The [Firebolt] erupted from his hand, flying through the air with so much speed that Rowan’s eyes could barely follow. A sharp crack echoed through the mountainous valley below, the boulder he’d been aiming at splitting in half from the force of his spell.

  Rowan stared at it for a long moment, struggling to comprehend what had just happened.

  Kai hopped over to him, bumping his leg with an excited trill.

  “I think I figured out what my new trait does,” he said, a wide smile stretching his face.

  A [Firebolt] hadn’t been enough to substantially deplete his reserves for a while now, but he’d barely even felt this one. The flow had been smooth, the circle perfect, his Intent sharp. Everything had molded together into one cohesive whole, transforming into a truly mastered spell.

  Rowan hadn’t been lying when he compared it to a [Fireball]. It may have been slightly weaker, but he doubted anyone but a truly skilled mage would be able to tell the difference.

  For all intents and purposes, it was a Chant.

  Rowan stared at his hands, his excitement peaking.

  If this carried over, his power had just grown by leaps and bounds. [Storm Touched] implied something more, something Rowan was eager to test out.

  Lightning was created by both Fire and Wind, and if one was empowered, the other should be too.

  Tugging at his Core, Rowan cast [Gust].

  The previously insignificant spell erupted from his palm like a whirlwind, cutting through the air with a low whistle.

  Rowan aimed it away, pointing his hand towards the open sky.

  With barely a thought, he changed its direction mid-air—something he really shouldn’t be able to do—but he asked, and the Wind listened.

  A giddy feeling welled up within him, and Rowan let out a loud, joyous laugh.

  This wasn’t just a boost in stats, but something an order of magnitude larger.

  Right now, Rowan felt like he could win against a Yellow-Core mage with ease. And while that might have been his hubris talking, it definitely wasn’t far off.

  His Whispers felt like Murmurs, and his Murmurs hit like Chants.

  So if that holds…, Rowan thought with no small amount of trepidation, hesitant to actually do it.

  The circuit for [Fireball] was barely a second away, but he knew it wouldn’t be quiet. In fact, Rowan had a feeling it would be very, very loud.

  His first instinct was to do it anyway, to hell with everything else. The urge to see just what he was capable of proving hard to overcome. [Iron Will] flared, clearing some of the excitement from his thoughts. Slowly, Rowan lowered his hand, taking a deep, calming breath.

  “Probably best to leave that for later.”

  If his [Firebolt] was able to crack a boulder in half, his [Fireball] should be capable of so much more. Even before this boost, the spell had been tremendously powerful. A staple of every competent Fire mage's arsenal. But Rowan had another spell that was his bread and butter.

  With barely a thought, he cast [Burning Whip].

  Half a second later, a tendril of flame erupted from his back. Thicker, stronger, and more efficient than before. His father liked to say that humility wasn’t a virtue, and Rowan had been proud of how proficient he’d grown with the spell. Yet now, his prior mastery felt like a child with a finger painting boasting to a true artisan.

  The whip coiled around his arm, and as Rowan extended his hand, it shot out like a lashing serpent.

  He slashed it at imaginary opponents, relishing the amount of control he had over it. Unlike before, the spell wasn’t just a manifestation of his Intent, but an extension of his will. Rowan could almost feel the resistance as it carved through the air, the fiery tendril responding with perfect precision to every minute shift.

  He grinned. “Like an extra limb.”

  Then, he added another.

  A second [Burning Whip] appeared a heartbeat later, the strain he’d come to associate with multiple manifestations nowhere to be found.

  Rowan’s previous best had been eight at a time, but even at two, he usually felt the weight of keeping them running. It was a weight he was capable of overcoming, yet it was still there, lingering in the background.

  Now, there was nothing.

  The two spells moved in perfect unison. Neither impeded the other, and quickly, two more joined them.

  Two became four, four became eight, eight became twelve.

  Rowan’s heartbeat quickened as he neared his limit, a sense of hesitance building up within him. In the end, fourteen was all he managed, but his ceiling wasn’t because of something he’d expected.

  As it turned out, having that many spells active at once was what one would call unwieldy.

  With no space left on his back, Rowan was forced to manifest them from his arms, his legs, his torso. From the outside, he doubted he even looked human right now.

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  Kai flew around him, his caws growing more and more excited with each new whip Rowan added.

  Well, I can’t disappoint my audience.

  He activated [Iron Will].

  His singular skill alleviated the accumulated strain like a gentle summer breeze, allowing him to compress his spells and manifest six more.

  Rowan stood in the center of it all, bathed in the light of the thrashing inferno he’d made. The [Burning Whips] coiled and lashed around him like living things, their fierce red glow casting wild shadows across the rocky terrain. Their heat pressed against him, but Rowan barely noticed.

  His coat fluttered behind him, caught in the updrafts rolling off his own magic. Sweat clung to his skin, not from exertion, but from sheer exhilaration.

  Rowan’s eyes tracked the movements of his whips, needing just the faintest hint of intent to affect their arcs and slashes. Instinctually, his fingers flexed, and the fire responded.

  Each movement was precise, controlled—not a single drop of mana wasted. The power was there, ready, but no longer something he had to force into submission.

  Rowan wasn’t fighting to control the fire.

  It was his. Completely.

  Slowly, he let his spells drop. One by one, the whips dissipated, leaving behind a sense of awe in their wake.

