Fire (2)

– "I will always beside to support you. This is my promise." (Eugene)

***

Angus got confused.

The physical fatigue caused by what just happened, coupled with the mental annoyance due to not understanding the root of the problem, made him unable to maintain his usual calmness.

At this moment, Eugene suddenly asked an unrelated question: "Do you know the Lava race?"

It took Angus a few seconds to catch up with Eugene's new topic. He regained his senses for a moment and then nodded.

Lava, considered to be one of the two formidable races of the Fire races, possessed yellow or orange-yellow fire, with thick, dense, and hot like molten lava. The other race was Blaze, who possessed the fire with the fastest spreading speed and largest spreading range of the Fire races.

Compared to Blaze, Lava's fire had a slower spreading speed and smaller spreading range, but had more destructive power, leaving longer aftershocks and more severe consequences. At the same time, both Lava and Blaze possessed many difficult high-level skills.

Eugene continued to ask: "What are the features of Lava in humanoid?"

Angus replied, "Their hair color and eyes color are lighter than the rest of Fire races, usually yellow or orange-yellow. The body is also firmer than other races."

Just like the fire that they created! Angus silently added.

Eugene nodded: "There is also another sign that very few books mention..." Eugene stared at Angus: "When Lava performs high-level skills, there will be a kind of pattern in their dominant hand, looks like a melting lava flow."

"Uh-huh." And then? What this had to do with me? – Angus looked at Eugene with a puzzled expression.

"Some seconds ago, both of your hands had that pattern." Eugene said.

Angus: !!!

In the pale blue eyes of the boy clearly appeared an expression of disbelief.

The corners of Eugene's mouth turned slightly up, reaching his hand in front of Angus. In his hand, the phone screen showed the photo of Angus in meditating state, his hands and forearms appearing the strange pattern in red and blue.

Angus: "..." Teacher, you even thought about taking pictures! You even had time to take pictures!

But right now Angus couldn't help but feel grateful to Eugene for this photo.

He moved his fingers onto the screen to zoom out the picture, stared for a long time, then looked at Eugene in bewilderment: "You mean... I'm a Lava? A mix-blooded of Lava? But my hair and eye color, even my original form..."

Only now did Eugene notice.

... So that's it!

He used to think that because Angus was a Metis, so his flame was a bit special. But now it turned out that, his flame might be the result of the combination of two separate flames.

Based on the eye color of Angus, it was almost possible to determine that his core of energy was the blue flame. Hair color could be not true, but eye color was definitely true – Eye color was the most obvious appearance factor for primitive core energy.

So –

The blue color, the blue color that made everyone, including the boy himself, think that he belonged to the Water style – in fact, represented for the Fire style!

But... Blue Fire?

Eugene fell into silent. After a while, he slowly said:

"I think, your hair and eye color do not represent the power of the Water style, but the power of the Blue Flame inside you."

"In theory, the blue flame is the flame that reaches the most ideal state, with the highest heat and greatest destructive power."

"But in reality, there are almost no Dragon humans that possess this fire. So... there is currently no document nor material on how to use and control the blue flame."

"Whether it is a new source of energy or not, whether it can be controlled and used as pure blue fire, or just stop at the level of mixed fire... I'm afraid that you are the only one who can find out the answer."

"But... Don't worry. I will always beside to support you. This is my promise."

...

– I will always beside to support you. This is my promise.

In the moment Angus heart was filled with suspicion of himself, without a doubt, Eugene's words were the best sedative that calmed the boy down.

Yes!

He had Teacher! Teacher was so good, definitely he could help him!

Although everything just came so suddenly, Angus still remembered that Eugene had used Water power to help him get out of the recent dangerous state.

Before, because Eugene's hair color and eye color were both in golden color, plus the night that Eugene used Lightning and Fire power to show him how Dragon race's method was different from Magician's method, Angus guessed Eugene was a mix-blooded of the Fire and Lightning races, with the ratio in favor of Lightning.

According to the color range description of the Dragon races in some books, the Fire races possessed a color band ranging from gray – representing the Fume race, changing to dark red – the Lantern race, to orange red – the Torch race, orange – the Flame race, bright orange – the Blaze race, yellow – the Lava race, and finally white – the Heat race.

The Water races had a color band ranging from dark blue to white – respectively representing the Ocean, Tide, Waterfall, Stream, Rain, Dew, Glacier, and Snow races.

