There was a fluctuation of Fire Law. A passionate blast of a note. It ripped through the air, touching the souls of all those around him—an echo of his revelation. Spreading, spreading…
***
"Shit," whispered a burly man—World Rank #58 Danny Jacobsen. "I think it's coming, you guys!"
He'd been a welder up in Ohio before the Change; wielding fire had come naturally to him. Now he led one of the biggest Factions in the midwest.
He'd come to VGI for the same reason everyone else did—so he experience the best the world had to offer.
It was what brought him here too. Camped outside the Lake of Fire, staring out through his seeing-glasses like all the rest of them—waiting for their chance.
Until he spotted a strange phenomenon.
Streams of Fire Law started spiraling down the middle of the lake, crashing down on just one man…
Folk started gasping, scrambling to their feet—
"No way…"
"Zane Walker's done it again!"
"Get ready—here it comes! Take your Law Fruit, everyone!"
There were many there like Dan. A few paces away from him was a blonde young woman in huntress's leathers—World Rank #79, Lizzie Stanton.
She led the Ember Legion, a Faction that covered most of Maine. It was her first time out of the northeast; the West Coast, VGI, all the flashy events, all the powerful folk gathered here—it was all very exciting for her. She was ooh'ing constantly; she felt like a bumpkin.
She'd been waiting in line for the Lake of Fire when she saw Zane Walker stroll by right in front of her.
It'd been a bit of a shock. Coming from where she'd been she'd never seen someone that high-ranked in the wild. She'd heard stories of him, of course. He looked larger than life, with tousled dark locks and strong handsome features. He had this aura about him… it took her breath away.
She'd rushed over the moment she heard Zane was attempting his breakthrough—she'd joined the rest of the Fire cultivators camped outside, watching, waiting, until—
Elemental Fire splashed out from the center of the Lake. Spreading fast. The purest distillation of it, one bright wave— it doused all of them.
And for a split-second, every single one of them had an impression of it shining in their souls. A clear, vivid image of true Elemental Fire.
Folk cried out in joy. Then there was a huge shuffling as they all sat down and closed their eyes and try to absorb what they'd just witnessed.
***
A mile away, at the bottom of a gorge hundreds of feet deep, Emeka Eze sat meditating. Soaked in Darkness Law. He too was trying to break through.
Then he felt it. That telltale pulse of Law… he shook his head, sighed. And smiled.
So he'd lost the race.
Zane Walker was a true monster.
Eze had gotten a head start on his Darkness Laws. He'd almost finished them; he thought he'd break through first, keep his shrinking edge… but no.
Emeka Eze had met some of the strongest folk in the world. But he'd never met someone he thought he couldn't catch, couldn't beat. At anything.
Then came Zane. In the realm of comprehension, Skill or Law… that man could not be touched. At first Eze had thought he was only slightly more talented.
Now, though—it was clear that was Eze's pride talking. Zane's soul was in a league of its own. There was no competing with him in the realm of Law.
If Eze wished to defeat the monster known as Zane Walker, it would simply have to be via Leveling. In that, at least, Eze knew he still reigned supreme.
Eze closed his eyes again, hunkered down. And threw himself back into his breakthrough with double the fervor, still smiling.
He felt quite grateful to Zane Walker. That man brought out the best in him.
***
Half a mile away, there was a desert of shining sands. The sands glowed silver with moonlight at night and gold with sunlight in the day.
There, two top World Rankers sat side by side. Well—one was sitting. Evan Armstrong sat criss-cross, happily building a sandcastle.
Beside him lay Avery Lively. Face-down, sprawled spread-eagled, unmoving, still in her hoodie despite the baking heat. She was convinced this was the optimal Law comprehension position. Evan didn't question it; he didn't question much, to be honest. Most of the time he was just happy to be there.
They both perked up at the same time.
Avery grinned. "Heyyyy!"
Evan gasped. Then beamed. "He did it!"
***
The message spread from listening crystal to listening crystal, crossing the continent, crossing the oceans. Before the hour was over, everyone important got the news.
The first man to break through to two Elemental Laws was Zane Walker.
This time most of them weren't totally floored, like they'd been the first time. The French #1, the Necromancer Matthieu Lagrande, let out curse that echoed about his throne room. The Korean #1, the Lightning Berserker Sungwon Choi, choked on his soup when he heard it—then shook his head, chuckling in disbelief.
They all knew his name by now, of course. Zane Walker might not be ranked number one in the world, but in recent weeks his name had popped up in a certain debate. A debate which played out in idle chit-chat around campfires. As well as in secret meetings of world-power Factions.
Who was the strongest in the world?
It was a debate that'd gotten very lively lately.
The difference between Zane and the other top contenders was they'd all been there almost since the very beginning. Zane's rise was so fast it gave them all whiplash. It inspired fear and awe alike.
***
Naturally, Zane wasn't aware of all this. He came out of the Lake of Fire feeling pretty pooped. But there were just a few more Comprehensions he wanted to do; he wanted to start playing with his new power.
So he got back to his hotel room, plopped down on the fluffy bed, and took out the 'essence of morning dew'—the soul recovery treasure he'd squeezed out of Elias. The one that'd let him overdraw a little, like an energy drink for the soul.
He chugged down what was left in the vial.
The foggy murkiness in his head started to clear; a new buzzy energy poured into his soul.
He closed his eyes. And started thinking of Stormfire. Right now, it had just a few Fire Laws and Electricity Laws mixed in…
He added more. He wove in Incendiary Alchemy, and Thermal Flux, and Ashen Legacy, slowly but surely. Until he fed in all of Elemental Fire.
