The bonfire in the middle of the plaza was tall, towering over Runar as he approached it. Thick logs were used as a base, and in its centre, different, more easily burnable things were placed. There were even some herbs that were going to throw different scents into the air during the fire.

  Usually, there wasn't any actual wood here. It generally just a stone statue that was magically enchanted to let fire run along its grooves. And every Sunday evening, it would be lit up for a few hours. Some traditions like this were spread throughout the entire city, where small matters were done to celebrate the regular weekday that was protected by each of the Great Spirits. The botanical gardens usually had free entry on Mondays, and most farmer's markets happened on Tuesdays. It was that sort of thing.

  But spirit week was special. It was the week leading up to the summer solstice, and to celebrate the longest day of the year, the moment the day's first light hit the bonfire, it would be lit. And then, when night fell, the bonfire would be put out and the fireworks would start instead. And all that happened with a real bonfire made of wood that was properly lit up. But what would happen if the spirit housed inside of those flames was corrupted?

  All the people that were surrounding it on this plaza were going to be caught in an unimaginable crossfire. They were going to get hurt or die. And that wasn't all; if something like that were to happen, the consequences would be horrible. Over the past few years, the White Shadow Society already created not just the legal groundwork to pursue this through the courts, but even fostered a group of extremists that were ready to scream as loud as they needed the moment spirits could seem like even a slight problem.

  Of course, they had already started the other day during the expo, but since that was the Magic Tower's turf, they were able to very quickly stop the chaos from going out of control. It seemed as though they had pushed it onto some 'rogue mage's experiment' that had gone totally wrong, and though the Magic Tower would need to answer to that somehow in some court cases that were going to happen soon, nothing much would happen to them. That was how powerful the Magic Tower was as an international institution.

  The Aglecard Foundation already reached out to those that were injured in the Magic Tower's stead and paid out whatever financial support was asked for. That was the deal that the Aglecards made with the Magic Tower to have them take all the blame for what happened, drawing the attention away from the spirits.

  But that was only possible because of where the attack happened. If something similar happened here, not only would the Magic Tower not be able to take the blame, it would backfire as a whole and place even more attention onto the spirits from the expo. Everything could go to shit if even one more big thing like this happened, toppling down.

  "Fuck," Runar ran his hand through his hair, trying to think about what he could do. The moment he tried to approach the bonfire, the spirit's flames lit up hotter, making the corruption within it only spread throughout it faster. Of course, Runar could just douse it in the cure, but they didn't have much left at the moment, and creating more obviously wasn't easy. Half of Gaia's garden had already been prepared to grow as many of the copper wildflowers as possible, and nay excess seeds were brought to another location to be potentially studied by the Aglecard family's experts.

  "I'm here to help, so just-" he tried to say, sending out pulses of mana to try and get the spirit to understand, but nothing seemed to work. Either, Runar couldn't risk making the spirit right now. The heat that emanated from its body was so strong that the liquid cure would probably just evaporate before even being able to get close to any affected area. He had to convince this spirit to freely take the cure before it was too late, or somehow break down its body and submerge just its core.

  And, frankly, it wasn't like the spirit wasn't one that Runar couldn't take on, but breaking down a spirit's body so forcefully was risky. Ryan got lucky with the lake's spirit because its body was already barely being kept together by the corruption, so the cure simply made it crumble away with ease. Like removing a layer of dried mud from your skin. But forcefully breaking a spirit's body was dangerous. If Runar wasn't careful, it could lead to deep damage in the spirit's core.

  He ground his teeth together and stared at the spirit hiding away within the bonfire. Runar wasn't great with matters like this. His sociability was by far the lowest of all his stats, and its growth was locked in the mid single-digits. The way that the stat presented wasn't actually all too useful in communicating with others either. Rather, it just seemed to strengthen the speed at which Runar learned languages and let him comprehend the meaning behind what others said more easily, but actually building a connection of trust between himself and others... that was a whole different matter.

  At this point, Runar really only had one choice. None of Ryan's stats were all too high just yet, but they somehow presented themselves in extremely potent ways. Especially his mental stats presented in a way that made them seem higher than they actually were. While that was mainly the case for his Intuition, Ryan's sociability was pretty ridiculous as well, especially when it came to magical beings. Penny, Kindly, Liam... those three almost immediately trusted Ryan and grew extremely close to him, and that wasn't even mentioning the connection he had to spirits. The fact that he built up a rapport with Goria was proof of how special he was in this way.

