The Depths were a nightmare.
Below the stair lay narrow corridors carved from rotted wood. The walls ran slick with moisture and mold. The air thick with something pungent, bitter and coppery. Water dripped somewhere in the dark, the sound bouncing endlessly down the twisting halls. Every few feet the wood creaked or bowed underfoot, its groan swallowed by the roars of hollows and the wet sound of meat being cleaved.
The worst part was that they moved through all of it blind, with nothing but distant torchlight bleeding up.
"Let's sneak around like shinobi," Naruto whispered to his lizard. He casted the Hidden Body spell. The world taking on that familiar muted quality as the invisibility took hold.
Naruto channeled chakra to the soles of his feet, pressing it outward in a thin, even layer until the wood stopped groaning under him. Sound dampening was a simple trick he picked up from observing Zabuza.
The hallway opened into a second floor.
A few hollows trudged aimlessly in the hallway, its feet sloshing with each step. Beyond it, rows of archway-like open windows leading into what resembled an underground tavern.
The air was choked with the scent of old grease, spoiled meat, and sewage. Wooden tables and benches were scattered across the space, illuminated by torches held by hollows. A deep, guttural roar echoed through the chamber, shaking dust from the rafters. The hollows froze. Then, one by one, they began to shuffle away toward the edges of the room.
Naruto observed the source of the sound.
[ Name: The Butcher ][ HP: 1,639 / 1,639 ]
The Butcher was a behemoth of a man. Pale, blotchy skin was stretched tightly over swollen muscles, dotted with patches of purple bruising and lesions. His head was hidden beneath a rough burlap sack tied around the neck, with only two eyeholes crudely torn open. His apron was soaked in dark stains of blood, shit, and who-knew-what else. His pants were tattered, tucked into heavy, steel-toed boots caked in sewage and boneshards.
Naruto's eyes narrowed as he saw the butcher cutting meat from a human corpse and began to cook it. "Great... Cannibals. Of course there are cannibals in lordran."
The Butcher paused mid-step and sniffed the air.
The cleaver left his hand before Naruto could blink. He flickered to the ceiling, pressing flat against the rotted beams as the blade cut through the space where he had been and clattered to the floor below. A hollow nearby shuffled over and retrieved it, holding it up like an offering.
Naruto watched from above.
They're taking orders from it. Or maybe it's simpler than that. It feeds them and they follow. He had seen stranger hierarchies in Lordran.
A rat screamed somewhere, and the sound did not just cut through the noise, it shook the whole room. Dust rained from the ceiling beams. The hollow nearest to Naruto staggered. Even the dogs whimpered in fear. The Butcher moved before the echo had finished. It snatched the slab of meat from the table and dropped into a trash chute in the floor, gone before the dust had settled.
"Interesting," Naruto murmured.
Oscar chirped.
"What?"
Oscar chirped again, more insistent.
Naruto funneled chakra to his eardrums and immediately regretted it. He pressed through the noise until something thin and faint rose from beneath it all.
S-S-Someone. Please. Help. Me.
The knight exhaled slowly. The invisibility had maybe seconds left. "Oscar," he said quietly. "You're going on a rescue mission."
The lizard looked ready.
Naruto jumped from the ceiling, cocked his arm back, and threw the lizard like a football. Oscar spun in a tight spiral and landed clean on a fourth floor windowsill, drawing every hollow head in the room upward in confusion.
Naruto hit the ground with a thud sending a shadow clone after Oscar.
"Bet you can't catch me!"
He hooked a finger under his lower eyelid, pulled it down, and stuck out his tongue.
The hollows lunged. Their attacks hit nothing but an afterimage, and the real Naruto was already up a pillar, looking down at the growing crowd below. Hollows. Two undead dogs. All of them screaming and scrabbling at the base of the pillar, unable to reach him.
He pressed his fingers to his temples.
"Goddammit," he muttered. "I have too many options." He began counting on his fingers. "Fireball. Wind blade. Classic plunge attack. Rasengan. Clones. I could just sit here until they get bored." He tapped his chin. "Actually."
He reached into his inventory and pulled out his catalyst, turning it over in his hand.
"Betrice would scold me if she knew I had been neglecting my magic, dattebayo."
But since learning what sorcery actually was at its foundations, the ideas had been building up quietly in the back of his mind, waiting.
Naruto looked down at the mob beneath him.
Good a time as any to test a few of them.
