I awoke to sunlight on my eyes. I immediately applied my Light Filter, and it dimmed, but not enough. It will level.

  There was no sign of Pānihi, which was a shame. I was hoping she would have brought breakfast.

  I know I theoretically have had enough sleep for my Physical Attributes, but it doesn’t feel like it. I am sure bear-kin need more sleep than others, just like we need more fat.

  I made my way down to the stream and washed to wake myself up. There were no fish conveniently swimming by, so that was not breakfast. I stopped at a berry bush and picked the few ripe berries that were there, and detoured by a chestnut tree and ate some chestnuts.

  Maybe I am afflicted by fat deficiency. That has to be a thing for bear-kin: fat deficiency and sleep deficiency.

  I sat down on the edge of the rubble facing the tunnel entrance. There are two things I want to learn. Solar Flame and amend Revitalise to a better skill for healing. I had better start with Revitalise as I might need it. I give myself a boost to wake me up more.

  I now have a better understanding of Solar Bloom and its connection to light. Revitalise is a touch-based energy boost, but at Journeyman, I could use it to boost everybody in my aura for a higher cost. So the area base is there. Now I want to change it from a short burst to a longer, or even a continuous event and incorporate the health of Solar Bloom.

  I get ready to activate Revitalise, but stop before the final burst and try to use my spiritual agility and Solar part of my affinity to bring the light to the skill, so to speak. What actually happened is that the skill failed badly, and I got a spiritual backlash.

  It was almost like those small rock elemental attacks back in the mine in the Arctic. That is where I learned to be Spiritually Tough. That has hindered me before, but it is good now, as the backlash was blunted.

  I tried again. And again. And yet again, before I had to take a break. I need to think about what I am doing, as it is obviously not working. I didn’t expect this to be easy, but I also didn’t expect to be levelling my Spiritually Tough skill either, but that is what it did.

  I tried a different way. At the start of the skill, I tried to smooth out the rush of the energy. When I recovered from that, I tried to identify how the skill worked with my Aura.

  While I rested after another level in Spiritually Tough, I knew I was definitely doing something wrong. This took longer to recover from. I thought I had this worked out, but obviously I was wrong.

  I changed tack and started thinking about Solar Flame, after all, I chose this place as a place to practice my flames.

  Solar Flame. It is a skill for high-level Blacksmiths and requires high-level Spiritual Strength and Agility. It is going to be the same flame as Solar Flare, but more controlled. How would Blacksmiths learn it? I didn’t know, but they wouldn’t have Solar Flare; they would have a lot of normal fire skills. That means that, however they learned it, it was useless to me. I have different skills.

  My Solar Flare first erupted when I barely had 25 in Spiritual Strength, and I am sure that was only because of my Astral affinity. My Spiritual Agility was barely over 20 at the time. No wonder I couldn’t control it. I now had 44 Spiritual Strength and 37 Spiritual Agility. It is the Agility that controls the flame.

  Solar Flare is only at the early apprentice level, as I am too scared to use it, and its effects are too big. It is out of control. But now I should be able to control it, but the effects were still too big.

  I want a flame, not a flare. What is the difference? A flare is sudden, violent and short-lived. A flame is consistent and steady, especially when used for smithing. A flame can also be small, like a candle-sized flame.

  I looked at my finger. Could I create a small flame at the end of my finger? I was also wiser after losing my eye to Solar Flare, and I was not about to lose my finger this time, but I felt I was on the right track.

  I got a stick. I could create a Solar Flare anywhere in my Aura, so there was no reason to think Solar Flame was different. The stick gave me something to use as a focus. I placed it on the ground in front of me between the pile of rubble and the mine opening. I crouched on the other side of the rubble, even knowing I had survived a full Solar Flare once and my Resistances were much higher. Then I paused and went back to camp and stripped naked before returning for the first attempt. I could learn.

  Fire that burns in the void. That is what I am creating, but only a candle flame at the end of the stick. Spiritual Agility and controlled, steady Strength were what was needed.

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  The entire stick burst into flame, and the ground under it melted. I shut it off quickly. I counted it as a success as it was not a full Solar Flare. Unfortunately, the ground was going to take a while to cool.

  I looked around and found the rusted head of a pickaxe. I shoved the pickaxe head in the molten rock so it stuck up vertically. I would try to create a candle flame on top.

  Obviously, I could not control my strength very well, and that was my not using my Spiritual Agility properly.

