Low-Fantasy Occultist

Nick flew around a spray of wet clay bullets, levitating just enough to avoid slipping in the mud of the riverbank.

The mud elemental charged past him and smashed into the water, instantly drawing more moisture to replenish the damage it had taken during the lunge.

A few yards away, Gaelen pivoted smoothly around three limbs, his blade slicing through a construct's torso with a perfect horizontal cut. The top part of the monster splashed into the stream, but instead of falling apart, the muddy sludge simply flowed back together. The clay pulled itself up from the water and quickly reattached to the legs.

However, unlike the first failed attempt, this time the monster was more sluggish, and Nick could sense a lingering energy within it that hadn’t been there before.

Yeah, curses can be pretty nasty like that. He’s not using his personal blade, but I guess there’s no need to against these guys.

Rhea seemed to take offense at the monsters and was now locked in a transmutation battle with three of them at once, constantly shifting her part of the battlefield and trying to block their access to their most vital resource.

But of the three, the most interesting was Elia.

A ring of pure, golden fire bloomed around the Miko, pushing back a larger elemental that attempted to flank her. The holy flames dried the mud instantly, causing its arm to crack and disintegrate into dust.

The monster reached into the mud to reform the limb, but Elia clawed at the air, and golden fire engulfed the construct, purging the animating mana and reducing the entire creature to a pile of dry, lifeless earth.

It was an effortless display of superiority, and Nick observed the holy fire with a critical eye, rapidly dissecting the spell's mechanics.

She has become stronger, though not as much as Rhea proportionally. There probably weren’t many occasions that required her to flex her muscles, since the beastmen have been doing so well.

Still, her divine flame had given him an idea, and this was the perfect chance to test a theory he had been developing since that lesson on divine magic in Tholm’s classroom.

Nick flew back, dodging another clumsy thrust from an elemental and using a gust of wind to redirect the mud bullets coming from behind. Then, he reached out with his senses, gathering the ambient ether in the surrounding air.

He lacked a patron deity to grant him divine flames, and he had no natural affinity for the fire element. In the past, trying to cast a flame spell would have produced a weak result that used too much energy for too little gain. But his soul was now much stronger, a fortress of will capable of enforcing its own rules on reality, and he was no longer as limited.

He had already proven he could serve as his own conceptual anchor. He used his sense of justice to sharpen his wind spells and his pride to give his kinetic magic its impossible qualities. He just needed the right emotional spark to ignite the fire.

As Nick ducked under a swinging fist of mud, he focused, shaping the gathered ether into the simple framework of a basic fireball.

Without a natural affinity and the peace of mind needed to cast, the mana resisted him. It felt sluggish and rebellious, like trying to fold thick leather with one hand.

If he had been in a non-combat situation, he could have easily taken his time to overcome this obstacle through sheer control, but he didn’t want that. His best work often came under duress, and if he had to somehow put together a powerful fire spell without the affinity, he had to do this when his mind was in overdrive.

He needed a conceptual spark, something to help him connect the elemental with the spiritual. What fuels fire?

The answer to that was simple.

Zeal. The fierce, relentless drive to push ahead, to conquer obstacles and transform the world through pure determination.

With that in mind, Nick embedded his spiritual authority into the raw spellform. He imposed his zeal on the stubborn mana, compressing it through the density of his soul. The friction within his coils grew, creating an uncomfortable heat in his chest, but he kept the construct stable.

As he wove out of the way of another strike, the elemental's clay fingers brushed the edge of his clothes.

This is nothing compared to what I have done and what I will have to do. A mere stepping stone on my Path. Now, work, damnit!

Finally, the spell took hold, and a sphere of deep crimson flame ignited in the palm of his free hand.

It lacked the effortless refinement of his other elemental spells. It felt entirely brute-forced, like a heavy, vibrating orb of aggression, but it radiated a blistering heat, and against an enemy this weak, it was enough.

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Nick stopped retreating. He planted his boots in the mud and faced the charging construct, compressing the fireball further, shrinking it down until it was a blindingly bright point of heat hovering just above his index finger.

After a moment of hesitation, he tapped into his wind affinity, weaving an invisible spiral current around the flame to feed it oxygen and guide its path, then pointed his finger at the monster's chest.

Yeah, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ll have time to perfect it; for now, it just needs to work.

A thin, scorching beam of fire darted across the muddy bank and struck the elemental dead center, flash-baking it. The water inside the creature's body instantly turned to steam with a violent hiss, and the rapid expansion tore it apart, shattering the baked clay from the inside out.

The elemental shattered into a spray of brittle pottery fragments, utterly destroying its internal structure. It collapsed into the mud and did not regenerate.

Nick exhaled slowly, feeling the minor strain in his coils fade. The spell was rough, but it worked, and now that he had a starting point, he could refine it with time and effort.