Magic was akin to breathing.
When you attuned a spell, you could cast it without much thought, the same way your lungs expanded and contracted without you telling them to. But a man who learned to control his breathing during hard exertion performed better than one who did not. The principle was the same.
Naruto wanted to consciously control his magic. To understand it well enough to refine it.
'Magic is the manipulation of the soul of the catalyst with your own soul,' he thought, settling into the feeling rather than just the action.
Naruto turned his attention to the first question.
Can I only fire one arrow at a time?
He let his awareness sink inward, past the surface instinct of casting, until he could feel it properly. His soul reaching out. The catalyst's soul answering. The two touching, intertwining, shaping.
He focused on the catalyst.
Catalysts were trees. Ancient trees shrunk down into staves, but trees nonetheless. The soul inside was not a single thing but a sphere divided in layer. Each ring/layer marking age. The outermost rings were young. The innermost were old and dense with something that had no name except weight.
From his experience with the Great Soul Arrow Naruto already understood the principle. The deeper the ring you drew from, the older the soul and the stronger the spell. He stayed on the young side because it was easier to use.
Two soul arrows formed at the catalyst's head. The pale blue light fracturing into a pair. They were harder to hold than one, pulling against each other like two flames on the same wick, but he kept them steady and released.
Both hit the crowd below. A hollow dropped. A dog stumbled back with a wound across its shoulder.
Naruto noted the damage and moved on.
Next question: Could he make them smaller?
He compressed the draw. Thinned it. What emerged was not an arrow in any real sense but a sliver of soul energy no larger than a kunai, and when he released it the thing moved fast. Faster than a proper soul arrow by a considerable margin. It punched through a hollow's knee and the creature went down hard.
Less damage. More speed. Understood.
He kept experimenting, firing in short bursts, adjusting the draw each time, mapping the edges of what the spell could do. Multiple small bolts in a spread. A tighter, denser single shot. Two arrows angled to converge.
Naruto didn't notice but the sigil of the soul arrow on his soul had been quietly changing. Branching and splitting into geometry never seen in Vinheim.
It was said in the Dragon School that magic grew from three things: Curiosity, Understanding and Experimentation.
[ Spell: Soul Arrow → Naruto's Soul Arrow ]
[ Description: Elementary sorcery. Fires a soul arrow. Yet in the hands of a true sorcerer, basic magic is but a seed. From it grows a tree with multiple branches. The spell is the same. The caster is not. ]
The Clone and Oscar landed in a dark hallway. Ahead, an old storage room sat open, spilling out a smell of fermented corpses.
He crept forward.
The room was massive, poorly lit by a single torch that flickered. It spat unsteady light across row after row of barrels stacked across the floor to ceiling. Every barrel had one a hollow and a deep amber, almost brown brine.
Oscar chirped.
"Yeah," the clone said, surveying the rows of barrels with his hands on his hips. "Butchers are also fermenting hollows. Though I'm kind of curious what fermented human meat tastes like."
Oscar glanced at him.
"Don't give me that look. You're not curious?"
Oscar continued giving him that look.
"It's a legitimate question. It's not like I was going to eat any. I'm just saying, from a culinary standpoint—"
"..."
"Scientifically."
Oscar blinked slowly.
The clone crossed his arms. "You know what, you're a crystal lizard. You literally eat rocks and metal."
Oscar chirped with great dignity.
"…You!"
The duo turned sharply.
"…Here, over here!"
At the back of the room, a man in tattered pyromancer robes was inside a barrel.
[ Name: Laurentius of the Great Swamp ][ HP: 120 / 1,380 ]
"Please… You must help me..."
Naruto's eyes widened in recognition. The undead merchant had once spoken of a pyromancer in lordran. This had to be him.
"Hey, hang on, I'll be right there," the clone said when something landed behind him.
Thud.
A new Butcher suddenly came from the back with a swing of its cleaver.
Before the blade could reach the clone, crystals spikes erupted upward. The cleaver slammed into it, but failed to break through.
Naruto finished his handsign. "Wrong move, ugly."
Wind Style: Blade of Wind.
A crimson line appeared across the butcher's thick neck. Blood sprayed from the wound like a ruptured vein, hissing through the air.
[ Name: The Butcher ][ HP: 1,520 / 1,639 ]
Yet it barely did much damage.
The Butcher powered through the pain and shattered the crystal wall Oscar. The cleaver came down in a brutal arc toward Naruto.
