Chapter 74: New Attunement (II)
A ball of searing, red-hot flame swirled above Ember's palm, its form shifting as he manipulated the weaving.
After Dawn taught him the weave for a Fireball, Ember had no trouble picking it up within a couple of tries. However, his control over this new attunement didn't feel as intimate as kinetic force or even Mind, the attunement he was least proficient in. Well, he had only just awakened it a few hours ago, and through a foreign element at that.
According to Dawn, there was a price to pay for forcibly growing an attunement without much organic practice. He would need to dedicate a significant amount of time to make his fire weaving as proficient as kinetic force, even though their numbers were similar.
Ember didn't mind. As far as he was concerned, he had gotten a new toy to play with. He wouldn't mind spending hours and days, or even weeks, discovering all its quirks and taming the new power. The only issue was the constant mana expenditure required to keep a fire spell alight. Well, at least he wouldn't need to hold fire spells as he had to in kinetic weavings to build up power.
Fire attunement was the most straightforward. The greater the mana, the stronger the spell. The weavings were not as complex, either, though he had to burn a lot of Will for the fire spell to be worthwhile. At least that was true to make the fire more concentrated, more threatening, or else it wouldn't even hurt a Level 5 Mirewood Toad.
He hadn't yet begun cultivating fire-attuned mana after absorbing the fire crystal, so he couldn't say how hard it would be. Though from what he had observed so far, it was likely much easier in comparison to mind attunement, but not as effortless as kinetic force.
After he absorbed the fire crystal, they started moving again, intending to find a way out of the goblin dungeon as soon as possible. Dawn advised him against absorbing more crystals immediately. Although there was little chance of anything going amiss, she suggested he become more familiar with his fire attunement before trying his hand at another element.
While his mana foundation was solid, it was still in the early phase. Gaining too many attunements and forcing their growth too quickly might destabilise it. So, he decided to practise fire spells for a couple of days before turning his attention to wind or strengthening his kinetic force.
They moved non-stop through the deeper layer of the dungeon, with him practising various shapes of fire spells. While his practice was bearing fruit, navigating their way out seemed to be more of a debacle than either of them imagined. The region was far too vast for them to stumble upon the exit point easily. Adding the previous two days, they had covered close to sixty kilometres without finding a way out.