Flowrishin's eyes widened.
"You are sure?"
Irwin raised his eyebrow. The Headteacher rarely asked things like that, which meant she showed just how shocked she was.
"I am a hundred percent sure," he said. "Someone killed her and somehow forcefully drew out part of her soulcard and soulforce to create a handcard."
Flowrishin didn't respond immediately as her gaze drifted to the map, eyes unfocused. It took a while before she sighed, shook her head, and looked at him wit...
2025-08-08 14:16:19 +0000 UTC
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“Alright, that's enough for our first day,” Irwin said, staring at the small groups of students in his classroom. “I expect you to practice the resonance for the different types of fire in the coming week,s and I’ll be holding another test during the next class.”
A round of hushed excitement echoed through the classroom. Surrounded by their friends, the top prospects in his class, Rorin and Doire looked ready to fight.
‘Those two are going to be fun to watch,...
2025-08-03 17:03:07 +0000 UTC
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Interesting, he thought, his gaze lingering on the one he knew had to be Hilbarin Deadslate, the supposedly strongest of the seven, and since a few hours ago, the most likely candidate to replace the Empress.
Thinking about the Empress made him look at the table where she sat, together with the Teleporter. She was smiling at him faintly, but it was hard for Irwin to understand what she was thinking. He fully remembered that she'd told him she wasn't really interested in being t...
2025-08-01 19:28:04 +0000 UTC
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Irwin stepped back, watching Feijia slump to the ground. Her handcards were gone, but in their place sat a singular heartcard. It hummed with power, resonating with a beautiful, energetic song. Irwin watched quietly as the Ignitzian's sleek, fiery body began changing. Her fiery hair darkened as some strings turned a metallic copper color while the others ignited, raining sparks over her shoulders. Her slightly orange and yellow skin, which had looked like a mix between the sun and an old pape...
2025-07-27 18:57:18 +0000 UTC
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Irwin stared at the six-eyed being, trying to make sense of what it had just said. It wanted help opening a portal? How would that even work?
Wait, does he know how to create portals like the guidar does?
He thought about the mercenaries that the now-dead Lasther had sent after him back on Mudball. That was years ago now, and he still had no idea how they had managed it. The mercenary he and Greldo had interrogated had spoken about orbs that allowed teleporters to move to...
2025-07-26 17:29:43 +0000 UTC
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Irwin lay on his back within the sprawling body of music-note trees that comprised a large part of his soulscape. Behind him, a familiar soft song came from one of his favorite trees. It was one of those he'd made together with the others back on Granvox.
Not that he was thinking about that.
"Whatever we do, we have to help one of those groups," he muttered.
"Agreed," Ambraz said from his perch on a branch a dozen feet above Irwin's head. "Whatever we do, we need more ...
2025-07-25 17:31:13 +0000 UTC
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Nimlarel woke up groggily, wondering what had awoken her, she found that the gleaming light from behind the closed window shutters had moved from one side of the room to the other.
It's morning…
She struggled to sit up, recalling the card, and frantically searching in her shirt. It took a few moments to locate it, tangled in the blankets. As she held it, she took a deep breath. Was everything a dream? She could sense the familiar tension of her soulcard, but it wa...
2025-07-20 17:32:04 +0000 UTC
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"Tell her I'll be busy tonight, but we can eat tomorrow," Irwin said, looking at the guard standing before him.
The man's reaction was one of disbelief and anger, but before he could speak, Irwin raised his hand.
"If you start complaining, you can tell her it will be next week and also that it's your fault."
The guard's eyes widened, and he stared at Irwin for a moment before taking a deep breath.
"I'll let the Empress know," he said.
"Good," Irwin said, cl...
2025-07-19 18:42:21 +0000 UTC
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"Dammit, I knew it. I should have trusted my gut."
Irwin slowly turned his gaze to the man with the blue fire tingling through his dark hair who had just hissed under his breath. One of the three in the second group, he had his hands on his knees and seemed barely able to remain standing. As their eyes met, Irwin sensed an immediate and odd resonance from merely looking at him. It came from his first soulcard, and he instinctively knew why.
He has an Origin Flame… but a we...
2025-07-18 17:02:40 +0000 UTC
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"My Lord. Our spies have reported that the Empress has left very suddenly. The Teleporter reportedly took her and a small squad of guards to an undisclosed location."
Sachindrian looked at the man opposite him for a moment before tapping the table before him. There were dozens of papers on it, including a handful of different communication tablets.
"I see," he said thoughtfully, his eyes lingering on a small note he'd gotten from one of his spies within Cinder Grove. "Tell Findiko...
