As usual, Fire was the first one to wake up. He noticed that the fire was still burning so not much time could have passed. He felt relaxed and full of fresh energy, which was probably a side effect of his body having regenerated its life force after using the core. Fire sat up and waited for the others to wake up. Meanwhile, he thought about his plan, his real plan, not the fake plan he had told in the Shop Guy's presence. After climbing the mountain they would climb down the other side into a dense forest with a valley in it, from the outside it was not visible as it was grown over by trees and vines. Through the valley they would reach a swamp. After having that crossed, they would reach the jungle that his base was located in.

It sounded easy but it certainly was not, in the valley there was an unusually high amount of monsters because of the permanent darkness, he especially was concerned about the creepers since they could kill any of them instantly. The valley was unavoidable because the forest was surrounded by mountains and the valley was the quickest way. The swamp also was dangerous because of the slimes. The jungle was full of poisonous and carnivorous plants, not the small ones that caught flies, the big ones that could eat a human alive, in one bite. Fire sighed and leaned back against the wall, they would get there soon enough.

Fire noticed a movement at the edge of his vision and turned his head in the direction, freeZe had woken up.

"Had a good sleep?" Fire asked.

She yawned and replied: "As good of a sleep as I can have on bare rock."

"The tents in the quarry weren't much softer either."

"But they were softer."

"True."

"How about you, Fire?"

"My sleep was good, this scaled skin works wonders when sleeping on hard ground." Fire threw a few more sticks into the flames.

freeZe requested: "Tell me more about those mages or about magic, that sounded really interesting yesterday. Or was it today? I don't know."

Fire promptly started explaining: "At first you need to know where magic comes from. Living things have some innate amount of life force that refills over time after being used, it can also be stored in things like enchanted gems. There is also a varying amount of energy in the environment itself, which creatures use to refill their own reserves. Mages can use their life force to cast spells."

"So, basically the thing you did with the blaze core? But you said that you are no mage."

"To cast you don't need to be a mage, all you need is training and life force. My life force is much lower than that of a mage of course."

freeZe asked: "So, everybody has a different amount of life force?"

Fire explained: "Yes. Mages have drastically higher life forces than average people, the amount of life force needed to be a proper mage starts at roughly a hundred times the average, though it can go a lot higher than that. Not all mages can cast the same spells, though. Their range of spells depends on their elemental affinities."

"What do you mean by elemental?" freeZe wanted to know.

Fire said: "While fundamentally all magic is the same energy, this energy comes in 'flavors' called elements. The ability to convert your life force into a certain element is called an affinity, so unless you have an affinity for say Earth magic, you won't be able to cast Earth spells. The strength of the affinity determines how much energy you get for your life force."

"So… elements as in the four elements?"

"There are actually eight but something of the sort, yes. There are the eight elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Life, Wither, Ender and Void. Outside of spells and elemental creatures the elements don't exist in the wild, you just have a general background energy field."

Fire answered freeZe's question before she could even ask it: "Elemental creatures have of one or multiple magical elements instead of life force. Blazes are a good example for creatures of Fire. Their intelligence and power largely depends on the amount of energy they have in their bodies."

"Wow, that is amazing." She said, then looked at Fire and asked: "What about you then? You clearly aren't entirely human."

Fire chuckled and replied: "I am human, by most definitions. The total energy inside me is slightly above average but half of it is raw life force and the other half is Fire elemental energy, so I have far less actual life force than average humans."

"So, going by what you said, if I were a mage I would be able to use the blaze core, right?"

Fire once again took the blaze core from his inventory and said: "Yes. Be careful though, I don't want you to lose your whole energy, I can't carry you up the mountain. It is hard to explain how to do it. You know some kind of martial art, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because the concentration you need is similar. If you are able to activate the core it is a sign that you have enough life force. Oh, and don't point it at Ambigious."

"Oh… oops." freeZe said and pointed it at the ceiling.

Fire instructed her: "Alright, concentrate. If you feel the energy flowing, try to cut the flow immediately or drop the core."

freeZe took a deep breath and concentrated, suddenly something inside her body began to move. First it moved slowly as if it had to wake up first, then she felt the energy streaming towards the core like drops of water forming inside her and running up on her insides towards the core, every drop becoming a yellow spark inside the core. Fire looked at her with a strange expression on his face but she was too concentrated on the core to notice it. Suddenly, the drops became a steady flow, creating a massive amount of sparks.

"Stop!" Fire shouted, surprised by the sudden waves of energy passing through him.

freeZe tried to hold back the energy but it was harder than thought, it was like having opened a floodgate with a lake behind it and the water was preventing the gate from closing. She concentrated even more, her face was distorted into a tense grimace. She couldn't let go, her hands had cramped around the blaze core. She managed to cut the flow in half but from there on it was very hard to decrease the amount of energy further.

Fire was starting to worry, he knew what was happening, most people with a high amount of life force had this kind of experience when using a magical artefact the first time but he had never seen it this strong. The core was full of bright yellow sparks with a few orange and red ones. Fire had a way of stopping the flow, it was experimental but he had to try.

The air in the room was flickering, not from heat but from energy waves passing through the air. Fire took his bow and hummed a very high pitched tone, twisted and turned the bow and finally found what he was looking for. A rune was glowing slightly, it was just a pentagram without any other lines. Fire amplified the tone and the rune started glowing brighter and a duplicate separated from the bow and floated over to the core. freeZe noticed it and lost her concentration for a split second, large amounts of energy streamed into the core before she could hinder it again. The majority of the sparks were now orange and more red ones had formed, yellow ones were almost not present anymore.

Fire changed the pitch of his tone a little and the rune started to grow.

He thought: "Come on, just a little more…"

The rune now was as big as the core and started floating towards it and went into it, suddenly the air stopped flickering, Fire stopped his tone and freeZe dropped the core and collapsed.

"What in the world just happened?" Ambigious asked.

Fire hadn't noticed that the others had woken up but he didn't care in this moment. The core was floating in mid-air, full of red sparks. The pentagram was inside the core and stopped the sparks from touching its outside, the core was pulsating and shining but no energy came out of it. Fire leaned over to freeZe and felt her pulse, it was still there, pretty powerful too.

Fire relaxed a bit and spoke to the others: "Ambigious, it seems like your sister is a mage." Ambigious' jaw dropped. "She woke up earlier than you and I told her more about magic, she wanted to see how much energy she could mobilize and it seems that it is a lot."

Ambigious had closed his mouth again and asked: "And now? She'll stay alive, right?"

"Of course, in a bit she will be on her feet again, don't worry."

"I hope sooner rather than later." he added in thoughts.

Fire looked over to freeZe and opened his sense for energy, the core was emitting no energy, thanks to his rune. Now they only could wait and see.