Dallas unsheathed one of his katanas, holding it horizontally with the blade facing outward. He extended his hand, careful not to let the edge cut him. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he began spinning the katana. The movement was slow at first, but gradually, it picked up speed, faster and faster until it seemed to disappear altogether, leaving behind only the vortex of wind swirling in its wake.
Dallas glanced over at Maxi, his lazy smirk never faltering. "Okay, we're going to explain the five basic ones first, then move on to the three elemental types, and finally, the one-dimensional fires. Ready, Maxi?"
Maxi nodded slowly, stepping back to give himself some space. He could feel the tension in the air, but he tried to compose himself, unsure of what was coming next.
Meanwhile, Mōkō crouched down, his palm open. A flicker of black flame appeared in his hand, glowing with an eerie intensity. The fire seemed to absorb all the light from the area—not in a magical way, but like black paint absorbing light, only much more visually captivating. It was as if the fire itself was reaching out, pulling at the light around it.
Mōkō grinned widely, then seemingly threw the black flame into the vortex Dallas was creating. As soon as it touched the wind, the flames merged with the air, turning into a swirling black fire vortex that hovered between the two.
Dallas spoke up. "This here is called black fire—traditional, low-level abyss fire. It's the base level when learning about fire. Black fire doesn't actually create fire like most flames. Instead, it absorbs light. It doesn't hurt you unless you're made of light, and its temperature limit can't increase—only its resistance can. It's a useful base when you're starting out."
Mōkō smirked and raised his hand again, summoning a red flame. He tossed it into the black vortex. The red flame shot upward in a dazzling display before being absorbed into the black fire.
"That," Dallas said, "was a candle-level flame. It's as hot as a regular candle's flame. The temperature limit of fire like that can increase, though. A candle-level flame can grow hotter, becoming a bonfire. But after it hits a certain threshold, the flame shifts to a higher level entirely."
Maxi's head was spinning. All of this fire theory was coming at him too fast. "Wait, wait," he interrupted, holding up a hand. "Can you slow down? I don't understand the fire levels, temperature limits, and resistance limits. Can you explain those to me first before moving on to the basic, elemental, and dimensional fires?"
Mōkō stood up, and Dallas, noticing Maxi's confusion, stopped spinning his katana. The black fire mostly vanished, leaving only a few remnants clinging to the blade's edge.
Mōkō chuckled. "So you don't even know the fire levels and temperature limits, huh?"
Dallas let out a soft laugh, his tone playful but still with a bit of mockery. "Not even the resistance limits, but don't worry—those are easy to explain. Let's go over them quickly, Mōkō."
The two of them smiled, their faces lighting up with mischief. They began speaking in perfect unison, their words flowing together seamlessly.
"Okay, fire levels are pretty self-explanatory and are the base if you want to understand even the simplest ways of using or studying fire," they started. "There are a vast number of levels. For example, black fire is at the black fire level and even levels in between those levels, which is how we have elemental fire, which is basically harnessing the Essence and uniqueness of the fire in question. Fire levels can go up or down. If we go up, it gets hotter, but if we go down, it gets colder. We have common temperatures, like warm fire, which is pretty typical here, and cold fire, which is rare because of Pelody's two suns."
"There's a range of fire levels going from basic elemental and dimensional," Mōkō continued, his voice blending with Dallas's. "The fire level scale for basic starts with black fire, and then moves through candle, campfire, stove, bonfire, furnace, and blast furnace. These are normal everyday things that have fire, but after this point, the fire's name changes because the only way to describe the fire at this point is by natural disasters and structures. It continues desert, forest, volcano, city, country, continental, world. And that's just the beginning."
Dallas added, "We now move on to the sun section, where fire really starts changing, because every sunfire level is related to one of the sun gods, from the front of the true ancient son gods astral Court, so each ranking has a significant difference to each other and the power is so great that they hade to split it up from half the power to the full power some. It starts with half red sun, half orange sun, orange sun, half yellow sun, yellow sun, white sun and after the white sun they separate the fire levels into molecular sections before getting to the main fire level, which, when surpassed, the fire in question, makes a unique change. Which is what happens when you go to a new colored sun in the sun section. We then go to half-grassy sun, grassy sun, half-emerald sun, emerald sun, half-green sun, green sun, and beyond."
Mōkō chuckled, "Half-blue sun, blue sun, half-ocean blue sun, ocean blue sun, half-deep blue sun, deep blue sun, half-dark blue sun, dark blue sun, Aster sun, amethyst sun, purple sun, true sun, original sun, ancient sun, and then the pinnacle of all the fire levels the true ancient sun gods."
Maxi's mind was struggling to keep up. He barely understood the lower levels, and now they were talking about ancient, almost mythical fire levels. "Wait… these are just the fire levels, right? But… how do the resistance and temperature limits work with them?"
Dallas and Mōkō exchanged glances again. They smiled devilishly as they prepared to explain the next part of the fire rankings, though it was clear that Maxi still had a long way to go before fully grasping the concept.
Dallas added, "We now move on to the sun section, where fire really starts changing because every sunfire level that has the name sun is one of the sun gods from the true ancient sun gods astral Court, so each ranking has a significant difference to each other and the power is so great that they hade to split it up from half the power to the full power. For example, it starts like this: half red sun, red sun, half orange sun, orange sun, half yellow sun, yellow sun, half white sun, and white sun. After the white sun, they separate the fire levels into multiple sections before getting to the main fire level, where each separate colored sun fire has a more definitive, more eye-catching, and outstanding unique change. For example, we can go to half Corsa grassy sun, half grassy sun, grassy sun, half-emerald sun, emerald sun, half-embroid green sun, embroid green sun, half green, sun green sun, and beyond."
Mōkō chuckled, "Half-blue sun, blue sun, half-ocean blue sun, ocean blue sun, half-deep blue sun, deep blue sun, half-dark blue sun, dark blue sun, Aster sun, amethyst sun, purple sun, true sun, original sun, ANCIENT SUN, and then the pinnacle of all the fire levels the TRUE ANCIENT GOD. THE SUN ."
Dallas then adds, "which I think is both a name and the title of the fire, but there has yet to be a person to be blessed by a god. By that name, we only know of the ancient sun god."
Maxi's mind was struggling to keep up. He barely understood the lower levels, and now they were talking about ancient, almost mythical fire levels. "Wait… these are just the fire levels, right? But… how do the resistance and temperature limits work with them?"
Dallas and Mōkō exchanged glances again. They smiled devilishly as they prepared to explain the next part of the fire rankings, though it was clear that Maxi still had a long way to go before fully grasping the concept.