What was this girl about to do to him? Dorian was a little perturbed.

She seemed a normal sort when he first saw her. Then she’d gotten steadily more unhinged.

His eyes trailed to the Furnace; qi-flames licked at the edges. The way she was looking at him sent a cold draft down his spine. Either she wanted to stab him to death or devour him whole.

He glanced around the room, searching for something to distract her with. It was a bare, blocky room with walls of a porous black foam. A clock hung above the door. The flooring was thick metal. It was fairly minimalist; on a wall to the left was a cabinet, and in it were uniforms—the puffy blast-protection ones Dorian had seen worn by a few Artificers in the lobby. To the right... Dorian perked up. Jackpot.

“Is that a book-case?” He pointed to it. It sure looked like one. Black hide-bound tones sat in a stone shelf, etched with gold lettering on the spines.

“What?” She frowned, following his finger. “Oh! Yes. It has tomes with blueprints for artifacts of each Tier.”

“Won’t it be burned?”

She snickered. “Watch.” A smolder of fire-qi leapt to her outstretched palm. Then she walked over, picked out the first tome—Artificing: A Beginner’s Guide, Ed. XV—and set the flame to the first page. It fizzled out.

“Fireproof pages,” she said with a crooked grin.

“Ooh. Can I see?” He thrust out a hand. Finally! An artificing text! A vast trench of submerged memory buzzed beneath the surface of his consciousness.

He was nearly salivating; she looked at him with shrewd eyes as she mulled it over. “Hmm… why not?”

She pressed it to his outstretched palm. There was that smile again. “Pretty, right?”

“Very,” he muttered, flipping open the pages. His eyes ran down the words. Diagrams of qi-flows, instructions for heating, for imbue-ing, for the precise mechanism of Inscription…he felt a lock click in his mind.

“See those?” she said, leaning over him. Her smile was an innocent condescension; she likely didn’t even know she was putting on airs. She spoke as though to a small, dumb child. She pointed to the title.

“Those are letters,” she said. He flipped a page, totally absorbed and only half-listening. “They hold knowledge. This book has all the knowledge you need to become a Tier 1 Artificer.”

Fireworks went off in Dorian’s brain. Knowledge streamed into a spot between his eyes. It was like something on the tip of of his tongue had finally come to him—except that revelation was happening a thousand-fold. The flow here, down the arm and through the meridians of the hand, is imprecise; it makes no use of the Taiping acupoint. And what does it suggest here? It times the imbuing too late, at the point of quenching—by then, half the qi is lost! Dorian flipping through the pages almost as fast as his eyes took them in; after his physique had hit Vigor, his processing speed had leapt up.

And after I finish refining the brain, my comprehension speed should shoot up again too…

The girl said something else. It was lost in a muddle of Dorian’s thoughts. He kept flipping, poring over the images. He was lost to the world outside. The basics of Artificing, as refined in the Multiversal Standard, solidified in his mind. A warm shock of joy ran through him. Yes! This is how it should be.

He’d never gone deep into the study of Artificing before; like medicine, it was one of the fields in which he only had cursory knowledge. Even so, he’d forgotten more about artificing than the highest masters in this dumpy plane ever knew. And bit-by-bit it flowed back to him…

The book went on to list a glossary of nearly a hundred of the fundamental artificer’s runes. Each had a different function; each would need hundreds of hours of muscle-memory alone to master.

Then the book snapped shut and was yanked out of his hands. He looked up, blinking in confusion, to see Lin’s flaming face.

***

What was the idiot doing? He was flipping through the pages like a toddler with a picture-book.

She gritted her teeth. So far this visit was going very different to how she’d imagined it. She’d come here to get him up-close-and-personal with qi-fire, maybe singe a few hairs off his head for good measure. Or scare him to tears, just a bit.

Instead he’d spent five minutes head-down, not even looking at her—and she knew for a fact he wasn’t reading it! He was flipping pages so fast he hardly had time to see them!

