'As expected,' Alex thought with a small smile.
As he had told Amelia, he already knew who was going to win. The bandit woman was certainly stronger than Maya in terms of physical strength, but if physical power alone determined the outcome of a fight, Alex and the other members of his branch wouldn't have been so thoroughly defeated by Lilia.
Fighting style and strategy were just as crucial as brute strength, and in those areas, Maya was clearly superior to this woman. Although Maya lacked experience, her technique and adaptability allowed her to overcome opponents stronger than herself. In fact, if Alex had been at her level, Maya might have even managed to put some pressure on him during their sparring sessions.
What even Alex hadn't predicted was that Maya would emerge from the fight completely unscathed. Aside from the slight sheen of sweat on her face, there was no indication that she had just fought someone more than a tier above her, proving that despite her initial hesitation, she was more than capable of handling her opponent.
Alex's surprise didn't end there though. After pausing to catch her breath, Maya turned in his direction and requested to fight another bandit.
Alex blinked in surprise before nodding. Scanning the group of captured bandits, his gaze landed on another woman who was at the high tier of level 1, and he instructed Amelia to release her. After offering her the same deal as the previous opponent, the fight began in earnest.
As Maya and the new bandit squared off, Alex refocused his attention on Daisy.
"Can you increase the heat?" he asked.
"Yes, but it won't last long, and afterward, I won't be able to do the same until I absorb more heat again," Daisy explained, a hint of strain in her voice.
Alex nodded, understanding her limitations, and instructed her to go ahead.
Focusing intently, Daisy released all the remaining heat she had stored into the air, then concentrated it toward the ball of smoke, which was now larger than before.
As the heat intensified, the solidification of the smoke ball continued. However, Alex didn't want it to fully solidify just yet.
What he hadn't anticipated was that it would be much harder than he thought to keep the smoke in its gaseous state. However, he managed to do so by increasing the size of the ball; as more heat was absorbed, the smoke expanded and its density increased. By allowing the ball to grow larger, he maintained its gaseous form despite the rising temperatures.
Once the smoke ball grew to be as large as Alex himself, Daisy could no longer channel any more heat. She gasped for breath, her skin glistening with a cold sweat. Her lips turned a faint shade of blue, a sign that her body temperature was dropping dangerously low—a classic symptom of early hypothermia.
This sudden change quickly caught Alex's attention. He allowed the smoke encasing his arm to retract and placed a hand on the gasping girl, immediately noticing how cold she felt to the touch. He knew that she wouldn't die from this, but she was clearly suffering. Although he had asked for her help, he hadn't expected her to push herself to this extent. There was no obvious reason for her to go so far—at least, none that he was aware of.
A pang of guilt flashed through him, but it didn't last long.
Alex sharply raised his head to face the massive ball of smoke, which was subtly shifting in color.
'It's losing its attributes,' Alex realized. The smoke's various properties were still present for now, but he could tell that, given more time, they would dissipate completely.
For the moment, he ignored Daisy and focused on the ball of smoke, willing it to shrink. That's when he encountered an unexpected resistance.
Since becoming the smoke sovereign, Alex had never experienced pushback when using his abilities; the smoke always obeyed him effortlessly, like a shadow moving in perfect sync with its caster.
However, for the first time, he felt genuine resistance, as if the smoke had taken on a will of its own.
Rather than being deterred, Alex felt a thrill at this new challenge. He channeled his mana into the ball of smoke, strengthening their connection, and then commanded it to shrink.
To his surprise, it took more than half a minute and an unusually large amount of mana before the smoke began to compress.
The more it shrank, the harder it became to continue reducing its size. Simultaneously, as the ball shrunk, it began to glow with an intense orange hue, reminiscent of molten steel. Alex could feel the various attributes of his original smoke—such as its healing attribute—disappearing one by one, until none remained.
Once the attributes were gone, Alex managed to reduce the ball of smoke back to its initial size. But when he attempted to compress it further, he encountered yet another barrier.
