It will be a new week tomorrow so I want to give everyone a head start for the bonus chapter goals!
The objectives is to try to break into the power ranking, so we are collecting powerstones. I want us to break into the low 200s so let's go for it!
1st bonus chapter: 120 powerstones
2nd bonus chapter: 200 powerstones
3rd bonus chapter: 250 powerstones
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Weeks passed in this rhythm. Mornings were discipline, afternoons were experimentation. Soon Moqorro started teaching him what was the rare signature of an adept. Not many really achieved this but the man had high hopes for him.
It was called fire body elementalization, the rare mastery of aligning one's flesh, blood, and soul so completely with fire that the flame became part of the body itself. Only the most gifted could attempt it, and even fewer survived the first trials.
Jon approached it with the same unassuming intensity he brought to everything. He began with meditation in chambers heated to unnatural extremes, where braziers flared and lava vents hissed. Moqorro instructed him to feel the fire not as an outside force, but as a pulse that ran through every vein, every sinew, every breath. The exercises were grueling; acolytes would have collapsed under the oppressive heat, skin blistering, lungs burning. Jon, however, walked through them as if the fire were a river he could wade into, warm but harmless, obedient to his will.
He continued working in the laboratories, where experiments grew ever more daring. He learned to temper fire within metals, coaxing them into impossible alloys and shapes that retained the heat of the forge without consuming it. Liquids that normally boiled and evaporated under even a flicker of flame instead held their form, warmed but unbroken, as if fire respected Jon's presence. He combined powders, enchanted oils, and rare minerals to produce controlled reactions that could either shield or annihilate, always observing, adjusting, refining.
Jon's progress was rapid because the fire responded to him instinctively. He did not yet know that this was no ordinary talent. In moments of concentration, sparks would dance along his veins, embers would cling to his skin and the air around him shimmered with heat that seemed to breathe with him.
The next stage was integration. Jon learned to move with the fire, not just around it, and to sense its currents like a second heartbeat. His footsteps left trails of warmth; his gestures could summon precise bursts of flame that obeyed thought alone. Moqorro introduced exercises that blended endurance, agility, and fire control as Jon would leap through walls of flame, extinguish them in midair, or let fire crawl over his body as if it were water flowing across a stone. It was dangerous, even terrifying, but Jon endured, his nature amplifying his resilience beyond what many could achieve.
Then the exercises grew more extreme. Moqorro showed him how to become one with the flame, to let it become not only a tool but part of his essence. He practiced walking through lava vents and sitting on it and meditating for hours as the magma cascaded down like waterfall upon him. Other acolytes would have burnt to a crisp with even adepts struggling to do this as they risked exhaustion or injury, but Jon's body absorbed the energy almost as if it belonged to him, and even Moqorro, who had spent decades mastering these arts, found himself in awe.
Subtle signs of something more emerged. His eyes would flicker into the slits of some ancient beast as the flames appeared before him and he radiated the aura of a greater predator which even had the old fire bird trembling.
The days of meditation, experimentation, and disciplined endurance had brought Jon to a point few Red Priests even imagined possible. Moqorro had tested him endlessly, pushing him through chambers of molten rock, rivers of flame, and cauldrons of living fire. Yet every trial, every test, seemed only to awaken something deeper within him.
Jon's transformation into the living flame did not happen all at once. It was a slow, unfolding journey, each stage revealing a deeper connection to fire, each lesson opening the door to something more profound.
At first, it began with his hair, one day it seem to catch on fire and he ran around in a panic until Moqorro smiled at him and told him to calm down. Slowly touching it, his hair was no longer hair at all but a living crown of fire, moving and dancing as if it had a mind of its own, ever responsive to his moods and thoughts. For the first time, Jon understood that he was no longer a man wielding fire, he had become fire incarnate.
Still the transformative stage of elementalization was terrifying in its demands. Jon's body became a conduit; his blood, lungs, and skin began to resonate with flame energy. He felt every molecule in his body vibrate in harmony with the fire around him. The sensation was intoxicating and exhausting: a constant surge of heat, life, and awareness, like living inside a furnace while retaining perfect clarity of mind.
The process continued until his entire body shone like a living sun. His movements left faint trails of heat in the air; every gesture sparked light, every breath sent embers drifting like fireflies.
Finally, the culmination of his training arrived. In a ceremony both terrifying and exhilarating, Jon allowed the final stage of elementalization to take hold. He let the fire fuse completely with his flesh, blood, and spirit, surrendering his physical form to the energy that had always sung within him. His body ignited from within, with destructive force that ate away at everything.
