“So, Eric, bro, what’s up with the campfire outside our pad?”

This from Drake, digging into his pasta like a starving man his favorite meal, grunting appreciatively and giving a thumbs up. “Best damned pasta I’ve ever eaten! You’re a lucky man, Louie,” he said, his friend giving an agreeable nod as Alice beamed happily, none of them acting like the day before had even happened. And if they were happy, who was Eric to say anything?"

“Yeah. I had a bit of an interesting twist with one of my...um… experiments.”

Morlekai nodded. “That he did,” he said, his veneer of sensually aloof vampire lord strained just abit as he slurped his noodles up, happily devouring his food the same as the rest of them. “And it seems that our favorite smith is more than a bit intrigued, since even with his Profession, fuel concerns and smoke do serve as limiting factors. If Eric’s artifact really is capable of perpetual flame...”

Eric winced, instinctively shying away from anything implying a perpetual energy machine. “Maybe just burning for a really long time?”

“Sure, kid. Point is, it’s worth store credits, depending on how long it lasts, and most importantly...”

“But Boss, what do we need store credits for? He’s already getting that ‘leet set of armor prepped, and we’re only going to be here for month or so, right?” said a curious Louie.

“Most importantly, it gets it out of our hair!” He said with a glare Louie’s way.

The man winced in apology, before digging into his pasta. "Fuckin' delicious as always, babe."

Morlekai’s intense gaze then locked onto Eric. He quickly gulped down his spagetti, ready for the questions he feared coming. But all the man said was…

“How much did that flame cost you?”

Eric frowned in thought. “It knocked me on my ass. Depleted my Soul Reserves like chaining a whole slew of Burst of Strength power blows. But I feel pretty much 100%, after I had a chance to rest.”

“Good. No permanent depletion, or loss of experience?”

Eric slowly shook his head, checking just to make sure. Then he froze. “Shit. It DID cost me experience!” He furrowed his brow. “But I think I can unlock whatever… what’s the word I’m looking for? Knot I put around it. I think. But that’s not the worst of it. It’s scary how drained I felt after using it.”

This earned a quiet chuckle. “I’m not surprised, kid. You didn’t just make that rat skin burst in flames. You infused it with the essence of Flame."

“Um, boss, what does that even mean?” asked a curious-looking Drake.

Morlekai smiled, his gaze never leaving Eric’s own. “It means our young friend here excited every electron in that piece of rawhide to the point of ignition. Not only that, it’s not cooling off anytime soon. It might disintegrate, eventually, but not anytime soon.”

Drake frowned. “But Boss, that doesn’t make any sense. If it’s truly combusting, shouldn’t it be turning to ash? When something burns… it burns, right? Sure as shit, the grass around it was smoking and shriveling.”

Morlekai just shrugged, pointing at Eric with a forkful of meatball. “Fire’s not my Path. You want any more details? You’ll have to ask boy scout here.”

Eric winced under their measuring gazes. “Honestly, guys, I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. I’m just trying to figure out how best to channel my badass new...” he froze under Morlekai’s utterly neutral expression. “… skills.”

Alice smirked, pointing at the pot full of boiling water, though there was no fire under it. "And what the fuck's up with that rat heart, Eric?"

“Yeah… long before I met you guys, I had an encounter of the feral kind. Rat was going for my throat… so I went for the heart. Of course I kept the body in storage and never chucked the organ. It was almost like a trophy.” He swallowed, shaking his head. “At first, I thought his heart was still steaming hot because my Extra Storage Space slows time even as it expands space. But this? Well, it’s been boiling for a while, hasn’t it?”

Alice nodded. “You know what? Let’s test your ability right now. You said you can untie whatever loop you have around it? Maybe free up some sequestered potency? Why not try that right now?”

Eric frowned. “That’s not exactly what I… but shit, it’s not exactly a bad idea, either.”

And much to Eric’s surprise, it worked on his first attempt. He was surprised to find himself tingling with potency even as the water around the heart finally began to cool.

Alice clapped. “Well done, boy scout!”