And for the Lightning races, most of the lightning bolts emitted was white, but the area of light around it was different, thus the Lightning races were differentiated based on this feature.

Compared to the Fire and Water, the number of races belonging to the Lightning was much smaller – only four main races were recorded in the book including: Silver, Gold, Garnet, Sapphire, with a corresponding band of colors ranging from gray white, yellow, red, and blue.

So it might seem that the Lightning races shared the yellow tone with Fire races, and shared the blue color with Water races. But in fact, they had a very specific sign of appearance: The hair and eyes ò Lightening races would sparkle metallic under the sun.

Correct! The iridescence was the most distinctive sign of the Lightning dragons, distinguishing the color of the Lightning dragons Sapphire from the blue of the Water dragons and the Lightning dragons Garnet with the color of the Fire dragons.

Eugene's hair and eye color were all in golden, so Angus easily guessed that Eugene was a Lightning dragon.

But he could not guess that, other than Lightning and Fire, Eugene could even use Water power!

Angus' respect and trust for Eugene was leveled up one more time! Angus tried to stabilize his mood, asking: "So if you were me, what would you do?"

Eugene thought for a while and then he answered, "If it were me, probaly... Observe, deduce, test, and prove."

Because it was unknown, because it was unprecedented, the only way was to observe and test many times before coming up to the final conclusion. New things, like new inventions, new fighting skills, were all based on this process to be formed, weren't they?

Eugene continued: "In the next days, try to practice the orange-red fire and the pure Blue Fire. During the skill implementation, try to observe and feel the fluctuations of the two flames in your mind."

Angus heard something from this sentence. He asked: "You're going to somewhere?"

Eugene nodded: "Yes... I'm going back to the capital once."

***

Following Eugene's instruction, Angus started pacticing.

At first, he tried to create an orange-red flame but failed. No matter how hard he tried, the flame in his hand always had a pale blue root.

After that, Angus turned to practice creating a pure blue flame.

In the time he was on Earth, he was successful to create a pure blue flame – of course, following Magician method. So now he simulated the way he did it on Earth – but following Dragon man method: Using one hand to create a flame and using the other hand to help absorb and regulate, taking back the red top, leaving a small light blue fireball.

Angus took a test by using this blue fireball to attack. The result was the same with the time he was on Earth: When the fireball was about half a meter away from his hand, it was probably due to oxidation in the air, or maybe because it was too small, the blue fireball turned into a mixed fireball with blue and red as usual, then turned off before reaching the target.

Angus began practicing increasing the size of the blue fireball via increasing the size of the original mixed flame. But the situation was not much better, because no matter what he did, the annexation of the two flames in his mind still occurred, and his body became more and more painful.

Eugene went to the capital in just three days and then returned.

The first thing he did after returning was to inquire about the situation of Class K's study, gave out a progress test, then he came to meet Angus.

Angus recounted the situation of the past few days to Eugene, then asked in worry: "Teacher, it seems like that huge red flame opposes my body?"

Eugene shook his head: "If it opposes your body, you would probably feel uncomfortable all the time. But you only feel pain when performing advanced skills with mixed fire..."

"According to my guess, it opposes the Blue Fire in your body."

"Because Blue Fire is your core energy, so when the red fire swallows Blue Fire, you will be in pain."

"So what should I do?" Angus asked.

Eugene looked at Angus, raising an eyebrow: "You can endure pain for a while. After the red fire finishes 'swallow' Blue Fire, you can use Fire power like a normal person! With the orange-red flames!"

Angus rolled his eyes: "It's not that I'll die?" Were you kidding me? That was the core energy! The primal energy in the body!

"No." Eugene replied as a joke, "They are both fire in nature!" You just need to suffer "a little" pain, ha ha ha.

Angus thought for five seconds, then the boy asserted: "I want to keep Blue Fire. It's mine, I won't let it get swallowed by red fire!"

Eugene smiled. Then he gave Angus a scroll.

Angus untied the rope and unfolded the scroll.

The first thing that caught his eye was the title handwriting as beautiful as flying dragon and dancing phoenix (*): "The Method of Merging Energy Sources."

Below the title was paragraphs with elegant and proper handwriting, interspersed with vivid handrawing illustrations. It could be seen that the handwriting was very smooth and fluent, like being printed from a mold. But to a closer look, there were some easily-recognized differences between the ending strokes of the same letters, proving that this was really handwriting.

