The Gate Traveler-Chapter 456 B7— 36: Playing with Fire and Drowning Squirrels

Back at the underground city, I headed off to play some more with stones, but stopped halfway to my destination. All my other affinities needed work too, and snow was ice, right? Turning around, I went back outside. Before entering the tunnel, I put on a ski mask, goggles, a scarf, a hat, two pairs of thick wool socks, and another thick sweater under the cloak. I immediately began sweating, and going out into the cold became a blessing rather than a curse.

Finally protected from the cold, I got to work. Despite the amazing cloak, I didn't risk sitting directly on the snow. The tunnel entrance, a few meters in, where the snow couldn't reach, was good enough. I pulled out a big cushion, set it down, and sat cross-legged on it. Closing my eyes, I tried to connect to the snow. It was harder than expected. I already knew from my attempts to move ice balls back in Zindor that my connection to the ice element wasn't flawless, but this time, there was something more. Something was actively blocking me. I stayed there with my eyes closed for over an hour, tracing the source of the block, following every thread of resistance until I understood.

Slowly, like a hunter circling its kill, I zeroed in on the issue. It wasn't just one thing. It was logic, sensation, and intuition tangled together, but in the end, I found it. My connection to the ice, or snow in this case, was split right down the middle. One part—the one linked to my water affinity—was strong and steady, almost welcoming, as if the element itself was pleased to see me again. The other part—the one tied to fire—pushed back. It was a solid wall of resistance, a force that wanted nothing to do with this cold, alien thing that was its opposite.

It wasn't the fire itself, since I was working with the affinity, not the physical flame, but it carried enough of fire's personality to make its dislike known. Fire hated the cold side of ice, refused to mingle with it, and every time I tried to reach out, it shoved back, putting obstacle after obstacle in my path.

I looked at my mana system again. Yep, the Ice affinity was connected to Water and Fire.

Hmm, how do I make them play nice?

On closer inspection, the channels leading to water were twice as wide as those leading to fire.

Enlarge the channels?

I immediately shuddered at the thought, remembering the book I had studied in London about widening channels. Just the memory made my hands tingle. No way!

Improve the connection?

How? They hated each other.

The issue clearly lay within the fire element. I thought about it for a while, pacing near the tunnel entrance before finally stepping back outside. I cleared a wide circle in the snow with a Heat spell, the steam rising around me in soft clouds, and built a small bonfire at its center. The air filled with the smell of smoke and sap. This time, I wasn't going to freeze my butt off. I took out an armchair from Storage and sank into it, feeling the warmth creep up my legs.

With eyes closed, I extended my mana sense toward the flames, letting it surround and soak into the fire until I felt the pulse of its energy. Then I began to sink deeper, connecting not through logic or command but through feeling. In the past, I had always tried to reason with it, to bargain or argue like with a stubborn teenager, or when in a hurry, to force it to obey. This time, I didn't fight it at all. I treated it as a part of me.

Inside my mana bubble, that idea became real. The fire's energy mixed with my own until the border between us blurred. Once the connection felt natural, I turned my awareness inward, into the narrow fire channels within my body. Slowly, carefully, I connected them one by one, building a loop between the flame outside and the fire affinity inside.

Heat began to rise. My body temperature climbed gradually, and sweat rolled down my temples. I took off the cloak. Better. The warmth spread deeper, pushing outward from my core. I pulled off the sweater. Better again. Soon, the heat became unbearable. More layers came off until my skin prickled and every breath shimmered in the air.

When I finally opened my eyes, I was sitting there buck naked in the middle of a forest, sweat pouring down my body. Steam drifted from my skin like fog, and all around me the snow melted in rivulets. The cleared circle had expanded to hundreds of meters across, trees and all. The fire in the center blazed taller than before, and the air shimmered with heat and mana, alive and trembling with energy.

Ha! I created an outdoor sauna.

The heat shimmered in the air, rising in waves that blurred the edges of the circle. Moisture hung in the air, and the snow hissed and vanished wherever it touched the spreading warmth. Steam rolled up through the branches, wrapping the nearby trees in mist.

Perched among the trees were strange, black-furred animals watching me with wide, curious eyes. They looked like oversized squirrels, their glossy coats so dark they gleamed purple in the sunlight, and their large, pale-blue eyes caught and reflected every flicker of light. Their long tails moved with surprising agility, curling and uncurling as they clung to the branches, using them like monkeys to steady themselves and climb.

As the sauna's reach expanded, the creatures retreated further, leaping from tree to tree. Their tails worked like a third limb, wrapping around branches and letting them swing through the steam-filled air. They chittered and clicked at each other, almost as if gossiping about the sweaty idiot who had just turned their forest into a tropical resort. Quite cute, really.

I closed my eyes and inspected my channel system again. This time, I reached out to the moisture in the air through my water affinity. I planned to use the same new method I had learned, connecting the corresponding channels to the affinity, but I didn't need to. They connected on their own, without any direction from me.

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When I opened my eyes, a large blob of water was condensing in midair, thickening and spilling down like a small waterfall from an opening in space. Droplets splashed against the melting snow, hissing on the warm ground.

It clicked. That was why my water affinity worked so flawlessly!

On my Personal Information, Fire had jumped from [Novice] all the way to [Master], just like water.

Huh? That was the missing piece? The connection to the channels?

I almost facepalmed, but caught myself and threw a fist pump instead. "Yeah!"

The squirrels jumped at my shout and began chittering even louder. Only then did I realize how many of them there actually were. I'd noticed a few before, maybe ten or twenty at most, but now the trees seemed alive with movement. Dark shapes darted between branches, and the noise swelled until it sounded like a hundred tiny voices shouting at once.

