Read advance chapters of all my works or want to support me.
https/www.p.a.t.r.e.on/Adamo_Amet
Join us on discord:
https://di..scord.gg/h3kDw7ma
••••••••••••••••••
Chapter 228 The Art of Pyromancy
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
"Amazing."
Naruto turned towards Laurentis watching with wide eyes. He jumped up toward the trio and popped the shadow clone. The boy went still for a moment, sorting through everything the clone had seen and done.
Laurentis stared at the smoke. Then at Naruto. Then back at where the smoke had been.
"Wasn't that... your twin?"
"Nope... Clone."
Naruto and Oscar snickered at the expression on the pyromancer's face. The man had the look of someone running through a quiet checklist of whether this was real or a dream.
Laurentis's eyes moved from the Elite Knight armor to the sorcerer's catalyst to the claim that naruto used to be a pyromancer. "You are a strange... Knight? Sorcerer? Pyromancer?"
"Lordran has given me a lot to work with," Naruto said, straightening up with a grin. "In short, I'm awesome."
Oscar patted his foot.
"Humbly awesome."
Laurentis smiled faintly but his attention had drifted to his own flame, which had been burning hotter since Naruto approached. "My apologies. I don't know what is going on with my flame. It has been behaving strangely since we crossed paths."
"I might have a clue about that." Naruto glanced at his own hand. His soul had been changed significantly by Chaos. It made sense that another pyromancy flame would react to that, like a compass needle swinging toward something it recognised.
Laurentis nodded slowly. "My friend, I plan to journey toward Firelink Shrine. Rest a while." He paused, and something warmer came into his expression. "I would love to share what insight I have into the power of pyromancy with you, if you would allow it."
Naruto's eyes lit up. "You have spells?"
"Of course. A pyromancer's flame is a part of his own body. The flame develops right along with his skill." Laurentis stopped himself with a small laugh. "Sorry. You are a pyromancer yourself. You already know this."
"Don't worry about it." Naruto rubbed the back of his neck. "Honestly, even calling myself a pyromancer feels like a stretch. I never had anyone teach me. I just had fireball and that was about as far as I got."
"There is a saying in Great swamp,'Every problem has a solution. Most of them are just Fireball'."
Naruto laughed loving that quote.
"If it is not too much to ask," Laurentis said, "could I see your flame?"
"Yeah, about that." Naruto rubbed the back of his neck. "I kinda lost it."
"Ah." Laurentis was quiet for a moment. Then a small smile crossed his face. "Well. What is a pyromancer without their flame." The fire at his palm was put out, leaving only ash, and he held his hand out.
Naruto took it.
The ash left Laurentis's skin and clung to the boy's instead. For a brief second Naruto was pulled back into the memory when he first got his flame.
[ You have obtained: Pyromancy Flame ]
"These flames mean a great deal to you."
"I guess..." Naruto held the flame out toward Oscar, letting the lizard feel the warmth of it. "Pyromancy is a tool. But it was also the first thing I chose before coming to Lordran. I used it alongside my master. My first kill came because of these flames." He was quiet, watching the fire sway. "Now that I say it out loud, these flames have changed me... alot, dattebayo."
"When I gave you that flame, I gave you a part of myself. Please take good care of it."
"I will." Naruto formed a shadow clone. "He'll go with you to Firelink."
"I appreciate the thought but I am quite capable of making the journey on my own."
"Oh no I know that," Naruto said. "I'm going deeper into the Depths. The clone is there to buy spells off you and learn pyromancy."
"I see. Then I am happy to help." The pyromancer turned toward the passage leading up, then stopped. "Goodbye then. Be safe, friend. Don't you dare go Hollow."
"Not planning on it," Naruto said.
Laurentis walked on. The clone fell into step beside him, already asking questions.
Oscar scratched his leg.
"Yeah?"
The crystal lizard quickly rushed towards the cauldron.
"We are not eating anything from this place, bud. I don't wanna know what human flesh tastes like."
