Chapter 105: Xida of Blazing Splendor and the Young Fox

“Hush, little one, what name do you want?”

“My true name. You already know it,” the pixie giggled.

“A true name cannot be spoken,” Vingo explained. “I’ll give you a pet name. The fierce flame, the blazing bloom… how about Shida? Shida of the Great Burning?”

“Shida, then?” The sprite tilted her head. “Fine.”

“So… My lord, what do we do now?” Vingo frowned, his one wish of the day already spent.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha.” Sophie’s wild laugh echoed in his mind. “The good news is that a familiar’s fire does not burn its master. You’ll have to manage somehow until tomorrow. And tomorrow I’ll absolutely grant your other wish.”

So only tomorrow could Shida learn to summon and return? Then today… he would have to carry her all day? A burning ball of fire that could kindle wood and dry laundry?

Lady Sophie, what on earth are you doing?

Still, Sophie was no more than a wishmaker with weak divine power, and at heart she was a little girl who enjoyed sulking and making a spectacle of others. It pleased her to see Vingo in mild misfortune, to find joy in his discomfort.

So Vingo had no choice but to reason with Shida himself, asking her to follow him like a little lantern floating behind his back.

==November 1, 2012==

“Shida, can you keep your flames under control?” Vingo said miserably, staring at the shrubs she had accidentally set alight, sweat beading on his brow.

“It’ll be cold,” Shida replied, tilting her head.

“Ugh…” Vingo dropped to his knees and held his head. “If I bring you home like this, I’ll burn the whole place to ashes. Looks like we’re camping outside.”

In the end he took Shida back near the world-gate and set camp by a lava lake. It was a little too warm for Vingo, but just about right for Shida.

The sprite darted joyfully around him, spinning and bobbing. Vingo wandered for a while and finally netted two passing plump birds. He rigged a crude fire-pit of brushwood, then had Shida light it while he started to barbecue.

She tried to help, but Vingo quickly stopped her. If Shida touched it, her unrestrained heat would turn both birds into burning cinders.

Seeing the sprite pout with both palms cupped beneath her chin, Vingo grinned, took apart an animal trap, and reassembled it into a pair of oddly shaped, interlocking stars, which he tossed to her.
The sprite was quick-witted enough to sense it was a toy. She started weaving around them, trying to disentangle the two stars.
With her attention captured, Vingo could at last eat a real dinner in peace.

That night he curled up and tried to rest, while Shida continued to tinker with her new toy. The mechanism, like a sliding-lock puzzle, was a little tricky for her, but she never seemed to tire and her interest stayed bright.

Suddenly she stiffened, ears raised, and turned toward the dark. She hesitated, as if deciding whether to fling a tiny fireball.

Then she noticed Vingo lying where he was, eyes open, winking at her.

Shida drifted to his side and leaned to study him. In the fire tongue, Vingo said quietly, “Let him come over. Keep playing.”

The sprite laughed in delight and went back to her toy, keeping her head down and not looking that way anymore.

They did not have to wait long.

Lying still, Vingo could not see who crept up behind him, but Shida floated above him. She did not look up, yet by the faintest shifts in heat she could “see” three men approaching slowly.

Three figures. Tight black suits, soft-soled long boots, short swords at their backs, and blindfolds over their eyes.

Blindfolded? he thought.

Her curiosity flared and immediately won. Before any of them fully closed in, Shida darted at them first.

The three attackers did not seem surprised. Their target, after all, was clearly the Fire Element realm; meeting resistance from fire elementals was obviously expected.

“How do you expect to handle fire elementals with short swords?” Vingo said, still lying flat, watching with half-lidded eyes as Shida “fought.”

Or rather, as she played on one side only.

Shida laughed as she swung through the air like a pendulum, her fingers making graceful arcs, tracing symbols no one could quite name. As each pattern formed, it burst into a gold-red flare and tore through the sky.

One blindfolded man stepped forward and swung his sword. In an instant, his arm swelled; the black suit could not conceal the gold-red veins below the skin, which seemed to carry not blood but seething magma. By the moment he thrust his arm fully out, he had already absorbed the short sword into his own flesh, molding it into a monstrous claw. That claw snapped outward and brutally stamped out Shida’s gold-red flame.

