Chapter 30: Flow and Fire
Right now, I was sitting in front of the pillar in the basement.
This ancient, scorched structure stood in the heart of our company's underground sanctum—a place fortified to contain secrets. I was trying to analyze it. Raj had said something cryptic about Father sealing techniques used to contain the family dungeon , and well... I had a Sealbreaker constitution, didn't I?
So, if I was supposed to break a seal, I needed to first sense it.
Yet no matter how I focused, I couldn't detect even a flicker of mana.
Seal techniques, from what I'd read in academy textbooks, encoded mana to suppress specific areas or phenomena. It wasn't flashy. No divine glyphs or ominous rumblings. Just dead silence. This pillar? Not even a speck of energy leaked from it. No residue. Nothing.
I was lost in thought when I heard footsteps behind me. I checked the time—1:45 PM.
Turning around, I saw Raj walking toward me, expression stormy and brooding as he approached the pillar.
Suppressing a grin was almost impossible.
He was 27. And honestly, if he brought Priya—aka Vice Guildmaster of Ayurdhara—home and introduced her as his girlfriend, no one would blink too hard. The real surprise would be her status. Ayurdhara wasn't just India's premier healing guild—it was global. A hub for healers, alchemists, and eccentric mana theorists. The Vice Guildmaster being romantically involved with my brother? That'd raise a few eyebrows.
Not to mention, her brother, the Guildmaster, was rumored to be extremely protective.
"Good luck, brother. You're gonna need it," I said, trying not to laugh.
Raj snorted. "I'll need it in the future. You need it right now. Good thing your wounds have closed. And don't worry about dying today—Mother's secret stash of healing potions was just raided by someone."
That… didn't sound ominous at all.
Four hours later
I lay on the charred ground of the dungeon beneath Agnidhvaja, wheezing.
Pro tip: never blackmail your trainer.
The past four hours were nothing but pure torture. Raj didn't use his spear. Just fists and kicks. His training method? Tell me to allow mana to flow naturally throughout my body and then respond to his attacks.
The catch?
I could only react to one in ten. The rest pounded me into the floor.
Raj explained that my mana veins were new, unused to stress. They needed conditioning. So, he beat them open.
And weirdly, it worked.
Now, I understood why Monkey Saint called him the gold standard for mana mastery. It was like Raj knew which part of my body had sluggish mana flow and struck that area to force better circulation.
Defend. Drink potion. Repeat.
That was my last four hours in a nutshell.
But the results were undeniable.
Despite the exhaustion, I could feel it—mana flowed smoother, faster, and more concentrated. Before, I had to search for mana paths like navigating a maze. Now? They were laid out like express highways.
I groaned as I turned on my back, listening to Raj's lecture while staring at the smoky sky.
"Mana," he said, crouching beside me, "needs to flow like water or current. If the flow isn't smooth, energy is wasted. Just like electricity—more resistance means less output."
He knelt and drew a diagram with a stick in the dust: circles representing core nodes in the body, connected by thin lines.
"Elements like fire, lightning, or storm aren't just 'picked up.' They need to be channeled. Your affinity to them decides how tame they are. Your lightning is aggressive—it wants to move. But if your body's mana paths are blocked, it'll short-circuit, harm you, or sputter."
He pointed to my bruised ribs. "Like that."
"Next time you're in a dungeon," he continued, "you'll notice the difference. With these clean channels, your lightning'll be faster, your fire hotter, your storm... stormier?" He paused. "You get the idea."
I nodded weakly.
"And let's talk hand-to-hand combat." He looked at me disapprovingly. "Yours is... let's say nonexistent."
"In most cases, we rely on soul weapons, yes. But weapons get knocked away, broken, sealed, or—like your Ashratal—go into hibernation. You need to be ready. Bare hands. Elbows. Knees. Everything should be a weapon."
I groaned again. "You say that like I didn't just get beaten for four hours."
Raj smirked. "Consider it encouragement."
He stood and paced.
"Physique. You're tall and lean. But that's not enough. You need denser muscle. Not bulk. Density. Power in minimal space. Flexible strength. It takes time. Stretching, resistance training, proper movement. And potions. There are blends that help—strengthen tendons, reinforce bones—but flexibility? Only time and effort."
He cracked his neck and pulled off his upper shirt, revealing a chiseled but lithe torso.
"This is ten years of training. Not just brute strength—fluid motion. You want to wield Ashratal right? You better be able to rotate, flip, pivot without tearing something."
Noted.
Raj moved to the edge of the training circle he drew on the ground of the dungeon and summoned a holographic projection. It displayed a human figure surrounded by glowing layers.
"This is mana skin. Not much technicality to it—but high complexity. You want defense? You make it dense. Want cushion? Add layering. Want sharper strikes? Shape it to your blade. My hexagonal matrix works for me because my heat can hurt me. I need advanced defense."
He turned to me. "You need to build your system. One that complements your element mix."
Fire. Lightning. Storm.
And he wasn't done.
"Compression," he continued. "You saw Starfall Requiem. Mana doesn't like being compressed. It pushes back. The more you force it into a point, the more explosive it becomes. Learn to read that tension. Learn how much you can compress before the burst. That's the difference between a scratch and a crater."
My brain felt like it was melting. But I nodded along.
"There's not much to raw mana itself," he concluded. "It's energy. The better shape and form you give it, the more effective it becomes."
I lay there, soaking it in.
And honestly? Having someone explain all this... made it easier.
I asked questions. Raj simplified the answers. We laughed once or twice. The pain was brutal, but the bond was healing something deeper.
He'd opened the gates.
Now it was up to me to keep them open.
Eventually, he left me alone to rest. The dungeon fell quiet, lit only by orange sky of the dungeon and constant heat emitted form agnidhvaja that kept me company .
I lay there a few more minutes, letting the mana settle in my bones. My muscles ached, but my body felt... clearer.
But one problem remained:
Flexibility.
Stretching wouldn't be enough.
So, I reached into my phone and scrolled through old contacts. Hunter Academy students. Friends. Rivals. Names I hadn't seen in a while.
Then I found it.
Anaya Brooks.
I stared at the name.
This was a can of worms I really didn't want to open.
But desperate times call for desperate measures.
I hit the call button.
Let the awkward reunion begin.