Oscar chirped.
"The fire?"
Naruto crouched beside the cauldron. The fire come from a clay square pot. Vine-like patterns covered the surface. It had a warm amber and brown tone, darkened at the edges as though it had been burning for a very long time. A large golden flame arose from within.
[ You have obtained a Large Ember ]
[ Item: Large Ember ]
[ Description: Ember required for weapon ascension. A large, high-quality ember, once handled by the blacksmith of Astora.
Ascension for +5 standard weapon. Allows reinforcement to +10.
Also, can ascend +5 standard weapons to raw weapons. (Raw weapons can be reinforced to +5.) ]
Naruto gasped, and immediately hugged Oscar. "You're amazing! If it weren't for you, I might've walked right past the biggest treasure in this dump!"
Oscar squeaked happily, limbs wiggling in delight.
"So... if I bring this to Andre, he can take my weapon to plus ten. That's like... better than learning a new jutsu!"
Naruto puckered his lips and leaned in. "You deserve a kiss."
Oscar chirped.
"You just had to ruin the moment by asking if I even have the ore for the upgrades."
Oscar chirped again, this time clearly asking if he still gets the kiss.
"Yes."
Naruto scooped Oscar up, cradled him like a baby, pressed a long exaggerated kiss right between his eyes and then flung him straight into the garbage chute.
The lizard's chirps turned to muffled, indignant curses as he tumbled down into the dark.
"Language," Naruto called after him, before leaping down after.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Meanwhile, Laurentius and the shadow clone made their way back up through the Depths toward Firelink Shrine, stepping over the corpses of hollows en-route.
"I presume all the dead hollows along the way were your doing?" Laurentius asked.
"Yep."
Laurentius absorbed this in silence for the rest of the walk.
They found a mossy patch of ground beside the broken church in firelink shrine.
"This seems like a good enough spot."
The clone was about to agree when they heard it.
Hmgg...
Hmgg...
A sound drifting up from somewhere near them. It was reverberating faintly through the flooded stone floor of the church like something was... snoring.
The clone and Laurentius froze.
"Is someone sleeping nearby?"
"Sounds like it's coming from under the floor."
"Should we check it out?"
"You want me to blow up the floor and find out what's breathing under there?"
Laurentius raised a hand quickly. "Let's leave it to sleep. Safer that way."
"Suit yourself. But if it eats you later I'm not taking any blame."
Then the snoring stopped.
The silence that followed was very loud.
"That's good?"
"Honestly I've no idea," the clone said, equally quiet. He was running the math on whether he should check it out or not.
For now he decided to let it go. If he tried something and got dispelled in the process, the original was too far away to respond in time. That left Laurentius, Griggs and Anastacia in danger.
Not worth the risk.
As the snoring resumed, both of them let out a slow breath.
"I think we should continue with our business for now," Laurentius said, spreading his spell scrolls out on the moss.
[ Fire Orb – 8,000 Souls ]
[ Combustion – 500 Souls ]
[ Iron Flesh – 2,000 Souls ]
[ Flash Sweat – 2,000 Souls ]
[ Fireball – 800 Souls ]
"I'll buy your entire stock," the clone said, holding out 13,300 souls without blinking.
"I see hunger in your eyes, my friend. Hunger for knowledge."
"Yeah, you caught me." The clone rubbed the back of his head.
"Since you are so eager." Laurentius settled back down on the moss. "Ask what you will."
"What is pyromancy?"
Laurentius nodded and folded his hands. "Pyromancy is the art of casting fire. Produce flame, then channel it, just as our ancestors did. A pyromancer must be in tune with nature herself. My home, the Great Swamp, is an abundant store of nature. You will understand, one day. It only takes time."
The clone's mind had drifted immediately to nature energy. He knew pyromancy responded poorly to regular chakra. But what about nature energy?
"Are you following so far?"
"Somewhat."