Naruto moved to meet it.
In one smooth motion, he equipped his Zweihander and raised it into a half-swording grip. Rather than block the blow directly, he used leverage to redirect the cleaver's momentum away from his body.
Naruto slipped to the side and struck the Butcher in the face with a precise Mordhau. The crossguard slammed into the creature's jaw with a meaty crack, stunning it. He then hooked his foot behind the Butcher's ankle and turned with a twist of his torso, throwing the hulking figure over his shoulder.
The Butcher crashed into a cluster of barrels behind them. The wood splintered on impact, and a wave of limp hollows spilled across the floor like discarded meat.
Dust choked the air, and the room filled with groaning.
The hollows began to rise.
They didn't think. Panic drove them, and he was the only moving thing they could see.
"Mindless undead can't even tell who they should be more afraid of," Naruto muttered.
Oscar's gem on his back pulsed, and a cloud of shimmering frost poured out of the lizard's mouth.
One by one, the undead began to cough and choke violently. Crystals began to grow from their throats and lungs, forcing their way out through flesh and bone. Blood mixed with shattered crystal coated the ground.
"You can't get away with committing war crimes just by being cute."
Oscar chirped again with smug satisfaction.
The clone raised an eyebrow. "Agree to disagree?"
A heatwave swept across the room. Naruto turned his head to see Laurentius's pyromancy flame extended towards the butcher.
"Combustion," Laurentius said quietly.
Flame exploded from his hand and engulfed the butcher's sack-covered head. The cannibal grabbed the pyromancer and threw him towards Naruto.
Naruto caught Laurentius as he said, "He's all yours, Oscar."
The lizard chirped, taking a stand between them.
The butcher ignored the lizard and rushed towards the duo.
Now the lizard was pissed.
Ninja Art: Crystal Hexagonal Shuriken Jutsu.
Oscar created blue crystal shuriken in the shape of snowflakes along his tail and launched them at the target. Using chakra to make them spin and increase their lethal power, the shuriken burst into multiple shards with enough force to launch the butcher back.
The crystals seemed to shatter, leaving behind holes in the cannibal.
"Huh, so Oscar wants to win this in his regular form," Naruto said.
"Friend, we should help your partner," Laurentius said.
"Nah, he's got this," Naruto said, giving the anxious pyromancer an Estus to heal.
The butcher, now seeing Oscar as a threat, grabbed the nearest barrel and threw it. Oscar ran to dodge only for the butcher to slam down onto him with a flying body slam. The sound of crystal cracking echoed in the room with Laurentius rushing forward to avenge Oscar, only for Naruto to hold out his hand to stop him.
Before the older man could question it, crystal jutted out of the butcher's belly trapping him.
"That was a crystal clone the butcher had hit."
"Then where is the real lizard friend?" Laurentius questioned as a sparkle hit his eye.
Ninja Art: Crystal Wheel.
Oscar created a ring-shaped blue crystal wheel and had it rotate vertically around himself, allowing him to move at high speed as he zoomed through the area and leapt towards the butcher.
Ninja Art: Crystal Lance.
Oscar created a large sharp blue spear-like crystal surrounding himself and considering the momentum he was carrying, his lance went through the skull of the butcher.
Laurentius's jaw hit the floor while the clone nodded and smirked. "I wonder what Guren's reaction would be if she knew Oscar had basically recreated all of her jutsu."
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Oscar absorbed the soul drop of the butcher.
"Thank you… I would have been her supper without you. Being eaten alive! I shudder to think… Thank you, thank you dearly. I am Laurentius, of the Great Swamp."
"Naruto Uzumaki... Wait, her supper?" Naruto pointed at the corpse. "That's a woman?"
"No, no, no… By the Witch of Izalith. these butchers… they feed a gluttonous monster in the depths, you see."
"Why?"
"I… I do not know, friend. I truly do not."
Before Naruto could press for more information, they heard a roar.
"Guess the original is now fighting the other butcher."
"Original…?" Laurentius questioned, trailing off uncertainly.
"Get ready to be surprised, my friend."
Laurentius nodded weakly as they jumped back to the third floor and saw Naruto fighting against the butcher in the restaurant below. "Is that… your twin?"
Naruto gave him a mischievous grin. "Yes."
Oscar shook his head at his partner's prank.
