He was still mimicking children.
They had energy, sure, but not refinement. No subtlety. And fire, he realized, wasn't just rage. It was control.
So he shifted his focus — no longer chasing flame for its fury, but for its finesse..
The blacksmith down the street, Master Jaku, wasn't a firebending teacher — but he was a bender. Alec began spending his late afternoons sweeping in front of the Ember Leaf, always coincidentally when Jaku stoked his forge.
And he watched.
Jaku didn't strike with flames rather he coaxed them. Shaped them. He'd adjust the heat of the fire by turning his palm a degree clockwise. Pull it back by narrowing his fingers. Sometimes he'd pause, stare at a glowing blade, then send a sharp puff of flame not to melt, but to temper.
That was bending.
Alec began copying these movements late at night.
Steady. Intentional. With breath.
The flames in the kitchen responded better than the candle ever had. He could nudge them now — strengthen or soften them depending on his posture.
[Firebending – Level 2 (416/500)]
He kept going.
Once, he passed by a traveling circus performing near the outer marketplace. A fire-dancer performed with twin spirals of flame, using her chi to balance the flow in both hands.
Alec stood in the crowd, unmoving. Listening. Feeling.
She twirled and with a sharp stomp of her heel, split her fire streams apart, rejoining them with a flick of her wrist and a hiss of control.
Later that night, Alec tried the same split motion behind the teahouse. He couldn't split the flame fully. But he did manage to hold two low-burning flickers for half a second longer than usual.
[Firebending – Level 3 (84/1000)]
It was slow.
But it was real.
He studied more. Rhoen didn't know his quiet steps near the charcoal brazier were more than idle curiosity. Alec paid close attention to how the man layered coals, how he redirected air with a folded fan to control the burn.
He began thinking in terms of temperature.
Theory bloomed.
Anger raises heat. - Focus sharpens the flame. - Breath controls the output. -Posture aligns the current.
He realized that even emotion had layers. Righteous fury burned differently from selfish rage. And fire responded to both, but not equally.
With each revelation, the System updated silently, steadily.
He experimented next with movement — leaping forms, one-legged balances, rotating kicks. He learned that fire didn't always need fists. Sometimes, the heel of a grounded stance produced more power than a spinning arc.
In six months, he had gone from flickering candles… to igniting kitchen hearths.
From basic sparks… to slow, controlled flares.
[Firebending – Level 4 (2405/10000)]
He still wasn't a match for any true bender. His fire was modest. More like a whisper than a roar. But it was steady. Real. Gained through grit and study and flow.
And for someone once blind to this world, now learning to shape a flame with unseen hands?
Alec stood alone in the teahouse's back courtyard, long after the lanterns had dimmed and the last guest's footsteps had faded. The air was still, the moon veiled by drifting smoke.
His fan hung loosely from his wrist - an old habit now almost part of him.
The night had been frustrating. His progress had slowed. Normal firebenders roared, flared, blasted. But Alec's fire had never come like that. It wasn't loud. It didn't crash like Rhoen's kindling in the hearth. It listened. And it waited.
He exhaled.
His system had nudged him twice tonight — little pulses behind the eyes, telling him his energy was misaligned. That he was trying to force what should be fluid.
So he let go. Let the ember resonate.
Then, instinct guided his arm. A flick of the wrist, fan closed. His other hand angled behind him. No fire sparked — not the kind anyone could see.
But the air in front of him warped slightly. Barely. Heat shimmered in a whip-like motion, slicing the space clean.
A nearby hanging cloth tore.
Alec's breath caught. He hadn't touched it.
Then, in his mind:
[New Technique Formed: Blinding Lash — Level 1 (0/100)][Category: Precision OffensiveAffinity Match Detected: Fan + Resonance + Firebending Lv3Description: Flame sharpened to silence. Heat shaped to precision. Lethality hidden in stillness.]
He stood motionless.
His fan vibrated faintly in his grip — a hum of agreement.
"…That wasn't normal," he whispered.
Not a fireball. Not a wave. Something cut. A lash of thermal distortion so fine, it didn't even leave smoke.
The cloth hadn't burned. It had been sliced and cauterized so clean it didn't fray.
And when he repeated the motion but slower this time, more deliberate . He felt the resonance ripple again. Not just through his arm, but through the air.
Then, as he imagined a face, a throat, a line of movement — he felt what could happen. What it would do.
It could blind. It could silence. It didn't need to explode. It just had to touch.
This… was his.
As he trained in secret, the Lash refined.
He learned to curve it slightly — to flick around corners.
He learned it was invisible in daylight unless the air was humid.
He learned how to silence birds mid-flight by snapping the air just near them , Ofcourse not harming them, just shifting the pressure.
And one night, while defending the storage room from a drunk soldier who broke in — Alec whispered once, snapped his fan, and watched the man drop with a seared cheek and no voice left to shout.
The next morning, the man remembered nothing but heat and breathlessness. Alec said nothing.
But in his mind, the system chimed softly:
[Blinding Lash – Level 2 (37/100)]→ Resonance Bonus Unlocked: Enemies struck become 10% more vulnerable to all heat-based attacks for 5 seconds.
He didn't tell Linya or Rhoen.
Some things weren't meant for daylight.
This wasn't just a move. It was his answer — to blindness, to weakness, to being cornered. Fire didn't have to be seen to be felt.
And Alec… was now the kind of fire that struck without warning.