Laurentius considered this for a moment, then smiled. "My teacher, whom I imagine still resides in the Great Swamp, had a funny way of putting it. He said that 'Pyromancy is the ultimate fantasy. That we are born into Dark and warmed by Fire, but this Fire we cannot touch. Those whose fascination with Fire persists, learn to hold it in their own hand." He shook his head with quiet fondness. "He rather had a way with words, the old withering frog."
"Was your master... part of Mount Myoboku?"
"Pardon?"
"Your master was an old withering frog, so I thought..." The clone trailed off slowly as he heard himself out loud. I am an idiot.
"..."
"..."
"You have a strange sense of humor, my friend," Laurentius said finally, with great dignity. "And I apologize for not explaining better."
"No, that one was on me." The clone cleared his throat. "Maybe try an example. It might land better, dattebayo."
"Indeed." Laurentius rose to his feet and turned toward the open archway. "I shall demonstrate with a simple fireball."
The clone sat up straight and gave the man his full and undivided attention.
"How does one cast fireball? Fairly simple. Attune the spell. Gather souls from the air into your hands." Laurentis swirling blue souls from the air into an orb. "Use them. Shape them into fire. Knead the flames into a ball. Compress. Then throw."
The fireball struck the stone archway nearby.
Boom.
The clone still remembered what his own fireball could do. He had seen it char stone walls black, leave scorch marks deep enough to run a finger through.
Laurentius's fireball melted the stone itself. A slow, heavy drip ran down the archway where the impact had landed, the rock going soft and dark at the edges like candle wax held too close to a flame.
Naruto snapped his fingers.
"So, Pyromancy is like Oolacile sorcery. You pull ambient souls out of the air. The same soul microorganisms release when they die. You use your own soul to collect and shape it like soul magic. Ignite it through the pyromancy flame, and throw it. That's why you live in the Great Swamp. More organic matter. More souls in the air."
Laurentius looked both pleased and slightly unsettled, the expression of a teacher whose student has just skipped three lessons at once. "Yes," he said slowly. "That is the basics of pyromancy."
"Then how do you make it stronger?" the clone pressed. "I know no stat directly scales the pyromancy flame."
"Souls are the fuel," Laurentius said. "The more souls you burn into your flame, the hotter it becomes. And a hotter flame means stronger pyromancy." He paused. "Think of a blacksmith's ember. They burn souls to make their forge run hotter."
"Andre does that."
"But where a blacksmith's ember fades within hours, a pyromancer's flame is eternal. It does not fade."
"How do i do it?"
"You must be reborn through another, which means the upgrade cannot be done alone. You will need another pyromancer to help you not burn your own soul."
The clone leaned back. "So if the original wants to level up his flame, he has to come find you."
"Indeed."
The clone sat with that for a moment. Then he stood up abruptly with the focused energy of someone who had just connected two things that had no business connecting.
"Thanks for your help. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go test a crazy idea I just had."
"May I see it?"
"YOSH!" The clone ran towards the bonfire.
[ Name: Naruto Uzumaki ]
[ Level: 103 — 105 ]
[ Attributes ]
[ Attunement: 12 — 14 ]
[ Spell Slots: 3 ]
Two spell slots had been a genuine pain. Every spell he attuned took one. And with three distinct systems all competing for those slots, the strategic headache of deciding what stayed and what got dropped had been a constant background noise in every fight. Three slots eased the burden somewhat. He had one for each system now, which was the bare minimum for what he was trying to do.
I really need to figure out a way to get more slots, he thought, turning the problem over. More attunement meant more options meant more flexibility meant less of the particular frustration of having the perfect spell for a situation and no slot to put it in.
That is a problem for later.
Right now he had a brilliant idea to test and the scroll had everything he needed to get started.
[ Spell: Fire Orb ]
[ Description: Pyromancy which improves upon Fireball. Hurl fire orb. The flaming fire orb explodes upon impact, causing fire splash damage in a spectacle which seems to symbolize the strength of the fire-manipulating pyromancers. ]
"This could work," the clone muttered, placing his hand on the scroll as the attunement began.
