47th of Season of Fire, 56th year of the 32nd imperial era

Newt closed his eyes and tried to focus on his mindcore, the mind's eye. He willed himself to observe the world through his glabella, but darkness surrounded him, with lava gurgling and bubbling in the background.

I don't feel anything. The youth sighed and plopped down on his butt, watching the lava gush to form a volcano several hundred feet away from him.

Relax. Close your eyes and try again.

He did. Again and again, growing more irritated with each failed attempt.

I saw it form. I know I have it. But what if I don't? My forehead burned with pain, just like my heart, but I only grabbed the lower orb. Maybe I'm just a knight.

Newt shuddered at the thought, his heart beating faster. His entire lineage had fallen low since its founding days, but even if they weren't mageknights, they at least remained mages, while knights got demoted into branch families and trusted advisors. But if he really was a mageknight, first in the Salamandra family since Blaze II, it could be a monumental change for the family. Assuming Newt could save his family from the tyrant's grip.

With renewed motivation, he focused. Blood rushed through his neck so fast, he heard the throbbing, and his vision spun. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, failing miserably. The possibility of being a knight scared him enough that he was close to falling apart.

"Even with a magma dragon's core, you are still trash," his uncle's voice whispered poison into his ear.

Newt's heart moved from canter to full gallop. His head started hurting as he grit his teeth, trying to will the migraine away or plow through it. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the pain only burned stronger. A crack boomed in his ears, blood gushed out of his nose, and Newt's black world transformed.

The darkness behind his eyelids became a swirl of colors. They ranged from nearly yellow orange to a violet that was a drop of red away from blue, from an almost white pink to an almost black color of blood. The ground pulsed with yellows and browns of all shades, and the jet of lava in the distance was an ever-flowing upward pillar which blended the colors.

How did I do this? Newt could see with his eyes closed, and when he reached for his forehead, he saw his fingers as vibrant red outlines with earthen brown hidden beneath.

He winced in pain and jerked his hand back the moment he touched his cracked glabella. The mind's eye was extremely sensitive. And in the brief instant of contact, Newt's fingers told him he was touching something firm and smooth, like glass, rather than a squishy, slimy eyeball.

"Strange," he muttered, then kept watching his realm, his eyes still closed. There were no solid edges, no definite lines separating objects. Even his hand seemed to evaporate and draw vapor from the air at the same time, ever flowing, ever shifting.

This will take some getting used to. He drew a deep breath to calm the queasiness in his stomach, then opened his eyes.

The familiar sight of his realm shuddered, then merged with the foggy vision of his mind's eye. Together, they blended into what humans might normally perceive, but with an added caveat of visible flows of energy. The most obvious one was the fountaining lava.

Some fire energy escaped into the air, while the mostly earth energy crashed down into the pool. Fire was still the dominant element close to the source, but towards the edges of the pool, earth started to prevail as fire had drifted up into the air, until fire was almost completely gone and lava grew into a solid ring of volcanic rock.

Newt stared at lava's bank, wondering what would happen if he punched a fist-sized hole in it.

Would it gush out or stay the same?

Several seconds after the question cropped up, an invisible force pierced the solid ring. Lava oozed out, viscous like honey, dribbling several small chunks to the ground before cooling and sealing the hole once more.

Neat!

Without waiting a second, Newt focused on the gentle slopes several yards away from him. He imagined the tall pines from Magmin's realm, but nothing happened.

The nothingness persisted a dozen heartbeats, with Newt concentrating all the while, until suddenly a finger-thin spike grew from the ground. The geyser of lava diminished, reduced to half its height, growing weaker still as the thin stake reached ten feet in height. The construct wobbled, still rising, then it snapped and collapsed to the side.

Newt panted, sweat streaming down his face.

"You will never succeed. You're a failure," his uncle's voice whispered a curse.

"Oh, shut up, Victor," the youth grumbled and tried again, and again, and again. The whispers, taunts, and insults were distracting, and Newt dared not imagine how difficult the work would be once those incorporeal voices became corporeal. Still, he made good progress, making his fire-earth trees thicker and taller with each attempt.

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There were two problems, though. Each of them crumbled back to dust as soon as Newt stopped concentrating, and the heart demons were really getting on Newt's nerves.

I'll have to destroy these things the instant they manifest.

"You will never beat me, former young master," Newt's old sparring partner said. "Let alone the new master. He has defeated your father in honorable combat, and you are but a pale shadow of a once great man."

"Shut up," Newt screamed, the heart demon having struck a nerve. "That traitorous snake didn't even dare fight my father, using me as a hostage instead."

Newt panted, but the servant and his uncle guffawed, roaring in mocking laughter.

"Laugh all you want. I will destroy you here, and I will beat you in the real world as well. Once I'm done, I'll turn you into charcoal."

The heart demons kept laughing, and Newt struggled to ignore them and focused on the task at hand.

The lava pool grew wider and taller, reaching a thousand yards in diameter, slowly solidifying into a cone as it finally encompassed the entirety of the first layer. Just like Magmin had said, there was no need for Newt to focus on drawing mana. The entire process was natural and self-sustaining. The only problem was that Newt didn't know how to stop the crater's expansion once it covered the entirety of his second layer.

