The visions tore through Jin's mind like wildfire—fragments of a life not his own. A woman in crimson robes practicing sword forms in a courtyard of black sand. The same woman kneeling before an elder, receiving a scroll marked with a phoenix sigil. Her final moments—not fear, but fury—as the earth cultivator's fist shattered her ribs.
Jin gasped as the shard's memories released him. Dawn had crept over the forest while he'd been trapped in the vision. The fire-wielder's corpse lay where it had fallen, already dusted with morning frost. He knew three things with sudden, terrible clarity. The scroll in his vision—the Ignis Codex—was why she'd died. The earth cultivator was still out there, wounded but hunting. And the shard in his palm had imprinted its knowledge into his flesh.
He flexed his fingers. Heat prickled beneath his skin.
The village was stirring when Jin slipped back home. He hid the shard beneath his floorboards, but couldn't hide the burn marks on his hands.
His mother noticed first.
"Jin." Elara seized his wrist, her voice a blade's edge. "Where did you get these?"
The lie came easily. "A coal popped from the forge."
Karl frowned but said nothing. His father had always seen more than he let on.
That night, Jin sneaked to the abandoned quarry. He raised his hand, recalling the vision's Fireflash Stance. Nothing happened. He tried again, pouring his frustration into the motion. His skin flushed—and a spark leapt from his fingertips. It died instantly, but the air smelled of ozone.
"Pathetic."
Jin whirled. A figure leaned against a pine—the earth cultivator, his arm in a sling, his robes crusted with blood. He studied Jin like a wolf eyeing a crippled hare.
"I should kill you for witnessing that battle," he mused. "But watching you struggle to light a candle with her power?" His laugh was a dry rasp. "More entertaining."
He vanished into the shadows, leaving behind a threat:
"Try not to die before I come back to finish you."
Jin stood frozen long after the cultivator left. The encounter should have terrified him. Instead, it fueled him.
He looked at his hands—the hands of a miner, a hunter, a nobody—and made a promise to the dead fire-wielder's memory.
I'll master what you left behind.
And I'll make them all see me.
The next morning, Jin woke to blistered palms and the taste of smoke on his tongue. His father was already at the forge, the rhythmic clang of hammer on steel echoing through their small home. Jin dressed quickly, his movements sharp with new purpose.
At breakfast, Karl slid a wrapped bundle across the table without a word. Inside lay a pair of blacksmith's gloves, the leather thick and unblemished.
"Your mother noticed your hands," Karl said simply.
Jin met his father's gaze—and saw something unsettling there. Not fear. Not even surprise. Recognition.
The day passed in a haze. Jin moved through his chores like a ghost, his mind replaying the cultivator's words, the fire-wielder's memories. When evening fell, he returned to the quarry.
This time, he didn't try to summon flames. Instead, he closed his eyes and reached for the heat simmering in his veins. It answered sluggishly, a drowsing beast stirring at his call.
The earth cultivator was wrong.
This wasn't pathetic.
It was a beginning.