  “By the gods,” he whispered, his hands shaking. “Just what did that Elemental give me?”

  Rowan shook his head, his mind racing with a thousand different possibilities. There was so much he wanted to do, so much he wanted to try, but his thoughts kept circling back to [Fireball].

  No, he told himself. Get everything else out of the way first, then you can go wild.

  That was the smart thing to do. Even if it was a whole lot less fun.

  Rowan glanced back, smiling from ear to ear. “Impressive, huh?”

  Kai hopped over to him, tilting his head back and forth. Rowan couldn’t read his mind, but he had an idea of what the little glutton was thinking.

  .

  .

  .

  The next few hours passed in a blur of activity. Rowan went over every single spell he had, testing how much each one had improved.

  [Flash] and [Ember Spray] were the big winners. The light from the first was strong enough to illuminate the entire mountainside in a sharp white glow, which unfortunately forced them to move. Thankfully, their unexpected entourage helped with finding a slightly more secluded cave.

  The Mist Wraiths were being awfully helpful, and Rowan chose not to question it too deeply. Besides, he already had an idea of what was going on.

  On the other hand, [Ember Spray] had transformed from a shower of embers to something much closer to a [Flame Vent]. It was no longer just useful as a distraction, but a viable attack.

  [Ignite] had gone from lighting campfires to burning down trees, [Heat] was strong enough to raise the temperature all around him instead of just his body, and instead of just his palms, [Burning Hands] now went all the way up his forearms.

  His Wind magic was slightly less exciting, but Rowan chalked that up to his repertoire.

  [Feather Fall] and [Whisper Step] weren’t flashy spells. They did their job, and they did it well. There wasn’t a lot to improve on without pushing them up a rank.

  From what he’d managed to gather, Rowan now had greater control over [Feather Fall]. It let him steer his descent, and while that wasn’t a massive difference, he was sure it’d come in handy.

  But [Tailwind] was a different story.

  Rowan didn’t know what he’d expected, but the increase in speed was on another level entirely. His Dexterity was already high, and with [Tailwind] active, he had a feeling nothing short of an Aura of Haste would be able to outrun him.

  But that still didn’t mean he was more agile than warriors who focused on the stat. His turning still needed some work, and he would have preferred that stopping didn’t involve face-planting into the dirt, but at least it gave him something to work on.

  With all his spells tested, Rowan decided it was time to try something else.

  Taking a deep breath, he once again cast [Burning Whip]. Not the almost twenty he was capable of, but just the one.

  Rowan spent a minute just observing the circuit, watching the mana flow through his body. He took note of things he thought could be improved, and the things he thought could be discarded. A strand moving through his chest instead of his shoulder, a wisp curling to the left instead of the right. They were minute improvements, but they all added up.

  Next, he started adding more mana.

  The glow of his spell grew in intensity, the whip becoming both longer and thicker. There was a limit to how much power a Murmur-level spell could handle, and while his was higher since acquiring [Storm Touched], it was still there.

  As Rowan approached it, he could feel the circle start to tense. Like a string being pulled taut. If he imbued any more mana into it, the good outcome was it dissipating, with the bad one being him getting a nasty new wound for his troubles.

  Considering he had no desire to do that, Rowan halted his infusions, keeping them steady.

  Alright, let’s see if this works.

  With a flick of his Intent, another whip appeared.

  Rowan spent a minute going over everything in his head, unsure if what he planned on doing even had the slightest chance of succeeding, but willing to try it anyway.

  Being able to cast twenty of them at the same time certainly looked menacing, yet the effectiveness was questionable at best. So instead, he went for quality over quantity.

  Slowly, Rowan wound the spells around each other. There were still two of them, and the focus needed to keep them manifested hadn’t lessened. At least not yet.

  [Iron Will] activated, and he went to work.

  With as much precision as he could muster, Rowan started adding a third part to the familiar circuit.

  Immediately, everything went sideways.

  His Intent faltered, the circle destabilized, and his spells dissipated.

  “Damn,” Rowan muttered, shaking his head.

  Kai gave him an encouraging caw, and he started again.

  An hour passed, then two, then four. It wasn’t until the sun hung low on the horizon that Rowan saw some progress.

  The two whips had become one, and the changed circle allowed him to fill the spell with much more mana than before.

  But he wasn’t done yet.

  With the first hurdle cleared, it was time to work on his Intent.

  Rowan worked long into the night, forgoing sleep, falling into a strange sort of trance. He didn’t notice the Wraiths and Kai keeping the predators at bay, and he didn’t notice exhaustion slowly creeping in. His mind was solely focused on one thing, and one thing only.

  Advancing his spell.

  The change was sudden, yet subtle.

  It wasn’t like a candle being lit, but the gradual buildup of hard work and diligence. He’d gone over a dozen different Intents, each one pushing him closer to his goal. Until finally, it happened.

  Searing Lash, Rowan intoned.

  The spell that manifested was at once familiar and completely foreign. Gone was the smooth tendril of flame he’d grown so accustomed to, replaced by a glowing chain that radiated power.

  Rowan’s breath caught, waiting for the confirmation.

  Congratulations! You have advanced the Murmur-level spell, [Burning Whip], to the Chant-level spell, [Blazing Chains]!

  His smile widened as he read the notification, a deep sense of accomplishment washing over him. Rowan had just done something he doubted any Orange-Core mage had managed. He hadn’t just mastered a Chant, he’d made one on his own.