FFF-Tier System, SSS-Rank Wife-Chapter 49: Betraying Saintess Expectations

’Empty your thoughts!’

Such a simple order. And yet, when it came to executing it, all I could do was keep thinking about the uncannily pleasant pressure on my back, a perfect mix of firmness and softness, all enhanced with a sense of warmth that went beyond the simple topic of temperature.

’Empty your thoughts!’

It was a hard task and a tall order to clean my mind.

Thankfully, this wasn’t the first time Selia teased me. And while she never did it as hard and as boldly as she was doing it now, I’d gained enough experience in resisting her playfulness to somehow clutch it now.

I took in a deep breath and held it in my lungs for long enough for them to start screaming for some fresh air.

Or, a piece of trivia, for me to exhale all the carbon dioxide instead.

And so, I exhaled and took in a fresh breath of air, the foreboding sense of doom bound to the experience of mild suffocation finally allowing me to ignore the teasing and focus on what was actually important.

"That’s what I’m honestly trying to figure out," I replied after taking my sweet time to do so. And with the saintess turning her attention back to the kiln, I gritted my teeth and pushed my palm towards the kiln again.

I ignored the pain.

Then, I ignored the torture when the heat emanating from the earthen furnace started to scald my skin.

’You’ve already sensed the presence of that something,’ I thought, closing my eyes and stabilizing my breath, ’now, just find it again.’

Breathe in, breathe out.

Just like back within the realm of my dreams, I used the stable breathing pattern to calm my thoughts and reinforce my focus. And then, a mere moment later, I managed to locate this intrusive, foreign sensation.

’Now, focus on it!’

Guiding my own perception with my inner thoughts, I pooled all of my focus toward this unfamiliar feeling.

WHOOSH!

The world around me vanished. The darkness of my closed eyes suddenly lit up.

And just like that, I found myself in the middle of what could only be described as an inferno incarnate.

There were no fires going on at all in this place.

Or, to be more precise, everything was on fire... but one that lacked flames. And even though I was right in the middle of it all, I could only feel the heat upon my heat-scalded palm.

’Woah...’

My eyes widened as I saw the neatly arranged stacks of wood now glowing with their own light, so hot they desperately wanted to burn, but with not enough oxygen within the kiln for them to light up.

The kiln wasn’t perfect. Even after all the effort to harden its inner walls and floor, to block the air vents and then seal the cap, there was still some air pushing through the gaps in the hardened earth and feeding into the blaze within.

Whatever oxygen could enter, however, would be near instantly used to fuel the occasional flames, with the mix of residual air, smoke, and soot only serving to smother the fires before they could actually burn the wood.

The kiln had no fires... while all of its insides were just one, big and just slightly unnatural fire at the same time.

And this fire?

It called to me.

I wasn’t the one that found the new sensation in the corner of my mind. It was this very fire that called out for me to come and now presented itself in its full glory.

’Breathe in, breathe out.’

Amazed by the fiery sight before my mind’s eye, I could only continue with my breathing pattern. And after just a moment, I also noticed quite the peculiar thing.

Whenever I breathed in, the fires within the kiln would grow more intense.

Whenever I breathed out, the temperature within would soften.

It was also then that I realized something else—sure, the wood was so hot it would burst into flames if provided with enough oxygen to do so. But in the absence of it, it was the impurities within the wood that continued to burn away, leaving behind pretty much nothing but the pure carbon.

’Wait a second...’

Even though I had them closed, I squinted my eyes.

By now, the fire within the kiln was dying.

The very moment I realized it, I couldn’t help but wonder just how I could’ve missed it before.

All that could be burned off was now long gone. And even the particles most resistant to the intense heat were now left only in trace amounts.

By now, all that was happening inside was merely the remaining charcoal glowing from the intense heat, heat that dissipated at a rate just high enough for the process within to still register in the world as a flame.

’Doesn’t that mean that the process is actually completed now?’ I thought, soon coming to realize the obvious. ’And that means, all that’s left is to just let the heat die off so that the charcoal won’t catch on fire the moment we crack the kiln open and introduce air inside of it...’

Then, as if it was all but a natural part of the process of developing my own ability, I managed to detach the state of the dying fire inside from my breathing, only now realizing it was only my interference that kept it going!

"Haaa..." I breathed out a long sigh before slowly pulling my hand away from the kiln and opening up my eyes.

The connection to the dying fire was still there... just, not at the forefront of my mind anymore, no longer able to feed direct images of the fire into my head, regardless of what my eyes really saw.

Now that I’d pulled myself out of this strange heat-vision, I realized something quite obvious.

Throughout the entire experience... Selia remained attached to my back, staring into the kiln in silence, waiting for me to be done. And now that she sensed the change in the tension of my body, a perfect giveaway of my focus changing?

"How did it go?" she asked with both that lovely smile of hers and the sparks of genuine curiosity dancing in her deep, pale-blue eyes.

"It worked," I sighed in response. "I can perceive the fires within. And to a degree, while I’m focused..." I coughed into my hand, only to then hiss when I realized it was the very same hand I nearly burned over the kiln’s heat. "And to a degree, I can control them," I finished up my explanation.

A moment of silence followed.

"Wait, that’s it?" Saintess’s eyebrows moved up high on her forehead as she revealed an expression of pure surprise.

As if my achievement was so underwhelming, it took her aback.

"Wait, no, that’s not what I meant!" she panicked, rapidly shaking her head while her chin brushed against my shoulder. "I didn’t mean to be dismissive!" she quickly claimed while reinforcing her voice to showcase just how much she meant her current, backtracking words. "It’s just that..." she hesitated for a second, before turning her head away, "after all the show and fanfare of rewriting your fate, I thought you would do... more?"