"What in the—?" Laurentius muttered, staring at his hand. The flame surged, drawn unnaturally toward the original Naruto. "This... why are my flames reacting like this? I have never… this is most unusual…"
"Maybe because I used to be a pyromancer before I, uh lost my flame."
"You mean… your twin brother."
"Sure."
Laurentius gasped. "To think… to think I would meet a fellow pyromancer! Did you two come from the Great Swamp as well, friend?"
"No. Just kinda woke up in the Northern Undead Asylum with a pyromancy flame. That's all."
"I see…" Laurentius said slowly, his eyes drifting somewhere distant. "I see, yes… how curious."
"Let's just watch this fight and talk later."
"…Yes. Yes, of course. Though I must say… hah… this is quite a lot to take in."
The butcher charged.
Naruto grabbed the closest thing he could... a thick, grease-slicked wooden table. As the Butcher raised the cleaver overhead, Naruto rammed the table forward like a battering ram, the edge connecting squarely with the Butcher's groin.
There was a sickening squishing sound.
Naruto winced harder than his opponent.
The Butcher let out a low, guttural groan and staggered, eyes twitching behind the burlap sack.
Before it could recover, Naruto slid his hands along the table's edge and yanked it upward with a grunt. The other end of the table cracked the Butcher in the jaw with a loud crack, snapping his head back.
"Tables really are versatile weapons," Naruto said, twisting and shoving the table sideways as the Butcher slashed wildly, the cleaver cutting into one of the legs. The whole table spun like a shield, deflecting another blow, and Naruto kicked it into the Butcher's chest to buy a second of space.
He rolled to the side and snatched a skillet hanging from a rusted hook. Without a second thought, he flung it like a discus. It smacked the Butcher on the face, denting but not stopping him.
The cleaver came in a diagonal swing.
Naruto ducked, feeling the blade cut air just above his head. He threw a rapid combo of boxing strikes; left jab, right hook to the ribs, and an uppercut under the armpit that sent the Butcher stumbling back into a hanging rack of meat hooks.
Thinking fast, Naruto jumped, caught a ceiling pipe, and swung forward feet-first. His boots crashed into the Butcher's chest, sandwiching him between Naruto and the meat rack.
As the redhead landed in a crouch, the Butcher roared, tearing free of the hooks with reckless strength. He brought the cleaver down in a brutal chop.
Naruto shoved a stool into the Butcher's shin. The cleaver buried into the butcher block behind him.
Naruto snatched a butcher's rolling cart nearby and shoved it with a grunt. It rammed into the Butcher's knees, forcing him backward.
Not letting up, Naruto vaulted onto the cart, kicking off with both feet and flipping over the Butcher's head. As he spun mid-air, he snatched a hanging chain and used it to swing into the opposite side of the kitchen.
The Butcher turned too late.
Naruto had grabbed a meat tenderizer mallet from the wall. He caught the Butcher's wrist mid-swing and slammed the mallet into the back of his elbow. The cleaver dropped with a heavy clang.
The Butcher swung a wild punch.
Naruto ducked, grabbed a pot lid from the counter, and pinged it off the Butcher's face like a frisbee. Then he slid under a prep table, grabbed its underside, and kicked upward with both legs. The whole thing flipped, trapping the Butcher beneath it.
Without missing a beat, Naruto ran, leapt onto the upside-down table, and stomped it with all his weight.
Wood cracked. The Butcher underneath let out a muffled growl of pain.
Naruto flipped off the table, landing in stance, breathing slightly heavier but grinning. "You really should've stayed behind the butcher block. Dattebayo."
The table shook once, twice then the Butcher exploded upward, roaring as he threw the wreckage aside.
Naruto channeled chakra through the catalyst to reinforce it. The first strike caught the cannibal across the face with the flat of the catalyst. Before it could recover the redhead was already pivoting, driving a diagonal strike down across its collarbone.
Naruto launchex both feet into its ribs in a volley kick that staggered it back two steps. He closed the distance instantly, jabbing a straight punch into its stomach to double it forward, and the moment its head came down he pressed the catalyst against its face and fired.
The soul arrow took it point blank.
The Butcher stumbled.
"Wow, you are a durable bastard."
The Dragonscale Ring shimmered in the torchlight on his finger as Naruto held out his hand.
"Let's see you get a tast of a Rasengan then?"
As Naruto formed the Rasengan the ring made it stronger with magic.
