Lightning crackled from a sword, mixed with flames and wind, and a slash sent the storm of elements flying, cleaving through militants like a knife through butter, sending them to their doom. Rose moved through the battlefield, wind boosting her speed, as her weapon cleaved and slashed.

Then the memory stopped.

Another scene jumped to its place, the past experience flooding into her once more.

Lightning crackled between her fingers as Lilias watched her form. The element climbed her arms, wishing to fry her, but she felt her willpower shoot up once more, overcoming the challenging will of nature's wrath and dragging that sparkling chaos right down between her fingers.

"Alright," Rose muttered, eyes staring at the wall in front of her, unblinking. "It should be easier next time."

The memory faded out of Rose's mind as she took all the sensations, thoughts, and emotions she had at that moment with her, learning from them once more before her brain replayed a new memory dragged from her core, all of her senses jumping deep into it.

Lilias's swords came.

She knocked them away, her voice rang, the girl stepped back, and she stepped in, slashing.

Abdomen, blocked.

Rose changed the trajectory of her blade, heading towards the girl's shoulders, feinted, then slashed towards the dragonian's neck.

Her eyes widened as their weapons' contact point sparked. She tried to move her arm, drag her sword out, and this time, she more adeptly realized the reason why it had been impossible.

The girl spoke as she twisted her dual swords, moving her arms to counter Rose's movements, opposing her wish to drag her weapon out.

Then.

<Igris> flew out of her hands.

"So that was why. . ." Rose muttered, seated upon their apartment's couch in the dead of the night, having re-analyzed her spar with Lilias, having experienced it all once more.

She was intelligent, but her greatest strength still remained her brain's processing power and her ability to see her memories as if she were reliving them. After all, her core, her being, stored everything she experienced to be easily called back on later. It was the same way her past self's memories, emotions, and will were etching into her.

If she wished for it, she could choose to focus on only the visual and auditory information of the memory, which was most useful when there were other things in her surroundings that needed her attention. Here, upon a couch in the dead of the night, though, she was fully running through memories, taking everything she had experienced through her mind once more, as if reliving them.

She had two motives in learning from these old memories, one was to avoid falling victim to the same attack twice. The other was to learn her opponent's techniques herself in case the need ever arose to use them. Those two ideals were the sole reason why she was a fast learner and why it was best to be trained by someone rather than learn on her lonesome - so she could actually have a previous experience to fall back on.

'I imagine this is also one of the reasons homunculi are utilized as soldiers,' Rose thought.

The hum of her core kept her focused as the next memories came, and she extended her hands before her, flames birthing and floating between her palms.

Ever since she saw Bianca create constructs out of ice, she had desired to match her. Not only because she had drawn upon a momentary rage to send her own, somewhat weak, spears of flames flying, but because she felt it the necessary next step to her Gear past raw power.

Shaping her flames required precise control of the surrounding mana lest it simply become an engulfing blaze, something she doubted a human mind could actively do in the heat of the moment, but she wasn't human.

The darkness of the night was eclipsed by the burning brightness of a sword that was compressed to completion as if a smith was hammering its dents. Fire calmed, directed by continual mana, until it became a blade. Rose smiled, left hand wrapping around the handle of the floating weapon made in the image of <Igris>, tinted with blue around its form, as she stared at the quiet orange flames able to hold sharpness, or be released to consume and burn.

"Perfect," She muttered, glee filling her face.

The weapon twisted in shape and elongated with her control over mana until it became a long spear that could be thrown to pierce. It shifted once more, becoming a rope of fire that wrapped around her arms. Then it shrunk until it was a dagger.

Naturally, if she could make a sword from flames, she could make other things as well. The skill was versatile. Learning the skill had been more for precise control over her Gear than obtaining another type of weapon, after all. Though she doubted she would be able to shape her flames this masterfully when they burned crimson, or black, her grand vision was still a gradual progression of the abilities she currently had.

At the same time, she also became freakishly familiar with controlling the surrounding mana to a degree she herself was not aware of.

"Hmm." Rose was not done, however. In her mind, there was the presence of a 'Could I?'

She stood as the weapon began to change shape, slow at first, then fast. By the time she was standing within the night, there was a burning bow grasped in her left hand, tinted blue by the compression of continually supplied mana keeping it together.

Rose reached her right hand forward and an arrow of flames was grasped.

At this point, even she was feeling her brain stress itself, a paing of sharp pain running through it at the concentration and focus that was needed, but Rose was someone far too used to pain.

She held the bow with one hand and knocked the arrow of flames on the string. A string that had to be made perfectly malleable. She pulled and it stretched much to her jubilation. She didn't know how to fire an arrow, or the proper stance for it, but this was already marked progress towards the finer control of her flames.

'With this, should I learn to wield every weapon possible?' She thought as she studied the two constructs interacting with one another, stable and controlled. Right now, she could only fashion them out of her orange flames, the weakest of the bunch, but perhaps she would soon be able to make them truly deadly when she reached the fine point of crimson and black. Then, her mind flickered, and she had a brilliant moment of inspiration. 'Why simply stop at weapons?'

After all, there was such a thing as martial arts, and she already had a companion who could readily teach her boxing.

'I could learn every fighting style in this world, melee or ranged, with or without a weapon,' Rose thought. Then, as the constructs of flames flickered away from her hand, she corrected herself.  'I should learn every fighting style.'

Once she did, and also improved her constructs, then wouldn't she be able to match and defeat anyone, no matter how they fought, and no matter what weapon she needed to counter them? No, she realized, it didn't need to be for the purpose of countering someone.

'Who could possibly match me if I fought with everything, every technique I've ever acquired and every technique I will acquire?' She thought, 'Add my Gear, spirits, true magic, mana channeling, and armaments if needed, and I would be unstoppable.'

It would take time, and it would take effort. She wasn't an instantaneous learner, but she was a freakishly fast one with the right set of skills and determination to make it possible. Her ambition ignited, filling her heart with flames able to match those of <Igris>.

LotsChrono

—edited by Pal.

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