Newt could still ignore the problem, but that would change in the next several days.

Temporarily abandoning the issue, Newt resumed his work.

The new fire-earth tree grew, reaching two hundred feet, its crown massive, but Magmin's creations were larger and more impressive than Newt's attempts. The youth had trouble breathing. Sweat streamed down his face and back. He sat and wiped his face, looking at what was his masterpiece and failure at the same time. At least it had grown massive enough to stand without him supporting it. Then, Newt willed it to crumble.

What can I do better? Newt's mind's eye traced the shower of earth energy falling to the ground, while the tree's fiery heart escaped into the air.

The slope greedily devoured the debris; their earth and remnant fire energies absorbed fully to fuel the greedy mountain's growth.

"I'm tired. I need a break."

Newt slumped on his back, rising a cloud of dark dust. He looked up. The black sky above showed a hint of red. It was nowhere near Magmin's sweltering realm. The air was barely warm, and the ground had cooled slightly, the heat concentrating into the air and the bubbling lava pit, starting to separate earth and fire elements.

Wait, Newt suddenly realized something which should have been obvious from the start. Magma dragon had a dual element core. Magmin should have earth abilities, not just fire-based ones.

He lay on his back, scratching his scalp through the messy, long hair.

That ability must be good enough that Magmin is afraid I could tip the scales with it, or at least give me a fighting chance, if it exhausts itself fighting the sharpbeak. Whatever the case, I need to learn it. It could be the difference between life and death when I confront Uncle Victor.

He just breathed, staring into shimmering nothingness above, splotches of warm red dancing in the ice of the void.

How do I trick him into teaching me?

Newt pondered, minutes trickling by, yet he found no answer.

"I'm tired." He yawned. "I should sleep."

With that, he snapped out of meditation and yawned for real in Magmin's realm.

"Did you make any progress? It's been three days." Magmin's nervousness was palpable, the very air pushing Newt down. "The sharpbeak shrieked and circled around us for almost a full day before going elsewhere to hunt for food."

The youth took a moment to realize it was the ceiling pressing down on him, not the atmosphere. The space seemed to have grown tighter.

"Could you make the cave a little bigger?" He finally understood that Magmin had full control over his realm, and with a bit of time, he could make minor adjustments.

Newt expected the ceiling would go up, but the cavern floor slowly sank until he could sit comfortably.

"Progress?" Magmin hissed.

"I have made good progress. My fire-earth trees are tall and strong, but for some reason, they aren't quite where I want them." Newt gulped. When he said it like that, the trees didn't sound that strong, otherwise he would've been satisfied.

The realization made him stutter. "I'm sure I'll figure it out soon. I just need to rest a bit and recover."

"Rest?" Magmin hissed. "We are in a hurry. We need to defeat that sharpbeak so I can make a perfect advancement."

"I just need several hours to sleep on the problem," Newt said, then finding a proper excuse.

"What's there to think? Just make them, and make sure you're in your realm when the crater covers the entirety of your second layer, so you can will it to stop. Now, hurry." Magmin glared at Newt with a mad glint in his eye.

Newt would have jumped with joy, if he wasn't dead tired and trapped in a claustrophobic crack in the ground. Magmin had answered his question even before he asked it, while revealing groundbreaking information. He could shape his realm even while he wasn't meditating.

"Yes, thank you, Teacher. I will do it right away." Seeing a chance, Newt pushed his luck. "And could you gather enough gems for me to reach the sixth layer?"

"Sixth?" Magmin hissed, Newt catching the fury in the snake's voice. That exceeded the deal they had previously made. "Why sixth?"

"We agreed you would teach me Magmin Flames, right? Those also need energy." And speaking of energy, Newt had an idea. He opened his mind's eye to test it. There was no pain, no physical change, but instead of a dark cave, he found himself in a swirl of earth mana, and a blazing serpent of fire and earth staring at him. Newt could not see Magmin's eyes, but he guessed the serpent's vertical pupils were as thin as hairs as it stared murder at him.

"Fine. Do you know how many gems I will have to gather while watching out for the sharpbeak? It will take days. Days!" the serpent hissed, its body swaying.

"That will give me enough time to figure out how to create proper fire-earth trees, or maybe I should call them Magmin Pines? Since you're the genius who invented them."

The compliment mollified the simple serpent. Still, Magmin snorted before turning around and facing the exit.

"I will gather what you need. I expect your current realm will be solid by the time I have collected them all." Magmin started slithering away, grumbling aloud, "Four hundred and ninety, I need to gather four hundred and ninety gems for a cursed amphibian."

The number didn't seem right to Newt. Reaching the sixth layer should take around sixty to seventy manarium crystals, but he couldn't think about it, and yet for some reason reaching the third took several dozen, so maybe Magmin's numbers were fine. Exhausted, Newt drifted to sleep even before the serpent stopped at the cave entrance and eyed the sky with suspicion.

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