MAGIC ENHANCED NINJA ART: SOUL RASENGAN!
Magic made the Rasengan like a whirlpool, pulling at everything within its spiral.
The air of the Depths was soaked through with souls, the magic found plenty to work with.
Motes of green rose from the floor, the walls, and the dark. Every last drifting remnant of the dead converging on the spiral in his hand and folding into it one by one until the orb was full of them.
The Rasengan was... green.
A glowing green orb, with wisps of white threading slowly through the shell like smoke caught inside still water.
"Let's see what this puppy can do."
He hit the Butcher square in the chest and the impact sent the creature flying across the room. It crashed into the far wall hard enough to crack the stone and slid down to the floor.
Thud.
The Butcher had no visible damage from the rasengan.
"Ehh?"
Oscar chirped from above.
Naruto nodded in understanding.
The Soul Rasengan hadn't touched the body at all. It had gone straight through to the soul and torn it apart from the inside.
"Oh," Naruto said quietly. "That's actually scary."
He stood there for a moment looking at the Butcher's emptied husk. Powerful. Probably the most destructive thing he had thrown at a single target. But the soul was gone, shredded into nothing, nothing left to collect or read or use. The ring had done that. Or rather, the ring and the Depths together. Lordran's air was saturated with death and decay. The endless cycle of souls unraveling and reforming, soaked into the stone over ages. The magic rasengan had been a whirlpool that pulled in what was already there.
The Elemental Nations were different story. Nature energy was the current running through that world.
Naruto turned the ring over on his finger, watching the faint light move across it.
"I wonder what a magic enhanced Rasengan would look like after absorbing nature energy."
He held the thought there for a long moment.
"Amazing."
Naruto turned towards Laurentis watching with wide eyes. He jumped up toward the trio and popped the shadow clone. The boy went still for a moment, sorting through everything the clone had seen and done.
Laurentis stared at the smoke. Then at Naruto. Then back at where the smoke had been.
"Wasn't that... your twin?"
"Nope... Clone."
Naruto and Oscar snickered at the expression on the pyromancer's face. The man had the look of someone running through a quiet checklist of whether this was real or a dream.
Laurentis's eyes moved from the Elite Knight armor to the sorcerer's catalyst to the claim that naruto used to be a pyromancer. "You are a strange... Knight? Sorcerer? Pyromancer?"
"Lordran has given me a lot to work with," Naruto said, straightening up with a grin. "In short, I'm awesome."
Oscar patted his foot.
"Humbly awesome."
Laurentis smiled faintly but his attention had drifted to his own flame, which had been burning hotter since Naruto approached. "My apologies. I don't know what is going on with my flame. It has been behaving strangely since we crossed paths."
"I might have a clue about that." Naruto glanced at his own hand. His soul had been changed significantly by Chaos. It made sense that another pyromancy flame would react to that, like a compass needle swinging toward something it recognised.
Laurentis nodded slowly. "My friend, I plan to journey toward Firelink Shrine. Rest a while." He paused, and something warmer came into his expression. "I would love to share what insight I have into the power of pyromancy with you, if you would allow it."
Naruto's eyes lit up. "You have spells?"
"Of course. A pyromancer's flame is a part of his own body. The flame develops right along with his skill." Laurentis stopped himself with a small laugh. "Sorry. You are a pyromancer yourself. You already know this."
"Don't worry about it." Naruto rubbed the back of his neck. "Honestly, even calling myself a pyromancer feels like a stretch. I never had anyone teach me. I just had fireball and that was about as far as I got."
"There is a saying in Great swamp,'Every problem has a solution. Most of them are just Fireball'."
Naruto laughed loving that quote.
"If it is not too much to ask," Laurentis said, "could I see your flame?"
"Yeah, about that." Naruto rubbed the back of his neck. "I kinda lost it."
"Ah." Laurentis was quiet for a moment. Then a small smile crossed his face. "Well. What is a pyromancer without their flame." The fire at his palm was put out, leaving only ash, and he held his hand out.
Naruto took it.
The ash left Laurentis's skin and clung to the boy's instead. For a brief second Naruto was pulled back into the memory when he first got his flame.
[ You have obtained: Pyromancy Flame ]
"These flames mean a great deal to you."