Firelink Shrine disappeared.
The darkness that replaced it was not the darkness of a room with no light. It was the darkness of a space with no edges, extending in every direction without boundary, without floor or ceiling or wall. He floated in it without falling.
Around him drifted two sigils: one blue for Soul Arrow. One yellow for the Lightning Spear. Both represented the attunement of these spells.
He needed a third spell.
With his flaming hand, he began to draw.
A dense central circle, built in layered strokes, holding the orb at its heart. A single vertical mark touching its top edge, marking the moment of release. Around it a wider ring, lined with short outward spikes evenly spaced, hinting at the explosion still waiting inside.
As the symbol completed, the instinctual pull of attunement founf its anchor in his soul.
[ You have attuned the spell: Fire Orb ]
He had one spell from every system now.
Naruto blinked and Firelink Shrine came back. He stood up slowly, rolled his shoulders, and looked out across the ruins with a sorcerer's catalyst appearing in one hand and a pyromancy flame lighting the other.
"My friend, what exactly are you about to do?"
"Science, dattebayo," the clone said, ignoring the fact that he was doing science on magic.
He held the catalyst out and formed a Soul Arrow. The pale blue condensed at the tip, and then the clone did something no one in Vinheim had apparently ever thought to do. He brought the pyromancy flame up and pressed it against the gathered soul.
Laurentius gasped.
The clone pulled the catalyst back slowly.
His right arm extended forward, thumb angled slightly downward. He pressed his pointer and middle fingers into the flame and felt the soul energy inside it reshape. The blue change into the fire itself, the fire giving the soul a body. The flames formed into an arrow between his fingers, burning blue at the core and orange at the edges.
He took an archer's stance and fired.
The arrow crossed the distance in a breath and hit the cliffside near firelink shrine.
Boom.
A white flash swallowed everything. The clone squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them the cliff was gone. A smoldering hole sat where solid rock had been, the edges still glowing faintly at the rim.
That was stronger than the Great fireball jutsu.
The thought had barely finished forming before the exhaustion hit. The clone sat down hard, legs giving out without warning. Combining two magic systems had a cost and it was exhaustive fatigue of mind and body.
"Naruto, what did you just do?!"
"Pyromancy burns souls," the clone said, catching his breath. "Sorcery uses soul. I combined them. Magic makes the form and the flame ignites it." He smiled as he finally pulled ofd an idea he never really thought about.
Up until now Naruto had been trying to push chakra into the other systems. The results had been a mixed at best. Miracles had produced nothing. Sorcery had shown promise but needed significant work before it was reliable. Pyromancy had been outright dangerous.
But what he had just done meant the question was no longer just about chakra. The question was about every possible intersection. Sorcery and miracles. Sorcery and pyromancy, which he had just scratched the surface of. Miracles and pyromancy. And then beyond that, once he understood those crossings properly, maybe chakra had a door into each of them that it had not found yet.
So many good ideas pulling at him all at once.
The clone left every single one of them for the original and popped.
The white smoke drifted up toward the pale sky.
Laurentius did not move for a long moment.
"My friend," he said quietly, to no one. "You just combined soul sorcery and pyromancy."
He turned and looked at the hole in the cliffside.
The sorcerers of Vinheim looked down on pyromancy. A barbaric art, they called it. Something that destroyed the beautiful aurora of soul that permeated the world, burning it rather than shaping it.
Savages only knew how to destroy. Arrogant Cowards only knew how to shape.
The two schools had existed in quiet contempt of one another for as long as anyone could remember. No one had ever seriously asked whether they could cross. The bias ran too deep, the social walls too high and the understanding between the systems too deliberately kept apart for anyone on either side to think the question was worth asking.
And a boy had answered it in an afternoon. Simply because he was curious and no one had ever told him he was not supposed to.
