Elevation of Mana Chapter 26 Burn

The rest of the village was still moments away as the monster slammed its jaws down on the hunter.  If it was smart it might have well understood the danger this man who could find it posed to it.  He definitely appeared more dangerous than the rest of us.

Most  animals would only hunt for food, but as Onai's corpse was abandoned it was clear that wasn't the intention here.  I registered the Twilight Beast looking up from his kill for the next.  The rest of the village's strong people were moments away, moments we didn't have.  This beast seemed determined to cause damage, as much as it could.

Before it could charge at us I blasted out with force, trying to push the creature away.  At first my spell seemed to work, the form of it coming together well.  The monster had some resistance though, some power to fight against my magic, and moving it was like trying to keep hold of water, constantly shifting around the spell to escape.  In the end it flew back thirty or so feet, but landed upright and turning towards me.

I wasn't alone though, and as the lupine tried to leap another joined us.  Isha screamed, and my ears exploded in pain.  She wasn't even facing me, rather looking at the monster with small fists clenched at her sides.  Pushing back the pain I managed to get a look at her, seeing that the monster had fallen yelping before the girl's voice.  Her aura, which before had been pushing out small explosions of power now shone, rippling and golden like the surface of the sun with arcs escaping here and there.

While she kept it distracted I rose.  It was enough, we'd lost enough, our homes, our tribe mates, friends and family.  I was done, and while most of our members had spent the day on lookout or casting magic, I'd come into this fight fresh.  It was time to see just how far I'd come in the last few years.

"Burn," I commanded, thrusting my hands out.

Fire magic was very frowned upon by my tribe.  We lived in a jungle and in a jungle fire was a terrible danger.  That said, I'd managed to push through a bit of training in the fires that we kept, feeding them with magic.  I'd even practiced when firing pots with my auntie, insulating and strengthening the flames slightly so that I wouldn't need to get more wood.

A virtual bonfire appeared atop my enemy, sending out a wave of warmth.  It was enough to even spook Isha out of her screaming, a less than ideal situation.  There was no time for that though, the beast needed to die, to be done.

Even as I saw the hairs on the wolf's fur start to burn and drift away it tried to rise, tried to get out of my spell; I was having none of that.

"Hotter," I said under my breath, pouring more mana into the flames until they grew in both size and strength.

"Hotter," I repeated, pushing, using walls of force and wind to feed the conflagration, it seemed to be growing blue as its temperature skyrocketed.  Now my foe screamed, struggling as bits of its flesh melted.

"Enough, enough, just burn!"  I screamed, pouring everything I had in.  Ideas of how oxidation worked, flowed through my mind, the chemical bonds, the movement of electrons that let loose the heat, and I fed them into the spell.

It hurt my eyes to look forward at the end of the creature as the heat grew from uncomfortable to something akin to a furnace.  The ground seemed to melt under the onslaught, shining like liquid glass.  I could smell the slight singeing of my own hairs as I finally ran out of juice.  As for the beast that had menaced us, there was nothing before me now but a molten circle, angry and red in the twilight.

I fell to my knees spent and began to look around for my friend.  Isha's eyes met mine moments later as I found her, from where she'd fallen back in the grass.  They were dinner plates, huge and very slightly afraid.

"You okay?"  I wheezed out, snapping her back to reality.

"Yes, I've... never seen anyone use their light like that before," she said with stumbling words.

"Fire is dangerous, don't you know?"  I laughed as I began to fall to the dirt, all the strength leaving my body as my mana was fully spent.

There was a slight giggle at that which helped my mood a bit.  I liked Isha, well, as much as I liked anyone, and it would be a real shame for her to be scared of me now.  Personally, I'd rather be the one to protect and nurture this tribe into the modern era rather than some destroying maniac.  As I'd thought about it, that was a viable option too, provided I could live long enough I could absolutely pull people forward in technology, magic could fill some of the gaps that my knowledge couldn't.

Before we could say much else the adults were upon us.  Between our yells, the ball of light I'd sent up, and the blazing ball of fire, we'd attracted quite a lot of attention.  Larus of course was the first, skidding to a halt near us, but followed quickly by several of the others.

"What happened?"  The hunter said, looking down at the body of his fallen comrade.

"There was another one, Elian..." Isha began, looking a bit nervous.

"Where is it?"  He asked, still looking between us and the circle of dirt that was slowly losing its glow.

"I got it," I replied, trying to motion but finding my hand mostly lolled in the general direction.

"... good, good job."

Elaya and my parents arrived in short order.  The former's eyes bulging as she recognized just how hot that fire had gotten while the latter ran to me in a panic.  The elder let her gaze roam over us, before it settled on Isha with a mixture of sadness and happiness.

"Elian!"  Father yelled in a voice that pained me, clearly thinking I was hurt or dead.

"I'm okay," I replied as he scooped me up, still feeling as if my muscles had been replaced with balls of yarn.  "Just, very, very tired."

It occurred to me that it was probably very bad to be passing out as much as I had been recently as the darkness finally overtook me.

When I woke up I received several things.  The first was a rather irritated elder berating me on the danger of fire magic.  I tried to look repentant, even if I didn't feel it, and she knew that I'd done right, the primary source of her irritation being that she had to tell me off for breaking rules in a way that probably saved lives.  She seemed to want to congratulate me, but the fact that I'd stomped on the village rules prevented that from happening.

"Enough, you've made your point.  Now let him rest," my father soon declared.  Normally he wasn't at all protective, but it seemed thinking I'd died had increased that a bit.

"Thanks," I said.

"Elian, it's not said around the women, but we hunters do what we must to feed and protect the village.  This is twice you've saved others, twice that you stepped forward when needed.  I assure you that all of us are proud of you, no matter what the elder says."  I chuckled a bit before he continued.  "That said, please try not to get into any more fights for awhile."

I also discovered in short order that I hadn't managed to make glass, yet.  The flame I'd made had been hot, and perhaps even hot enough, but far too short for that process, and nowhere near the right material.  What I'd thought was a sheet of glass had really just been an illusion from the temperature and my own eyes fooling me.

However, it had gotten hot enough to wreck that section of ground, and even make it glow slightly for a short period.  Some of the bits of dirt and sand had even coalesced into little, brittle, orbs.  The heat enough to vaporize the water and melt part of them, but not fully change them into something else.

When I went to look over the site I was met by Isha.

"There's nothing left of it," she said, looking at the ground.

"The bodies mostly turn to skeletons anyway, the heat just destroyed the bones," I observed.

"Maybe, but that was pretty cool.  Think I'll be able to do that?"  She asked.

"Depends on what your light manifests like.  I'm still learning a bit myself."

"It's odd, seeing the light around me and others, but pretty."  I laughed as my friend held up her hand, waving it a bit to look at how her own power moved.

"You'll learn to ignore it.  At least Elaya hasn't drug you off for training yet," I said.

"Eh, she's busy, who knows, maybe she'll forget."

Fat chance on that Isha, fat chance.