Deep in the woods late at night,

Something started glowing so bright.

The foxes stood still,

The wind caught a chill—

Then everything vanished from sight!

Goldie Honorhide.

I waited for my turn on watch before I experimented again. I like this lonely time. The clouds were high, so I could barely make out the brightest of the stars with my Clearsight. The thing is that with my previous maps, I could predict where some of the other stars should be, and I spotted a couple.

I made sure Felix was awake and watching with me, or maybe for me. Then I circled camp, casting my Cosmic Aura and void senses as wide as I could. The only thing I sensed was a fox creeping up on the camp. The smell of roast duck lingered.

My Cosmic Aura passed over the fox, and it paused. Then it started forward again. Was that coincidence, or did it feel the aura? I then attacked its mind with Tremor, and it dropped to the ground, and it seemed like it was convulsing. I was not into making it suffer, so I dropped Figid Void in its mind, and it immediately froze still, and I felt it die. I sent Felix to collect the body. I will get Yoboc or Goldie to teach me how to skin it, as that is an essential skill if I am going to claim to be a hunter in the wilds.

This was a simple fox with nothing to protect its mind. It was about as easy a target as I could ever get. Mind attacks can kill. It would take a lot more to kill a person, and I probably couldn't if they had a mind shield. I would need to invest a lot in mental attributes. Mental attributes were never my strong area, so while I would invest some to survive an attack against me, I am not ever going to be strong in the mental area. I might be able to make someone pause in a critical moment, but my focus needs to be on my defense.

The sun—fire that burns in the void—has been a topic of much thought for me over the last few days. One thing about being in a forest is that it will burn, even in the late winter/early spring with snow on the ground—a fire that can not be put out.

A burning forest will raise a lot of smoke that will be seen for kilometers.

I moved to the rocks next to the lake. Testing this in a lake of water seems sensible; after all, the fire does not need air to burn. At least, that is my logic.

I extend my aura down into the water. I go quite deep. I knew the cold. I grew up in the cold. The sun's heat was… well, it wasn't a total stranger. In summer, the sun melted the ice shelves, and the warmth was nice. Sometimes, it was too hot.

But the ball of raging fire in the sky was so fierce that you couldn't look at it for too long without damaging your eyes.

I thought about that ball of fire. The fire that burns in the void. I picked a point near the bottom of the lake and leaned on my Spiritual Strength to recreate that ball of fire.

Nothing. I didn't actually expect it to be easy.

I tried several variations to a similar standard of success.

I had the aura flooded with my Void Sensing. I thought about Void Sensing. It sensed the void between things. Harder things like rock had fewer voids, but as the skill levelled, I was sensing smaller and smaller voids. Voids I could not see with my eyes. Voids that made the difference between air, water and rock. I could sense through rock as it didn't stop my Cosmic Aura, but it was there in my Void Sensing as a solid object, not counting the minute cracks. Yet air and water had more voids, but they had no cracks. The key to Void Sensing is levelling the skill and finding more Lore.

This didn't help with making a miniature sun in the lake. Or did it? Is what I am missing in Void Sensing what I need for the fire? I tested the skill with my Identify skill. Certainly, getting Void Sensing to Journeyman will give me some sort of breakthrough. I just don't know what.

Yet, I created Frigid Void without this breakthrough. I understand cold, and things like water get colder until they reach a point where they become ice. It turns from a liquid to a solid.

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I grew up with Cold Resistance but have never examined the skill. It stops me from freezing, and it works with my fur and fat—not that I have any at the moment—and stops me from feeling cold. The same thing reduces cold attacks like those from the frost spiders.

Yoboc said no dwarf is allowed in a mine without at least 15 in Cold Resistance. I am pretty sure Yoboc and Goldie are in the 20 range. Makara will be like me in the 30s. My Cold resistance jumped when I got my Affinity and learned Frigid Void. I am currently 37. It is very high. Extreme, in fact.

When I awoke my affinity, I got the Skill Heat Resistance, which went from 0 to 5. It went from 0 to 5 very painfully, I reminded myself.

How does this help? I don't know. This is my brain making connections. I use my Identify on Cold Resistance. It seems to use Spiritual Energy to counter cold and bring things back to a normal temperature, my normal body temperature. Heat resistance is the opposite.

This tells me Spiritual Energy… no, that doesn't help. Did I just spend the last half hour working my logic to a dead end? I mean, the understanding is good, but it is not for creating a miniature sun in the lake.

Back up to where water turns to ice. Something changes in the water to make it a solid, and it is because of the cold. I create a small patch of ice on the lake. Void Sensing shows it is different from the water, which I expected. I don't understand how, and Void Sensing is not at a high enough level to understand how.

But that is the thing. I don't need to know how to make it work. I don't need to know how the sun works to replicate it with Spiritual Energy, in theory. In practice, I am not getting it.

It must be similar to water turning to ice. The small things that I can't sense, making up the water and changing to ice, must be the same things I need to apply my Spiritual energy to to make fire that won't need air.

How do I do that? Spiritual Strength was not working; maybe it was about Spiritual Manipulation, which Spiritual Agility controls. Fire is not a solid. It is a moving devouring thing.

I focus again, but this time with Spiritual Agility, and I am trying to make a moving devouring fire that won't go out.

I know this is only possible because of my affinity, just like Makara can create water with her affinity.

I try using my Spiritual Agility and Manipulation to do the opposite of Frigid Void. I am not slowing things down and freezing them. I am speeding things up and agitating them to heat them up and start a small sun.

It would probably be easier if I knew what I was doing. If I wanted to visit a Lore Society, that would be Jern, which is months away. There is no guarantee they will have what I am looking for.

I stop for a while and do a patrol circuit around the area. Maybe I need some sleep therapy. Felix has gone back to sleep.

I am quite firm in the fact that I should only do this in a large body of water.

I sit and spread out my aura again. I kick Felix awake. He is the Team Leader here. Maybe I should be following his lead and getting some sleep.

Time to try again. These things take time and effort.

Time, effort, and energy.

I took a break. It will be time to rouse the others soon. We have today to finish the sled, and tomorrow, we are back on the move, albeit at a slower pace.

If not tonight, I still have tomorrow night.

I spread my aura out again and concentrated. Before I could get very far, something fast broke through the edge of my Cosmic Aura, fast and coming straight for us. No, it was coming straight for Felix.

Makara had surprised me several times like this, so I was not totally unprepared, but I had about a second to respond, and this was not Makara. She was asleep over there.

Frigid Void, and that slowed everything down but did not stop it. It was breaking through the ice my Frigid Void created with some skill, and the Frigid Void didn't have any effect on the fish itself. It was a fish with sharp teeth and a hunger for dog meat.

I switched to the opposite and poured the last of my Spiritual Energy into making fire.

There was a bright flash, and I felt energy drain out of me and more than I should. A huge bubble of steam broke the surface of the lake, and the heat hit me hard.

More energy left me, and I felt it going dark. Using too much spiritual energy will kill you, like exhausting your physical and mental energy will kill you.

And the heat. The burning heat from the inside seemed to go on and on. I knew I was going to die. I should not have used so much energy in practice, and now I was too low for the emergency. I should have responded physically, not spiritually. I should have… should have…

Then my saviour was there. My Bond flared to life, jumping through to Journeyman as Felix fought for my life. Energy flowed from him to me—Spiritual Energy.

It was like he used my skill, even though I knew that was impossible. Freezing cold burned through my body and then beyond. It was wild and uncontrolled, but it extinguished the burning heat.

And then I did black out, and I knew no more.

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