We finally heard about my siblings on today’s news.

  Turns out, they’re leading a team of good guys, working alongside the military to help innocent people and fight against the bad guys.

  The news even showed their pictures—my brother proudly raising his red sword high, while my sister looked a bit shy but satisfied at the same time.

  My parents immediately started comparing me to them, saying that I should follow in their footsteps and become a hero too. It was annoying, really.

  I tried to remind them that I was staying here for their sake, but they insisted that they could protect themselves and that I should be out there making them proud instead of staying home.

  I decided to stay silent after that. I was too tired to argue.

  Today's training routine was similar to yesterday’s, but I added a few new tests based on some ideas I had.

  I got the idea after remembering a television show about a master of the four elements.

  Of course, I only have fire for now, but I decided to take inspiration from one of the elements in the show.

  Based on that, I realized that I needed to learn martial arts.

  With my current skills, I’d be best suited for long-range combat—waiting for the right moment to deal heavy damage from a safe distance. It’s a good strategy, but not versatile enough.

  With bad guys everywhere, there will come a time when I won’t have the luxury of attacking from far away. In those situations, I need a way to defend myself. One way to do that is by learning martial arts as a defensive measure against close-range attacks.

  At the same time, it could also allow me to become a mid-range fighter—not too far in the back, not right on the front lines, but adaptable enough to fit into any role.

  The only problem now is figuring out how to learn martial arts and get it registered in the system.

  Should I just teach myself and hope it gets recognized like I did with magic-related skills?

  Or should I wait for the system to grant me the skill, like how I obtained Fire Manipulation?

  Clearly, I can develop skills on my own, and they should be registered—but that has only worked for magic-based skills so far. Can I do the same for physical skills like martial arts?

  You have a new mission!

  Mission: Learn how to get new skills!

  Reward: A small piece of information about the system

  Punishment: Manual skill generation will be disabled

  A scroll suddenly appeared in front of me, informing me of a new mission.

  The mission itself is directly related to my question about learning new skills. Is this the system’s way of confirming that I can gain new skills on my own?

  After that, I continued my training while thinking about how to learn martial arts.

  Luckily, the internet is still working fine, which means I can download some instructional videos later for reference.

  That night, after a full day of training, I downloaded several martial arts videos from different styles, specifically choosing ones with easy-to-follow moves so I could copy them more easily.

  Today was productive. I hope tomorrow will be the same.

  Skill Level Up! Fire Manipulation Lv. 6

  Skill Level Up! Fire Magic Lv. 5

  Skill Level Up! Magic Sense Lv. 4

  Skill Level Up! Magic Pathway Lv. 3

  Skill Level Up! Mana Gathering Lv. 5

  Skill Level Up! Mana Mastery Lv. 5

  This morning started with a problem.

  Several bad guys appeared in our neighborhood, claiming our housing complex as their own and demanding tribute from us in exchange for "security."

  There were five of them, wearing what I could only describe as stereotypical bad-guy uniforms—dirty leather jackets, ripped pants, grimy shirts, and tattoos covering their skin.

  I know I'm stereotyping, but they really looked like default bad guys.

  The five of them began to spread out while their leader waited at the complex gate, blocking anyone from trying to escape.

  One of them, heading in my direction, was wielding a gas lighter in one hand and a ball of fire in the other. It was almost comical.

  He threatened my neighbor with his fireball, tossing it at non-flammable objects just to scare everyone.

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  But I wasn’t scared. Instead, I felt excited.

  The fire he threw around seemed to be calling to me, almost begging me to take control. It wanted to be mine.

  As the bad guys got closer to my house, I stepped outside, standing several meters in front of him.

  He cursed at me and spat out threats, but he didn’t seem ready to act just yet.

  When he realized words wouldn’t work on me, he finally threw his fireball straight at me.

  As I saw the fire flying toward me, I instinctively tried to take control of it—and to my surprise, it was effortless.

  The moment it left his hand, I could manipulate it however I wanted.

  At that moment, I felt superior to him. I wanted to toy with him.

  So, instead of dodging, I simply bent the fireball’s trajectory, making it crash harmlessly into the ground beside me.

  The bad guy looked confused when his attack was missed, but he kept throwing more and more fireballs, hoping one of them would hit and burn me.

  Of course, I wouldn’t let that happen, though something inside me whispered that even if it did, I would only feel warmth.

  After five minutes of wild fireball throwing, the bad guy finally realized it was useless.

  He pulled out a pocket knife and charged at me.

  Honestly, seeing someone rush at you with a weapon is terrifying. My feet felt frozen in place.

  But I didn’t let him get close.

  The moment he lunged at me, I summoned a torrent of fire, engulfing him completely.