2025-07-13 19:47:14 +0000 UTC
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Irwin watched intently as Siela worked on the soulforce resonance. The card was slowly changing as she sang and struck. Each hammer blow was nearly the same, creating a steady rhythm around which her high, reed-like voice sang her song.
She improved again, Irwin thought.
Ambraz's tiny spark was flying around the otherwise empty classroom, circling the girl. Irwin could sense the joy from his friend, knowing he approved greatly of the younger batch of cardsmiths in their c...
2025-07-12 19:44:02 +0000 UTC
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Irwin stepped away from Ambraz, staring with immense joy at the ruby-ranked card on his friend's metallic back. It was slowly calming down, as was the soulforce that had been raging in his soulscape.
"It's a good thing you moved into your soulscape for the final step," Ambraz grunted. "Without your second soulcard stabilizing the resonance of this thing, we might have failed."
Yeah, sadly, it wasn't without cost, Irwin thought, as he looked around, extending his senses.
2025-07-11 16:11:24 +0000 UTC
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"It's impossible."
Zou did her best to keep her hands curled around her biceps. If she let go now, she might start strangling the four shadow mercenary leaders standing before her.
"You have had over half a year," she hissed. "You guaranteed me that you would be able to get him drugged and abducted."
"You didn't tell us he has three soulcards," one of the leaders, a tiny five-foot Ignitzian, snapped. "Three!"
"And I've told you that you are wrong," Zou snapped. "There ...
2025-07-06 17:44:06 +0000 UTC
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"Hurry, we are going to be late!"
"Stop running, class isn't starting in another few minutes."
Rorin rolled his eyes as he ran after his two friends. "Could you two calm down? We don't even know if what the others said is true! They might just be tricking us into returning to class."
Siela made a strange hop mid-run, turning in the air to glare at him before returning on her feet, still heading the way she had before. The spin had been smooth and practiced, which it was, as ...
2025-07-05 20:00:51 +0000 UTC
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Irwin took a deep, steady drink from the glass, feeling the hot liquid flow through his throat and down his stomach. It eased the sense of tension he still felt from the reforging, but not the worry that came since.
He thought back to the reforging, and sensations and moments played through his mind. With his otherself still asleep, and working at only half strength, he tried and failed to find what he was searching for. A few moments later, he sighed, put the glass down, and look...
2025-07-04 16:53:19 +0000 UTC
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Ambraz focused on his soulforce and the beautiful patterns deep within him. They felt somewhat similar to soulcards in nature, but unlike those, they were more malleable. Flexible. But only within certain boundaries. Boundaries he'd never really understood but which had been there for as long as his ancestral memories went back.
Within the web-like pattern, three spots were left influx, options he'd not yet chosen from when he'd ranked up to five. Each represented an enormous arra...
2025-06-29 17:54:50 +0000 UTC
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"You can't mean that," Baytim whispered.
Zou cocked her head, examining the younger Oxarite as if she wasn't sure what he was.
"I mean," Baytim continued, his voice rising in pitch. "She doesn't even want to talk to me!"
"So?" Zou asked. "You just have to go there and ask her some questions. I'm not asking you to figure out how to make her like you! We both know that's impossible."
Baytim looked at her in shock, and for a moment, a dangerous gleam grew in his eyes. It ...
2025-06-28 17:07:26 +0000 UTC
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Flowrishin quietly listened to the group of over a hundred smiths. Their work caused a symphony of strikes, hums, mutters, and even the occasional song to blend together in the meeting hall. Her senses were dispersed around, taking in the horrid blend of skill levels and smithing types.
Absently, she grouped things together, not surprised by a few findings. Power and mental-diagram smithing types were the most prevalent, with a few singers among them. It was something she'd been n...
2025-06-27 19:01:14 +0000 UTC
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Baytim felt his legs shake as he walked towards the small compound.
Why did she have to ask me to do this, he thought.
It took all his effort not to scream in fear as he sensed the presence within, like a deep bubbling flow of magma, ready to rise from the depths and explode into a volcano.
He tried to compose himself as he reached the large door, failed, tried again, and after two seconds, decided he was just going to make things worse. The only tiny glimmer ...
2025-06-22 19:31:51 +0000 UTC
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Irwin walked through the dense part of the Grove, following Fireza, the tall, lanky, and almost black-leafed Viridian woman. The color of her leaf hair, the ruggedness of her barkskin, and the soft haziness of her voice would tell anyone who knew these things just how ancient she was, even by Viridian standards.
Which made her brisk pace and the joyful energy in her pale green even more astonishing.
Irwin scanned her again, just to be sure she wasn't actually a hidden multi-...