Hmph. We’ll see how long you can ignore me for. The fires in the furnace had climbed to their peaks; they were raring for use. “Isn’t it hot in here?” she said. She turned around and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse with slow, stretching movements. Her shoulders were bare in the light; she loosened the bow on her neck, exposing more skin. Then she turned back, a triumphant grin on her face, only to see the doofus was still flipping.

She twitched. Her hands curled to fists. Then she snatched the tome straight out of his hands.

He looked up at her as though he was awaking from a deep dream. “Huh?”

“Forget the pictures,” she said, breathing heavy. She couldn’t seep the annoyance off her face. “Why don’t I show you the real thing?”

He still seemed out of it as she yanked him from his seat and dragged him to the front of the furnace. He looked around, bewildered.

“Erm. Aren’t we going to wear those?” He nodded to the safety uniforms hanging on the wall. “What if something blows up?”

“There’s no need for that,” she said. “We’re only dealing with low-level Artificing today.” If something does happen to blow up, all the better!

“Watch this!” Qi coated her hand as she thrust it into the furnace. Then, frowning with effort, she drew out a tongue of flame. It nuzzled her hand like a tamed animal. She smirked as she saw his eyes latch onto it.

“Flame-drawing. The simplest skill in flame-throwing,” she said, her chin proud and high.

For a long time the goon said nothing; he simply stared at her hand deeply, like it held a secret he was slowly unraveling.

She frowned. That can’t be it. She snorted at herself for thinking it. The ninny’s just mesmerized by the pretty fire.

“Can you do it again?” He looked up at her with big, pleading eyes. Aww. How could she say no? This time she grabbed a big ol’ fistful of flame and shoved it right in front of his nose, so close it nearly singed his brow.

“Here!” she crowed. That should do it.

He didn’t so much as move. Not even a flinch. Instead his gaze grew even more intense. She moved her hand left. His eyes followed. Right. They tracked her palm again. It was almost eerie. Frowning, she let the flame back to the forge. What’s wrong with him?

“This takes Azcan’s greatest talents years to master,” she said.

At the same time—“That looks pretty easy,” he said with a nod.

They stared at each other.

“…Easy?” For the first time Lin felt the urge to slap the dumb look off his face. “Easy?” A Vordor pecked out his brains as a baby. That must be it.

Then a really bad thought came to Lin. Mean, even—totally out of character. But she couldn’t help herself. “If it’s so easy, why don’t you give it a try?”

She regretted it as soon as the words left her lips. But she’d said them; it was too late to take them back. He grinned stupidly. “Okay!”

And stuck his hand straight into the fire. Her heart dropped. “Wait!”

Then his hand emerged with a second later with a flame. A qi-flame. Not on his hand, not setting his fingers on fire—dancing on top of his palm. Stable and docile. Wait. What?

She looked at him, at the flame, at him, at the flame. She rubbed her eyes and bent in close, inspecting the palm. His hand was not on fire. Not even burnt. What? The thought echoed in her brain, rattling around. What?

“Like this?” he said.

“Impossible…” she whispered. Her thoughts felt like leaves in the wind, fluttering in random spirals. It doesn’t… I…

His hand closed. The flame extinguished like it’d never been there at all, and she looked up to a face brimming with purity.

Heat rushed to her cheeks. “Again!” she shouted. She never shouted.

He was happy to oblige. In went the hand. Out it came, fire in tow. “Am I doing it right?”

“…”

“Miss Lin?”

“You’ve done this before!” she cried, heat rising to her face. She slapped him on the arm. This time there was no playfulness—she did it hard. He winced.

“N-no!”

“You came here to laugh at me, didn’t you?” she sniffed. “Is that it?”

She rounded on him, one hand on her hip. The other jabbed at him angrily. “Who taught you? The Sphynxes? The Rogues?”

He showed his hands helplessly. “I never did this before in my life! I swear!”

