《A Mystery Beneath The Ashes》 The Ember 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 ~ The Flame ~ Mana gained. Consume? Y/N ~ There was a new screen, it floated in front of his body. Did he even have a front? He could see all around him simultaneously... He focused on the yes button, he wanted to see if he could consume the blue energy. He wanted to see if he could burn it. Instantly he felt a subtle change in his core. The large crack that had formed closed a small bit. Inside, he realized that he felt weaker from the crack as if he was harmed. It didn''t feel good... he wanted the pain to stop. So he continued to consume more and more bits of mana. Soon enough the core was crack free, and his fire form felt a little hotter. As a test he tried to consume the mana to burn it. But the result wasn''t good. Instead of making his fire hotter, it made the ice inside of him colder. It felt like something he had never felt before. As the ice grew, the fire elemental felt strange waves of power shoot through him. He saw images of weird beings who walked on two poles of flesh. Their bodies moved much faster than he did crawling as a flame. They were in a different place, not one of fire and ash, but of water and plant. The thought of it was interesting. The fleshy beings held different things in their upper flesh poles. Something like a sword and an axe, metal things. There was also one who carried the stick that he had consumed, it was much larger than what he had absorbed, something must have happened to the other half. The images left him and he was again in the cave that had held the stick. He tried to take the form of the bipedal beings and walk around, but it was harder than It looked. Many times he fall and lose some flames. Eventually he found a rhythm. His core was inside the very middle of his flame body. From there, five jets of flame sprouted from the core, two for walking around, two for interacting with things, and one that he did not know the purpose of. The final appendage was a ball of flames above his core. Maybe the bipedal beings had a use for it he didn''t know about. He stood proud knowing that this had taken a lot of effort. Curious to find the other part of the stick, the newly created fire elemental walked further into the deep cave.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Unknown to the young fire elemental, the surface of his world had barely any life. Only the fierce beings like the fire wolves had been able to live on top of the surface world. Deeper inside was hidden civilizations that had evolved into new life. As he walked further and further down the cave, he found It got hotter and hotter. The cave went on for miles before he managed to find something new. In front of him was a giant metal axe, it looked just like the one in the memory that he had seen. He walked up to it and covered it in flame, but again that annoying energy surrounded it. He was getting sick of this stupid color. He got so angry that his insides started bubbling and condensing into liquid. He opened a hole inside his body and shot out the liquid fire that he had created. That was new. The axe got hit and the mana barrier that protected the axe collapsed almost immediately. It''s handle melted away with it. The fire elemental jumped at the axe and consumed it. Well, he tried. The head of the axe was a bit sturdier than the handle, but it was melting just the same. When the metal turned to liquid, he sent it into his core. The liquid helped the fire half of the core, he felt stronger. Eventually, the whole axe was melted and absorbed into his core. His core burst with power, he felt himself liquidizing and becoming hotter. But at the same time, he was cooling down even faster now. He also felt something else enter his core, a different type of power. It was hard and blocked the other two from consuming each other. Now his core held three powers. His body turned liquid fire and But something else changed. It caused him to cool down insanely quickly. His flames were being blown out. The fire and ice inside his core were forced into an even smaller space, the flames and ice fought each other. The ice liquidized and got rid of his flames. ''No... NO, I can''t die here. I don''t understand, what is happening to me. I... I can''t die. I won''t.'' Still, it seemed fate had a different plan for this young elemental. The flame melted the ice and the melted ice extinguished the flame. The only element inside his core was the stones that messed everything up. The extreme heat and extreme cold created something else, a wind energy that pushed through the stone. It cracked and turned the stone to dust. Then everything died out. The only thing left inside the core was some mud and a light breeze. The core laid on the ground of the ashen cave. Time passed, and the world kept spinning into oblivion. ~ System Opportunity Evolution:? Y/N ~ But there wasn''t anything there that could answer him. Even if another fire elemental was around they could not see or understand the complex mana of the system. ~ System Deciding Error... System not allowed Bypassing Error Congratulations, you are the first elemental from "SOL" to evolve into an elemental with four affinities. Awards will be distributed soon... Error... Planet no longer habitable for elemental, Error... User is dead... ... Damn it not again... I''m not going to go through all this shit again ... New reward distributed: Planetary teleportation Error... User is dead... Forcefully infusing basic elements into core Infusing Spark of Life inside user... Error... Reward overcompensated... Countermeasures activated... ~ As time passed, the core of the young fire elemental grew duller and duller. Soon enough it would shatter, allowing more to grow from it''s pieces. But something went against the natural laws of this world, the core glowed. At first it was dim, but soon you could a bright white glow emanating from the core. It wasn''t like fire, but it shown with the same radiance. It lit up the whole cavern. What followed was something that no resident of Sol had ever seen before. Four unique colors glowed from the core. A deep vibrant red, a cool blue, a muddy brown, and a clear but wild energy that flowed throughout the core. The hot red and clear energy spun inside the very center, the blue and brown mixed ontop of the center energy. It formed... nothing. It collapsed inside of itself and turned into slush. Again the energy separated and spun around similar to how it was originally, and finally it seemed to work. The small core was surrounded by another weird energy. This was a lot of energy wasted on a dead elemental. Space seemed to warp inwards towards itself as it prepared to launch this small little core at the nearest habitable planet... billions of miles away. And then everything exploded.