  The next attempt melted the pickaxe. I was not disappointed; in fact, I was very pleased. Two attempts and no Solar Flare. Not enough control for a Solar Flame skill, but that is just practice, and when you think about it, I have Solar Flame in a less controlled manner.

  I have control! That is huge. Semi control, anyway!

  I soon got low on energy, between the attempts to learn both skills. I now have a lot more energy, thanks to my attributes being higher, but my skills require a lot. It reinforced to me that I would have died several times if Felix had not fed me energy through our bond. My attributes were significantly below the required level for these skills. I no longer have Felix to save me.

  I no longer have Felix at all.

  Shit! Why did he have to die? He didn’t have to die. We could have negotiated. I am pleased I killed his killer, but it doesn’t bring him back. It doesn’t bring any of them back.

  I miss them.

  I decided to go down to the stream and try to catch some fish and take a break. It will also let the ground cool a bit.

  It was a shitty stream for fish.

  I briefly considered testing my skill in the stream, but it was not a deep stream, and a cloud of steam was a lot more noticeable than the current heat shimmer from the mine.

  My Hearing aid picked up someone walking nearby. I filtered the light around me to turn me into the same colour as the surrounding vegetation. Then I realised I was still naked with fur. This could be bad. I went into Forest Camouflage.

  An old human with fishing gear came out of the woods and set up a bit further upstream near a larger pool. That was where he had set up before.

  I watched him for a while. It appeared he didn’t care if this was a shitty stream for fish. I am not even sure he was trying to catch fish.

  My problem was that he was too close. Even in daylight, my Flare/Flame made a flash and a spiritual explosion that he would notice.

  I backed away carefully into the bushes. My Stealth was Journeyman's, but it had never been one of my strengths.

  On the way back, I had two choices. Stop practising the flame until he leaves, or go into the mine and practice. I could just try to perfect Revitalise, but my control over the flames was much better now. I was not at risk of exploding the tunnel. Not as much risk, anyway.

  It didn’t take much to head into the mine, but I took some weapons, food and drink. Tunnels can collapse, and I could get trapped. Tremor was only at high apprentice and not the best skill in potentially unstable tunnels, anyway.

  It didn’t take long to talk myself into entering the mine. I walked in using my Void Sensing to navigate. The Tunnels sloped down and then split into three, about fifty meters in. I took the one that seemed to go deeper. The walls were damp, and the mushrooms were getting thicker the further in I went.

  I was far enough underground that my Void Sensing couldn’t sense it, even though I shaped my aura. I could sense the tunnel below me, which is where I thought I would start experimenting.

  First up, Light Sensing and Solar Bloom. I am so far underground that there was no visible light at all, but there was light outside the visible range. My sensing skill was too low to get more than a glimpse, but pushing the skill is how you level it. I kept at it until it advanced another level toward Journeyman.

  Solar Bloom was different. The mushrooms in this area were larger and were visible to my Spiritual Senses. They were spiritually enhanced Mushrooms. This was not normal in a mine. How long has it been closed? Where did they come from?

  The larger ones were about the size of two handspans at the head and often as tall as my knee. Some grew from the floor, and some from the walls and ceiling. I stopped where they changed size, from small to large.

  There were insects here. I sense some spiders, centipedes and skinks along with beetles and worms. All were small. It was its own ecosystem, and Troglobite Lore wanted to know more. So was my Explorer Class. The Explorer class wanted to find out where all this came from.

  I didn’t go further. I picked one of the larger mushrooms off the wall to examine closely. Something tickled my Olfactory Senses, and I used Extract impurities to clear my lungs. The mushrooms gave off spores. I am not sure what they did, but spores are usually there to spread the fungus. Sometimes they are also poisonous.

  I slowly increased my Solar Bloom into the Visible realm. The fungi I was holding shrivelled quickly, and the smaller ones in the tunnel started to wilt. The larger ones that were still planted were more resistant.

  Something was tugging at my memory. Some mushrooms are flammable. If I practice my flame here, I could set the whole area on fire. That was not a problem, except for my gear. The problem was that the mushrooms catching fire would burn up all the oxygen, and I still needed to breathe.

  I collected some samples and backed away. I would try one of the other tunnels.

  The next tunnel was not so long and ended in a larger excavation. It was closer to the surface than I liked, but it would do.

  The heat was coming in waves from the excavation and the molten rock, but when I finally got a consistent flame about he size of a campfire, the skill Solar Flame slotted into place. I didn’t think I had much control, but maybe that is the nature of fire that burns in the void.

  I still haven’t created my modified Revitalise skill.

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