SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 763: The Leaf She Kept

The Crownfire turned left without spilling heat into the grass.

Vyra brought it right, then left again within the same breath. Each change stopped where she intended.

Only then did she let the flame fade.

"There," she said softly.

Leon grinned before he remembered to be sensible about the fact that she had spent three days condensing.

Loriel came across the hollow with the water. "Drink first. Then you can look pleased with yourself."

"I can do both," Vyra said, accepting it.

She sounded tired, but she was smiling.

Ira sat beside her while Seraphine retrieved the bread. Nobody demanded another display. Leon stayed long enough to see Vyra eat, then helped clear what she no longer needed and left her to rest.

She spent the next eight subjective days consolidating in the accelerated area.

Her first clean turns had proved that she could preserve control through the breakthrough. Applying that control reliably across the Core’s full range took more work. On the second day, a wider curve sent a little excess heat into a practice stone. She examined the scorch, adjusted, and repeated the movement at a lower output.

By the fifth day, her reserve correction was rarely needed during the familiar exercises. By the seventh, she was sleeping comfortably again and beginning to test combinations instead of single changes.

On the eighth, she invited them to the stone ring.

Leon recognized the arrangement at once: the clay cup, the pinned leaf, the paper around a wooden stake, the upright nail, and the candle.

He glanced at Vyra. She was watching to see whether he remembered.

"Same test?" he asked.

"Different flame."

One dense white thread reached the candlewick. It lit, changed direction toward the leaf, cut it cleanly, then curved around the wooden stake without marking the paper.

The first four changes came within one breath. Vyra paused only long enough to let them see the unburned paper before continuing. The flame touched the nail’s tip, heating that small section, then moved beneath the cup and held the water at a simmer.

She brought it back to her hand.

Ira whistled. "That’s considerably better than the needle that tried to burn the porch."

"It never touched the porch."

"I noticed how quickly you stopped it."

Vyra gave her a look, but did not seem offended.

"Four changes in the first breath?" Seraphine asked.

"Yes. The rest was slower."

Seraphine nodded toward the stake. "And it stayed that dense through the curve?"

"It did." Vyra’s pleasure showed more clearly now. "I still need practice at higher output, but I don’t have to loosen the flame simply to turn it."

Loriel examined the nail without touching its hot end. "The heat barely travels down it."

"It would if I held it long enough. I only wanted the tip heated."

"I know. I’m looking at how little you needed to waste."

Xyra watched from the porch, apparently satisfied that the demonstration had not damaged anything except the intended leaf.

Through the questions, Vyra kept glancing toward Leon. She answered the others readily, then looked his way before returning to the objects in the ring.

He went over to the cup.

"During condensation," he said, "the heat surged twice. After that, you seemed to settle into it. What did you change?"

Vyra considered her answer. "I was still trying to use the timing from the external bead. When the fire answered late, I pushed harder."

"And made it overshoot."

"Exactly. I began the correction earlier and let it develop more gradually. I kept some control free to stop it going too far, until I understood the new response."

Leon nodded. That explained the change he had sensed without pretending he had watched every movement inside her.

"You kept what you wanted," he said. "With that much more power behind it, too. You were right to wait."

She looked down at the cup.

He added, "I’m impressed, Vyra. I know how much work went into that."

Color rose slowly along her throat. She opened her mouth, hesitated, and gave him a small nod instead.

Ira bent to examine the paper around the stake with unusual attention.

Vyra had wanted him to say it.

That was the embarrassing part. She had known she wanted it while practicing across the ring from him, and again when she opened her eyes after condensation to find him exactly where he had promised to stay.

She had still expected to manage a more dignified response.

Her Core sat steady within her. She could direct a dense flame through a turn finer than her own fingers could trace, yet a few plain words from Leon had left her looking at a cup because she did not quite trust her face.

She had not forgotten. It was one of the reasons she had wanted to dismiss this attraction before it became something she had to think about.

He made that difficult by listening, and being patient, and looking pleased with her for the exact thing she was pleased with herself about.

Vyra picked up the cup and drank. The warmth would fade if she left it alone.

She hoped it would not fade too quickly.

When the others left for supper, Leon helped Vyra clear the ring.

She blew out the candle and packed it away. He pulled the nail from the sand, checking which end was still warm. When he turned back, she was fitting the two halves of the leaf between pages of her notes.

"Keeping that?" he asked.

"Yes."

He waited, and she glanced up. "It was a good test."

"It was."

She closed the notes carefully. Leon took the cup and left her the leaf without teasing her about it.

They walked back together, discussing what she wanted to try next with the denser flame. He enjoyed hearing plans that began with what she could now do rather than what she was still waiting to attempt.

The following session, they returned to his four-branch model.

Earth, water, fire, and wind continued through varied interruptions while he measured the junctions and the routes receiving their extra load. On the sixtieth return, the readings still settled within the expected range. Nothing was quietly climbing between cycles.

Leon recorded the result and the conditions. More branches and harsher disturbances remained untested. His native cultivation was still Peak Foundation, and the model would remain outside his body.

For now, it was enough to justify putting the plates away.

He dispersed the bead, closed the supplies, and packed the equipment. After two more subjective days of rest and a spar with Seraphine to check his recovered hand, he was ready.

The Tower entrance appeared on the eastern flat.

Leon looked once toward the practice ring, then stepped through.