Chapter 335: Do Not Fight It [Frieda’s Training 2]
"Unexciting?" Solaris offered.
"A little," Frieda admitted with a sheepish smile.
"Good." Solaris stood smoothly, brushing off her trousers. "Powerful Fire Mages often become terrible at fundamentals because the massive explosions convince everyone that they are naturally talented."
Frieda rose after her, dusting off her own knees as Solaris continued her lecture. "You learned how to produce more before you ever learned how to produce precisely."
Frieda looked down, finding that incredibly difficult to argue with.
The next hour became painfully repetitive as Solaris walked her through agonizingly specific drills. They practiced isolating heat without ignition, then ignition without expansion.
They attempted a flame without internal pressure, and then built pressure without inadvertently increasing the size. Frieda failed every single stage several times over.
When Solaris told her to create a fire the size of a coin, the eager dragonfire leaped instantly to the size of an apple. When told to increase the heat without increasing the volume of the flame, she accidentally doubled both.
When asked to bend the flame to the left without physically moving her hand, the magical structure broke apart completely, scattering embers across the stone.
Solaris corrected each mistake immediately, and the fact that she did not shout almost made it worse. Her calm, clinical rebukes cut through the warm air over and over.
"No." Again.
"You increased fuel instead of temperature." Again.
"Your fear moved before your Grace did." Again.
"You are watching the flame too much. Feel the channel."
Again and again they repeated the process, until Frieda’s frustration finally boiled over. When the flame burst apart for the sixth consecutive time, she snapped, "I am feeling the channel!"
Solaris merely looked at her, her golden eyes unblinking and devoid of anger. The stark silence drained the outburst out of Frieda instantly, and she pressed both hands against her face in embarrassment. "Sorry."
"Do not apologize," Solaris replied evenly.
Frieda lowered her hands, exasperated. "What should I do then?"
Solaris’s expression remained plain. "If you’re going to fail, fail properly."
Frieda frowned, entirely unsure of what that meant.
Solaris stepped closer, standing right beside her shoulder. "When something goes wrong, stop trying to quickly escape the mistake. Find it." She pointed precisely toward Frieda’s right arm. "That last attempt failed because you panicked and increased pressure when the flame started leaning."
"I was just trying to correct it," Frieda mumbled defensively.
"You corrected the result instead of the cause," Solaris countered. She held up her own hand and formed a small, glowing flame. "If this bends incorrectly, I do not push it back from the outside."
The Phoenixfire suddenly tilted sharply to the right. Without moving her hand, Solaris adjusted something deep inside her internal channel, and the flame straightened perfectly on its own. "I change the flow that made it bend in the first place."
Frieda watched the demonstration in awe as Solaris dismissed the flame with a thought. "That is control," the older woman stated firmly. "You do not wrestle fire after it misbehaves. You make sure the next movement gives it absolutely no reason to."
Frieda’s mind lit up with understanding. She got it!
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Frieda tried again. A small dragon flame formed above her palm, but just like before, it immediately began to lean awkwardly to one side.
Frieda started to correct it physically, her wrist twitching, but she quickly stopped herself. Instead, she closed her eyes, blocking out the visual distraction.
As Solaris closely watched the glowing channels inside her arm, Frieda searched inward and delicately reduced one specific part of the magical flow. The flame instantly straightened.
When her eyes fluttered open, she saw the result. It was still too large and still wildly unstable at the edges, but it was perfectly straight. A triumphant smile broke across Frieda’s face.
Solaris’s expression, however, remained entirely unchanged. "Do it again."
Frieda’s smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. "Yes, ma’am."
They continued the grueling drills until the sun had lowered behind the towering apartment blocks, casting long shadows across the yard.
By then, Frieda’s uniform jacket had been discarded near the stone wall, her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, and sweat darkened the hair clinging to her temples.
Her Grace reserves had fallen so low that every new attempt required exponentially more concentration than the last. Seeing her exhaustion, Solaris finally decided to change the exercise.
She walked across the yard and placed three small metal rings onto the ground, setting each one several feet apart in a straight line.
Frieda wiped her brow and looked at them warily. "What are those for?"
"You will create one flame," Solaris instructed, pointing at the first ring. "It begins there." She moved her finger to the second. "It passes through there." Finally, she pointed to the third. "And ends there."
