Chapter 734 (1/2)

There was one step of this plan of Randidly’s that was the most difficult. It was not the construction of the array to free himself from this prison, and it wasn’t creating a garden to grown kindling so he could see what was going on.

No, of all the tasks, the one that seemed the most difficult to Randidly was to create the spark that would light that fire.

At first, Randidly had completely overlooked this as an issue. After all, even if he was weakened, he had several Skills that produced fire. Although he wasn’t able to display the full power of such Skills right now, he could still produce fire.

But then Randidly had attempted it. And although he could achieve brief bursts of flame…

Was that enough to ignite his kindling?

Brief bursts of heat were good for inflicting damage and rapidly depleting something of hydration. But most of that heat would dissipate or be absorbed as the water in something was burned away. It was only after that water was driven away that something would truly ignite. In order to achieve that, heat needed to be constantly above a certain temperature for a lengthier amount of time.

That wasn’t possible with the rate at which he burned through Mana. Therefore, it needed to be supplemented somehow. The less useful option would be to use his Grasp of the World Seed to seize some plant life and then use the slowly smoldering plant as part of his heat. That plan had merit, but the heat of the plant being consumed had never seemed overly powerful in the times Randidly had used it.

As the first option seemed so unappealing, Randidly had focused most of his effort on the second plan: empowering fire with images.

The issue with this was Randidly’s continued inability to hold a strong image of light or fire while he could clearly see the heavy darkness around him. Therefore, he had to wait until he had enough Mana to gather a spark and see how he could empower that small spark with a powerful image of fire.

It was hard, there was no doubt about that. However, Randidly was already seeing progress.

Incendiary Bolt.

Instead of shooting it, Randidly simply condensed the superheated bar of metal in his hand. At that moment, Randidly’s emerald eyes shined in the darkness. Again, he remembered the vast power of a world burning to dust. Although it rapidly depleted its strength, that stretch of time saw fire rise to unbelievable heights of power. Fire’s ability to consume and grow was beyond doubt.

But that was not what Randidly was doing here, was it? No, Randidly was crafting a fire not to consume, but to nurture. What it was nurturing was other fire, but still...

The two seconds passed, and Randidly’s glowing hand once again went dark.

Expression thoughtful, Randidly turned and looked at the ceiling. Fire was strong, and focusing on that strength was one way of improving his image. Another was to focus on how fire would look, feel, sound, etc.

But… why did fire burn?

As Randidly exerted his will even more forcefully against the world, that was the question that the world seemed to ask back.

So he closed his eyes and let himself expand. From his past, Randidly saw campfires and candles. He saw forest fires and volcanoes. He saw his coat catch on fire and used his fingers to put out a birthday candle.

His eyes opened. Fire burned because it was the release of energy. A substance of condensed energy was broken down to create heat and light. Randidly wasn’t overly concerned with the chemical nature of the cascading chain reaction that propagated fire; it was enough to understand that substance was broken down and energy was released.

In the darkness, Randidly slowly smiled. Which meant it was part of a cycle. Where the other half was energy being consumed to create substance. Interesting.

It wasn’t a way to directly contest the Ashen Image and its influence, but Randidly would keep the role that fire played balancing substance and energy in mind.

But with this lead, Randidly’s path forward was clear: what he needed to do was construct the substance of what was burning if he wanted his image to have true weight. After all, all of the images that Randidly had of powerful fires stemmed from a fuel on another magnitude altogether.

The Ashen Image, after all, came from an entire world building.

So as Randidly’s Mana slowly came back, he constructed what would burn. What was a world to him? What was the substance he carried in himself? Burning his Class or Soulskill, even as just an image, seemed dangerous. No, perhaps it would be better to stay away from System related things. It was difficult to predict how that would turn out.