"Then stop showing off and compress them."
Her fingers flexed, and the scattered sparks snapped inward.
Bloomcast resisted for one sharp breath. Its petals flared, wanting to open and spill into the chamber, but NukEncore tightened her control through her palms. Rather than crushing the skill, she drew it inward, folding the bloom before it could blossom.
The gloves trembled above the anchor.
Red light climbed through their palm channels, then divided into the fingers with careful precision. Each seam caught a portion of the skill. First Bloom sank into the palms, where the pressure gathered deepest.
Second Bloom threaded into the fingers, ready to erupt from multiple points. Third Bloom broke into ember-like shards and settled along the crystal stitching, each fragnt flickering like a tiny delayed detonation.
Martin exhaled slowly. "So the gloves aren’t just receiving the skill. They’re teaching it a new casting path."
Master Raven glanced at him. "You are learning."
The corner of NukEncore’s mouth lifted, but her focus held. Sweat gathered at her temple, catching the firelight as Bloomcast pushed against the new vessel.
The gloves tried to release too soon, and fire spilled from one palm in a thin, bright ribbon.
Master Raven’s eyes sharpened. "Seal it."
"I am sealing it," NukEncore hissed.
Her pride flared hotter than the fire. NukEncore snapped her wrist downward, and the escaped ribbon bent back into the glove as if dragged by an invisible hook. The palm crystal pulsed once, twice, then accepted the pressure, making the leak vanish.
The chamber grew heavy with heat as Bloomcast sank deeper.
For a mont, the gloves looked too small for the skill. Their cloth darkened around the palm channels, and their red crystal threads glowed so fiercely that Martin thought they might crack. Then Scattercast stirred again, giving its widened routes to the staged bloom instead of pulling against it.
The two skills aligned. First Bloom settled into compression, Second Bloom found its paths through the fingers, and Third Bloom hid itself in the crystal stitching, waiting for future fire to awaken it.
The Skill Anchor released a low chi, and the suspended gloves dropped gently back onto the stone.
NukEncore’s flas faded from her bare hands, leaving a warm red afterglow across her skin. For one heartbeat, she stared at her empty palms.
She picked up the gloves with more care than impatience. The mont she slipped them on, the red crystal threads lit beneath her fingers.
The fit changed.
The gloves tightened around her hands, not painfully, but intimately, as though they were learning the shape of her grip, the angle of her wrists, and the rhythm of her casting. Heat gathered in her palms without leaking. The fire waited there, compressed and obedient.
NukEncore slowly spread her fingers, and a small fla blood above her palm.
Instead of exploding outward, it layered itself with impossible elegance, one bloom folding into the next, until tiny crystal embers circled the edge like jewels around a crown.
Her smile returned in full diva splendor. "There you are."
The fla answered with a soft pulse.
Chaosgraphy gave a light clap, more teasing than celebratory. "Congratulations. Your gloves are now officially more dramatic than you are."
NukEncore turned her glowing palm toward her, offended in the most elegant way possible. "Impossible."
Martin laughed under his breath.
Master Raven studied the fla for a long mont before speaking. "The imprint is stable."
NukEncore’s smile sharpened.
"For now," he added.
Her expression cooled by half a degree. "Old man."
"Master Raven," he corrected. "And do not mistake this for completion. Bloomcast survived the transfer because the gloves already belonged near its nature. But survival is only the lowest acceptable result."
NukEncore’s fingers closed around the fla, compressing it until the light glowed between her knuckles. "Then what is the highest?"
Master Raven looked at the gloves, then at the Cindervein Staff resting nearby. "A worthy vessel does not rely preserve a skill. It gives the skill a future."
NukEncore looked down at her hands, and the fire inside the gloves pulsed once, as though it agreed with him.
Martin’s amusent faded into thought as he watched the controlled bloom hovering above her palm. These gloves had accepted Bloomcast because they were already designed for widened fire, secondary eruptions, and crystal embers. Even so, the process had nearly punished one careless leak.
Martin’s gaze drifted from NukEncore’s gloves to the Skill Anchor, and the weight of his own request settled a little heavier in his chest.
NukEncore admired the fla above her hand, satisfaction and hunger burning together in her eyes.
Her Bloomcast had reached her hands.
For a mont, she simply stared at the fire above her palm. It no longer felt borrowed from the staff, nor did it feel like sothing she had to force through another object first. The fla waited close to her skin, and every pulse of heat felt like an answer.
[Skill Imprint Successful.]
[Bloomcast has been transferred from Cindervein Staff to Crimson Vein Ember Gloves.]
[Skill Compatibility Detected: High.]
[Skill behavior has changed due to new vessel pathing.]
Then she turned around, the fla still blooming above her palm. "Old man! I want to imprint the gravity skill onto my staff now!"
Chaosgraphy’s eyes curved with amusent. "You finished one miracle and imdiately demanded the next one. How greedy."
NukEncore did not even pretend to deny it. "A stage without ambition is just an empty floor."
"It is Master Raven," he said, but his correction carried less force this ti.
NukEncore’s smile only widened.
"Hmph." Master Raven scoffed and lifted one hand. "Gravity and a fire staff have little in common. This is where you may fail for the first ti."
A dark glyph appeared above his palm, its lines bending inward like invisible weight had folded them into place. At its center floated a skill pattern tad into a piece of solidified mana, quiet, heavy, and waiting for a vessel that had no natural reason to accept it.
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