Chapter 1265 – Go Big Or Go Home

What is the definition of a flame? Well, it’s usually the result of something burning or being ignited, often resulting in the production of heat. With the multiverse, flames didn’t necessarily need to produce heat, but could even be cold flames.

Reika, the great-granddaughter of the Sword Saint, used a cold-affinity fire when she did alchemy, yet she was capable of producing the same results. In truth, heating the cauldron wasn’t actually an essential part of what the Alchemical Flame did. Instead, its most important feature was the ability to break down matter by “burning” it.

Jake’s basic Alchemical Flame had been close to a regular flame of the fire-affinity, but the distinction still had to be made. The Alchemical Flame and the fire-affinity were not necessarily related to one another, even if most Alchemical Flames were of the fire-affinity. Reika was already an example of someone having an Alchemical Flame with not a trace of fire… and now there was also Jake.

His Alchemical Flame wasn’t capable of innately producing heat. Instead, it was a really fucking weird flame that Jake had a hard time even calling a flame. Sure, it looked like one when he summoned and played around with it, but he quickly realized that was only when he used it in its destructive state.

Mirroring Jake’s arcane affinity, his Soulflame also had two modes of stability and destruction, as well as the broad spectrum in between. When he focused on destruction, it became an incredibly potent flame, capable of effortlessly breaking down most matter. Jake tested it by summoning extremely durable metal ingots and similar objects, only to find that his flame could melt or turn them into dust in an instant.

Before, his Alchemical Flame was already capable of breaking down these ingots, but it would take far longer and be messier. Speed and messiness were inherently linked, as the longer Jake took to break down a material, the more time environmental mana and even hidden affinities had to sneak in and pollute the material.

Something like metal was usually in an absolutely stable state, only capable of absorbing a bit of environmental mana on its own terms, but once Jake started breaking it down, he would remove this stability.

Metaphorically, it could be said that breaking down a material was like poking holes in it to sever the bonds holding it together, but by poking those holes, one also allowed unwanted energies to enter. Again, a bit of an oversimplification, but in broad strokes, that was more or less how it worked.

That’s why the faster one was at poking holes, the less time it would take to reduce the material to being in a new “stable” state of matter. With Jake’s Soulflame being so fast, it was already good enough, but Jake also noticed that his Soulflame was capable of keeping unwanted concepts and energies out during the breakdown process. Not perfectly, but it did a damn good job in Jake’s opinion.

Making things even better, Jake could push the flame toward stability, helping the material metaphorically “cool down” faster and settle into its new, stable state of matter.

These two things alone made Jake realize that his Soulflame felt almost tailor-made for alchemy, though he was sure others had Soulflames capable of producing excellent results. Also, perhaps due to how potent his Soulflame was, it took a lot of control and attention to use it in its destructive flame state, as just a moment of fleeting attention could result in Jake just straight-up destroying whatever he was trying to break down.

Jake recalled the lesson about linking Willpower with the Soulflame he had learned so long ago while in the Order of the Malefic Viper. He still vividly remembered it and the methods taught in the information crystal he’d received during the lesson. Now that he had a Soulflame of his own and didn’t merely have to imitate with his simple Alchemical Flame, Jake realized the true genius behind strengthening the link between Willpower and Soulflame, but also realized that much of what the lesson was about didn’t affect Jake.

As a Supreme Soulflame, he didn’t need to have a connection that strong to get his intent across. Moreover, as the Soulflame was born from Jake’s arcane affinity, he had a level of natural control over it already and an unmatched sense of familiarity. Finally, Jake’s soul and degree of control over it weren’t at a level others could relate to. After his lesson with the First Sage, Jake’s control over his own soul had risen to a new level, and seeing as the Soulflame had merged with Jake’s soul fully, using it was effortless.

Oh, yeah, and then Jake had an absolutely stupidly high Perception stat. That also helped. More Perception always helped.

Moving on to Jake’s experimentation with his Soulflame, he tried taking it in the direction of becoming more stable. At first, introducing more stability into the Soulflame only weakened its ability to break down matter while also making it easier to control. It was more or less the lever he could pull to speed up or slow down the process when breaking down materials, while giving him more delicate control. Sure, he could also just weaken the flame by pouring in less energy, but by merely switching between the states of stability and destruction, Jake could keep the energy output entirely stable, introducing less variance when crafting. Switching between stability and destruction was also a lot faster than increasing or decreasing the energy he poured into the flame, especially when it came to reducing the power output, as it always took a bit for the flame to “cool” itself.

As Jake moved the Soulflame toward stability, it began to lose its ability to break down matter, becoming more like an isolating physical force while still retaining the state of a flame. Jake could summon it and use it almost like telekinesis by wrapping objects in flames, which both felt and looked incredibly odd. It wasn’t just something to use as a parlor trick, though.

Jake realized that, due to the nature of the flame, he could use it to isolate certain ingredients or even parts of something he was crafting. This was something Jake already actively did when doing alchemy by just wrapping ingredients in stable arcane mana during the crafting process, but using his Alchemical Flame to do so would be far more efficient. What’s more, usually when he wrapped things with stable mana, he had to constantly keep an eye on those ingredients when breaking down everything surrounding them, but now Jake could use the same flame to do both.

This shift between stability and destruction didn’t have to affect the whole Soulflame at the same time, but could only target specific parts or sections of it. Moreover, Jake could split his flame entirely into different wisps that could do independent things, only limited by Jake’s own ability to control them.

Shifting the flame even further toward stability, it kind of stopped even being a flame. When pushed all the way, the Soulflame became incredibly hard to control, and even moving it a little took so much effort that, after a while, it turned entirely solid. When in this state, Jake effectively created a crystalline Soulflame sculpture that looked kind of cool, but what the hell would one need a wholly solid Soulflame for?

Well, Jake had some ideas, but first, he wanted to test something else: combat applications of the Soulflame.

Not all Soulflames were made for combat, and if they were, they tended to be worse at alchemy. Of course, it was entirely possible to have Soulflames capable of both, and especially Supreme Soulflames were known to often excel in both alchemy and combat.

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Villy had mentioned once that Duskleaf, being the great alchemist he was, also had a mean Soulflame if he ever had to fight someone. This wasn’t that surprising, considering he was a god and all, but it did tell Jake that it was entirely possible to have a Soulflame that could do both.

Seeing as Jake’s arcane affinity was pretty damn awesome in combat, Jake entered his experimentation with high hopes. He even began envisioning himself descending upon his enemies, wrapped in arcane flames as he raised a hand and unleashed a wave of flames that disintegrated everything in its path.

With great excitement, Jake started experimenting and quickly confirmed that he would indeed be capable of unleashing destructive waves of arcane flames using his Soulflame, successfully destroying the land… all while doing little to no damage to anyone caught in the attack.

Yeah… Jake quickly came to realize that while his Soulflame was pretty damn awesome at destroying passive energies, when it came to active energies – also known as energy linked to or controlled by another person – it did borderline fuck-all. Sure, it could do a bit of damage, but Jake could do more just by summoning a flame of arcane energy using freeform magic.