Chapter 30: Meeting

Evin was in his room, staring at the blue flame which was hovering over his hands, bewildered. Rith was also next to him, observing the child and his creation with astonishment.

While remodeling the house, he had a testing room built for himself, which was equipped with various tools and apparatuses, which were used by professional woodworkers and blacksmiths. He wanted one designed for mages, but the information regarding those was unknown to most commoners, and Aran told him that the Academy will be in charge of educating him on that matter. Rith also refused to tell him anything, but she still accompanied the child for his every experiment. Like today.

The flame soon became too hot for the two to ignore, forcing Evin to dispel his magic.

"This is fucking dumb…" said Evin, shaking his head.

"How did you do that?" the Feline asked, her maw still half-open from the shock.

"I just imagined the flame being blue. Can you believe it? All those tests of trying to increase the heat of the spell ending in failure, but apparently you only had to imagine the flame being blue," said Evin, still mad at his discovery.

For the past few weeks, Evin was finally getting started with his experiments in the World of Fire.

He could consistently create fire, since he knew that he only had to imagine part of the oxygen in the air sparking fire. Then he would need to maintain his focus on the flame, so that it doesn't run out immediately, or get out of control and burn his house.

But he was having trouble making the fire burn hotter. He tried imagining things like increased oxygen consumption, imagining that the air was literally gasoline, which kind of worked, surprisingly. Then he tried making the fire bigger, which turned out to be very mana consumptive; He also tried mixing the World of Fire and Storm… But all those things ended up lackluster due to one reason or another.

Most of these methods ended up being extremely costly. Or it would end up feeling like they're trying to make the fire hotter by scientific methods, not magical ones.

One of the better methods was to mix the two Worlds, but that required Evin to split his mind and concentrate on two things at once. An ability Evin did not yet possess. So he asked Rith to use the World of Storms in his stead while he focused on the World of Fire and it kind of worked, but it only served to make the flame bigger, instead of hotter.

Evin remembered that the hottest part of a flame was located at the center and it looked blue. His goal was to achieve that color in his fire magic.

But after weeks of trying out various things and failing, he one day decided to imagine the flame having a blue color. And for some illogical reason, it worked wonders. The flame felt much hotter than its normal counterpart, while also using practically the same amount of mana as a normal fire. It was like someone built a car out of cardboards, then wrote "real car" on it, and suddenly the cardboard car was working all fine, even though it didn't even have an engine to move it.

"Do it again. Maybe it was a fluke or something," asked Rith, still skeptical.

"Look," Evin said and repeated his achievement. It was extremely simple and economical.

"Maybe it's burning powers are actually low, even though it feels very threatening," Rith thought up and explanation.

"Ah, you maybe right. Pass me that log, I'll hold it above the fire and see how fast it burns"

As they were about to proceed with the test, the door to Evin's test room opened suddenly.

"I told you not to disturb me! Knock at least!" Evin barked at the door, without looking, fully concentrated on dispelling his blue fire.

"I think your grandpa and sister are back," Rith told Evin, noticing the two newcomers.

Evin looked to the door, after making the fire disappear. He saw a short-haired girl and a grizzled old man, both wearing dirty, well-worn cloaks. He noticed a pair of curved horns on his would be grandfather's head, one red and one pink. He could also see a silverish lump on his sister's forehead. The red and silver reminded him of the World of Fire and the World of Thoughts. He did not know what the pink represented, though.

"Oh, he's so cute!" the girl cried out and ran over to Evin to hug him.

The smell of stale sweat and gathered dirt, the hallmark of long traveling individuals, pervaded his nostrils, but he did not shy away from the hug. The connection of blood was not something so easily weakened. He returned the hug with his full enthusiasm.

Ssatsko, on the other hand, was still shocked from the developments.

"It is true… The Cosmic, the gold, and his magic… Was that a blue flame?" he muttered softly.

After Sasha had her fill of hugging her little brother, Ssatsko approached the young child. He wore a smiling face, a grin from one cheek to the other, but Evin could see the hesitation and worry in the old man's eyes.

'He must know the truth of the Children,' Evin concluded.

An awkward atmosphere was born between the two, and a very uncomfortable hug unfolded.

"I can't believe we have a mage in our house now, I wanted to come back and surprise our parents, but I was the one who ended up surprised," Sasha laughed merrily.

"And what's this cat? Why can she talk?" She questioned Rith excitedly.

"Hello, little girl, my name is Solraheeth Rithlaven. But you can call me Rith. I'm what you would call a Cosmic Feline and I was sent to monitor your brother, to see whether he is worthy of learning our magics," Rith introduced herself in her professional tone.

"What? Really?" she giggled and asked her Grandfather if all mages were monitored by Cosmic Felines.

Ssatsko replied briefly to the girl, but his mind was on something else entirely.

"Was your flame blue or did I see wrong?" Ssatsko asked with curiosity.

Achieving such high levels of heat was not something a normal kid would be able to do, even if it was a Child of the Empress. Ssatsko felt a bit afraid of Evin, since the latter must've been a very strong mage in his past life.

"It was, but it's a bit weird…" Evin started and then explained the whole procedure to Ssatsko.

The old man was shocked. Such an easy way to achieve a higher level in one's magehood. It almost seemed illegal.

"What? That makes no sense… Wait, let me try it," Ssatsko then repeated what Evin did, and to his surprise, the flame was not only blue, but it possessed a much more dangerous feeling compared to the one Evin showed.

"What the hell? Why did I try so hard, trying to achieve a different colored flame, when all I had to do was just to imagine the flame itself being blue," Ssatsko muttered involuntarily.

"Wait, try to burn something with it, Rith and I think that maybe it just looks strong," Evin said and put the log on the blacksmith's furnace.

Ssatsko redirected the blue flame towards the log, and to everyone's disappointment, or should one say, relief, it burned at the same rate as a normal fire.

"It's a bit disappointing, but that seems about right," they all agreed.

"Perhaps we could use it as a threat," they then thought of soon after.

Sasha was left on the sidelines, confused with the peculiar way everyone was acting.

The three mages' excitement soon died out, and they went outside Evin's test room. The two weary travelers enjoyed a bath for the first time in weeks, so they quickly fell asleep on their comfortable new beds.

Sasha marveled at the new things in her house. The bath, the toilet, the lights… Everything. Thanking the Empress, she went to sleep.

Ssatsko, on the other hand, was overwhelmed by everything. Alongside the happiness, there was undoubtedly suspicion and wariness brewing in his head.

…