Morning.
On the other side of the nameless Sea Island.
A ball of flame twisted, barely forming the outline of a sniper rifle, but then the flame suddenly surged, and the heavy sniper's shape immediately collapsed, turning into its original fiery state.
"Too difficult."
Lex fell onto a patch of grass, watching the clouds drift across the sky.
"Although I can barely construct the outer shape of a heavy sniper, I can't construct its internal structure. It's essentially a facade. It seems I can only construct weapons that are relatively simple and that I am familiar with."
"If I truly wanted to construct a heavy sniper, I would need to possess a real one and use it for some time to become familiar with its performance. But if I had a real heavy sniper, why would I bother constructing one with flames?"
"Is this path truly unfeasible?"
Lex raised his hand, and a wisp of flame shot from his fingertip: "The Watcher said I don't trust the extraordinary power enough yet. These past two days, I've objectively examined myself and indeed feel that way."
"For me, coming from modern society, it's still difficult to integrate into the mysterious and believe in the supernatural. Even though I'm already in such a world, my subconscious still holds Lex's thoughts."
"The desire to construct modern weapons with flames stems from this way of thinking, even though I didn't realize it, it's the truth."
"This is a mysterious world; this is a world with supernatural powers."
"Perhaps, only by accepting this fact from my heart, starting anew, can I truly unleash the power of a Pyromaniac."
He took a deep breath, bent his knees, and suddenly leaped up from the grass.
Patting off the grass clippings clinging to him, Lex relaxed his body and closed his eyes.
"Pyromaniacs were anciently called Fire Mages. They are masters of controlling flames. What should a Fire Mage look like? Certainly not like someone spraying bullets with a machine gun."
"Think about it, recall, which Fire Mages do I know?"
Turning to his memories from his previous life, Lex recalled the images of mages using flames from films, TV shows, and even anime and games.
Initially, there were no images in his mind, but gradually, Lex saw an orange-red Light, he saw a ball of flame, and he saw this ball of flame in the hand of an old man in a gray robe with white hair and beard.
The old man raised his hand, and balls of flame, scorching and mysterious, appeared in the sky. As the old man forcefully swung his arm down, those flames suspended in mid-air fell like meteors, landing in a medieval city, causing explosions, raging infernos, and disaster.
Immediately after.
Lex then saw a black-haired man wearing an orange cowboy hat and black shorts, with tattoos on his back. He first released a large area of flames, then gathered them to form a 'Sun'.
He held this 'Sun' high and slammed it fiercely towards his opponent.
Soon.
Lex then saw an old man with cross-shaped scars on his face, a silver-white beard tied with a purple ribbon, and a robust, scarred body.
He swung his blade, and dozens of towering pillars of fire soared upwards, then converged in the center. After instantly detonating, they blew an entire city into dust!
In these scenes, in these memories, the flames controlled by those characters all had one commonality.
"Flames…"
"Are destruction."
"Are annihilation."
"Flames… are calamity!"
Lex suddenly opened his eyes.
He heard a voice roaring loudly.
"Destroy, annihilate, unleash calamity!"
Fire!
Deep red, distinct from the flames Lex had released before, suddenly erupted from various parts of his body, instantly spreading and incinerating the patch of grass, dyeing the entire space deep red.
In his heart.
A strong will surged.
Lex unconsciously raised his arm; he was like a monarch commanding the world, and the vast deep-red Light around him, like subjects, converged, spun, and condensed towards Lex's palm!
A deep-red Sun appeared on Lex's palm.
Almost simultaneously.
On the beach on the other side of the Sea Island.
Quincy, who was fishing on the reef, suddenly looked up towards the other side of the island.
"What's with this feeling of palpitations?"
Edward, who was painting by the beach with his easel, looked in the same direction.
Then Natalie, then Frank.
They all sensed it one after another, looking towards the other side of the Sea Island. They saw the top of the mountains there tinged with red, and felt a spiritual agitation.
They felt a deep unease.
[Idiot!]
[Do you want to blow yourself up too?]
Lex suddenly came to his senses, finding that the world in his vision was coated in a deep red color.
Above his head, an astonishing heat emanated. He looked up and saw himself holding a deep-red 'Sun' aloft.
"What the Devil May Cry is this?"
Lex was startled, almost dropping the 'Sun' from his hand.
He quickly composed himself, felt the flames, and imagined them slowly returning to his body. Thus, the 'Sun' gradually shrank, from the size of a hot air balloon, slowly reducing to the size of a head, and finally becoming only the size of a fist, then it burrowed into Lex's palm and disappeared.
Lex immediately went limp, sitting down on the ground.
"I seem to have created something incredible…"
"That move just now, it's very similar to Ace's 'Flame Emperor' from One Piece, did I accidentally simulate it?"
"Hmm, I can feel that the 'Sun' contains extremely terrifying destructive energy. If I let it explode, it should sink this Sea Island, right?"
"Fire Mage…"
"This is a true Fire Mage."
"I think I understand a little…"
"Believe in the extraordinary, believe in flames, and from the heart, realize that flames are destruction, annihilation, and calamity, only then can the true power of a Fire Mage be unleashed?"
[Nonsense! That was fire created by our combined effort! It was a momentary meeting of minds that allowed for the creation of 'Crimson Flame'! Let other Fire Mages try that?]
Lex opened his palm and released flames again. With a roar, the flames were far more swift, violent, and intensely hot than before, but they were still orange-red, not the deep red from earlier.
"Strange, although the power of the flames has increased, it's not the deep-red fire from just now. What's going on?"
After thinking for a moment, Lex reluctantly gave up. It seemed to be a flash of inspiration, a stroke of genius, a move difficult to replicate.
But now, with a deeper understanding and experience of flames, Lex tried some 'unscientific' applications.
He joined his index and middle fingers, raised his thumb, and continuously fired small flames from his fingertips, sweeping around like a machine gun.
He clasped his hands together, and when he spread them apart again, he created a giant 'net' of flames, easily covering a sprinting wild chicken, turning the poor thing into a roasted chicken.
He released flames and created a Clone similar in size to himself but composed purely of fire. The Clone could perform different actions according to his will and could cooperate with him in attacks. It could also release flames, but this required consuming the Clone's own spiritual energy.
Lex, combined with the magic bracelet, integrated 'Flame Jump' and the flame Clone, allowing him to instantly appear at the Clone's location.
This gave him an idea; he tried filling 'Blood Praise' with flame bullets and found that the flame bullets shot from this revolver could also have extraordinary abilities attached to them.
He also compressed the flames, attaching them in a plasma state to the blade of Devil May Cry. When he swept it across a giant rock, the rock was effortlessly sliced open like cheese, with an incredibly smooth cut surface that shimmered with a profound black light.
After he sprayed flames from his soles and palms, achieving ascent, hovering, gliding, and aerial redirection, Lex gently exhaled.
"Now, I finally look a bit like a Fire Mage."