  His screams of agony burned themselves into my mind, along with the image of his body being consumed by flames.

  The strangest part? I wasn’t scared or even surprised.

  I felt excited.

  And deep in my heart, buried beneath my conscience, there was a small part of me that wanted to burn more people—no matter how wrong that thought was.

  I snapped myself out of it and extinguished the flames.

  What remained in front of me was a charred corpse, barely intact from the sheer intensity of my fire.

  I stood there for a few minutes, taken aback by how effective my flames were.

  Before I could process it fully, three more bad guys arrived, shouting angrily, pointing fingers, and spewing curses at me.

  As if they had already forgotten what happened to their friend, they drew their weapons and attacked.

  One of them threw a pair of daggers at me, while the other two charged—one with a sword, the other with a staff.

  Being attacked by one person was already frightening, but now there were three, each wielding a different weapon.

  Panicked, I shot my fire too early, making my enemies hesitate.

  They quickly stepped back, watching me with wary eyes, realizing I was far more dangerous than they had assumed.

  Then, the one who had thrown the daggers turned and ran toward the complex entrance, likely going to fetch their leader.

  The other two tried to flank me from both sides.

  I could only glance at the fleeing man in frustration before turning my full attention to the remaining two.

  The two bad guys seemed to rely solely on their weapon skills without any additional abilities to support them. They also didn’t have anyone to enhance them, like how my brother was strengthened by my sister.

  I steeled myself to finish them off, remembering how I killed the first bad guy and how exhilarating it felt to watch him burn to death.

  Both bad guys charged at me simultaneously, trying to catch me off guard. In response, I rushed toward one of them—specifically, the one with the sword.

  The reason was obvious. I needed to take out the more dangerous opponent first—the one who could kill me the fastest—so I could deal with the remaining one more easily.

  The sword-wielding bad guy was caught off guard by my sudden attack. He was even more shocked when, mid-charge, I unleashed a torrent of fire at him. He barely managed to dodge, but not completely.

  Note to self: Frontliners tend to be more agile in combat.

  Although I failed to kill him outright, I managed to scorch his left side, leaving him disabled. He screamed in agony, staring at his burned flesh in horror.

  The second bad guy caught up to me a few seconds later and struck me in the back of the head. The impact was nearly enough to knock me unconscious. I collapsed to the ground, blood pouring from my head, and struggled to get back up.

  He laughed triumphantly, boasting that he had made a major contribution and would soon be promoted to leadership. Just as he was about to finish me off, a heavy flower vase crashed into his head.

  Note to self: Frontliners are physically stronger than normal people.

  The bad guy barely reacted to the impact, aside from being startled and a bit dirtied by the debris. He craned his head to see who had thrown it, but he couldn’t find anyone.

  Before he could focus back on me, he suddenly let out a scream as he was engulfed in a torrent of fire.

  At that moment, while the bad guy was distracted by the vase, my mother—who had apparently chosen a healing skill a week ago—rushed out of the house and began healing my head. The healing wasn’t great, only dulling the pain rather than fully closing the wound, but it was enough for me.

  As soon as the pain was reduced to a tolerable level, I spun around and unleashed a torrent of fire at the distracted bad guy, burning him alive.

  Once he was dead, my mother continued healing me for another few seconds before she suddenly passed out from exhaustion. My father caught her before she hit the ground and carried her back inside the house.

  Meanwhile, I turned my attention to the sword user, finishing him off by burning him to death with my last use of fire.

  With the last of the bad guys dead, I slumped to the ground near their charred corpses, feeling a sense of relief. I had cleaned up the mess and saved my housing complex.

  But as if to remind me that the problem wasn’t over yet, the bad guy who had escaped earlier returned—this time with their leader.

  They screamed curses and insults at me for killing their friends. The female bad guy threw a dagger at me, and I desperately tried to crawl back as fast as I could to dodge it.

  Just when I thought it was over—that I was about to die—my neighbors suddenly stormed out of their homes, wielding whatever weapons they could find, and launched a full-on assault on the two remaining bad guys.

  The female bad guy threw daggers at anyone who got too close, but she soon ran out of them. Left defenseless, she was forced to resign herself to becoming a punching bag for the furious moms.

  Meanwhile, the leader had a better escape plan. Seeing the situation turning against him, he bolted without a second thought, not even glancing back at his abandoned comrade.

  By the end of the day, my brother returned to retrieve the female bad guy. He interrogated her and assured us that there would be no more trouble from them in the future.

  My neighbors thanked my brother for his promise, but I noticed how some of them secretly gave me a nod of gratitude—the one who had actually fought back and protected them.

  That made me feel a little happy… though, to be honest, I would have been even happier if they had paid me for my protection.