The field in front of Laurence was burning. As far as the eye could see flames licked, fluttered, spat and spluttered, curling around stones and hills. The area was a veritable purgatory, and Laurence’s pointer stone said that it would take almost one hundred days, over three months to get to the next stele. He was stood on a platform that seemed to be shielded from the flickering flames. Taking a step out into the flames, Laurence felt the heat and could smell the scorching of the hair on his skin. He pulled himself back onto the plinth and sat down, thinking about the nature of the plane in front of him.

Yun pushed out of the protected area and began playing outside in the flames. He smiled at his friend as he began chasing his tail around a lava plume. The flames send to do nothing to the wolf. It was incredible for Laurence to see, as he had no idea how Yun could stand those flames. After a few minutes of playing outside Yun turned and looked expectantly at Laurence.

“Brother not understand?” He said directly into Laurence's head. They had tested the speech ability that they seemed to share when they first got the power, and they could not find an upper limit to it. Seeing Laurence's continued lack of understanding, Yun sent a projection of the book of creation, where it dictated and described the Inner Flame Formation. Laurence recognised the page, but the line that Yun had put specific emphasis on was not what Laurence was expecting.

To practice the formation, it began, one must draw a flame from within. However to restore your soul you can draw from within or without. Laurence realised he was being a fool. In front of him was not a massive wall of pain and burning, but rather a giant battery for him to be able to restore his mana indefinitely from. He felt like a fool for not understanding the fact that mana and the soul of a person were effectively the same thing. Taking a deep breath and circulating the formation, Laurence walked out into the hellscape. He whooped with joy when rather than pain and a sickly smell, an absorbing sensation and a feeling of fullness passed through him.

Seeing how much mana the boy had at his disposal, Laurence could not resist the urge to begin trueforming. He danced about, feeling elated at the ease of control the surrounding flames gave him, yet perplexed at the fact that he had no materials that could survive the intense heat around him. Finally he perused through the Book of Creation in his mind's eye, and found the section on unconventional resources. He saw that a master of the Book of Creation could turn anything they wanted into a weapon or artifact, which is when he had a brain wave. The flame itself was fueling Laurence, letting off heat and light that he could absorb and turn into mana. Perhaps he could turn part of the fire into a material that he could use to make an artifact with.

Turning his mind's eye to the outside world, Laurence began looking at what he wanted to use and thinking about what he wanted to make. He finally began pulling the light from the surrounding fires as he walked and collected them between his hands. Once he decided he had enough material in his palms he began shifting the photons into the skin of his left hand. Each photon was shaped into a glyph, which in turn was shaped into another glyph on Laurence's hand. These streams of glyphs were constantly entering his body and draining his mana reservoir dry, but immediately the reservoir would be restored to full by the surroundings. With each cycle his hammer gained a greater luster, and his reservoir was able to take in and hold more mana. This plane was the perfect place for Laurence to train, and he could not have enjoyed himself more.

The glyph continued construction for an entire day while the boy and his canine friend frolicked within the fire. Even Yun was improving from the situation. His body was growing by the hour and his fur was taking on an incomparable white luster. By the end of their first day Laurence had completed his creation and Yun had grown to the size of a bear. He was a hulking wolf, and Laurence was worried that he might grow even bigger, but was not willing to stop him. The flames nourishing them meant that they did not have to worry about food at all, which surprised Laurence. It also meant that he could spend more time making tools. Once it was ready, he began testing the tool. The object he created using pure light, was a tattoo imprinted into the palm of his left hand. Injecting mana into it, Laurence willed a beam of light out of his palm and shifted it like a rope once it reached the apex of its length, over a hundred meters in length. Sending small pulses of mana through the rope of light he could change its direction and density, allowing it to be a harmless beam of light or a writhing light tentacle that could bind a target with merely a thought.

Laurence swung the light-rope towards Yun, to see if he could catch his friend unawares, but despite his massive bulk the wolf shifted out of the way with ease. He sent a pulse through the rope as Yun dodged to the side and sent the beam between the wolf’s legs and round his waist. Without a moment's thought he pulled the beam back and yanked Yun with it.

Realising that Yun was now coming towards Laurence far faster than he would like, he sent another pulse of mana through the beam to make it intangible and it slid straight through his friend’s body. He dropped to the ground as Yun came within touching distance of him, and watched the young wolf fly over his head. Shooting out the rope once more, Laurence grabbed his friend and pulled him back enough to stop him flying off, before allowing the rope to become light again.

“What should I call you then?” Said Laurence as he looked at his tattoo. In Laurence's mind, every weapon or artifact should have a name, and this tattoo was no exception. He felt like it should have a name from one of the old languages, but his grasp of them was nonexistent. In the end he called the tattoo «Inklight». It was profoundly literal, but seemed right to the young boy.

They continued traveling and improving their power until they both reached bottlenecks in their growth. Laurence's hammer seemed to no longer be made of iron, but fine steel. It was incomparably hard and it could become far heavier if Laurence willed it. Yun, on the other hand, had stopped growing when he was comparable in stature to a large bear. His muscles and bones seemed to change the most, becoming incredibly tough and durable, while his fur became as strong as spider silk. Together they were death on six legs. After about forty days they reached a mountain. It was the only real piece of terrain that the two had seen since they started traveling on this plain. It stuck out like a sore thumb in the landscape, and because of that Laurence had an irresistible urge to climb it. They quickly reached the wall that made the mountain hard to climb. It was a sheer face, but rugged, unlike all the other ground in the area. The rest of the surrounding land was charred and melted, but somehow this mountain had stood up to the flames. Laurence prepared himself for the jump, stretching and slowly circulating mana into his muscles before bracing himself against the wall and promptly falling through it.

He looked at the surrounding area with shock and awe. It was a beautiful and serene landscape, with small hills and pretty trees. A stream ran through the middle of the area, pooling into a little lake with a house next to it. Laurence rubbed his eyes a few times to make sure he was not dreaming. It was unbelievable to think that in the middle of this world of fire stood a little slice of heaven, and yet here it was.

He called to Yun from the other side of the wall, telling him it was just an illusion and that he could just walk through. The wolf was hesitant at first, but yipped with joy at the surroundings when he saw them. They were a true break from the flames, the heat and the slightly sulphurous stench that had surrounded the two friends for the last few weeks. They reveled in it as long as they could before going towards the riverside hut and greeting the inhabitants of this beautiful place. The hut was well built, if slightly eclectic. It had obviously been built and then systematically improved over hundreds of years before it had reached its current state of repair.

It was a two story house that extended over the lake a little ways, with a platform set up for fishing. The front of the house was raised and had a little stairwell leading up to the door with a swing chair set up next to a pile of books, while the front door itself was intricately carved with image of a great eye residing over a man bowing his head either in reverence or shame. It was beautiful. Outside the house was a small stone building set up with a funds in the centre of the wall furthest from the entrance. The furnace constantly belched vibrant flames, giving the smithy that it was part of a jolly feeling.

Laurence was quietly examining the smithy when he heard a voice behind him. “I would rather you didn't touch those.” The voice was very well spoken, with a crisp sound to it that implied the owner was not used to being disobeyed. Laurence turned round and was presented with a young looking man, his white hair and old eyes being the only things that made him seem anything more than twenty.

“Umm, sorry. I was going to come and say hello but I got distracted by the beautiful skill of everything made here.” Laurence said.

“That's perfectly fine my boy! My name is Luke Jeshua. What’s yours?"