“I’ll say. I’m so close to level 8 I can taste it!”

She chuckled throatily. “Well I’d resist temptation and leave the smith’s new source of perpetual heat alone… at least until he’s finished making our gear and we’re long gone,” she said with a wink.

All of them shared a laugh at that, Morlekai gazing at them all with fond approval. “We showed our enemies that there is a price to be paid for crossing us, and few will dare what these fools attempted. At least not for the foreseeable future. So get a good night's sleep. The hunt begins tomorrow."

All of them smiled and nodded, and though Eric wasn’t quite sure if they meant the infestation the mayor wanted them to wipe out in exchange for his secrets, or hunting down the bastards who had put the dozen would-be assassins up to it, he knew he’d find out soon enough.

In the meantime… there was a puzzle he was eager to solve.

It seemed his Heat Surge was far more costly, and potentially far more useful, than he had first thought.

So best he learn to use that gift as best he could.

You have successfully set Rat Hide Ablaze.

You have expended Soul reserves.

You are 75% depleted!

Negative effects successfully diverted.

Eric grimaced with the wave of nausea quickly suppressed, relieved to find that his increasing proficiency with Heat Surge correlated with a decreasing cost in terms of Soul Potency and Experience Points, and he thought he benefited as well from relaxing the ‘lock’ securing his potency to rat skins infused with his will. Their flames died quickly enough.

Still, he was expending tremendous amounts of energy, when the equivalent would allow him multiple Bursts of Strength.

He couldn’t help but wonder if it wasn’t just due to his Flame Essence being a bit less stable than his Essence of Wrath. Maybe he just wasn’t using his gift correctly?

His mind flittered between images of laughing in the waves by the beach as a little kid, hearing the pounding surf, admiring the sheer power of the current tamed to surfboard rides and family entertainment in a world gone by.

While at the same time, a powerful enough water jet propelling just the tiniest fraction of the sea’s majesty could cut someone right to the bone.

He gazed down at his sword and the fresh piece of rathide on the ground.

Taking a deep breath, focusing his will, he slowly thrust his saber into the strip of rawhide.

His eyes widened with fierce delight when his hunched proved right and the animal hide immediately began to smoke before bursting into white-hot flame… but only where his sword was touching.

When he pulled back a second later, he couldn’t help but flash a satisfied smile.

Because now he understood that he could be far more efficient than setting an entire animal skin ablaze. He could direct the heat to just affect the animal skin around his blade, and go no further. Best of all, burning on contact alone was an extremely useful technique that cost him hardly any Soul Reserves at all.

Now as to whether it was any better than swinging his two-handed bardiches, especially when magnified by Burst of Strength, the answer was a hard no. But that was hardly the point. The point was understanding his gifts and using them just as well as he could. Only when he had spent considerable time learning all their inns and outs would it ever be prudent to say that one technique was superior or inferior to another.

In the meantime, he would do his best to master his Essence of Flame, and see just how far he could push the skill, even if it did take too long to safely cast in the heat of battle. “Well fuck, if I actually had Captain Zara’s flame-blade from the comics, I’d be set!”

He laughed at his own joke, acutely missing his favorite childhood comic for just a few precious moments before his eyes widened, and he realized he was being an idiot.

“Fuck, I can do just that, can’t I? Why the hell not?”

With a bemused smile upon his features, he slowly unsheathed his sword, visualizing gently increasing the temperature of the steel until he felt a sharp sense of discomfort. His eyes widened. He hissed and immediately stopped, suddenly recalling a dozen sword-forging specials he had enjoyed watching. And if there was one recurrent theme he remembered above any other, it was that you did not mess with a tempered blade. Not unless you wanted to ruin it completely.

He felt a sudden jolt of apprehension, worried that he might have already ruined it… when quicker than he would have thought, it released the excess heat and seemed to, for lack of a better word, snap back into its ideal temperament, just like it had repaired the micro stress fractures he had sensed earlier, with Eric only feeling the slightest tingle of fatigue. It was almost as if… his blood-forged weapon was using his own blood to repair itself!