Then—
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
ℙ𝕤𝕖𝕦𝕕𝕠 𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕞𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖 (𝕃𝕖𝕘𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕣𝕪 -> 𝕄𝕪𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕔)
He noticed something interesting.
Now that he'd thrown in all of Fire and some of Electricity, he was a good way toward True Stormfire. And yet…
Stormfire wasn't just a blunt mix of Fire and Electricity, he was realizing. True stormfire, at least. Even if he threw in all of Elemental Electricity in there too, there'd still be a pretty big gap.
It wasn't a gap of power. It was a gap of understanding. Because you couldn't just throw two Elements together willy nilly, he was realizing. There was some kind of… Law glue…? He had to understand how they came together. True Stormfire wasn't just Fire plus Electricity; it felt like more than that.
Only… Zane didn't know what that even meant.
He could feel the gap in his understanding. But he didn't have a clue how to go about filling it.
But he could tell they'd be a lot harder to grasp than Minor or Major Laws. They were more advanced than Elemental Laws; they governed their interactions. They were more like… concepts?
As far as he could tell, he was the first person on Earth to make it this far. He was in uncharted territory now; he had to figure it all out for himself.
He winced. He could feel the Morning Dew starting to run out; he could feel a huge wave of fatigue lurking in his subconscious, just out of sight, about to crash all over him… Just a little more. He had to push.
The last thing he set his mind to was throwing his new Stormfire at Apocalypse Smash. Luckily, the upgrade didn't take much effort.
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔸𝕡𝕠𝕔𝕒𝕝𝕪𝕡𝕤𝕖 𝕊𝕞𝕒𝕤𝕙 [𝕄𝕪𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕔 -> 𝕄𝕪𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕔+]
Then he got a notification.
𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕤𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝'𝕤 𝕡𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕣 𝕙𝕒𝕤 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕒𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕠 𝕝𝕚𝕖 𝕓𝕖𝕪𝕠𝕟𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕒𝕟𝕪 𝕄𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝔾𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕖 𝕤𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝. 𝕀𝕥 𝕖𝕩𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕤 𝕠𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕓𝕠𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖 𝕓𝕖𝕥𝕨𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕄𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝔼𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕙 𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕖. 𝔸𝕤 𝕤𝕦𝕔𝕙, 𝕚𝕥 𝕙𝕒𝕤 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕒𝕤𝕤𝕚𝕘𝕟𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕄𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕄𝕪𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕔+.
Zane blinked at it. Huh.
Mortal? Earth? He vaguely remembered hearing those terms before. He wondered what it meant in terms of power—
He felt a sharp twinge.
And hunched over gasping. A horrible migraine was coming on fast, spiking his head full of white-hot pain; at the same time, the last of the Dew gave out. His fatigue came crashing back over him.
The combination of the two had him wobbling; he almost retched. It took him a moment to clear his head and figure out just what had happened.
He'd pushed a bit too far. Gotten a little over-eager. It was like he'd pulled a muscle, but the muscle was his soul.
He groaned, massaging his temples. A wave of red-hot pain washed over him, receded, washed over him again, throbbing over and over, making it hard to think.
Yeah—in hindsight, probably not such a good idea to push that hard… lesson learned.
***
Zane spent the rest of the day recovering, trying to get the tide pool of pain in his head to go away. He'd take at least the next two days off, he figured. He always had a suspicion too much thinking was bad for you.
A few hours later, he felt a ripple of pure distilled Elemental Darkness. Someone had just broken through.
***
It was evening when he left the soul sauna. He couldn't stay in there forever; he ended up feeling raw and scalded all over. He'd hit it again tomorrow.
He found himself with a little off-time. He usually filled this time of night with Reina, power Leveling, so to speak. But she wasn't here; she had a meeting with a few of the big Islander Factions. An alliance of them had sailed over, just to meet with her—they wanted to offer Zane a custom quest, apparently. Something to do with helping to clear one of their tropical A-rank island dungeons.
For now, Zane just wandered about. He ended up coming across Evan, coincidentally—Evan had gotten bored of all that training and was just out and about, taking a walk. He was very happy to see Zane. Zane ended up buying him a ham sandwich; they just took a leisurely stroll of the pretty, nature-stuffed campus, munching on their sandwiches.
They passed by a massive crowd bunched around the Asura Hell Array. Zane figured someone strong was giving it a go.
Then Emeka Eze strolled out.
𝔼𝕞𝕖𝕜𝕒 𝔼𝕫𝕖
𝕊𝕚𝕘𝕟𝕒𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕋𝕚𝕥𝕝𝕖: 𝕋𝕠𝕦𝕔𝕙 𝕠𝕗 𝔻𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕙
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟙𝟙𝟠
Wasn't he at 110 just a few days ago?
He gave the leaderboard a sidelong glance. It updated:
ℂ𝔸𝕀ℕ ℍ𝔸𝕊𝕋𝕀ℕ𝔾𝕊, 𝟝𝟝𝟚 𝕂𝕀𝕃𝕃𝕊
𝕐𝕌𝕂𝕀 𝕌ℝ𝔸𝔹𝔼, 𝟟𝟘𝟛 𝕂𝕀𝕃𝕃𝕊
𝔼𝕄𝔼𝕂𝔸 𝔼ℤ𝔼, 𝟠𝟞𝟚 𝕂𝕀𝕃𝕃𝕊
The crowd erupted.
862 wasn't far from a perfect score—900! And he'd been in the mid-700s a few days ago… he was still growing very fast.
They locked eyes.
Eze gave him a look. Just a look, and a subtle smile. But Zane got the message. The man strode off without a word, calmly and proudly.
Zane smiled.
862, huh?
Okay.
He cracked his knuckles.
Time to see just what his new powers could do.