.

But against him?

Lukas smirked as lifeforce pumped into his legs. He sprinted ahead, leaving a gale of dust in his wake, and before the monster could make it halfway to his location, he was right in front of it. The bison reacted quickly and twisted its head in an attempt to pierce him with its horns, but Lukas sidestepped it with a quick Burst to alter his momentum and hurled a well-aimed, condensed ball of pure force at the creature’s knees.

He barely heard the sound of something cracking before the bison toppled onto the ground, its own momentum dragging it through the rocky terrain and bruising it in a hundred different places. The pyromancers were quick to react and sent successive balls of flame at him.

Too easy.

Lukas crouched, avoiding the fireballs that passed over his head, and sent two balls of kinetic force towards the spiritists, aiming for their nether regions. They quickly reacted and stepped aside, but the sudden movement created enough of a distraction for Lukas to fire a third sphere, this one towards the monster tamer still standing blankly next to his bison, wondering what had happened.

He was the first to fall.

“One down,” Lukas smirked at the two remaining men. “Two to go.”

The pyromancer on the left, the one with dirty-blonde hair with a scowl on his face, screamed out in frustration and rushed towards Lukas in boundless fury, spiraling flames manifested on both of his hands.

First rule of battle, Inanna used to say. Make your opponents angry. It makes them predictable.

It took only a moment for Lukas to raise a shield of lifeforce before the man opened fire at him. Literally. The other spiritist joined the first and lobbed attacks in a desperate attempt to shatter through his shield. Lukas’s body sweated from the sweltering heat and the air around him was too hot and smoky to breathe properly. As he staggered back to get out of it, the second spiritist created a spinning mandala of flames and sent it flying towards him.

A successful two-pronged attack when facing an opponent who was trapped in place.

Unfortunately for them, he was not.

Lukas let out a harsh breath and tugged his shield to the left. As the two fiery attacks clashed against one another, he leaped to the right and rolled away, reaching for his ax as soon as he got to his feet. He sent it hurling towards the second pyromancer, followed by a burst of pure force. He dodged the first, but the second got him in the chest.

The sound of cracking ribs felt like music to Lukas’s ears.

“Two down. One to go.”

“Think you’re funny, do you?” the blond spat.

“Of course I do,” Lukas taunted back. “And hey, don’t worry. They say the third time’s the charm.”

The air around the pyromancer sizzled with magical energy. Raising both arms, he sheathed his entire body in fire and blitzed toward Lukas.

In reply, Lukas sent a ball of lifeforce at him.

It was swept away by a flaming fist.

Lukas repeated his attack, and this time, the man punched it head-on.

Any time now.

As the enraged spiritist continued dashing towards him, Lukas did not move. Instead, he manifested another shield before him. Fiery arms met it with a resonant gong as the shield flared out in a quarter dome of blue-white light like a barrier of raw will. The man smashed against it over and over like a berserker, as if the overwhelming fire mana was gnawing away at his rationality faster than it was the shield.

Hmm, so this is what they call a mana imbalance. Let’s speed this up.

“Just give up,” Lukas taunted, “You can’t beat me. You don’t have what it takes.”

“You cocky son of a bitch,” the blond snarled. “I have everything I need to handle you.”

The orange flames covering his arms began to morph into an intense blue. Lukas felt the temperature balloon as the flames became hotter, hot enough to cut through the shield. Given how the barrier was flaring out at places, it was clearly working.

There was just one problem.

It was the nature of fire to burn. It did not differentiate between caster and victim, friend or foe, or living or dead. It asked no questions. It merely burned.

As resistant as the pyromancer’s fabric was, there was only so much it could take before it started to dissolve, leaving bare flesh victims before the hungry flames.

“I’ll say it again,” Lukas replied. “Stop now, and I’ll let you walk away.”

“Condescending bastard,” the blond snarled. “Keep your pity!” He pushed harder, and his arms burned and sizzled from the effort.

Stubborn fool.

“Very well,” Lukas sighed. “Might as well put you out of your misery.”

He sent a mental command.

The fire-shaper’s eyes widened as Lukas’s urathril ax came spinning through the air like a massive boomerang and slammed into his lower back.