Eric whistled.

Now he was certain. He hadn’t just been imagining it. His sword really had been repairing itself, and had now done so perfectly, twice over, and thank goodness the damage had been so slight each time.

If blood-linked weapons could actually heal themselves… and since he was only paying 1/5 the normal cost, on top of the familarity bonus, thanks to his absurdly high Soul Reserves… he couldn’t help but be tempted anew to make at least one more blood-linked item.

Maybe several more.

Especially if it helped him break through his bottleneck, finally hitting journeyman rank with a key handful of skills.

But one thing at a time.

Such as seeing just how far he could push both Heat Surge and Blood-link.

And whether it was due to madness, inspiration, or just plain old frustration, Eric stumbled upon yet another way to achieve the flame-blade he was looking for.

Foolish enough to cut open his forearm, mad enough to coat his saber in his blood… and savvy enough to surge his will into a micro-thin layer of blood, hoping that the Path of Blood subskill would at least include limited abilities to control that medium.

Whether or not there actually was any sort of blood manipulation in his future, when he mentally commanded the micro-thin coating of blood to stay at air temperature, he had no reason to think it didn’t listen, especially when he deliberately locked in what amounted to a fraction of an experience point in making sure that command was heard. Even if that Heat Surge had really just been a temperature stabilization surge.

Because all that was just simple preparation for the second coating of blood… hoping that his blood, his essence, would further enhance a connection to himself, his soul, his Essence skills.

At which point he commanded it to get hotter.

And hotter.

Until he was covered in sweat, and groaning when his almost full level 7 experience bar, so close to level eight, plummeted to 3/4ths.

And just as he felt himself slipping into the black maw of oblivion itself, draining his soul to the point he felt more dreaming figment than flesh and blood man… the thin sheen of blood on his blade began to blaze like the sun.

Congratulations! Blood Mastery is now Rank 3!

Now you can not only forge blood links to your chosen items, you can infuse them with the potency of your own essences, and manipulate your blood at will!

So long as you have the energy reserves necessary to do so.

You have successfully learned a skill that should be utterly beyond any rank novice daring the Path of Blood! Especially if the only direction you wish to move is no direction at all!

Congratulations! You have successfully formed a blood-lacquer over the entirety of your weapon inbuing the essence of Flame at 77 degrees Fahrenheit! 1 Experience point reserved!

Congratulations! You have successfully formed a triple blood lacquer over the bladed portion of your weapon imbuing it with the essence of flame at 2000 degrees Fahrenheit!

1/4th of your available experience point pool has been expended in this forging!

Heat Surge is now Rank 5!

You are suffering the effects of Significant Soul Reserves Depletion.

You have saved versus Severe Soul Strain!

You have successfully stored your blade in your Extra-Dimensional Space!

You have collapsed from exhaustion.

When Eric woke up with a groan several hours later, it was to see Morlekai gazing down at him, a puzzled expression upon his features.

“Is there a reason why you’re sleeping on the training field, completely defenseless, when you know at least one enemy party is eager for our deaths?”

Eric felt his cheeks blaze, though he was grateful to find himself once more feeling like himself, savoring every breath he took, feeling that same visceral potency, that larger than life awareness of his own existence that he had begun to take for granted as an adventurer. So utterly different from feeling no more real than a dream just hours ago, panicking that he was just the slightest hitched breath away from waking up to oblivion, finding that his entire life had been a dream, and he had never existed at all.

At that moment he bowed his head, truly humbled by must how perilous a game he was playing with his own life, daring to experiment with powers he understood not at all. Not in the ways that mattered, at least.

Not in the ways that could keep a foolhardy novice like himself from getting killed by his own stupidity.

"No, I…" Eric swallowed and shook his head. "I guess I fucked up. Or almost did."

This earned a bemused eyebrow. “And how exactly did you ‘fuck up’, Eric Silver?”

Eric grimaced and shrugged, seeing no point in not just showing him.