  "And I told him to leave it all to me..." Runar groaned, taking out his phone. He immediately dialled his nephew's number and waited for him to answer, which didn't actually take too long. Laughter and cheering could be heard in the background, but it was quickly muffled as a door seemed to close.

  "What's up?" Ryan asked, and Runar hesitated for a few moments.

  "... I need you to come to Bonfire Plaza as soon as you can."

  There was a bit of silence on the other side of the call, "I thought you could handle it on your own?"

  "I could, but it might mean the city's oldest fire spirit could get really hurt, and I'd like to avoid that," Runar explained, and this time, instead of silence, a groan sounded out, "Ryan, just come here. There shouldn't be much danger around here anymore, so just come quickly so we can take care of this."

  "... Fine. I'll come quickly. Is Yamada available?"

  "No, she's not. Instead..." Runar hesitated. Yamada would be pretty upset, but Runar meant to buy her a new one anyway, so it should be fine for Ryan to get some hand-me downs, "At the opposite side of the cave, with the large-scale entrance, is a garage. There's a bike in there, so use that."

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Ryan grinned lightly as he used Runar's key to open up the locked garage. He wondered what was in here, but he didn't expect something like this. Though Ryan didn't know a ton about bikes, he knew that this one was a beauty. Ryan got his motorcycle when he turned sixteen. Getting a bike was cheaper than a car, and it was enough to get him around town. Though, some random pricks trashed the bike a few months before Ryan moved to New Riverside, so he hasn't driven one in a while, but he should get back into it pretty quickly.

  "Though... this one is probably a lot more powerful than what I'm used to," Ryan grimaced slightly, looking around the room. There was a helmet here that looked like it should fit him fine. He brought the bike out of the garage and then pulled the helmet onto his head and got onto the bike, quickly starting it up. Ryan felt the bike's rumbling underneath him, and looked up the tunnel in front of him. It was a large, meandering tunnel that was specifically made for either larger species to come down here or for transport vehicles to drive into the cave, though it didn't happen often. Ryan had seen it only once so far.

  But without further ado, Ryan started driving up the tunnel. Luckily, it was very well-lit, so he got to the top safely with ease. Once there, he held his 'key' up to a panel next to him, and the brick wall that he was looking at opened up, leading Ryan into the lowest floor of a public parking garage, which he also quickly had to drive up and out of, and was then on the roads quite a bit away from his home. Getting to the bonfire plaza from here should be pretty easy though. The only annoying part was the amount of people still driving around.

  Being Porsa's day, the celebrations basically didn't end until the night ended; so in the morning. There were tons of people still up and about. If Runar had to go so far as to call Ryan, it would have to be some kind of emergency, so Ryan really didn't want to let his uncle wait for too long.

  "Oh gods, please don't tell me Yamada rubbed off on me..." he let out a long sigh under the helmet, and quickly spoke to the spirits in their domains, "Guys, if something goes wrong... I'm sorry?"

  Before they could give their opinion, Ryan pulled into the road. Speeding up a bit more, he dodged past the cars, weaving in-between them to try and not be slowed down too much. But different to Yamada, who seemed to drive that way because of her natural driving ability and insane physical reaction time, Ryan was largely relying on his intuition. Not exclusively, of course, but still to a large amount.

  Whether it was about a car switching lanes or the traffic light turning, Ryan was able to speed up, slow down, and move around however he needed despite driving in this insane way for the first time. If his mother saw this, she would probably have a heart attack. But even so, Ryan grew more and more comfortable with this driving style, and soon found himself pretty close to the area surrounding the bonfire plaza. Though, it was locked off until the morning. There were already a few people waiting in the nearby roads, basically camping out so that they could get a good spot to watch the bonfire lighting in the morning. How the hell did Runar get past these guys?

  If he already got his heroics qualifications, maybe he could use that to force his way inside, but right now, there was no way he could get past the security around this place. Waiting nearby, Ryan decided to send a message to Runar, telling him that he was nearby but can't get through. The only thing that Runar replied with was 'Close your eyes', and Ryan didn't hesitate to do as he was told in this case.