Her brows knitted together. “No… that’s not right…” she whispered to herself. “They’d never train a savage…I would’ve heard of it…and there’s no furnaces in the Outsides…urgh—then—then…how?”

“I saw it in the book just now,” said the dumb-face with a shrug. “Then I saw the qi in your hands. I guess I—“

“Shut up!” she snarled as she spun back to him, hands balled to fists.

She marched over to the furnace again, head held high. “The second skill of flame-throwing,” she hissed. She drew out toe flame, then sent it spiraling in wide ribbons along her hand. The creature bent down to look at it again with that same ferocity. “Flame manipulation.”

This time she didn’t even need to prompt him. He reached one hand into the Furnace and drew out the flame again. In truth, this should’ve been done with the safety-suit; fail this and the flame would burst out spectacularly, but she was beyond caring.

Not five seconds later, that thing had it leaping around in his palm like a well-heeled mutt! She couldn’t believe it. She literally could not believe it; it felt like there was a new distance between her mind and her eyes. There was a hollow ringing sound in her ears. She felt a little faint.

“I’m doing it!” said the beast. How had she ever found that face cute? That delighted smile was the nastiest thing she’d ever seen. Then his eyes turned on her.

“Are you alright, miss?” he said, frowning. He reached out to her.

“Don’t touch me!” she yelped, leaping back. Then she yanked out a tongue of flame out of that blasted clunk of a furnace.

“The third skill of flame-throwing,” she choked out. “Throwing.”

She threw the flame up like a ball; it fell down to her hand, still holding its shape.

She watched the savage put his hand in. She watched the savage take his hand out. She watched him throw the ball up. She watched him catch it. She watched him make a mockery of her profession. Then she watched him shrug. Shrug!

She felt like she was burning alive. Dimly, she noticed she was shaking.

“Like this?” the brute asked with the foulest smile she’d ever seen. “That wasn’t so hard.”

Her brain felt like a raw egg that this brute had cracked open; all of her thoughts slid straight out of her ears. She had no clue what on Izod was happening. There was only one thing she knew with certainty.

“You… you played me like a fool…” she whispered. She broke down in tears.

***

Dorian had never been a great student of the human condition. He was a great student of human cynicism, perhaps, and human want; he could reasonably predict the relevant behaviors. But of the broader make of psychology—the useless, softer things, he was near-clueless. Even in his past life which had needed the most charisma—Yeshiva, the goddess—most of his job had been to look pretty, make rousing speeches, and ruthlessly squash the enemies of the church. He let his bishops and popes do the hard rabble-rousing work.

Which was all to say that he had little idea how to comfort a crying girl. Oops…I went a little too far, didn’t I?

“You—you beast!” she roared, glaring up at him with eyes filled with angry tears. Without warning she turned and punched the wall with a rage-filled roar.

The whole room shook with the impact. A fist-sized hole dented the wall. Dorian stepped back, eyes widening. She’s much stronger than she looks. An aura of the Profound Realm flared to life in the room; a bloodline of immense nobility wrapped around it. Bad. Very bad.

She sniffled. “You’re bullying me!” she declared. “I hate you!”

Dorian laughed nervously as he eyed her fists. “Please, miss, there’s no need—“

“ARGH!” She punched another hole in the wall. Then, just as Dorian thought things couldn’t go worse—

“Miss Lin?!” came a voice from outside. A male voice. A concerned male voice. “Are you alright?”

Dorian froze.

Then the door was pried open.

Leo barged in, panting. “I heard a noise—“

He froze. He took in the crying Lin, the holes in the wall, then Dorian’s helpless face. Fuck.

“Look—there’s been a misunderstanding,” said Dorian, putting up his hands. “I—“

“Mudspawn!” roared Leo, his face bulging with rage. “You touched her?”

“No—“

“You dare?!”

He lunged.

***

Lin was feeling so many things she could hardly sort them out. She was angry. Really angry. And humiliated. She knew that much.

Then the door burst open and Leo’s dumb face poked through.