Shida was not even perturbed. To her, that was hardly even a toy flame.

If this person’s not easily bothered, then perhaps she could take it a bit seriously.

She rose half a meter, moved her fingers in succession, and wrote a chain of fire glyphs in the air.

“Fire Spirit Art: Sear!”

That time was a real toy for her. Blinding crimson flooded outward like a sky on fire, engulfing the blindfolded man’s entire field of vision—if he had any.

Vingo noticed two glowing, coal-like spots beneath each blindfold: were those their eyes?

Gene alteration. And highly developed, too. Nothing like the puny zealots of that ram-calling cult from before. Vingo grew interested.

A sudden buzz sounded.

Another black-clad man appeared suddenly before the first. His right arm was even thicker, the veins within it even brighter, gold-red even through the darkness of his clothes. In his hand was a fan-shaped blade.
The blade had grown directly from his body. It looked as though the short sword they carried was merely a key, while the true weapon was their flesh and bone.

Even more interesting, Vingo thought as he slid into a half-seated position, chin on hand, right eye gleaming and fixed on all three men.

The fan-shaped weapon flashed, slicing the air with brutal speed, the broad edge diverting Shida’s torrents of flame. Vingo suddenly rose and began role formation.

His clothes were already on. He only needed to take up the short staff at hand and set on the specially made wide-brimmed hat.
Character selected. Analysis complete. Beginning manifestation.
Class lock-in complete.
Level 30, Black Sorcerer. Manifestation complete.

Main skill: Dark Sorcery. Passive: Mana Surge. Counter skill: Mana Reversal.
Everything was ready. Begin combat.

Vingo lifted his hand and, without hesitation, released a freezing technique.

After watching long enough, he was certain. Their genework was purpose-built. Their skin, veins, eyes, and weapons were all calibrated for the Fire Element realm.

Their weapons could absorb fire energy, so Shida’s flame arts were only partially effective against them. But Vingo’s freezing spell—

A pillar of ice rose from the ground, crackling softly as it fractured, then breaking into a spray of ice shrapnel that swallowed one of the black-clad men.

The effect was astonishingly good.

“Just as I suspected. Shida, their bodies and weapons both absorb fire magic,” Vingo said. “So let me handle it.”

But Shida’s attention had drifted elsewhere. She tilted her head and stared at Vingo, curious.

“Could transform, huh! It’s a good idea to have come out and played. To meet something this interesting… um, master?” She wrinkled her face. “By the way, what is a master? Can it be eaten?”

She ignored the attackers completely.
The absorption of fire… what did that even mean? Was it edible?

In truth Shida did not truly fear them. If she truly went all in, she could instantly raise herself to a sun-surface heat far beyond their absorption limits and kill them outright.
She had not reduced them to ash simply out of curiosity.
She wanted to know what those glittering red lines leaking from their bodies meant. She wanted to learn what kind of peculiar trait these humans possessed—humans who, like some fire elementals, could see through heat.

In the end, Shida’s greatest motive was only curiosity. Nothing else. She cared nothing for good and evil, nor for rules.

Vingo’s ice spell finally checked the other two attackers’ overconfidence.

“Though I doubt you can even speak, I still want to ask,” Vingo said, mouth curling into a sharp smile and white teeth flashing, “You three… where did you rats come from?”

It was obvious they had no intention of answering.

Vingo had been curious about the third one’s alterations. He learned quickly.
The third black-clothed man’s arms swelled at once. He yanked a slab of stone from the ground and hurled it with the force and speed of a heavy crossbow.

Left unchecked, it would crush Vingo flat. The velocity and impact alone could turn him into a paste of blood and mud.

Vingo twisted his lips in disdain and by the time the motion was done, he was already no longer where he had been.

The air currents of the high heavens could not inflict such brute damage, but in effect they far surpassed a heavy cannon. They meant effortless movement—silent, unearthly, elegant gliding through the sky.

“One claw, one great axe-like blade, one thrower,” Vingo said, tilting his head. “This looks vaguely familiar.”