"I guess..." Naruto held the flame out toward Oscar, letting the lizard feel the warmth of it. "Pyromancy is a tool. But it was also the first thing I chose before coming to Lordran. I used it alongside my master. My first kill came because of these flames." He was quiet, watching the fire sway. "Now that I say it out loud, these flames have changed me... alot, dattebayo."
"When I gave you that flame, I gave you a part of myself. Please take good care of it."
"I will." Naruto formed a shadow clone. "He'll go with you to Firelink."
"I appreciate the thought but I am quite capable of making the journey on my own."
"Oh no I know that," Naruto said. "I'm going deeper into the Depths. The clone is there to buy spells off you and learn pyromancy."
"I see. Then I am happy to help." The pyromancer turned toward the passage leading up, then stopped. "Goodbye then. Be safe, friend. Don't you dare go Hollow."
"Not planning on it," Naruto said.
Laurentis walked on. The clone fell into step beside him, already asking questions.
Oscar scratched his leg.
"Yeah?"
The crystal lizard quickly rushed towards the cauldron.
"We are not eating anything from this place, bud. I don't wanna know what human flesh tastes like."
Oscar chirped.
"The fire?"
Naruto crouched beside the cauldron. The fire come from a clay square pot. Vine-like patterns covered the surface. It had a warm amber and brown tone, darkened at the edges as though it had been burning for a very long time. A large golden flame arose from within.
[ You have obtained a Large Ember ]
[ Item: Large Ember ]
[ Description: Ember required for weapon ascension. A large, high-quality ember, once handled by the blacksmith of Astora.
Ascension for +5 standard weapon. Allows reinforcement to +10.
Also, can ascend +5 standard weapons to raw weapons. (Raw weapons can be reinforced to +5.) ]
Naruto gasped, and immediately hugged Oscar. "You're amazing! If it weren't for you, I might've walked right past the biggest treasure in this dump!"
Oscar squeaked happily, limbs wiggling in delight.
"So... if I bring this to Andre, he can take my weapon to plus ten. That's like... better than learning a new jutsu!"
Naruto puckered his lips and leaned in. "You deserve a kiss."
Oscar chirped.
"You just had to ruin the moment by asking if I even have the ore for the upgrades."
Oscar chirped again, this time clearly asking if he still gets the kiss.
"Yes."
Naruto scooped Oscar up, cradled him like a baby, pressed a long exaggerated kiss right between his eyes and then flung him straight into the garbage chute.
The lizard's chirps turned to muffled, indignant curses as he tumbled down into the dark.
"Language," Naruto called after him, before leaping down after.
Meanwhile, Laurentius and the shadow clone made their way back up through the Depths toward Firelink Shrine, stepping over the corpses of hollows en-route.
"I presume all the dead hollows along the way were your doing?" Laurentius asked.
"Yep."
Laurentius absorbed this in silence for the rest of the walk.
They found a mossy patch of ground beside the broken church in firelink shrine.
"This seems like a good enough spot."
The clone was about to agree when they heard it.
Hmgg...
Hmgg...
A sound drifting up from somewhere near them. It was reverberating faintly through the flooded stone floor of the church like something was... snoring.
The clone and Laurentius froze.
"Is someone sleeping nearby?"
"Sounds like it's coming from under the floor."
"Should we check it out?"
"You want me to blow up the floor and find out what's breathing under there?"
Laurentius raised a hand quickly. "Let's leave it to sleep. Safer that way."
"Suit yourself. But if it eats you later I'm not taking any blame."
Then the snoring stopped.
The silence that followed was very loud.
"That's good?"
"Honestly I've no idea," the clone said, equally quiet. He was running the math on whether he should check it out or not.
For now he decided to let it go. If he tried something and got dispelled in the process, the original was too far away to respond in time. That left Laurentius, Griggs and Anastacia in danger.
Not worth the risk.
As the snoring resumed, both of them let out a slow breath.
"I think we should continue with our business for now," Laurentius said, spreading his spell scrolls out on the moss.
[ Fire Orb – 8,000 Souls ]
[ Combustion – 500 Souls ]
[ Iron Flesh – 2,000 Souls ]
[ Flash Sweat – 2,000 Souls ]
[ Fireball – 800 Souls ]
"I'll buy your entire stock," the clone said, holding out 13,300 souls without blinking.
"I see hunger in your eyes, my friend. Hunger for knowledge."
"Yeah, you caught me." The clone rubbed the back of his head.
"Since you are so eager." Laurentius settled back down on the moss. "Ask what you will."