He was about to draw his saber, before recalling at the last moment that he had put it in storage.

And the look on Morlekai’s face when Eric summoned forth the bar if white-hot blazing steel was almost the mirror of Eric’s own.

“What the hell did you do?”

Eric winced, naturally fully extending his arm. Because even with his rawhide gauntlet, still waiting for his masterpiece, the heat was a palpable thing.

“I raised the surface of my blade to 2000 degrees. The edge portion, anyway.”

Morlekai clenched his jaw, an odd mixture of fear and disapproval upon his features. “Then you are a fool.”

Eric smiled and shook his head. “Not if the blazing white heat won’t effect the blade at all.”

This earned a raised eyebrow. “Explain.”

Eric shrugged. “Well, I just coated by blade with a thin coating of blood, asked it to stick...”

“To stick?”

Eric nodded. “I leveled up my Blood Mastery last night. It’s still only at Rank 3, but it’s enough to make it stick.”

This earned a smirk. “I damn well know what Blood Manipulation is, boy. And you sure as hell shouldn’t have any access to it from our singular Soul-Binding, let alone be at a rank that takes most disciples months to achieve."

Eric blinked. “Months.”

“Indeed.”

Eric grinned. "And yet..." he thought better of his next words. "The point is that I infused the blood with my essence and told it to stay at 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Then I coated it with another layer of blood, though to be honest, I had to use three layers, telling each one to get hotter."

He chuckled ruefully. "Before collapsing, almost killing myself with the feat. And now I have a brilliant sword I can't even bare to hold in proper position, because even with grip and guard immune to heat, my hand is baking even with my gauntlet, and my face isn’t feeling too much better. It also fucks with my infravision, giving me a glare headache like you wouldn’t believe.”

Morlekai chuckled softly. “And yet you have created a wonder like no other. Perhaps not the most practical of items, but still… what’s preventing you from coating your armor in your blood as well? Aside from the cost, I mean.”

Eric blinked, opened his mouth, then shrugged. "Very little, actually."

In truth he was 99% sure he would have thought of that given time, but Morlekai did note it first, and the smug smile he gave Eric was definitely that of a master showing up his student. But of course… they were just associates.

Besides, Eric's mind was racing with another discovery, and one that utterly changed his cost-benefit analysis of blood linking multiple items.

Because his saber, for all its faults, had come to his hand the instant he had willed it.

The very instant.

No two-second delay at all.

Eric licked his lips, forcing himself to meet Morlekai’s eyes before slowly making his request. “I know you have plans for us. I don’t suppose it would be at all possible to delay it?”

The Don’s bemused smile froze. “And why would we do that?”

Eric swallowed. “I...there’s something I’d like to try with my abilities. Something that, if it works, well, I think it might be a real game-changer.”

For long, endless moments, the two locked stares, before Morlekai gave the most infinitesimal of nods. "I am off to see if a certain rat is ready to flee this ship. Whether tonight or tomorrow, his anxiety grows all the sharper." He flashed a cold smile. "The man does have a taste for cards, however. A way to pass the time. As if the contempt he feels for all of us wasn't revealed each time he smiles at our winnings, or rakes in the pot. And tonight?"

The man gave an absurdly graceful shrug. "Perhaps our friend shall enjoy an unusual streak of luck tonight. And why shouldn't he?" Morlekai flashed a wicked grin. "I suspect I shall be 'winning it back' soon enough." He satisfied smile turned to a cold stare. "But you had best be ready to leave when he does, Eric.”

“That’s the plan,” Eric quickly said with a nod, when the head of their little band made his way past the lake to the town that hugged only a fraction of the available space with a population of a thousand, which spoke of Morlekai’s status like nothing else, that a full quarter of the land by the lake, much of it slowly but surely becoming farmland filled with exotic herbs and vibrant crops, seemed to be his territory alone.

Eric, knowing that his time was limited, quickly got to work.

