"Don't log this in the official training journal," Vasir warned. "This technique is... concerning. The Council sees it, they'll start asking questions about temporal manipulation, which is restricted research."
I nodded, storing the knowledge in the Library instead.
Day 31 AVULUM TIME
The surveillance platform failure of the day involved me accidentally setting my own sleeve on fire. Vasir had to extinguish it with a Water-aspect spray, and I made sure to look appropriately embarrassed.
Official Result: Catastrophic loss of control, minor injury
Actual Training:
In the workshop's far corner, away from surveillance, Vasir taught me the full theory of the Thermal Cascade.
"On Earth, you won't have ambient mana to sustain combustion," Vasir explained, drawing thermodynamic cycles on a blackboard. "So you can't just light things on fire and expect them to keep burning. You need to create self-sustaining systems."
He showed me how to layer the Thermal Cascade—not just one convection cell, but nested cells, each feeding into the next.
"Start small. Palm-sized bubble of superheated air. That creates convection. The convection draws in oxygen. The oxygen feeds the heat. The heat intensifies the convection. It's a positive feedback loop."
I practiced on a wet log—the kind that would never ignite through normal means.
First attempt: Small bubble, weak convection. Log smoked but didn't ignite.
Fifth attempt: The cascade clicked. The log dried, ignited, and within fifteen seconds was a roaring bonfire that filled the workshop with choking smoke before Vasir extinguished it.
Mana Cost: 28 units (down from 30)
Duration: Self-sustaining for 3+ minutes
Application: Area denial, fortification destruction, distraction
"On Earth," Vasir said, "this will be your primary Fire attack. It works with atmospheric oxygen, requires minimal mana maintenance, and scales with available fuel. A single cast in a wooden building becomes an unstoppable inferno."
I documented it in my private notes:
*Thermal Cascade (Advanced):
Initial cost: 28 units Maintenance: 2 units/minute (just to prevent collapse) Scales with available fuel (oxygen + combustibles) Weakness: Requires atmosphere (useless in vacuum)*
Day 32: Water Aspect—The Hydraulic Scalpel
Public failure: I froze my own hand solid while attempting the pressure differential. Vasir had to carefully thaw my fingers, which turned an alarming shade of blue for the surveillance recording.
Actual Training:
"You've been thinking of Water as a blunt instrument," Vasir said. "Flash-freeze, explode, done. But Water is the aspect of precision. It finds the smallest crack and exploits it."
He handed me a piece of armor—mana-treated steel, the kind Greater monsters wore as natural plating.
"You can't crack this with thermal shock," Vasir said. "Too much mana density. It'll absorb and dissipate the heat. But inside this armor, there's a microscopic imperfection. Every forged material has them. Your job is to find it and fill it."
I activated the Water-sense—a technique I'd been developing parallel to Earth-sense. Where Earth felt vibrations, Water felt flow, the movement of liquid through any medium.
The armor appeared solid, but my Water-sense detected something: a hairline fracture, invisible to the eye, where the forging process had left a tiny air gap.
I introduced a single droplet of Water-aspect mana into that gap. Let it flow, finding every microscopic channel in the crystalline structure.
Then I flash-froze it.
The expansion was only 9%, but in a confined space with no room to expand, it was devastating. The fracture propagated—split the armor plate cleanly in half.
Mana Cost: 15 units
Precision: Requires accurate flaw detection
Lethality: Absolute against armored targets
"Inside a living body," Vasir said clinically, "there are thousands of flaws. Microtears in blood vessels. Hairline fractures in old injuries. Scar tissue with reduced elasticity. You find one. You fill it. You freeze it. The target dies from what looks like natural causes—aneurysm, stroke, cardiac failure."
He met my eyes.
"This is assassination magic. Not combat. Not honorable. But effective."
I wrote it down:
*Hydraulic Scalpel:
Requires flaw detection (Water-sense prerequisite) Single-target, precision kill Undetectable (appears as natural death) Time-delayed option: Freeze partially, let victim walk away, then trigger expansion remotely*
The moral weight of what I was learning settled like a stone in my chest.
Day 33 AVULUM TIME
I Started Combination Training—The Real Work.
The surveillance platform session was a disaster. I created a thermal differential so unbalanced that the training sphere imploded, creating a vacuum pop that shattered three nearby crystalline instruments.
Vasir made a show of scolding me, his frustration perfectly performed for the recording.
Actual Training:
"Now that you've mastered individual aspects," Vasir said, "we move to synthesis. This is where most mages plateau. They can use Fire OR Water OR Earth, but they can't use them simultaneously because the aspects interfere with each other."
He drew a Venn diagram on the blackboard—three overlapping circles labeled Fire, Water, Earth.
"Your advantage," Vasir continued, "is that your core keeps the aspects separated until you actively combine them. Normal mages have a single unified core—aspects contaminate each other. You have... something else. Architecture I can't fully perceive, but it's clearly compartmentalized, I think It maybe because of your blank slate status."
He was describing the Stone's socket system without knowing it existed.
"This means you can combine aspects in ways that shouldn't be possible. Fire-Water shouldn't work—they're opposites. But you can deploy them separately and let them interact at the target rather than in your core."