  Even through his closed eyes, Ryan could still tell that an incredibly bright light was bathing this area. He felt like this was the perfect time, and carefully opened his eyes, blocking the light with his helmet. It was still ridiculous, but at least it didn't hurt, though the light was still pretty disorienting somehow.

  Ryan quickly drove the bike through a gap in the blinded security, soon driving onto the plaza itself. He stopped near Runar, who was eagerly waiting for him there.

  "What the hell was that?" Ryan asked, taking off the helmet. Runar sighed loudly, shaking his head.

  "That's not important, I'll tell you later. But we need to hurry. I can hold people off from coming in for a while, so you need to get over there and convince the fire spirit to let itself get cured," Runar said immediately, and Ryan looked over at the bonfire.

  "Wait, seriously? Can't you just do that yourself? You can speak to the geodes, so just speak to it as well, what am I supposed to do?"

  Runar frowned lightly, "What does that have to do with anything? I can't create the sort of frequency that spirits use to communicate. Whatever, just do it."

  "I swear to the gods, if this is just you trying to make me feel better, I-"

  "When have I ever tried to make you feel better?"

  "... Point taken. Fine," Ryan took the bottle of the cure and started approaching the bonfire. Though he couldn't quite tell what was going on in there, he could certainly feel some part of the corruption within the confines of the unlit wooden structure.

  "Hey there, uhm..." Ryan turned around, looking at his uncle, who quickly whispered the name, "Hey there, Finley. Do you think you'd like to come out for a moment?"

  He stretched out his arm, as if he were coaxing a shy animal toward him, but the only thing he could hear from inside the bonfire was a loud hissing. A heat started to emanate from the wood that was pretty strong as well, though not enough to start a fire yet.

  "I'm not here to hurt you, don't worry. I'm sure you're in a lot of pain right now... I can help you with that," he explained, though it didn't seem to work all too much. So, Ryan just continued sitting there for a few moments, taking some deep breaths. Runar seemed somewhat annoyed that he was just sitting there, but he soon saw something coming from Ryan's body. It was hard to spot like this, considering how 'pure' Ryan's mana seemed to be. It was more like the air was waving around a bit, like the distortion of light above a flame.

  Ryan's mana slowly moved out into the bonfire. Though he wasn't able to directly communicate with Finley, maybe this would be enough to show him that he was just trying to help. That he wasn't a threat.

  The mana touched the wood, seeping in through the cracks deeper inside. A few moments later, something peeked out its head. It was a cat. Its bright red fur was waving around slightly despite the lack of wind. One of its eyes was injured, showing nothing but a deep black scar where the corruption was seeping into its body.

  Ryan's hand was still stretched out, and his mana was slowly but surely pouring out from it. Though, this was probably one of the most mentally strenuous things he had done in a while. Using magic didn't only exhaust your mana, but your mind as well. It was like when you did nothing but study all day and your brain was all foggy before you dropped into bed.

  Slowly but surely, Finley was approaching Ryan. It didn't take long until the spirit had fully come out from the bonfire's protection. The fiery cat, injured and limping, carefully made its way toward Ryan, who just quietly sat there. Before long, Finley touched his nose to Ryan's finger. It hurt. It wasn't like putting your hand in fire, but it was definitely painful. But he could stop himself from flinching, luckily.

  Even so, Finley seemed to notice that he was too hot, and slightly cooled down, while carefully nuzzling his head into Ryan's palm. He stretched out his second hand, and soon rubbed the underside of the cat's head with a smile on his face, "Would it be alright if I take a look at those wounds you have?"

  He asked, glancing at the other deep wound on Finley's back leg. He looked up at Ryan for a few moments, and then briefly nodded. And so, Ryan quickly got out the cure. Rather than just pouring it on the spirit, he had Runar give him some gauzes from the bike's first aid kid, and poured some of the cure on that, slightly pressing it onto the black wounds. Ryan could feel the corruption fade, and before long, the only part where a bit was left was in its core.

  Carefully, Ryan poured some of the cure onto his palm and held it toward Finley. The cat didn't even need to be prompted anymore, and just slowly drank the cure. It seeped into his spirit core, and a few moments later, he coughed something up. Ryan expected a burning hairball, but instead, it was just a tiny seed. Before Runar could see it, Ryan put it into his pocket. But Runar didn't even pay attention to that.

  He was too busy staring at his nephew. Of course, Runar expected Ryan to be good at this, but... this was at a whole other level.