First, he pulled out what he would forever think of as his war-blade bardiche, the wicked cross between an axe and polearm, with a blade as long as a scimitar with a long wooden haft that allowed it to be used almost as a cross between a two-handed sword and a halberd, and was perhaps most similar to a short-hafted guandao. It was a savage, brutal instrument of death that made no apologies for what it was. Yet it could be swung about with surprising grace and speed, to absolutely devastating effect, if one had the Strength and Finesse to master that weapon.

A weapon that was increasingly becoming an extension of Eric’s own body, ashwood shaft reinforced by a master’s touch, stained with the sweat, blood, and tears of his own exertions. Such that it cost only a fraction of the experience that a brand new weapon never to know his grip would have cost him. And that itself was only a fraction of what it would have otherwise cost him, as his increasing skill with both Blood Mastery and Rituals of Summoning and Binding synergistically reduced the cost even further.

Of course, this bardiche weighed considerably more than his light and deadly saber did, so the net effect was another fifth of the experience needed to hit level 8 vanished as his micro-serrated bardiche, so devastating in the cut, now truly was just an extension of himself, and his Soul Reserves went down another 0.6 points to 20.2.

This time, it only took him two hours of intense meditation to fully recover and attempt the feat one final time, for this night, at least, linking his second bardiche, the one that could be thrust just like a broad-headed spear, yet also deliver vicious chops like an especially long-bladed glaive, became the third weapon that was now, literally, an extension of himself. And considering how well it synergized the parries, thrusts, and counters he had mastered with the spear, it would have been foolish not to incorporate it as well, all three of his soul-linked weapons having been polished, filed, and sharpened to the absolute best of his or Smith's ability.

Because now they were a part of him in every way that mattered.

Even if it had brought his effective Soul Reserves all the way down to 19.8.

Congratulations! You, an initiate who has received not one single formal lesson, have dared to rely on intuition alone to push your skills to new heights along this UNORTHODOX Path, risking unimaginable damage with the slightest mistake!

Blood Mastery is now Rank 4!

Rituals of Summoning and Binding is now Rank 2!

And he could immediately feel the difference, a certain element of his sense of self, his presence, the metaphoric fire of his soul, felt just the tiniest bit dimmer, with the dip in his available Soul Reserves.

But as steep as the cost had been… he couldn’t deny that it had come with a massive boon.

A connection to his weapons that transcended anything he had ever felt before. The bardiche felt like a dream in his hands as he flowed from underhand sweeps to diagonal chops morphing into weapon clearing swipes before arcing back around in a deadly weaving dance of sweeping slashes and cuts from all angles, Eric expertly using the momentum of his weapon to twist out of the way of imaginary strikes even as his weapon cleaved his foes wide open, as evidenced by the gaping gashes now decorating the first pell their smith had given them, tearing completely through the thick rawhide protection, and even scoring at least a couple of the scales underneath.

And when Eric channeled his fury into an Essence-enhanced swing, he couldn’t help smiling in bemused wonder as the weighted pell went soaring end over end.

Until it smashed into Morlekai’s house before bouncing off what was clearly a flexible ward of some sort. But not before shattering a window and earning a furious scream from a voice knew all too well.

“What the fuck!” Alice screamed.

“Sorry!” Eric shouted in awkward apology.

“Eric? Is this more of your fucking essence bullshit?”

“Um… maybe?”

"Well, don't use it on the house, fuckwad!"

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“You owe me a new window!”

“Um… sure?”

“You’d better hope someone can fix this shit tomorrow.”

“Do you want me to help clean up?”

“No, you idiot! Just shut up and call it a night!” This from a clearly irate Louie. Eric groaned, somehow knowing he’d never hear the end of it. But despite his blazing cheeks, he felt close to whooping for joy.

Because with his Soul-linked prize in hand, the power blow had cost him only a fraction of what it would have before. And the difference was even more noticeable with the far heavier two-handed bardiche than it had been with his saber. Even if his Soul Reserves were now effectively 19.8, instead of 21.

He chuckled ruefully as his friends shouted and cursed at each other before the glass fragments oozed into the window frame of their own accord, all of them covered in a patina of blood, until it looked like a stained glass window in various shades of crimson.