The smoke ball, which he had worked so hard to keep in its gaseous state, suddenly solidified. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't revert it to gas—unless he increased the ball's size again.
After a few more futile attempts, Alex abandoned that endeavor and focused on compressing the smoke further.
This process was mentally exhausting, but he was determined.
Meanwhile, Maya had defeated her second opponent and realizing that Alex was too focused on his task to notice, she turned to Amelia and asked her to release another captive. Without waiting for further instructions, Maya engaged in another bout, demonstrating her growing confidence and combat skills.
After what felt like an eternity and using more mana than he had anticipated, Alex succeeded in shrinking the hardened ball of smoke to a size small enough to fit in his hand. However, as he tried to compress it further, another change took place.
The ball of smoke began to lose its form, gradually melting into a liquid state.
Even more surprising, Alex found that he could still control this liquefied substance!
'It seems that the more I compress it, the hotter the internal heat becomes, eventually reaching a point where the smoke essentially melts,' Alex deduced.
To both his and Daisy's shock, who had managed to recover somewhat, not a single trace of heat escaped the ball of smoke. The heat within was so intense that it was practically melting the smoke itself, yet there was no warmth detectable in the immediate surroundings. The contained heat was so concentrated and insulated that it created a perfect barrier, keeping every bit of energy trapped inside.
'I feel that I can turn it outward though,' Alex mused mentally.
Although controlling the smoke had become increasingly challenging, releasing the trapped heat outward seemed as simple as flipping a switch for Alex. He suspected that doing so might even make controlling the smoke easier, reducing the effort required by several notches.
'Not for now, though,' Alex said as he refocused. He continued to shrink the smoke—well, at this point, it wouldn't be right to call it shrinking; it had stopped shrinking long ago. Now what he was doing was compressing the heat energy further and further into the smoke, intensifying its density and energy to extreme levels.
Moments later, the smoke had fully liquefied, and a globule of molten smoke hovered in front of Alex and the still-stunned Daisy. It was at this point that he decided to allow the heat contained in the smoke to radiate outward.
That turned out to be a grave mistake on Alex's part. As soon as he did so, both he and Daisy were hit with an unbearable wave of scorching heat.
Alex's smoke armor immediately began to thicken, absorbing and radiating heat. Had he not swiftly eliminated the explosive attribute from his armor, it would have likely detonated right then and there.
Daisy, however, was not as quick to react. Although her ability allowed her to absorb heat, the sheer intensity radiating from the molten smoke was overwhelming. The sharp sizzle of burning flesh echoed around them as her skin began to blister and char. Fortunately for her, her bloodline kicked in at that moment, dulling the pain and minimizing the damage.
Instead of seizing this chance to move away though, Daisy closed her eyes and began to focus on absorbing as much heat as possible. It turned out to be quite difficult, especially with her bloodline interfering, but she pressed on with determined focus.
Meanwhile, Alex stabilized his armor by creating a dense mana barrier around his body, designed specifically to repel the intense heat.
Due to the intense thermal energy emanating from the molten smoke, the snow surrounding Alex within a ten-meter radius melted rapidly, and the resulting water quickly turned into steam.
'It's giving off even more heat than it initially absorbed,' Alex realized, concentrating on the molten smoke, 'I must admit, the synergy between smoke and heat is remarkable,' he reflected after a moment of consideration.
Given the way elements interact in this world, there is a synergistic balance between different elements. For instance, the fire element pairs well with wind but clashes with water.
At this point, the sharpest might wonder why speaking of a synergetic balance between elements when referring to heat and smoke. The answer to that is that in this world, just as smoke is considered an element, heat is also considered an element. It's just more conceptual.
And as Alex had discovered from reading the books Lilia provided, heat, much like smoke, was also classified as a lower-tier elemental ability.
'Should I attempt to acquire the heat element as well?'