The airship groaned as it climbed through the cloud shelf, hull plates humming under Muti pressure.
A leviathan of the sky—five decks, two domes, a training arena, and the faint smell of engine flame mixing with incense.
Below deck, the thirty-two surviving candidates found seats, beds, or reasons to cause trouble.
Rin found a reason.
"Stay still, damn it!"
"Fire Muti: Fireball"
A streak of orange fire spiraled past Rin's head and blasted into the wall behind him with a dull whump.
The floor plates warped from the heat.
Rin side-stepped, coat flaring, eyes half-lidded.
His opponent—a tanned, broad-shouldered Seeker with burn scars running up his forearms—hurled another sphere of flame that roared like an airship engine.
A fireball carved across the deck, scattering sparks like meteors.
Rin ducked low, the blast rippling his coat as he slid sideways between scorch marks.
Another explosion chased him.
Then another.
His sigh barely cut through the thunder.
"You're wasting aura."
Rafael.
Reggie's brother.
The scar lines across his arms pulsed bright red with every swing.
"Didn't anyone teach you to aim?" Rin said flatly.
Rafael grinned, heat curling off his skin.
"You're fast. Let's see you dodge this."
He slammed his palms together saying.
"Fire Muti: Fire Spheres"
The air rippled, fire gathering between them—
—and then the sphere split into five smaller orbs, each spinning with its own pull.
Rin's Viatras lit.
Both eyes flooded Scarlet Blood Red, webbed with thin vermilion lines—the eyes that saw through aura and intent itself.
The orbs streaked forward.
Rin blurred.
Each step was like a ghost.
Floor-touch.
Pivot.
Redirect.
Fire rolled behind him in waves, lighting the arena orange.
One missed by inches, singeing the tail of his coat.
He straightened, barely winded.
"Five fireballs. Cute."
Upstairs, the command room sat thick with tension and brass light.
Ten captains ringed the table.
Seeker uniforms neat.
Faces sharp.
Each one carrying their own legend.
William leaned forward, jaw set.
"Confirm it again."
Captain Hera slid a holo-sheet across.
"Dune City under Red Cloaks siege. Shinshō Luna sighted near the breach."
A long silence.
The engines rumbled underneath like distant thunder.
Captain Mars muttered,
"We're still two days from Janoah. Even if we diverted—"
William cut in, voice calm.
"—we'd never make it. And the Red Order doesn't start small."
Captain June leaned back, with a Mr Green cigarette between two fingers.
"World's burning faster every year."
William's eyes narrowed.
"Then we make sure the next generation can stand when we can't."
The others nodded.
On the lower deck, Kai sat cross-legged across from Aria and Lila, the hum of the engines filling the quiet.
"So..." Kai said slowly. "What exactly is Muti stacking? Darius tried to explain it once, but he started saying things like 'harmonic soul weight' and I stopped listening."
Aria blinked.
Then burst out laughing.
"You seriously don't know? You're a monk. How do you not know?"
"I trained to find inner peace," Kai said, dead serious.
"Not combustion."
Lila snorted into her tea.
"He's got a point."
Aria sighed and leaned forward like a teacher about to scold a hopeless student.
"Okay. Picture it like this."
"Aura's your base, that's the fuel."
"Muti's what happens when you push that fuel through a Spoke. Fire, water, lightning, whatever."
"Stack it right, and boom, New technique."
"Boom?" Kai said.
"Boom," she confirmed.
Boom!
Rafael clapped his hands again and sent a geyser of flame ripping across the floor saying.
"Fire Art: Fire River"
Rin leapt back, one hand brushing the deck, aura rippling outward like an echo and dispersed the flames into ribbons.
"See," Aria's voice carried on, overlapping the fight like narration, "a pro doesn't just throw power they layer it, think of it like music, Aura for rhythm. Muti for melody."
Rin blurred forward, weaving through the firestorm.
"Different Spokes, different instruments," Aria said.
"Elemental's loud."
"Martial's clean."
"Psychic's weird."
"You following?"
Rin ducked under a flame arc, his Viatra lines glowing brighter.
Each of Rafael's moves slowed in his sight.
Aura trails mapped the patterns a full beat before they landed.
He pivoted, caught Rafael's wrist, and drove an elbow into his ribs.
The fire scattered harmlessly.
"Stacked aura," Aria said, tapping a finger to her temple.
"That's how you burn without burning out."
Lila blinked.
"So when he—"
Rafael roared, tore free, and slammed both palms to the ground yelling.
"Fire Art: Fire Geyser"
A pillar of flame shot upward, shaking the whole deck.
"—does that!" Lila finished, eyes wide.
Kai tilted his head.
"That's... not peace."
Rin slid out of the smoke.
Clothes singed.
Patience worn down to the wire.
He straightened his collar.
Rafael bared his teeth.
Fire ran down his arms in veins of molten orange and shaped itself into twin blades that hummed in the air.
He lunged.
"Fire Art: Fire Blades"
Flame blades met floor tile, slicing through aura residue like butter.
The heat shimmered thick enough to bend the light.
Rin stepped through it.
Smooth.
Minimal.
The fire missed him by heartbeats.
He didn't draw a weapon—
because he hadn't brought one.
Another blade cut past.
Rin pivoted, palm grazing the man's wrist to redirect the swing.
The blade veered off and bit into empty air.
The crowd flinched.
"That how your brother fights too?" Rin asked.
Rafael's jaw clenched.
"Don't say his name."
Flame burst outward in a shockwave.
The fire reshaped.
A spear.
Then a greatsword.
Then a dozen hovering knives, each burning steady.
Perfect control.
The knives shot forward.
At all angles and fury.
Rin ducked between them, one hand brushing the deck, aura low and calm, the other tucked behind his back.
He turned a miss into a counter.
The air cracked.
The aura pulse blew the knives off line and scattered them like ash.
The crowd gasped.
The floor around Rin steamed where his aura had brushed it.
He straightened, voice flat.
"You done?"
Rafael's grin faltered—
but pride killed the hesitation.
He crossed his arms, flame swirling and condensing into a single pulsing orb at his chest.
"I don't quit."
"I ascend."
The orb pulsed.
Orange deepening to golden red.
Fire roared up around him.
Symbols crawled across the deck in a ring.
"Spirit Bloom: Maga God—!"
The pressure dropped over the whole deck.
Gravity tightening its grip as Rafael's aura swelled.
"Did he just—" someone whispered.
"He's stacking," another said.
"Spirit and Martial. He's merging."
Rin stepped forward once.
Both eyes wept red, fresh ribbons cutting down to his jaw.
Soul Bloom: 影花 Kagebana.
The shadow unfurled beneath his boots.
The black vyratth rose in moving seams of darkness, its heads turning against the spin of the world.
The air detonated outward in a cold wave.
Rafael's gathering fire scattered and died against it like a torch dropped into deep water.
He skidded back, eyes blown wide, the gold orb guttering out in his hands.
"What—"
"What was that?!"
The crowd broke into whispers.
Half awe.
Half terror.
Rin turned dry as ever.
"I was just looking for the bathroom."