2025-06-21 20:00:28 +0000 UTC
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Irwin hummed as he sat on the sloop, which was swaying slightly as the runic formations on the bottom kept it in the air. The deep resonance of his soft song vibrated through the wooden vessel, along the long cables that bound it to a Teinefola, which was swaying as it pulled them forward. The dark gray, smooth creature let out a shrill thrum, almost like a dozen people lightly tapping their nails on a table really quickly at the same time. It was picked up and echoed by the one a few dozen f...
2025-06-20 15:58:30 +0000 UTC
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Irwin watched as the man before both calmed and slowly changed. Initially, he'd thought the Acenti was a hardliner, but ever since the man woke up, it had been clear that he wasn't. He was just some guy who had been doing a job he barely understood and had gotten surprised, scared, and finally completely shocked by everything that had happened.
"You've really been with this Cult for over ten years?" Brecka asked.
She was leaning back, the wariness having slowly faded as the conver...
2025-06-15 19:33:28 +0000 UTC
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Irwin hummed as he walked through Lindifel. Three days had passed since he and Brecka had performed in the Ocre Inn, and he'd learned a few things since. People did still use soulshards, meaning he and Brecka would not have to work if they didn't want to. The Acenti had been here for a very long time, so long that many people didn't even remember it, and the only one who had ever heard of the Urdwellans was an old Acenti called Sneel, who dabbled in history.
"Guitarist! You playing agai...
2025-06-14 18:23:19 +0000 UTC
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Ambraz sighed as he hovered through the smithy.
Great. Just great! The kid gets to explore, and I'm stuck here.
As he moved through the smithy, he realized he'd inadvertently circled back to the spot he kept returning to—the spot where the chunk of Aurorium lay. It was warped and broken, and looking at it, he felt his annoyance grow. He'd actually destroyed it. The latest chunk of Aurorium they had…
Was it a complete loss? No. As far as he knew, this...
2025-06-13 17:48:36 +0000 UTC
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"If you were there for five days, the time dilation is definitely still working," Greldo said.
Irwin yawned, tired from walking and sitting in a desert for five days. It had been one of the most boring things he'd ever done, and at one point, he'd almost wanted some Wyrms or other things to find him.
"How much soulforce did you leak while there?" Dahlia asked, handing him a flask of something that smelled spicy.
"Barely any," Irwin replied, taking a quick sip. "At this rate,...
2025-06-08 18:40:13 +0000 UTC
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Irwin hurled through the corridor, keeping an eye on both the exit and the primordial chaos beyond. With every passing minute, he was starting to feel better that he hadn't seen any Oculithar outside yet. Part of him had worried that he would step into a fractured exit portal corridor if that were even possible.
As he fell to the distant exit, knowing he still had hours to go, his mind drifted back to the last few months, and he couldn't help but smile.
He'd always known that Zann...
2025-06-07 17:47:06 +0000 UTC
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"Very well, if we are all done with the Lalerin Branch, let us examine the current state of the Langost Branch. All in agreement to move on?" a quiet, cold voice said.
It belonged to a tall woman with red hair bound tightly in a ponytail, from which two darker red horns jutted upward. They were constantly pulsing, almost like a heartbeat, while a blurry mist or fog obscured her bright red eyes. Her skin was a yellowish, pale gray and seemed so thin as to be almost transparent.
...
2025-06-06 16:38:25 +0000 UTC
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"Good, good. No pain is good," Ambraz said. "Now, as we continue, the distance and time dilation will increase."
Irwin didn't answer, thinking back to the long discussions they had over the last few hours.
How we didn't think about just trying it here first… he thought, shaking his head.
It was a good thing Daubutim had eventually decided on an experiment and suggested a few approaches. Not that that was the end of the conversation. After that, they discussed what...
2025-06-01 18:37:10 +0000 UTC
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Irwin grunted in anger, wanting to toss the card to the side.
"Calm down, kid. You are tired. You have been pushing yourself too far and are now trying to create a diamond-rank card that has not a single type overlap with your own soulcards," Ambraz said. "That you even reached ruby can be seen as a testament to your skill!"
Irwin took a deep breath, pocketing the failed card- an eighty-five percent Ruby shadow card. It was his second failure, and he'd already wasted over half the...
2025-05-31 18:27:05 +0000 UTC
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"Is it always this loud?"
Dahlia looked at the older woman, pulled out of listening to the beautiful sound that came from above. She wished she could have joined to see, but with Irwin having zero overlap, she knew any distraction might become ruinous.
"It is when Irwin works," she said before correcting herself. “Well, him and Trimdir and Endil.”
"Those are the musician style cardsmiths, right?" Koudi asked.
"They are," Dahlia said.
"And you are not?"<...
2025-05-30 16:22:09 +0000 UTC
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