SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 756 — The Fire She Wants

Vyra sent Crownfire around a strip of paper, and Leon nearly told her she had missed.

The flame curled against the wooden stake beneath it. The paper did not even brown.

Then he saw the cup simmering on a nearby rock, the iron nail glowing only at its tip, and the dry leaf falling in two clean halves from a post. A fifth thread touched a candlewick and withdrew as it caught.

Five tasks, all different. Vyra stood in the stone practice ring with her hands loose beside her.

”Watch the turns,” she said.

The spiral reversed around the stake. Heat moved from the nail’s tip toward its base. The thread that had cut the leaf curved back to her hand while the water continued to simmer.

Nothing flared where it should not.

Leon whistled softly. Vyra glanced at him, pleased despite her attempt to look as though she had expected nothing less.

She released the threads. The cup grew still, but the little candle kept burning.

”Now imagine I compress all of them until they respond like that needle,” she said. ”I can correct one overshoot. Five, while someone is trying to kill me?”

”You’d have to leave yourself more room.”

”And that room might be occupied.” She sat on a broad stone at the ring’s edge. ”If I want to burn through a restraint, I should be able to spare the hand inside it. If I suppress an enemy’s technique, I don’t want my own fire reaching the people behind him.”

Leon took the stone beside hers. ”You’re not willing to trade that for density.”

”I want both,” Vyra said. ”Seraphine managed to preserve the changes her sword path needs. There should be a way for mine too.”

She sounded more stubborn than worried. He liked hearing it. For weeks she had worked while the others tested their new Cores, and he had wondered whether she felt left behind. Asking every morning would hardly have helped.

”The thread at the candle,” he said. ”You kept it near you after the wick caught.”

”In case I needed it elsewhere.”

”You could have pulled one away from another task.”

”Then I’d have had two things to correct instead of one.”

Leon nodded. ”A reserve you can move immediately. A stronger thread that arrives late wouldn’t do the same job.”

Vyra looked at him for a moment.

”What?” he asked.

”I thought you were going to tell me the delay was small.”

”It is small. You still stopped the needle from burning a hole in the porch.”

”Because I knew it would happen.”

”Then I’d rather hear what you need than tell you it’s good enough.”

Her gaze dropped to the candle. ”Thank you.”

He had expected another technical answer. The quiet one left him unexpectedly conscious of her knee close to his, and the loose strand of hair she tucked behind her ear.

She caught him looking. Neither moved away.

Leon considered saying something, then decided that if he had to search that hard for a clever remark, he was probably better off keeping his mouth shut.

Vyra broke the silence first.

”I’ve chosen my final check. At the density I’ve planned for condensation, the Crownfire must complete three direction changes in one breath without leaking.”

”How many now?”

”Two. On the third, I have to choose between slowing it and losing a little fire.”

”And when you can do it?” Leon asked.

”I’ll attempt condensation after confirming the result. I won’t wait because I’m nervous, and I won’t rush because the others are finished.” She looked at him. ”That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

”Tell me when you choose the day.”

”You want to watch?”

”I want to be nearby,” Leon said.

Her mouth curved slightly. ”You can.”

She reached across him to retrieve the cup, and he took it before her fingers touched the hot clay. There was no reason to do it; she had just controlled five flames without singeing a sheet of paper. He realized that as he handed it over.

Vyra accepted it anyway, her fingers brushing his. Neither found anything urgent to say about that.

She let him enjoy that for a moment before looking toward his equipment case.

”Have you asked anyone to interrupt your little model yet?”

Leon sighed. ”Not yet.”

”Good. Bring it here.”

He laughed, stood, and fetched the crucible plate.

The bead took a little time to assemble. Fire, water, and wind turned within its compressed shape, each following the arrangement he had tested. The sleeve around the fire route narrowed when its supply weakened. During an interruption, that sleeve could close and leave the other two branches circulating without his help.

Restoring the fire was where he still had to intervene.

Leon explained that distinction while Vyra examined the small control he attached to the fire feed. The conversion crystal supplied calibrated energy through it. Closing the feed diverted its output into a discharge channel on the plate, cutting the bead’s supply while leaving the crystal working.

”You control this,” he told her. ”Nothing else. Don’t warn me before you change it.”

”And you watch the bead.”

”That was the idea.”

”Then stop watching my fingers.”

He moved his gaze, caught out before they had even begun.

For a while, Vyra talked about the hearthseal trials. Leon listened, watching the slow motion inside the bead. Without pausing her explanation, she cut the fire supply.

The sleeve closed. The water and wind settled into their reduced arrangement. Leon kept his own qi clear of it, confirming again that it could hold unaided.

Vyra restored the fire.

The bead lurched. Leon eased the water aside with a quick correction, and the three branches resumed their circulation.

”That’s the usual trouble,” he said. ”Do it again.”

She did, varying the gap. Once she restored the supply almost immediately. Another time she let him wait until he began to wonder whether she had forgotten. Every return needed some adjustment, but the size of it changed.

Leon began watching the water’s resting position more closely. It was not quite the same after every interruption. Both positions could hold; neither left precisely the space the fire expected on its return.

On the fifth test, he anticipated the familiar lurch and began easing the water away before it came.

”Wait,” Vyra said.

He stopped.

”I haven’t restored anything.” She held up the control. ”You were getting ready for it.”

Leon looked from her hand to the bead. The fire was still absent.

”I expected you to.”

”I know. You watched me take a breath.”

He had. Worse, he had mistaken that anticipation for part of the model’s behavior.

He withdrew his corrective qi. The two remaining branches settled and stayed stable. That part still worked. But his habitual nudge had been moving the water toward the position he wanted before he properly examined the position it had chosen.

Wonderful. I’ve started helping my experiment give me the answer I prefer.

He rubbed his forehead.

”The gap isn’t failing,” he said. ”The return is being built for one arrangement, and it’s meeting several. I keep putting the water back where the fire expects it.”

Vyra studied the turning bead. ”Then we should see what happens when you leave it where it is.”

Leon glanced at the clean surface of Ji’s plate.

”Stand a little farther back.”