Angus suddenly raised his head, looking at Eugene with a look of admiration: "Is this your handwriting? So elegant!"

Eugene: "..."

He thought the kid was focusing on the content, but now it noticed this kind of matter! Hmmm. Eugene immediately tapped his student's head with a fist: "Focus on the point!"

Eugene remembered that before he once read about the method of merging sources of energy. But the original document was in the capital, that was why he had to get back to take it.

It was an ancient book in the Royal Document Archives, recording some practice methods of high-level skills, including both regular and forbidden high-level skills.

The merge of energy sources was a forbidden skill.

For some reason, there might be more than one source of energy – either the same or different types – existing inside the creature body. In that case, this forbidden methods allowed the merge of two energies of the same or different types into one more powerful and superior energy.

For example, Lightning and Fire, Lightning and Water, Fire and Fire – however, this was the case of the merge of Blaze's fast and large spreading fire and Lava's slow but deep spreading fire, not the case of Angus. However, this was the only document that had something related to Angus' case. So all they could do was to take a try.

The book had only one copy, and was classified into a SSS-level rare material, so Eugene could not bring it with him but copied down the whole method. Yet this boy figured it out!

To perform this forbidden method, Angus needed to enter the "samadhi" state, go deep into the mind, then use his consciousness and internal power to merge the two energies together. During the merging process, he must maintain the highest attention to keep the core energy safe from the other one.

There were two ways of conduct: continuous and discontinuous.

The so-called "continuous" way was to find a quiet place and then do meditation for weeks, or even months, until the merge of the two energy sources in the mind was complete. This method also had a more concise and elegant name, which was: spiritual sabbatical!

And the "discontinuous" way was practicing mediation for some hours per day and maintain the habit in a long time. Of course this method would take more time, together with a "wear and tear" of progress between breaks. Sometimes, the situation would be like... the next day of mediation, you discovered that the progress of the previous day had decreased or disappeared, and there was no other way but to do it again from the beginning 😑!!

The physical training in the morning was compulsory, so Angus had to follow the "discontinuous" way.

This was not urgent! He did not want to neglect studying because of the greed for strength.

Anyway, he got the method in his hand, all he should do was practicing now!

Seeing Angus seem hesitant, Eugene asked, "What's up? Want to ask me something else?"

Angus hesitated for a moment and then asked the question that he had always been wondered: "Teacher, are you Metis?"

Eugene replied nonchalantly, "My father is Gold. And my mother... Don't know. When I was young, my family took me to the hospital for a test, and the result was Gold."

After a moment's pause, Eugene continued, "But I think ... in some way you can call me a Metis. Because if I were a pure Gold, surely I won't be able to use the Fire and Water power."

"Isn't it possible to gain new energy beyond the original through training?" Angus was curious.

"No," said Eugene, "This is the difference between the Dragon race and the Magician race you met on Earth. Magician can rely on innate gift and training to obtain new energy, but we cannot. The dragon energy style is completely based on genome and genetics. So, that's why the Magician calls it "magic" but we call it "internal power"."

For the Dragon race, "internal power" was simply understood as a way to perform the power inside the body into a skill, on a large scale.

For the Magician race on the Earth, "magic" was more about the seal, the magic, the conversion between internal power and the external energy source.

Angus nodded.

So those who carried the one hundred percent purebred genome certainly could only use a single energy type. But there was also a good point: Focusing on an energy type and training would help them move faster on the road of obtaining strength.

***

Two months later, Angus completed the process of merging the two flames inside his body into a mixed flame with the blue root.

He successfully practiced the mid-level skills of the Fire styles with a blue-red mixed flame without any pain. He could also perform some low-level (basic) skills with a pure blue flame. In addition, under the guidance of Eugene, his ability to use Water power had made certain progress.

About the other students of Class K, they were able to perform basic skills and could use internal power to coordinate with each other in team competitions.

It was important that, except for Eugene, Angus never performed Fire skills in front of others. And the reason why, may be he was the only one to know.

One day, Angus received a letter from Grandpa Hubert.

Thien Minh was back.

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(*) Flying dragon and dancing phoenix: This is used to describe beautiful handwriting in Vietnamese language.

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Thien Minh: Ahaha, now it's my turn!!