"Prepare yourself," Selena said, advancing toward me. In practice, this is the real trial, Bruno.
My Vitae ran wildly through me before trying to transform into continuous flames—and failing. However, Selena suddenly exhaled an enormous, almost palpable willpower, and an infinite barrage of arrows advanced toward me, all blazing, coming straight at me.
"Try to extinguish them using only your flame!" Selena shouted from a distance.
"How am I supposed to do that? There are hundreds of arrows, all of a higher grade than mine!"
Raising my hand, I created a massive wall of fire, trying to extinguish their flames with an even stronger one. However, they passed through my barrier without difficulty, still advancing toward me.
Each arrow from afar had a different purpose: to distract me, to cause damage, to limit my movements, besides containing different forms of internal Vitae, all purely calculated.
What if I repel them with my control? But hers is still superior. It doesn't matter. Raising my hand, I channeled only my fire control, trying to interfere with Selena's flaming arrows, resulting in the destruction of most of them.
"Well, now the control, Bruno," Selena said, advancing once more. A flame surged to her hands and, with extremely precise control, formed a sword of flames with a terrifying temperature that lunged at me.
I could barely dodge, even though my skin was burning. But the control of a fire master like Selena proved truly terrifying: swords, arrows, barriers around me, small spears—all advanced against me with perfect mastery, extremely condensed, almost absolute to my eyes.
"Still don't understand?" Selena said, raising her hand and creating a domain of fire that covered the entire training field. If before I could dodge, now I was doomed to a cruel defeat. The oxygen in the area was cut off, preventing me from creating flames. The sun stopped entering, and darkness overwhelmed the domain. Every particle of flame, from the smallest to the largest, began gathering at Selena's fingertips.
What monstrous power… I thought, powerless before such terrifying energy.
"Come on, Bruno, you're still not taking this seriously," Selena said, breaking the domain and gathering all the flames in her hands, creating a blue flame surrounded by an alarming level of heat.
Vush!
The flame sliced through the air and advanced toward me, destroying even the molecules in space, creating a colorless void for a few seconds.
Boom!
The blaze passed by me and violently collided with the runic wall, causing a frightening explosion and quickly starting to corrode it. However, the wall began to flicker, and the flame extinguished.
Without giving me a moment to breathe, she continued. A Selena made of flames appeared, and upon seeing her, I instantly felt it was the very perception of Selena's flames, almost like an incarnation of her understanding—extremely impressive.
And to finish the fight, she advanced using only her fire. I tried to repel it with mine, and then we began to clash, fire against fire and understanding against understanding. As we collided, I could understand more and more and deepen my connection to the element of fire.
The fire collided as if we were incarnations of fire itself. With every clash, I realized Selena was a true genius in the mastery of flames. Her skills, attacks, defensive methods, and evasions were terrifying.
Raising my hand, I sent a fireball toward Selena, but as expected, it was impossible to defeat her here, in her own domain. However, I couldn't let myself lose.
Trying to limit my movements just to learn, I decided to use less Vitae while trying to assert my fire skills.
Minimal, precise movements.
Moving cautiously, I dodged Selena's attacks while trying to defend or parry her moves. Making effective attacks was almost impossible, so using defensive movements or those that deflected Selena's attacks was temporarily the best strategy.
Still, with every attack, I felt my mastery advance in tiny steps—but they were enough. Selena pressed on, using an impressive mix of attacks; she didn't repeat any. Each time was different, whether in numbers, directions, or power.
The heat in the training field was unbearable. The ground was completely scorched, ashes fell from the sky but never reached the ground—before that, they were consumed by the flames in the air.
I knew this was just the beginning. The battle could still intensify. I lacked control, experience, but with every second I felt more accomplished and excited. Controlling fire was my childhood dream, so every improvement thrilled me deeply.
Thus, we continued to face off for hours.
From my hands, countless fireballs collided with Selena's attacks, self-destructing. Without retreating, I advanced using a light armor of fire, created a flaming spear in my hands, and spinning it, threw it at Selena.
She dodged with foresight and created a fire dragon that advanced toward me, swallowing me with its enormous size and strength.
Inside the dragon, I used my fire element to create a barrier, preventing the corrosion caused by the flames in the dragon's "stomach."
What do I do? Can I create a dragon like this? I thought. Creating a flaming arrow, my attack moved forward, piercing my barrier before returning and throwing me out of the dragon's stomach.
Trying to copy Selena's moves, I channeled my Vitae extensively before transforming it into a dragon. No. What I created was a wyvern.
It was almost a larger version of Ignis; it seemed my little one was still in my mind, even in my attacks—I thought, laughing, imagining telling him about this.
The wyvern advanced toward Selena. She looked at me with slight surprise before waving her hand and making it disappear.
"That's a good move. Any idea for a name?" she asked, still attacking me.
"Is it possible to give this move another name?" I replied with a laugh disguised as a question. Clearly, the name would be Ignis.
"Well, it should be expected," she answered, laughing, while launching three dragons in my direction.
Man, how is this possible? I thought. So sweet, but she still manages to trick me and send three dragons my way while talking and laughing.
Using the last of my Vitae left after hours of uninterrupted training, I did the same while creating one last wyvern, this time at least 20% bigger than the previous one. It looked like a child compared to the three dragons, but it was all I had left.
It boldly advanced until colliding head-on with the three dragons.
Boom! It exploded upon contact with the other three dragons, who kept advancing.
Without Vitae, I fell tired to the ground, marking my defeat and the end of the training.