“I heard a noise—“

She saw him leap to the nearest conclusion.

“Look, there’s been a misunderstanding—“

“Mudspawn! You touched her?”

The grin was wiped right off the bastard’s face.

“No—“

“You dare?!”

She perked up, wiping the tears from her eyes. This would do. This would do just fine. She felt a thrill as Leo unleashed his early Profound-Realm base. Her villain was only at peak Vigor; the distance between the Realms was heaven-and-earth! She imagined that villain’s irritatingly pretty nose broken and bent. A crooked nose would look better on him anyways, she thought.

Good-Lin screamed at her to get up and stop the fight, but that Lin wasn’t in control. Bad-Lin had tied her up, taped up her mouth, and shoved her into a closet. Now Bad-Lin was driving the wagon off a cliff at full-speed, cackling madly all the while.

This should teach the fool a lesson. Plus, she rather liked the idea of two boys fighting over her—even if this was really a one-sided assault. She’d step in before the bones got broken, she decided. Until then… a sadistic smile lit up her face.

She saw Leo lunge, his hand wreathed in a gauntlet formed of his trademark yellow-qi. Wyrm-king lineage, only two grades below my own. It was overkill. He would’ve crushed the savage without using his bloodline at all. He must be really mad. The fact gave her a perverse joy.

Then something very weird happened. The first never connected. It almost connected, then…the savage’s face slipped just out of the way. It looked like Leo had aimed for the wrong place. Leo looked as surprised as she did.

“Can’t we talk this out?” said the ass. Was that resignation in his tone?

Leo lunged again, screaming, and the ass slipped again—just out of range. He frowned as Leo whirled around like a maddened bull.

“I’ll gut you like a fucking fish!” shrieked Leo, and the thug sighed long and slow.

“Don’t take this personally,” he said.

His bloodline unleashed. It felt like a stormcloud had rushed into the room. Darkness choked the air. Great thick shadowy tendrils burst out from all over him—huge chains formed of links of smoldering shadow. They took up half the room in an instant.

His bloodline is pressuring mine, Lin realized with a shock. And he’s a full half-realm below me! It shouldn’t have been possible. Her bloodline was derived from the Golden Roc, purest of the pure. It was one of the highest-grade bloodlines in all the desert—and yet…

Leo had already started to lunge. It was too late to arrest his momentum. She saw his face pale, his eyes pop out. Then the chains poured over him like a nest of massive pythons; for a moment he was lost under a cocoon of shadows. There was a scream. It was choked off.

There was a long silence. Lin’s blood pounded harshly in her ears. She stared, wide-eyed, acutely feeling her blood rushing up and down her body, the rising and falling of her chest. She could hardly form coherent thoughts. They slipped away like river-water between her fingers.

When the shadows fell back, Leo’s face was pressed to the floor. Smoky chains locked each of his limbs. He was spread-eagled, flat on his front, and utterly powerless. Submissive. Defeated.

A ridiculous feeling washed over Lin—a feeling that said if she tried him, she’d end up just the same.

The man before Leo stood tall, gazing down at him. He looked almost bored.

Lin felt a sharp pang of something unidentifiable.

“Sorry,” he said to Leo. “There’s been a misunderstanding. Miss Lin was showing me basic artificing. There’s no need for violence.”

Then his gaze settled on her, and she found she couldn’t meet his eyes. She felt herself blushing furiously.

“I think I’ve figured it out,” he said. “I’m an artificing genius.” He smiled at her. It was the prettiest thing she’d ever seen. Everything around his face swam before her eyes; the world narrowed to just him. She felt dizzy.

“O-Oh…” she whispered.

“Take me to the testing site, will you? I’d like to start on the first test.” he said. He pressed a beautiful hand to a beautiful chin. “Actually—since artificing is a lot easier than I thought…”

He glanced at the clock. “There’s three hours left,” he murmured. “How many Tiers of tests can we squeeze in, do you think?”