Jon just let go completly, the physical world faded, leaving only the pulse of heat, the rhythm of flame, and the infinite energy of fire. He no longer felt the weight of flesh, the boundaries of bone, or the limits of time. His consciousness drifted far away as he was everywhere and nowhere.
At first, he saw fire as it had first come into being: the spark in primordial chaos, the heat that stirred the first molecules, the energy that split darkness and began the dance of creation. He sensed the slow burn in the core of worlds forming, the molten veins of planet, and the flickering sparks of the stars. Fire was not just light or warmth, it was life itself, a pulse that ran through the cosmos, unyielding and eternal.
He followed the flames as they spread across the newborn world, leaping from the lightning that struck dry forests to the first sparks humans would call hearths. He saw civilizations rise and fall by the fire's mercy: flames that brought warmth, cooked food, forged tools, and drove away darkness; flames that consumed forests, leveled cities, and tested the hearts of mortals. Every ember, every spark, every conflagration was part of the same current, and he was now a thread woven into it.
Jon watched the fires of ancient rituals, priests invoking gods through smoke and heat, sacrifices that called to the divine through flame. He felt the devotion, the fear, the awe of every soul who had touched fire with reverence. He sensed the fire in their hearts, the small yet eternal blaze of life mirrored in the great element itself. He understood then that fire was both destroyer and sustainer, adversary and ally, and that to wield it was to embody its contradictions.
Gradually, the vision contracted, pulling him back toward the material plane, yet the unity remained. He returned to himself, to the world of stone, air, and water but he was different. The fire was no longer something he wielded; it was him, and he was it. His presence radiated the eternal warmth, a pulse that could ignite or calm, create or consume, with a thought.
He opened his eyes to see the mundane world, but nothing looked ordinary. Every flame, every ember, every breath of warmth was a thread in which he could see his own reflection. He could extend himself into it at will, but he no longer needed to, he carried the essence of fire in his very being.
His reflection in the polished metal of the lab walls seemed almost unreal, he looked like a living star, a being forged from pure light and heat.
Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/378654281193670084/
Moqorro stood before him and behind him were the other researchers in the lab, "Well done child," he smiled. "You have done it. You are an adept of the flames. A true Red Priest now."
Jon could not believe what he was hearing, he was a adept… that was not possible. It took him a few years under the children of the forest to reach that rank in nature magic.
He watched as Oro, the braavosi right hand man of Moqorro give his teacher some gold coins. The old man smiled as he took the money, clearly the two of them were betting if he would reach this rank so soon.
"What do you mean," Jon asked and his voice came out strange like the echo of a distant flame.
Moqorro's eyes glinted, a mix of pride and amusement in their depths. "I mean exactly what I said, Jon. You are the fastest person in recorded history to reach the rank of adept in fire magic. I do not think there is any mentions anywhere someone advancing as fast as you. If I hadn't known I would have thought you were the prince-that-was-promised."
Hearing that name mentioned, many of the priests muttered a prayer in reverence. Jon felt a strange shiver run through him at the mention of that title, though it wasn't fear more a strange recognition, like a chord struck deep in his soul.
"How is that possible," he muttered, his voice not entirely his; it carried a vibration, a subtle undercurrent of fire itself.
Moqorro leaned closer, his voice low but intense. "Fire body elementalization is not some apostles level spell, it was a great spell. An adept level spell you mastered."
"And not just any regular spell," Oro mentioned in a bit of awe. "It was a spell we uncovered from the ruins of Valyria. You've awakened something that has lain dormant in Valyria's lost teachings for centuries. The Investiture of Flame, the fusion of self and fire its a spell so perilous, so exacting, that none have survived it… until now. And you, Jon, you have not only survived; you have become it."
"You have done the impossible my boy," the old man laughed. "I think some of my great teachings must be credited to his but you are indeed a very special child."
Oro's expression was unreadable, but his eyes held a spark of respect. "Moqorro was wise to bet on you, though I did not think… that it would happen or if it did this fast. He's… different," he said quietly, almost as if speaking the truth too loudly could shatter it.
Moqorro nodded, satisfied. "Different indeed. I believe it is time you are properly welcomed into the ranks of the high ecclesiarchy."
Jon coughed awkwardly into his flaming hands, "...So how do I turn this off?"
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Jon rode in a carriage alongside his master, the Black Flame towards the city. It has been two years now since he was in the city proper of Volantis, his time outside spent in training and going through harsh trials having changed him in ways even he struggled to describe.
It had taken him another year to even reach the First Daughter making it over three years now since he was home in the North. He felt a small ache in his heart thinking about the North and his family. Most likely now the war was starting with King Robert dead.
