Kira rushed into the chamber, breathing heavily, and stopped right at the entrance.
The resonance crystals were there.
But not on the floor as she expected; they were on the ceiling, dozens of them, hanging like shimring stalactites, each pulsing with its own blue-green light.
They looked like living stars reflecting off each other, creating an underground constellation that illuminated the entire chamber with a soft glow.
"This must be it..." Kira thought, looking up, estimating the height, about eight ters to the ceiling.
She involuntarily sniffed the air and slled a familiar scent mixed with mineral and ancient dust.
~Gandloaf~.
He had been there before. Many tis. The scent was ingrained in the stone, in the walls, like an olfactory mory of years working in that space.
The cave trembled again, stronger this ti, small stones falling from the ceiling.
"I don’t have ti."
Climbing to retrieve the crystals wouldn’t be difficult; the wall had enough protrusions, and she was good at it.
She began to climb.
Her claws digging into cracks in the rock, her feet instinctively finding support, her body moving with the natural agility of soone who had spent her childhood climbing trees.
She reached the crystals, reached out, and touched the nearest one.
The crystal reacted imdiately.
It vibrated against her palm, not violently, but constantly, a rapid pulse that made strange tickling sensations travel up her arm. As if the crystal were alive, recognizing the touch, responding.
The mountain trembled violently.
Kira almost lost her footing, claws slipping, body swaying dangerously.
"What’s happening over there?!"
On the other side, Haru was farming XP non-stop.
```
[ 10 XP] [ 30 XP] [ 10 XP] [ 50 XP]...
```
Notifications popped up one after another as he shattered crystal after crystal, continuous movent without rest.
The monsters were already too many, twenty, thirty around him, all attacking simultaneously.
And then it appeared:
```
• Objective Reached: 5,000 XP gained
•• Total XP: 11,247
••• Skill Evolution Available
```
Haru got distracted reading the notification.
Fatal mistake.
A giant crystal monster, three ters tall, colossal sword of pure crystal in hand, delivered a direct blow to his head.
Haru fell at the last second, his body hitting the ground hard, the crystal sword descending in a perfect arc, heading straight for his head.
But he was smiling.
```
[SKILL EVOLVED]
[Ignition Valtherion: Burning Aura]
[Source: Touch of the Goddess (Isabela Valtherion)]
[New Effect: Fire aura emanates real heat in radius]
[Passive Burn: Creatures within 10m take continuous damage]
```
The crystal sword lted before it reached him.
It simply lted into thin air, the material turning into a viscous liquid that dripped onto the ground, smoking, the absurd heat around Haru evaporating everything that ca near.
A circle of heat ford around him, three ters in radius, where the air visibly distorted, waves of temperature making everything tremble.
Haru hadn’t even properly read what the skill did.
He only felt the heat increase exponentially, sweat evaporating before it could form, skin glistening with its rising internal temperature.
Small crystals around began to break on their own, not from impact, but from thermal stress, cracks forming and spreading until they exploded into fragnts.
```
[ 10 XP] [ 10 XP] [ 10 XP]
```
Haru looked at the notifications, then at the crystals breaking on their own, then at all the creatures recoiling from the heat.
He rembered his basic physics lessons on thermodynamics,
"heat transfer, fracture point of crystalline materials."
The science behind it was simple: it would turn into an oven as long as the heat remained active and reached a point where fragile crystals like those would break or lt.
"Ignition..." he murmured, standing up, his body radiating heat that made the ground lt beneath his feet. "...BURN!!!" The aura exploded outwards.
The heat intensified even more, a thousand degrees, two thousand, rising relentlessly.
Crystals began to lt en masse. Walls, ceiling, floor, the creatures themselves, everything turning into a viscous, bright orange liquid that oozed out, forming steaming puddles.
```
[ 10 XP] [ 30 XP] [ 50 XP] [ 10 XP] [ 30 XP] [ 10 XP]...
```
Notifications exploding in his vision.
"I’m going to lt this entire chamber and take all the XP! HAHAHAHA!"
He advanced, shattering the crystals through the center of the destruction, each step lting more crystals, each second yielding more experience.
The entire chamber transford into liquid hell.
...
Kira quickly arrived, running back through the passage connecting the chambers, resonance crystals safely guarded.
And what she encountered ahead completely astonished her.
He stopped at the entrance, mouth agape, processing the scene.
Haru in the middle of it all.
The cave was lted, not destroyed, but literally transford into liquid glass that flowed down the walls in slow, shimring rivers.
Molten crystals ford shallow lakes on the floor that reflected intense orange light. The air distorted so much that it was almost impossible to see properly, waves of heat creating mirages.
It was almost beautiful, destructive but srizing, like watching a volcano erupt up close.
And in the exact center, shirtless Haru, his body glistening with sweat that evaporated instantly, his defined muscles tense, looking down at the giant molten crystal monster beneath his own feet, leaving only a steaming puddle where he had been.
He turned his head slowly when he sensed Kira’s presence.
"Master..." she said softly, her voice almost disappearing in the heat.
He inclined his head to her and smiled, not a crazy smile, but genuine satisfaction at a job well done. "See? I told you I’d take care of it."
The heat was unbearable even at that distance. Kira felt the fur on her tail almost singeing just from being near.
Haru walked toward her through the molten glass, leaving solidifying footprints behind him, and the aura of heat finally deactivated as he got closer.
Kira hugged him imdiately, not caring about the sweat, the residual heat, just relieved that he was alive and whole.
[Touch of Goddess: Activated]
• Absorbing mana...
"I found an exit to the side..." she said, still hugging him, her voice muffled against his chest. "It leads straight to Gandloaf’s forge. Faster route. We don’t need to go back the dark way."
Haru ran his hand through her hair, his breath still heavy from the effort.
"Oh shit, I wanted to grab your ass again in that narrow corridor," he thought.
"Great. Because I definitely don’t want to go through that narrow corridor again," he said.
Kira chuckled softly, then stepped back, looking around at the destruction.
"You... lted the whole chamber?"
"Just that part." He shrugged. "And I gained so XP in the process."
"What’s XP, Master?"
"You’re not ready yet..."
"You’re crazy, Master."
"I know."
And they headed towards the exit Kira had found, leaving the molten chamber behind, resonance crystals safely stored, and the mission almost complete.
All that was left was to reach the ancient forge, retrieve the Ember Fragnt, and return.
"Simple." Haru thought.
He took two steps; on the third, the world tilted. His body failed without warning.
His legs gave way as if soone had cut the wires from the inside, and he staggered forward, his hand striking the stone at the last second, preventing his face from hitting the ground.
An unsettling chill began to creep up his spine, while icy sweat trickled down his forehead, his heart racing too fast, as if trying to compensate for sothing it could no longer sustain.
There wasn’t enough air coming through.
"Master!"
Kira appeared beside him in an instant, catching him before he completely collapsed.
"Are you alright? Master... master!..."
To Haru, her voice sounded distant and muffled.
Haru tried to answer, but his body wouldn’t obey.
"What... the hell..." The thought ca in fragnts. "...is happening to ...?"
His vision trembled. Each heartbeat seed weaker than the last.
Then...
[WARNING]
• The user’s body does not possess sufficient resistance to sustain "Burning Aura"
• Internal thermal overload detected
• Critical oxygen level
• Usage limit: 1x per day, but beyond that the user will die
The world dimd another degree.
And, for the first ti since he began climbing that mountain...
Haru felt sothing close to... actual death.
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