“Neat fucking trick,” Eric whistled, before going back to his own remarkable tricks, embracing the feel of his longer bardiche, combining the best elements of spear and glaive, as far as he was concerned, as warding parries turned to explosive lunges with his weapon, morphing into winding and binding maneuvers that forced his opponent’s imagined spears high before Eric whipped his weapon in a downwards cleaving strike, cutting his imagined foe in half even as he chopped into the recovered mannequin with bone-shattering force.

Maneuvers he practiced endlessly as one form flowed seamlessly into another, sensing his mastery increase moment by moment, hour by hour, happily breaking his own rules about rest and reflection as he embraced the cusp of enlightenment, until both bardiches felt like they were just a hair away from ranking up.

And that’s when he truly took his game to the next level, not just mastering the patterns he had been taught by Drake and Louie, but alternating between the two killing tools in the blink of an eye. He found it surprisingly effortless to switch between weapons and grips, exchanging vicious sweeping slashes with his war blade before leaping aside and lashing out with powerful lunges with his glaive at a far longer range than his foe might expect in the split second Eric broke all the rules.

Feinting, parrying, weaving and striking, doing his utmost to devastate padded pells and imagined foes at all angles, and never hesitating to embrace sudden inspiration and smash into his pell while thrusting deep, deep into visualized bowels with his superheated saber, hissing and smoking as it set the pell ablaze.

And the smell of burning fire immediately jolted him out of his daze.

He totally didn’t need to be splashed by a massive pale of water that put out the sputtering fire and incidentally drenched Eric as well.

Yet despite being soaked, he couldn’t help but join in the laughter, bowing theatrically to Drake and Louie's mocking claps, Alice grinning ear to ear and holding the water barrel that would have been too heavy for her to lift just a few days ago, even Morlekai giving Eric a thoughtful smile.

“Remember what I said about wise men and fools?" the crimson frock-coated man said.

Eric grinned and laughed. “Those words have been playing in my head more than I’d like to admit. Maybe that’s why I was working so hard for that breakthrough.”

Morlekai’s nod was one of definite approval. “Whichever you happen to be, if you can fight in the tunnels as well as you can smash my sister’s window with your pell, I’ll consider you a welcome addition.”

Eric winced at that.

"Fucking epic, man!" Drake gushed. "Combining all three weapons like that in one badass fighting style? Is that some Shaolin Monk class shit, or what?"

Eric couldn’t help laughing. “Let’s go with ‘what.’ But yeah. I guess I did sort of slip into the zone there.”

He had the grace to smirk and bow Alice’s way. “And thanks for the cool-off. I guess I had that one coming.”

“You’re damn right you did,” she said with an impish smile. “But it’s okay. We forgive you.”

“Speak for yourself,” Louie snorted as Alice leaned against his arm. “But yeah. You got some sweet moves. And that flame blade shit… kinda sweet.”

“I’m not sure how practical it will be in the dark… it’ll give away my position and kill my night vision. But if I can control the heat it radiates, or notch it up even more? Who knows how far I can take it."

“Damn right!” Drake said, pumping his fist. “You'll have yourself a plasma light saber. That would be everything!"

"That would be sweet," Eric acknowledged with a smile.

But the truth was, this was just the first step.

But before he went any further… he definitely wanted to go hunting, and soon.

Because right now, whether or not he hit level 8 anytime soon, more experience was crucial for all his plans.

And the messages dancing cross his interface when he finally let sleep claim him put a smile on his face, more certain than ever that he was on the right path. At least for him.

Saber is now Rank 12!

Apprentice Bardiche (glaive) is now on the cusp of Journeyman Breakthrough.

Apprentice Bardiche (war blade) is now on the cusp of Journeyman Breakthrough.

Bardiche skills are now in sync.

You have reinforced your connections to: Soul Bound artifacts!

Rituals of Summoning and Binding is now Rank 3!

Experience point cost of all future Soul Bindings has been significantly reduced!