TBATE| The Demon of Elshire

Chapter 5 - Celebration

1 year later

Firae Wykes Pov

When my eyes fluttered open and I fully processed my state of awareness, I jumped out from under my covers and began meditating.

I focused inwardly, feeling for every little crack that littered my dark red core. After a few minutes, it suddenly burst apart, and my core, the same dull red color as my eyes, became slightly brighter and more lustrous.

"Aya! Aya!" I shouted as I got up from my bed, running full speed through the halls. I rounded the corner, and came upon Aya's room, only to see her door closed and a note saying that she was currently on a mission.

I was initially a bit disappointed, but the note said she'd be back soon so I decided to go test out my new core in the training area.

After reaching the clearing in the trees, I did a series of mana exercises that Aya had taught me and began stretching out my arms and legs.

While I stretched, I couldn't help but notice how obscenely hot it was out. Not only that, but the air was extremely dry, and I was sweating before I'd even started my designated Monday regiment.

Throwing various kicks and punches at the training dummies, I practiced and refined the fighting style I'd developed over the past year.

We had quickly determined that I was utterly useless with weapons of nearly any kind, but according to Aya, I seemed to have a knack for hand-to-hand fighting.

After finishing my warm-up routine, I grabbed the set of metal gauntlets that she had gifted me a few months back. Although, calling them gauntlets was a slight stretch...they were more like metal gloves.

Due to my short stature, and the lack of metalsmiths in the Elven territories, my gauntlets weren't exactly permanent, and their appearance reflected that, but I still cherished them nonetheless.

As I slipped them on, I imbued my hands with mana and continued striking the wooden dummies, this time, doing some actual damage to the structures.

I'd figured that advancing stages would supplement me with a much larger mana core, however, after reaching the solid red stage, I didn't actually feel that much more powerful than I used to be...that is until I accidentally struck a hole right through the wooden dummies stomach.

Reeling my hand back, I noticed that my hands felt extremely warm, and my gauntlets were shining a dull orange color.

In a panic, I quickly slipped them off. But what I saw when I removed them, was a tiny ball of flame burning in the palm of both of my hands.

Initially, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me because the fire wasn't actually hurting me, but then it hit me...

'I developed my affinity!' I thought with excitement. To my dismay, however, the flame in my left hand had already dissipated, but the one in my right still burned strong.

After spending nearly a full minute staring at the marvelous flame in my hand, I attempted to put out the fire. However, when I tried, nothing happened.

I waved my hand around violently trying to put out the flame, but nothing I did seemed to help...in fact, it was just growing stronger.

Running out of options, I threw my hands to the grass, trying to stamp out the fire by slapping the ground, but this only seemed to make things worse.

In my moment of panic, I had made a grave error.

Due to the high heat, and the lack of moisture in the air, the day seemed to have perfect wildfire conditions...and a wildfire was what began to form right before my eyes.