Chapter 203: The Flames’ Nature

I’d said I would train my new attunement, but with no information about anything like this, that was easier said than done.

It wasn’t like dark, light, or even profane.

At least I had textbooks for those. Profaned was just a mixture of the two, after all.

And while I could train my dark and newly awakened fire attunements, it wouldn’t really compare to actually training my black flames.

Sure, I could train dark and fire to see if they affected each other, but was I really willing to waste time on two lesser attunements instead of focusing on something fundamentally stronger?

“No textbooks, no guides from the novel—straight up nothing.”

[Dark Flame Briga—CRACK

[Black Flame Ste-CRACK

Nope.

Doesn’t work.

So unlike profaned, it was at least fundamentally different from both dark and light. I could guess as much from the spell names alone, and it’s not like I was the first mage to gain both dark and fire at the same time.

In fact, back when I still attended classes, it was one of the most common dual-attunement combinations.

So… why did I get something special?

[Black Threnody]

I targeted a small rock in the middle of the mansion’s barren courtyard, watching the pillars form a star shape around it.

First, I examined the pillars themselves. At a glance, they just looked like a combination of darkness and flames. But when I looked closer… there it was.

A third variable that seemed to weave between them.

A variable that was likely the reason I’d been protected from the memory erasure in the first place.

“The hell is this?”

There was no point in just staring at it with the naked eye.

“System.”

[Analyzing…]

[Curse Energy]

Curse energy, huh? That was new. I hadn’t seen it mentioned even once in the novel. Sure, curses existed, but this definitely felt different from that.

I tapped on the system panel, hoping it would expand the description.

[An energy born from powerful negative emotions. Most common at sites of unjust massacre or insurmountable turmoil. Most likely to appear among a group of sentient beings; unlikely to appear from just one.]

Well…

That explains it, I guess.

Well, close enough.

Negative emotions, huh? My mind went back to the Fiona and Trish situation—and especially to how bitterly that entire operation had ended.

Beelzebub…

I’d been trying to ignore the way it scratched at my mind. I could manage it, but it still clawed its way through from time to time.

They were in good hands, now one with Evelina, but I still didn’t think it was living—even if it technically counted as such.

Sigh… I’ll definitely make that demon prince pay.

“Unlikely to appear from just one, huh?”

I was technically two people: the memories of the original Cael and my own memories. It wasn’t as crazy as an actual soul merge or two people crammed into one body, but was that enough to create this strange attunement?

Or were my regret and guilt so great that I managed to manifest curse energy on my own?

I’d like to think I was special, but… I didn’t think being considered special for having an intense amount of negative emotion was a good thing.

Hey… at least I’d found one reason for this strange element.

I guessed it had fused when both my fire attunement and this curse energy manifested at the same time.

“That’s a lot of information to take in all at once…”

But with all the information I gathered, I could at least conclude it mean’t I couldn’t train it using conventional methods. Unless I purposefully make myself depressed, I’m not upgrading my black flames anytime soon.

But what about Malignant and Holy Flames?

Unless I could get a steady supply of light magic, the latter is impossible. Although… a steady supply of demonic magic would definitely be plausible.

“As long as I stick with Evelina, it should get stronger on its own passively.”

So now that meant I was stuck with training just dark and fire for now. Disappointing, but it works for now.

[Photographic Memory]

***

Brute force. That’s what I relied on.

I was already at an adept level. Losing my profaned eye had made solving spell formulas much harder, but that same breakthrough took the edge off the loss.

It was still difficult—just not as crippling as it would’ve been without the advancement.

So my priority was simple: get used to casting without the profaned eye.

[Dark Step]

[Fire Brigade]

[Dark Serpent]

[Incineration Rays]

Rinse and repeat. Over and over.

It was mindless work, but it was all I could do to make sure I could use my spells with the same efficiency as before. As long as I didn’t lose my photographic memory, the missing profaned eye wouldn’t be that big of a drawback.

I still had plenty of room to grow—far more than this.

[Abyssal Lance]

[Grave Pulse]

I cycled through every spell in my arsenal, casting them continuously and using [Dark Recovery] so I wouldn’t slow down.

Fire magic wasn’t as complex as I’d expected. Compared to light, it was almost easy. I’d earned the fire attunement on my own, so casting it felt as natural as using dark magic. That part, at least, was no problem.

[Fire Mastery Increased]

[Dark Mastery Increased]

Maybe I should make a contract with something soon. Having two minds to work through spell formulas would be a massive help.

But after everything that happened with Beelzebub, demons were off the table.

“So much stuff to think about…”

I sighed and sat down on the grass to rest.

“Then why not think about something else instead?”

The door creaked open behind me. Evelina stepped out, hair slightly dishevelled, a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose.

“What’s with the look?” I asked.

“Well… I thought you’d like seeing me this way, y’know? Freshly done with work and all that.”

I let out a breathy laugh, the exhaustion from training finally catching up to me. [Dark Recovery] was a pain, but at least I had something better to help me recover.

“Just liking it would be an understatement.”

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