"Don't be overly confused; this is nothing unusual," Alec sensed the smile curling at Lana's lips as she said that.
Knowing his part perfectly, his jaws dropped, relishing the moment as if it were truly his first time witnessing lava in a building.
Alec didn't miss a beat and piled a few questions on top of her, "What's with the lava? How did you make the heat stop?"
Lana walked a few more steps and took a seat in her chair. Alec followed and sat in the chair opposite hers. His gaze followed her figure, arriving at her sharp ruby eyes as she got comfortable and rested her elbows on the desk. Hands cupped together, used as a pedestal to support her chin, Lana sighed.
"Everything you've seen so far tells you one thing and one thing only: I am what we call a Soulburner, Alec," Lana said, stretching her hand forward.
A bright red flame burst alive from the tip of her finger. It was pure crimson in color, unnatural in its form, and felt surprisingly warm.
Flicking her finger, the flame flew into the lava at her left. Something odd happened, well, at least odd for the young character Alec played. The scathing hot pools of lava got burnt to a crisp by the ball of crimson flame. Whether it was truly burnt, or the flame itself siphoned the heat from it, was difficult to tell on his part.
"You are like me, a Soulburner too. And I can tell you recently awakened," said Lana, "It was most likely an overwhelming experience. Most likely resulting in someone else's death. It explains why you were dressed in expensive clothes yesterday, even though they were torn up."
For a moment, fear flashed through Alec's eyes when she mentioned Soulburner. He thought he had kept that bit secret enough.
How did she know? He didn't exactly tell her himself, now did he? Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, he slowly relaxed when Lana revealed herself to be a Soulburner as well. Lana went on to explain things he knew, probably more in-depth than her.
Soulburners could be said to be Heaven's official blessing or curse, depending on which angle you looked at it. Lana called it a blessing. But Alec knew the truth; the Neon Conglomerate taught him. Soulburners were a curse, slowly stealing from the Dao as they made themselves stronger.
A being was never meant to be born with the ability to influence an aspect of the Dao as a mere mortal. And Soulburners did the impossible. And in turn, they destroyed the balance of Heaven.
Soulburners, if they ever awakened, received a Soul curse, one that allowed them to manipulate one aspect of reality at the price of burning their soul. The longer they used the ability, the quicker their soul burned, and if they didn't stop, they could experience existence erasure.
Hence, it was called a curse. Each soul curse was vastly unique in some way, shape, or form, but there was a common theme between them.
It was divided into three main categories: Soulweaving, Soulthreading, and Soulhumming. And each ability gained under that umbrella was ranked from F to SSS+, in order of raw power or danger.
Each ability tended to start at the F rank and grew and evolved as the Soulburner grew in strength. By the time they reached the 11th Tier, the ability would evolve to the A rank. Only a few special abilities received an S-SSS ranking once someone reached Tier 11.
Lana, based on what he gleaned, was a Soulweaver. A common theme among Soulweavers was their ability to generate and manipulate a type of element, such as water, fire, earth, lightning, and air. Her ability told him as much, but he couldn't grasp the full details of it. Besides the fact that the type of flame she generated could consume or absorb heat energy. A more specific term for her type of ability would be Flameweaving.
He was a Soulthreader. Soulthreading entailed manipulating an existing object in the real world, whether animate or inanimate. He was basically a puppeteer of sorts, and his specialty lay in plants. He was considered a plantthreader. But what made him special was that he was both a Soulthreader and an Oreburner. Soulburners burned their souls to manipulate the world, but an oreburner burned ore to manipulate the world. And the only type of ore that could be burned ender-ore aka enderstones.
Alec listened to Lana reiterate information he knew, pretending that he was in awe of what he heard, nodding and widening his eyes at correct intervals to maximize his supposed ignorance.
Finally, Lana finished after a long time and said, "I can help you train and grow stronger since you'll need it in the Slums, but in exchange, you work for me."
"Thank you so much, ma'am—uh—uh, Lana," Alec smiled.
That got rid of two of his main problems: an excuse to be around Lana and a reasonable job. Not that he was picky or anything.
With two of his problems fixed, he had another one staring him right in the face—the blinking number at the corner of his vision. He had twenty-two more hours left to worry about, and he still hadn't gotten or understood what a game entailed.
Speaking up, he broke the silence that had descended over them for a while and asked, "Mrs., what is a game?"
Lana's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets at the question. Of all the questions she'd expected, someone asking her about a game wasn't on her list. Her lips twitched, unsure of how to answer it.
Unconsciously, she tightened her grip within her hands, and a jolt of pain shot through her, snapping her out of her stupor. The gaze in Alec's eyes wasn't humorous at all. She saw sincerity in them, leaving her lost on how to approach the question.
Her life was far too busy to play around with games, except for a few, which were usually card games and beer games that increased the revenue of her hotel.
"I don't know much about games. You are more likely to get an answer from Mark, Tanya, or one of the servers. Tanya is your best bet; she knows her way around any game, especially the new VR stuff. At first, I didn't like it, but when I learned we could make a killing at the Gambling Ring east of here, I was totally on board," Lana said. "You can get to know the people here, and you can start work tomorrow."