Looking at himself he had changed. Not just in skill, though his mastery over fire had surpassed anything Moqorro had seen in decades. Where once he had been a boy of the North, quiet and watchful, he now carried himself like a living inferno, a force both dangerous and serene. His eyes reflected the pulse of the flame within him, the faint glimmer of fire dancing beneath the irises.
Jon was dressed in some high regalia of the Red Faith since he was now a proper priest of the religion. His robes were a deep crimson, woven from the finest silks from Volantis and dyed with rare fireroot extract, a pigment that seemed to shimmer and shift as though tiny embers moved within the threads. Gold filaments were stitched in intricate, flowing patterns along the hems and cuffs, curling like dancing flames licking the air.
The designs were not merely decorative; they were sigils and wards, subtle enchantments woven into the very fabric to channel and focus the wielder's fire. Across his chest gleamed the iron-branded sigil of the Lord of Light, a flaming sunburst set into blackened iron.
His shoulder pauldrons were sculpted to resemble wings of fire, carved from a rare alloy found only in the volcanic hills outside Volantis. A belt of crimson leather, studded with gold and inset with small gemstones that glimmered like molten droplets, encircled his waist. From it hung several chains, each bearing small, enchanted charms: tiny braziers that flickered with a flame that never went out, miniature sigils of protection, and amulets that carried the faint warmth of distant volcanic vents. Each one was a token of his devotion and a channel for the fire within him.
Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/15903404930707008/
His boots were soft yet armored, dyed crimson and inlaid with protective sigils that allowed him to walk over coals, lava, or heated stone. Jon's regalia included a long cloak of deep black lined with crimson fire-thread. The cloak seemed heavier than it was, the fabric imbued with magic that allowed it to ripple and shimmer as though it contained an inner flame.
Jon had no idea why he was given all this, Moqorro said this is what the Red Priest wore but he has seen his teachers in the Flame Hall and Azula clothing, and they had nothing close to this. It was like he was the prince of flame of the faith.
Coming upon the city, Volantis rose like a sprawling great beast forged by gods of fire and stone. Even before the carriage reached the towering walls, Jon could see the city's vast expanse unfurling across the horizon, a tapestry of copper domes, marble terraces, and crimson-bricked avenues, crowned by towers that glimmered like metal under the morning sun.
Approaching the gates, the walls themselves were monumental with countless guards walking it battlements. Flags of deep violet and crimson snapped in the wind atop every turret, and in the streets below, smoke spiraled from countless braziers and chimneys, giving the city a constant, living glow.
Beyond the gates, Volantis spread in tiers, rising from the harbor like a sun-bleached mountain city. The lower districts were a maze of bustling wharves, markets, and canals, where ships with crimson sails floated in shimmering waters that reflected the fiery morning sun. The air smelled faintly of spices, smoke, and metal; the signature scent of a city that thrived on fire, commerce, and craft.
The city looked the same at first glance: the red brick towers glinting in the sun, the distant hum of market cries, the aroma of salt and soot from the harbor mingling with the pungent tang of spices and smoke. Yet to Jon, everything seemed muted, almost small. The cobblestones seemed cooler under his boots than they should, the flames of street torches duller, the air thinner than the heat that now flowed through him.
Moqorro, sitting across from him, studied the city with a mixture of nostalgia and detached calculation. "It has been many years since I walked these streets," he murmured, his voice low, gravelly, and threaded with amusement. "Volantis grows, yet it does not. The foundations remain, as stubborn as the bloodlines that hold them. Some things are eternal, Jon. Others… less so."
Jon glanced at him, curiosity peaked. He knew who the old man was talking about, the Old Bloods. The rivalry between the Faith and the Old Bloods was getting worse and worse everyday and year. He wondered when violence would spill out into the streets.
The carriage lurched around a bend, the harbor falling away to the left, revealing the distant spires of the merchant district. Jon felt a sudden prickle like a thousand sparks igniting along his nerves, the fire within him recoiling as though it recognized a greater flame. The sensation pressed against him, heavy, tangible, as if the air itself had thickened.
It was a sensation both terrifying and oppressive. He had felt power before, but this was something older, broader, infinitely deeper. He could feel it in the marrow of his bones, he would be crushed like a little ant if he came before them.
Moqorro waved his hand, pushing back the oppressive feeling from the cabinet with none of the people outside none the wiser. Moqorro's lips curled into a faint smile. "Someone is… displeased by our arrival," he said, voice almost casual, yet threaded with a dark amusement.
"Who was that," he asked in pants as he did not know when he started sweating buckets. He felt like a little once again, like he could do nothing as his flame could be snuffed out.
"That, Jon, is Lord Thaloros Maegyr. The head of the oldest Old Blood family and the most dangerous man in the city. He basically runs this place."
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