Frieda stared at the considerable distance between the metal hoops. "You want me to move fire through all three?"
"Yes."
"Without throwing it?"
"Yes."
Frieda looked from the rings back to Solaris, her exhaustion mingling with disbelief. "That is difficult."
"That is why we are doing it."
Sighing, Frieda positioned herself beside the first ring while Solaris stepped back to stand directly behind her. "Do not think about making the flame weaker," Solaris advised softly. Frieda nodded, her eyes locked on the target. "Think about giving the force somewhere to go."
She summoned her dragonfire, and the flame flared to life inside the first ring, immediately expanding violently beyond the metal edge. Solaris said nothing, allowing her to work through it.
Frieda carefully adjusted the internal flow, making the flame shrink slightly, before she attempted to push it toward the second ring.
The magic, eager to be released, shot out far too fast, violently crossing the empty space and exploding against the stone floor in a shower of sparks. Frieda flinched back from the sudden heat.
Solaris extinguished the scattered fire with a casual sweep of her hand. "Again."
The second attempt died pitifully halfway across the gap, while the third overshot the target entirely. The fourth try ended in disaster when the fire split into two separate, unruly flames. By the seventh attempt, Frieda’s breathing had grown heavy and ragged. "I can’t keep the pressure stable while moving it," she panted.
"Yes, you can," Solaris insisted calmly.
"I’m trying!"
"You are trying to hold the pressure still," Solaris observed, walking past her toward the scattered rings. Frieda looked up at her, wiping sweat from her eyes. "Dragonfire does not stay still." Solaris tapped the first ring lightly with her boot. "Stop thinking of control as holding."
She then pointed commandingly toward the final ring at the end of the line. "Control is deciding exactly where the movement ends."
Frieda stared quietly at the three rings, repeating the words in her mind. Slowly, something internal shifted and finally clicked into place. It wasn’t a complete mastery of the concept, but it was enough to change her perspective.
She returned to her starting position, grounding her stance, and the dragonfire formed once again. This time, however, Frieda did not try to trap it. She actively let the intense pressure build within her channels, embracing the volatile energy, and then she guided it outward.
The flame moved from the first ring in a smooth, narrow stream, easily crossing the distance until it reached the second. As it passed through the metal, the stream began swelling aggressively, and Frieda’s eyes widened.
She felt the old, familiar panic rise in her chest, causing her internal channels to instinctively tighten.
"Do not fight it," Solaris’s voice anchored her from behind.
Frieda exhaled sharply, forcing her muscles to relax and stopping the panicked squeeze on her magic. The flame expanded slightly with the new freedom, but instead of trying to crush it back down into a smaller shape, she focused on narrowing the direction ahead.
Given a path, the fierce force eagerly moved forward. The dragonfire passed cleanly through the second ring, soaring across the final gap until it reached the third. The moment it crossed the threshold, Frieda abruptly cut the fuel, and the flame vanished exactly inside the final circle, leaving nothing but a wisp of smoke.
For a long moment, she just stared at the empty space, stunned by her own success. Then, she slowly turned around. "I did it."
Solaris looked impassively at the rings, but Frieda’s face broke into a wide, luminous smile. "I actually did it." The bone-deep exhaustion of the afternoon suddenly disappeared beneath a rush of pure excitement.
She looked back at the path the fire had taken, half-expecting the air to still be glowing with the residual heat. "I didn’t stop it. I just..."
"Directed it," Solaris finished for her.
Frieda nodded quickly, her eyes shining. "That felt completely different."
"It should."
"I could actually feel where the pressure wanted to go," she babbled happily, still riding the high of the breakthrough while Solaris quietly watched her.
Frieda laughed softly and formed another small flame above her palm, eager to test the newfound feeling again. The fire still flickered and danced, but this time, she smoothly adjusted the internal channel instead of crushing the flame with her own fear.
In response, the magic steadied beautifully.
"I can’t believe it!" Frieda laughed. "I can control it better now! I can feel it better now!"
She almost cried out of joy.
Watching the young mage finally grasp the concept, Solaris almost smiled herself.
She snapped out of it and returned to tutor mode. "Again!"
"Yes master!" Frieda excitedly returned to action.
************
Meanwhile, in the armored bastion city of military enforcement known as State X, the ship carrying the king and all the recruits from the Academy had just touched down.
The Golden Barracks welcomed them.