We spent six hours on Thermal Shock Shattering—the technique of hitting a target with extreme heat and extreme cold simultaneously.
The theory was brutal: Materials can withstand high temperature. They can withstand low temperature. They cannot withstand both in rapid succession because the molecular structure has to expand AND contract at the same time, creating catastrophic stress fractures.
First target: Regular steel plate
Result: Clean shatter after 2 attempts
Second target: Mana-treated steel
Result: Partial cracking after 8 attempts
Third target: Dragon scale sample (from Tower archives)
Result: Hairline fracture after 20 attempts
"Dragon scales are the benchmark," Vasir explained. "If you can crack dragon scale with Thermal Shock, you can crack anything a Greater monster might be armored with."
By the end of the session:
Mana Cost: 65 units (Fire 35 + Water 30)
Success Rate: 85% on dragon scale
Effect: Bypasses conventional armor resistance
I documented it carefully:
*Thermal Shock Shattering:
Requires dual-aspect deployment Right hand (Fire): 1000°C+ Left hand (Water): -150°C+ Distance between hands: <5cm for maximum gradient Limitation: Requires contact or near-contact*
Day 34: AVULUM TIME
The surveillance session of the day was my worst yet. I managed to freeze myself, burn the platform, and crack two diagnostic crystals simultaneously. Vasir's "frustration" reached a visible peak—he actually yelled at me, calling my technique "incompetent" and "dangerously unfocused."
For the Council's observers, it looked like a teacher reaching his limit with a failing student.
In reality, it was setup for tomorrow's "breakthrough."
But the real training that night pushed me to my actual limits.
"Tomorrow," Vasir said, "the Council sees you succeed. Which means tonight, you need to perfect Fire-Water integration. No more room for error."
He placed fifty training spheres on the workbench.
"Split all fifty. Cleanly. No failures. No explosions. Perfect thermal differential every time."
I started at 1800 hours(Avulum time translated to Earth time). By 2200 hours, I'd split forty-three spheres successfully. Seven had cracked incorrectly.
My mana pool was at 340/1,147—dangerously low.
"Again," Vasir said, handing me sphere forty-four.
My hands were shaking. The Fire and Water aspects felt slippery, hard to control through the exhaustion.
I pulled the mana. Balanced the differential. The sphere split cleanly.
"Again."
Sphere forty-five: Success.
Sphere forty-six: Success.
Sphere forty-seven: Cracked incorrectly—jagged fracture.
"Again."
My mana pool hit 280/1,147. The Stone's maintenance draw was competing with my spell costs. I was operating on fumes.
Sphere forty-eight: I pulled too hard on the Fire aspect. The sphere melted.
Vasir's hand came down on the workbench—not violent, but firm.
"Stop," he said. "You're exhausted. We'll resume in the morning."
"I can—"
"You can barely stand." Vasir's voice was flat. "Rest. Tomorrow, you only need to split one sphere for the Council. You need to do it perfectly, while appearing to struggle, then suddenly 'understand' my corrected technique."
He was right. I was running on empty—physically, mentally, magically.
I checked the chronometer before collapsing onto the workshop's small cot:
Avulum: Day 34, Hour 23
Earth: Day 1, Hour 3
Earth had passed into its second day. Twenty-seven hours of war.
I'd spent five Avulum days learning to kill more efficiently.
In the training journal (the fake one, for Council review), I wrote:
Day 34: Fire-Water Integration Status: FAILING Attempts: 50+ Success Rate: <10% Problem: Cannot balance thermal differential Frustration level: CRITICAL Instructor Notes (Vasir): Subject shows theoretical understanding but catastrophic execution failure. Recommend modified approach for contamination-specific resonance pattern. Will attempt breakthrough technique tomorrow.
In my private notes (stored in the Library), I wrote:
Day 34: Actual Progress Techniques Mastered: - Earth: Temporal Liquefaction (100% success) - Fire: Advanced Thermal Cascade (95% success) - Water: Hydraulic Scalpel (85% success) - Combination: Thermal Shock Shattering (85% on dragon scale) Mana Efficiency: +40% overall from Day 26 Current Capacity: 1,147 units Combat Techniques: 13 (assassination-grade) Cost: Performing failure is harder than real training. Mental fatigue from constant self-sabotage is significant. Question: How many people am I going to kill with these techniques? How many have I already killed by delaying? Answer: Mathematics doesn't care about guilt.
I closed the journal and stared at the ceiling of Vasir's workshop.
Tomorrow, I would "succeed" for the first time in six days.
The Council would see a breakthrough.
Vasir would gain another extension.
And I would continue the performance—learning to kill while pretending to struggle, racing against time while appearing to crawl.
The equation was simple:
6 Avulum days of public failure = 4.8 Earth hours of actual war
Every minute I spent pretending to be incompetent cost Earth 12 seconds. 12 seconds of destruction, of mayhem.
Was that worth it?
The only answer was to make sure it was.
I closed my eyes and let exhaustion drag me under.
Tomorrow, I would perform success.
Tonight, I dreamed of split spheres and burning cities.