"What is pyromancy?"
Laurentius nodded and folded his hands. "Pyromancy is the art of casting fire. Produce flame, then channel it, just as our ancestors did. A pyromancer must be in tune with nature herself. My home, the Great Swamp, is an abundant store of nature. You will understand, one day. It only takes time."
The clone's mind had drifted immediately to nature energy. He knew pyromancy responded poorly to regular chakra. But what about nature energy?
"Are you following so far?"
"Somewhat."
Laurentius considered this for a moment, then smiled. "My teacher, whom I imagine still resides in the Great Swamp, had a funny way of putting it. He said that 'Pyromancy is the ultimate fantasy. That we are born into Dark and warmed by Fire, but this Fire we cannot touch. Those whose fascination with Fire persists, learn to hold it in their own hand." He shook his head with quiet fondness. "He rather had a way with words, the old withering frog."
"Was your master... part of Mount Myoboku?"
"Pardon?"
"Your master was an old withering frog, so I thought..." The clone trailed off slowly as he heard himself out loud. I am an idiot.
"..."
"..."
"You have a strange sense of humor, my friend," Laurentius said finally, with great dignity. "And I apologize for not explaining better."
"No, that one was on me." The clone cleared his throat. "Maybe try an example. It might land better, dattebayo."
"Indeed." Laurentius rose to his feet and turned toward the open archway. "I shall demonstrate with a simple fireball."
The clone sat up straight and gave the man his full and undivided attention.
"How does one cast fireball? Fairly simple. Attune the spell. Gather souls from the air into your hands." Laurentis swirling blue souls from the air into an orb. "Use them. Shape them into fire. Knead the flames into a ball. Compress. Then throw."
The fireball struck the stone archway nearby.
Boom.
The clone still remembered what his own fireball could do. He had seen it char stone walls black, leave scorch marks deep enough to run a finger through.
Laurentius's fireball melted the stone itself. A slow, heavy drip ran down the archway where the impact had landed, the rock going soft and dark at the edges like candle wax held too close to a flame.
Naruto snapped his fingers.
"So, Pyromancy is like Oolacile sorcery. You pull ambient souls out of the air. The same soul microorganisms release when they die. You use your own soul to collect and shape it like soul magic. Ignite it through the pyromancy flame, and throw it. That's why you live in the Great Swamp. More organic matter. More souls in the air."
Laurentius looked both pleased and slightly unsettled, the expression of a teacher whose student has just skipped three lessons at once. "Yes," he said slowly. "That is the basics of pyromancy."
"Then how do you make it stronger?" the clone pressed. "I know no stat directly scales the pyromancy flame."
"Souls are the fuel," Laurentius said. "The more souls you burn into your flame, the hotter it becomes. And a hotter flame means stronger pyromancy." He paused. "Think of a blacksmith's ember. They burn souls to make their forge run hotter."
"Andre does that."
"But where a blacksmith's ember fades within hours, a pyromancer's flame is eternal. It does not fade."
"How do i do it?"
"You must be reborn through another, which means the upgrade cannot be done alone. You will need another pyromancer to help you not burn your own soul."
The clone leaned back. "So if the original wants to level up his flame, he has to come find you."
"Indeed."
The clone sat with that for a moment. Then he stood up abruptly with the focused energy of someone who had just connected two things that had no business connecting.
"Thanks for your help. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go test a crazy idea I just had."
"May I see it?"
"YOSH!" The clone ran towards the bonfire.
[ Name: Naruto Uzumaki ][ Level: 103 — 105 ][ Attributes ][ Attunement: 12 — 14 ][ Spell Slots: 3 ]
Two spell slots had been a genuine pain. Every spell he attuned took one. And with three distinct systems all competing for those slots, the strategic headache of deciding what stayed and what got dropped had been a constant background noise in every fight. Three slots eased the burden somewhat. He had one for each system now, which was the bare minimum for what he was trying to do.
I really need to figure out a way to get more slots, he thought, turning the problem over. More attunement meant more options meant more flexibility meant less of the particular frustration of having the perfect spell for a situation and no slot to put it in.
That is a problem for later.
Right now he had a brilliant idea to test and the scroll had everything he needed to get started.
[ Spell: Fire Orb ]
[ Description: Pyromancy which improves upon Fireball. Hurl fire orb. The flaming fire orb explodes upon impact, causing fire splash damage in a spectacle which seems to symbolize the strength of the fire-manipulating pyromancers. ]
"This could work," the clone muttered, placing his hand on the scroll as the attunement began.
