I closed my eyes and focused on the heat building around me. I could feel it, fire was strong here, drawn out from the Essence flowing through the room. The deeper I reached, the more the fire element revealed itself, waiting to be shaped.
First, I activated [Psynapse Boost], then [Essence Shaping].
I focused and called the Essence to my hand. Green light swirled in my palm as it began to form a sphere.
Then I activated [Essence Shift].
The fire reacted at once. The swirling Essence changed, its color deepening as flames spread through it. In seconds, the spinning mass turned into a blazing fireball.
The flames twisted and curled, responding to my will with ease. I compressed them, stabilizing the rotation, then let the sphere disperse into the air.
'Too easy.'
I formed another, this time a little faster. It took shape just as smoothly.
Again. Faster.
The fire spun tighter, the movement sharper, the control more refined. I pushed the speed further. The sphere trembled slightly in my grasp but held firm.
More.
The next one formed, spinning at twice the speed. It wavered. I focused, reinforcing my control. The rotation steadied, the energy contained until a crackling surge ran through it.
Boom!
The sphere detonated in my palm with a sharp burst of heat and pressure. I flinched as searing pain shot through my hand. Smoke curled from my fingers. Red burns scorched my skin, and the sting pulsed with each heartbeat.
I grit my teeth and pushed the pain aside.
Faster.
The moment the next one stabilized, I forced another into existence. My movements were tighter now, more deliberate, the burn still fresh in my mind. The Essence spun violently, harder to control. It resisted, swirling in wild arcs.
Boom!
The second explosion knocked my arm back. I hissed in pain, shaking the smoke from my skin but my other hand was already rising.
Again.
Another explosion.
Then another.
The chamber burned hotter, the sheer density of the fire element making the air feel like molten iron.
Sweat dripped down my back, but I ignored it.
Each time, the control wavered. Each time, the explosion came quicker.
I exhaled, shaking out my fingers.
Almost four hours passed as I kept pushing myself, forming the spinning sphere over and over again, trying to increase my speed.
My hands were raw, burned, blistered, and aching but I didn't stop. The pain was constant now, a dull throb beneath every movement.
Each time, the fire particles resisted. Their chaotic nature made them harder to control the faster I pushed them. My grip trembled, fingertips scorched, but I kept going, grinding through the pain with each rotation.
At lower speeds, forming the sphere was easy, it took shape in my palm, stable and contained. But the moment I tried to push the limits, forcing the particles to spin faster, everything fell apart.
The sphere collapsed, dispersing harmlessly at first, but as I increased the speed, failures turned violent.
Explosions rocked my hand, sending bursts of heat across my skin.
The problem wasn't just speed, it was control. The faster I formed the sphere, the harder it became to keep the particles in sync. They fought against the forced rotation, slipping from my grasp like unruly flames refusing to be tamed.
I frowned, rolling my shoulders.
Speed and control, they had to go hand in hand. Pushing speed without control led to explosions. Focusing too much on control slowed me down. The balance between the two was the real challenge.
I opened my status to check the progress I had made after continuously channeling Essence into my attributes.
Each time my storage filled, I directed it into my two weakest attributes: Strength and Dexterity. Bit by bit, they climbed. By the time I was done, I had gained a total of 36 points.
Strength had risen to 86. Dexterity to 82.
Satisfied, my gaze shifted to Psynapse. It was sitting at 96, just four points away from hitting 100.
Without hesitation, I funneled all the newly generated Essence into it, feeling the shift as it surged past the threshold and increased to 102.
A sharp pulse ran through my head, forcing me to stop.
Something had changed.
My senses expanded all at once, stretching beyond their limits.
The fire streams within the Essence were no longer just scattered specks of heat, I could feel them.
Every ember drifting in the air, every flicker of warmth, every shift in temperature pressed against my awareness.
It was overwhelming, yet clear at the same time, like seeing a blurred picture suddenly snap into focus.
Then, without warning, something else hit me.
A rush of understanding, not through thought, but through sight.
A vision.
The world around me blurred, and in its place, I saw a vast inferno stretching high into the sky. At first, the flames barely moved, flickering lazily like a beast in deep slumber. Then, something shifted. A pull. A rotation. The fire twisted, slow at first, just a gentle swirl of embers catching the wind.
Then it picked up speed.
The rotation tightened, layer upon layer feeding into itself. The fire no longer burned wildly in every direction, it had a path, a flow.
The swirling flames climbed higher, forming a towering vortex. It moved in a pattern, the force of its own motion holding it together. The more it spun, the more controlled it became.
Faster.
Tighter.
It built momentum, but it wasn't reckless, it followed a rhythm, a natural increase in speed instead of a sudden burst.
Every shift in rotation added strength, allowing the tornado to sustain itself without collapsing under its own force.
'This… this is what I was missing.'
The spinning sphere I had been forming in my palm, I had been forcing it, rushing its speed instead of letting it build naturally.
I was trying to hit the peak speed instantly. I had thought sheer control was enough, but control without understanding was pointless.
The vision made it clear. If I wanted stability, I had to let the movement guide itself. Start slow, then increase in controlled bursts, tightening the rotation instead of forcing it all at once.
The fire obeyed motion, not just will.
The vision faded, the chamber returning to focus around me.
I exhaled, steadying my thoughts.
The heat pressing against my skin no longer felt suffocating. The particles in the air weren't just wild bursts of fire, they had a pattern, a rhythm I could follow.
No more brute force. No more reckless speed.
This time, I would let the fire flow.
I raised my hand, focusing on the Essence around me.
Instead of forming the Essence sphere first and then applying [Essence Shift], I decided to try something new, shifting the Essence as I pulled it in.
I closed my eyes and focused. The flow of Essence around me was steady, filled with fire element. But this time, as I began drawing it toward my hand, I activated [Essence Shift] right away.
The change was instant.
The green Essence didn't even finish forming its usual shape. Instead, it started glowing red and orange, flickering with heat. Fire. I was shaping the element directly as it gathered over my palm.
It wasn't smooth at first. The stream wobbled, the heat surged out of control, and the forming sphere pulsed violently in my palm. But I gritted my teeth and stayed focused, forcing the fire into a stable spin.
Slowly, the mass took shape, no green glow this time. Just fire.
It was harder to control, but was faster. Cleaner.
I smirked, even as my palm stung from the raw heat.
Again.
This time, I pulled the Essence faster and pushed the shift harder. The fire responded immediately, forming in my hand mid-draw, skipping the entire neutral stage.
I'd found a new rhythm. And I wasn't going to stop until I mastered it.
The sphere took form, spinning gently in my palm.