The racket was deafening, echoing through the melted clearing and bouncing off the nearby slopes. Heat still shimmered in the air, and suddenly I became very aware of the fact that I was standing there completely naked under the judgmental gaze of a small forest army. Yeah, they were squirrels, but still. I grabbed a pair of boxers and put them on.

With all the noise and my growing self-consciousness, the connection to the fire broke. The bonfire shrank almost instantly, flames dropping to a fraction of their height. The steam began to thin, the mana in the air scattered, and the temperature plunged back to freezing. Shivering, I scrambled to get dressed again, my teeth clattering as the last traces of warmth fled.

The squirrels, however, weren't done with their fun. They kept chittering from the branches, and I could swear the tone had changed, mocking now, almost gleeful. The more I listened, the more certain I became that they were laughing at me.

Then the first acorn came whistling down. I stepped aside on instinct, and it cracked against the stone where I stood a heartbeat earlier. Another followed, then two more in quick succession. I moved again, ducking and sidestepping as acorns thudded into the ground, bounced off tree roots, or shattered against bark. Above me, tails flicked, and small shapes shifted along the branches, their chittering growing louder. I ended up weaving across the clearing, looking less like a dignified Wizard and more like target practice.

I narrowed my eyes, gathered some of the lingering steam, and condensed it into a blob of water above one of the louder groups that was the source of the acorns. With a flick of will, I dropped it. The splash was perfect. The chorus that followed was louder, shriller, and definitely full of outrage. They chittered with what could only be described as murderous intent and threw some more acorns.

I grinned and summoned another blob. When that one fell, the rebellion ended. The forest erupted in a flurry of motion as dozens of drenched, miserable black shapes scattered into the distance. The silence that followed was glorious.

A slight pang of guilt crept in. It was far too cold to be wet, but I shook it off. Next time, they wouldn't use a practicing Wizard for target practice.

I was freezing again, but this time, instead of reaching for my cloak, I tried to warm myself from the inside. Logically, if I could create a massive outdoor sauna, keeping myself warm shouldn't have been that hard. Sadly, it was. Intention alone did nothing. I focused, extended my mana sense toward the bonfire, and connected through the fire channels. The warmth spread slowly through me, and I exhaled in relief. Better. But not practical. I couldn't exactly drag a bonfire everywhere I went.

After a moment of thought, I sighed, put out the fire, pulled my cloak back on, and headed for the underground city. Practicing was much nicer when you weren't in danger of freezing off limbs.

Back in the city, I closed my eyes and sank into my mana system again. This time, I didn't try to control anything. I just watched.

The mana inside the three golden orbs moved in its usual pattern, circling each one before flowing outward through the connecting lines. It flowed out from the orbs in a single pulse, spreading through every channel at once. The main lines down my arms, legs, and spine lit up together with the smaller ones that branched in every direction. The secondary channels carried thinner streams that wound through muscles and organs, all moving in sync before circling back to the orbs to start again.

I had no intention of pushing large amounts of mana through the fire channels. I still remembered the horror in London, and there was no way I was going through that pain again. Still, I needed to make progress, so I decided to try increasing the flow—just a little—only through the fire channels.

The first attempt went badly. I pushed too much at once, and the pain shot through me so fast I whimpered before I could stop myself. It wasn't the same searing, stabbing agony as forcing a solid ball of mana through a narrow channel, but it burned enough to make my muscles tense, and my breath catch. My stomach clenched, and I had to wait until the pain faded before trying again.

On the next attempt, I went softer, testing the flow like dipping a toe into hot water. This time, it barely moved. The warmth that spread was too faint, more like a flicker than a flame. I frowned, focused, and tried again.

Little by little, I adjusted, playing with the amount each time. A bit more, then a bit less, until the pain dulled and the heat began to spread evenly through my chest and limbs. It wasn't blazing, but it was steady, warm enough to chase away the cold without making me grit my teeth. My hands stopped trembling, and a calm rhythm set in. I could feel the balance now, the fine line between comfort and pain, and it took constant focus to stay there.

The next problem came quickly. I couldn't walk, let alone fly, with my eyes closed and my mind buried deep inside my mana system. The moment I tried to move, the delicate flow wobbled, threatening to snap. Of course, I could split my mind and dedicate one portion to heat upkeep, but I didn't want to. I might need that partition for something else, and I was pretty sure this wasn't the way to go. I had to put it on auto, or at least partial auto. After all, at some point, I'd woken up with my mana sense still active, so it was possible to practice until something started running nonstop without needing my constant attention.

I opened my eyes and focused on keeping the flow steady by feel alone. It wavered at first, but I adjusted, letting my senses stretch out through the channels until the rhythm settled. But again, it cut off the moment I didn't pay full attention to it. I practiced for a full day and half the night, with little success. At some point, I had to admit I'd need the mind split to keep it going for a while, especially with how cold it was. After that, the road to keeping it up would be easier.

Decision made, I concentrated again and ran the mana through the fire channels. Once I had the pattern down, I split my mind. One part stayed on the fire channels, keeping the flow consistent, while the rest of me handled everything else. The warmth held steady, as if it was always meant to work that way.

To test it, I walked outside in nothing but jeans and a hoodie. The cold bit at my face for a moment, then faded as the heat spread through my body, gentle but solid. It worked. It actually worked. I'd been at this for a full day and half a night, but I still couldn't suppress my excitement and the quiet awe that it really worked.

There I was, standing outside in the freezing air, wearing only jeans and a hoodie, hands in my pockets, feeling completely comfortable. Not hot, not cold, just right. I couldn't help myself. I did a little shimmy. It didn't feel like enough. So I went all in and danced a full Gangnam Style right there in the snow. I didn't know or care whether the squirrels were watching. Some achievements were worth every bit of mortification.