Firelink Shrine disappeared.
The darkness that replaced it was not the darkness of a room with no light. It was the darkness of a space with no edges, extending in every direction without boundary, without floor or ceiling or wall. He floated in it without falling.
Around him drifted two sigils: one blue for Soul Arrow. One yellow for the Lightning Spear. Both represented the attunement of these spells.
He needed a third spell.
With his flaming hand, he began to draw.
A dense central circle, built in layered strokes, holding the orb at its heart. A single vertical mark touching its top edge, marking the moment of release. Around it a wider ring, lined with short outward spikes evenly spaced, hinting at the explosion still waiting inside.
As the symbol completed, the instinctual pull of attunement founf its anchor in his soul.
[ You have attuned the spell: Fire Orb ]
He had one spell from every system now.
Naruto blinked and Firelink Shrine came back. He stood up slowly, rolled his shoulders, and looked out across the ruins with a sorcerer's catalyst appearing in one hand and a pyromancy flame lighting the other.
"My friend, what exactly are you about to do?"
"Science, dattebayo," the clone said, ignoring the fact that he was doing science on magic.
He held the catalyst out and formed a Soul Arrow. The pale blue condensed at the tip, and then the clone did something no one in Vinheim had apparently ever thought to do. He brought the pyromancy flame up and pressed it against the gathered soul.
Laurentius gasped.
The clone pulled the catalyst back slowly.
His right arm extended forward, thumb angled slightly downward. He pressed his pointer and middle fingers into the flame and felt the soul energy inside it reshape. The blue change into the fire itself, the fire giving the soul a body. The flames formed into an arrow between his fingers, burning blue at the core and orange at the edges.
He took an archer's stance and fired.
The arrow crossed the distance in a breath and hit the cliffside near firelink shrine.
Boom.
A white flash swallowed everything. The clone squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them the cliff was gone. A smoldering hole sat where solid rock had been, the edges still glowing faintly at the rim.
That was stronger than the Great fireball jutsu.
The thought had barely finished forming before the exhaustion hit. The clone sat down hard, legs giving out without warning. Combining two magic systems had a cost and it was exhaustive fatigue of mind and body.
"Naruto, what did you just do?!"
"Pyromancy burns souls," the clone said, catching his breath. "Sorcery uses soul. I combined them. Magic makes the form and the flame ignites it." He smiled as he finally pulled ofd an idea he never really thought about.
Up until now Naruto had been trying to push chakra into the other systems. The results had been a mixed at best. Miracles had produced nothing. Sorcery had shown promise but needed significant work before it was reliable. Pyromancy had been outright dangerous.
But what he had just done meant the question was no longer just about chakra. The question was about every possible intersection. Sorcery and miracles. Sorcery and pyromancy, which he had just scratched the surface of. Miracles and pyromancy. And then beyond that, once he understood those crossings properly, maybe chakra had a door into each of them that it had not found yet.
So many good ideas pulling at him all at once.
The clone left every single one of them for the original and popped.
The white smoke drifted up toward the pale sky.
Laurentius did not move for a long moment.
"My friend," he said quietly, to no one. "You just combined soul sorcery and pyromancy."
He turned and looked at the hole in the cliffside.
The sorcerers of Vinheim looked down on pyromancy. A barbaric art, they called it. Something that destroyed the beautiful aurora of soul that permeated the world, burning it rather than shaping it.
Savages only knew how to destroy. Arrogant Cowards only knew how to shape.
The two schools had existed in quiet contempt of one another for as long as anyone could remember. No one had ever seriously asked whether they could cross. The bias ran too deep, the social walls too high and the understanding between the systems too deliberately kept apart for anyone on either side to think the question was worth asking.
And a boy had answered it in an afternoon. Simply because he was curious and no one had ever told him he was not supposed to.
In this land pyromancers earned a certain respect, more than they ever had anywhere he had come from. The day he became Undead he had felt chosen to attune himself to the ancient arts.
And yet Laurentis found himself sitting in the ruins of Firelink Shrine with something shifting quietly in his chest. Not inadequacy or envy. Something that sat closer to wonder.
"My friend," Laurentius said quietly. "Thank you for showing me how much more there is to learn. Perhaps this is what I needed to ascend my flames and find our mother."