A great burning ball of fire, created from something unimaginable. The huge ball of fire was home to trillions of smaller flames, simply existing on and inside it. It was unknown how they existed, they simply just did.


    Its form was constantly changing, burning up slowly into oblivion.


    On a small portion of land, there was a tree, it was strange to see such a beautiful existence, a wooden entity...


    However, it wasn''t strange for so long. It was there for a total of 12 minutes, its wooden exterior struggling against the heat.


    A huge existence of flames, shaped like a huge wolf, charged the tree. It wasn''t much longer when the tree burned and caught fire, it''s death creating new life.


    The wolf soon consumed the whole tree, burning it up inside its body. Satisfied, the wolf walked away, leaving small embers of the tree. It burned passively, neither growing or shrinking. Suddenly, the small embers crawled on the branch that was left burning. It followed the wolfs example, it expanded it''s body and attempted to surround the small branch, but it was too large.


    The small flame burned the branch a small bit and then died out. Other flames could be seen burning their way to the branch, trying to consume it.


    It was a mad dash, and also a small amount of luck. Flames consumed each other constantly, growing in size until they were large enough to wrap around the branch entirely. Four flames were left from the hundreds that formed from the burning tree. None of them were larger than a small fist.


    Yet they continued to burn...


    Three of the flames tried to consume the branch simultaneously, but one of the flames had learned from these perilous trials.


    It absorbed the smaller of the other three, growing in size. It added its mass to its own, it felt strange... but that did not matter. It didn''t have the ability or the time to think about the small things, or anything in general.


    It then moved on to consume another of the flames, growing in size, large enough to push the other flame away and consume the piece of wood. It grew larger as it burned the wood. It''s barely formed instincts growing a small bit.


    It wanted to burn more, but there was nothing else around to burn. It felt itself getting weaker with time, from three feet to a bit smaller. It needed something other than the wood to live. There was nothing else around other than the smaller flame and the gas that made up the atmosphere. The ground was too hard to burn.


    It could only feel its surroundings for the moment. The cooler heat of the ground and the blistering air around them. The small flame burned next to him, losing its purpose and its goals. The larger flame reached over and absorbed the other flame. It grew more and felt itself turn stronger, hotter.


    It could also feel itself burning out still. It didn''t understand what was happening, but it feared the end result. Would it burn out like the smaller flames before it? Or would it diminish into the small ember that it was before finding more energy? It did not know.


    It slowly lost it''s purpose... what was it supposed to do now? It was going to sizzle out like the other flames.


    No... no, it didn''t want that. It wanted to burn brighter, to live.


    But what was it supposed to do?


    Well, it could always try consuming itself. Just until it had another source of energy.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    As it tried devouring itself, it felt something inside. Some sort of center formed from it''s heat. It wasn''t able to form one when it was smaller but it could feel it now. As if it had become slightly more whole.


    A small circular mass with a rough outer shell, it was absorbing the gas and the heat around its form, creating a living body. It wasn''t enough to keep it alive though, it was losing more energy than it was gaining.


    It focused more on the sphere. It was gathering the heat and gas, spinning it like a tornado inside itself. From that it turned into flames that helped keep it''s shape. Still though, it couldn''t just rely on that, it needed more energy.


    Trudging on, it followed the footsteps of the great being who brought down the tree. The wolf...


    ---


    It had traveled miles and miles, trying to find something to fuel itself. But to no avail, there was nothing around him.


    It was a deserted wasteland. There were mountains of stone and ash surrounding the flame entity, it was dying out.


    The wolf''s footsteps traveled long and far, unending almost. How was it supposed to gather any scraps like this?


    There was a change in the scenery ahead of the small being of fire. Something on the ground, it could feel a sweet smell coming from the cave.


    It smelled delicious. It charged down the cave not worrying about anything possibly hiding nearby. Its core pushed it to charge faster and faster down the hole in the ground.


    It''s flame was growing weaker now, it could feel a new sensation around... it scared the being terribly.


    Finally, it saw its reward, a small piece of wood. It was prettier than the branch that it consumed the other day. This small piece of wood may have very well saved its life.


    It immediately jumped at it to consume it, but it was too large...


    It couldn''t surround it to burn it, and it felt denial and fear that caused panic. It pushed itself into the wood. Was this the end?


    Eventually, it could feel itself cooling down, a sickening feeling. It pushed into the wood and found dry bits surrounding the center. It burned, and finally, the core let him relax, it would continue to burn.


    The stick glowed a new color, it gave off the same sickening feeling that he felt when it cooled down. The stick started resisting the consumption, the cool colors emanating from it.


    It felt like the complete opposite of everything that made its existence. The flames that made up its body corroded the barrier that covered the piece of wood.


    Finally, it cracked. The barrier shattered and its flames overwhelmed the branch.


    It could feel the core rapidly gaining more energy and reaching its previous peak. It even felt stronger than before, the flames burning that weird color that emanated from the weird stick.


    It could sense more things around. It also realized that wherever its flames shined it could see. It''s vision was light, wherever it lit it could see.


    The flame was looking around the cave, trying to find something else to burn probably, when the core shook.


    It began to crack and split. It panicked, this core was the thing that was keeping it alive. It can''t break... it couldn''t.


    It wouldn''t let it.


    It tried condensing itself smaller, to hold the core together. Something else cracked, the sickening cold energy from the stick was back.


    The cold seeped into its core and changed something. Some vital part of its core was changed.


    He looked inside of his core, what was different about it?


    Had he tried looking inside his core before? He had only seen the tornado before...


    Now inside of his core were two raging energies. His gases and heat spun around just like before, but on the other side of the tornado was a cool shard of... something. It wasn''t stone, but it was tough like it, if anything a bit more brittle.


    His body changed along with the core, it emitted the strange cool light from his flames.


    He could also... wait a minute... what was a he? When had he started referring to himself in a first-person view?


    What did that even mean?


    There was something else too. Right in front of his view was a small box that showed the same color as the weird shard in his core.


    It read the following...


    ~


    Status


    Species: Elemental Creature (Fire 70%/ Ice 30%)


    Cultivation: Core Formation


    WARNING:


    (UNSTABLE)


    SUGGESTION:


    Consume raw mana to passively stall instability / Remove instability


    Stats:


    STR: 0


    END: 3


    INT: 1


    PER: 0.5


    LUCK: 2


    MANA: 12


    Skills:


    Fire Bolt (1)


    ~


    There was too much information for him to understand. He was a fire elemental? What was ice? That strange shard? What about that warning... unstable? He wasn''t unstable... probably.


    And what was this strange stuff floating through the air? It looked like the dangerous stuff from the stick, but it looked passive... or rather unused. He could fix that.


    His instincts were telling him to absorb the floating bits in the air. They were almost perfect to burn.


    He went over to one and immediately tried to use it as energy, but it didn''t burn.


    It floated around him and entered his core.


    ~


    Mana gained.


    Consume?


    Y/N


    ~