In this land pyromancers earned a certain respect, more than they ever had anywhere he had come from. The day he became Undead he had felt chosen to attune himself to the ancient arts.
And yet Laurentis found himself sitting in the ruins of Firelink Shrine with something shifting quietly in his chest. Not inadequacy or envy. Something that sat closer to wonder.
"My friend," Laurentius said quietly. "Thank you for showing me how much more there is to learn. Perhaps this is what I needed to ascend my flames and find our mother."
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Author Note: And with that, the chapter comes to a close.
Now let's get into the Q&A.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Q: Can you actually combine soul sorcery and pyromancy?
Funny enough, yes.
Canonically you actually can combine soul sorcery and pyromancy in Dark Souls. So this plot point was a really fun treat to write.
Now let's get into the lore properly.
Straid of Olaphis from Dark Souls 2. A legend amongst sorcerers, known for his inquisitive and curious temperament, which made him a well-versed mage in both sorcery and pyromancy. Straid is a really interesting piece for the topic at hand, especially since you can acquire a specific spell from him.
Spell Flame Weapon description: Pyromancy that imbues weapon in other hand with fire. Adds fire damage to the types of damage the weapon already inflicts. Pyromancy and sorcery are said to be like oil and water, but in fact their origins can be traced to a common source.
And there it is.
FromSoft directly confirming that pyromancy and sorcery share a common origin.
The source is not explicitly named in canon, but in Chosen Undead that source is souls. Sorcery manipulates them. Pyromancy burns them as fuel. Naruto figures out the foundation underlying both systems and works backward from there to find the crossing point. I am genuinely really proud of how that came together.
What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Q: Is Naruto's fire arrow based on Sukuna's Fuga?
Yes and no.
Visually I designed it to resemble Fuga, so if you want a mental image that is the one to go with. But mechanically it was always going to be a fire arrow regardless, because Naruto is literally taking a Soul Arrow and igniting it. The Fuga resemblance is a happy accident more than a deliberate reference.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Q: Will you ever do a JJK x Naruto crossover?
This was a fun suggestion I got the last time I mentioned how Blade of Wind resembled Dismantle.
Honestly I would love to do a JJK x Naruto crossover, but right now I do not have a strong enough plot structure to commit to it. What I do know is that if I ever write it, Naruto's cursed technique would be the Construction technique.
Here is my reasoning. Paralleling Naruto's clan techniques with cursed technique. For example, if Shikamaru was in jjk. His clan's shadow jutsu would translate directly into a shadow-based CT. So what is the Uzumaki clan's hidden jutsu? According to the databooks it is the chakra chains, a technique that uses chakra to manifest something physical. That maps almost perfectly onto Construction as a CT.
The other thing that works really well is the limitation. Construction burns through cursed energy at a massive rate, which is its core weakness. But Naruto is literally defined by his enormous chakra reserves, and in JJK that would translate into massive CE reserves that offset exactly that weakness. The kit just fits.
Either way it is a fun idea and maybe one day I will sit down and build a proper plot around it. If you have thoughts or suggestions on that topic drop them in the comments, I am genuinely curious what you all come up with.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
That's It… For Now.
I want to thank you all for taking the time to read, comment, and follow along with this story. Your feedback means more than you know, and it helps push me to make each chapter bigger, sharper, and more true to the worlds of Naruto and Dark Souls.
Until next time,
Praise the Sun.
\-Adam-/
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
[ Personal Note: First off, thanks a ton to all of you for sticking with this story. Seriously, you guys are awesome. Now, if you're interested in supporting me on P@treon, let me just say that over there, I post these massive 15k-word chapters. But heads up, if you're jumping to P@treon, you'll need to start from Chapter 99, since that's where this chapter lines up with the content there.
To everyone here just reading along, please don't forget to leave a comment! Honestly, your comments make my day, and they let me know you're as invested in this story as I am. So yeah, thanks again, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day!