Chapter 9 - The Violet Flame

Even though I have been alive for almost two-thirds of a year, I haven't looked at myself in the mirror. This is because the abundance of mirrors in this world is quite small and I have never been tall enough to look at a window reflection nor at the only mirror located in the bathroom which I have only entered when I bathed

When I finally took a good look at myself in the mirror, I realized something quite shocking.

Unlike my mother who had bright cyan eyes or my grandmother who had ocean blue eyes and even my father with a pair of Aroura eyes, I had bright golden eyes. From what I know, that isn't how genetics work but I'm willing to work with it.

Anyway, this allowed me to make sense of all the weird eye contact I made with everyone since I was born and also why the doctor looked at me so weirdly the first time we met.

Nonetheless, it is what it is, but the rest of my appearance seemed completely normal. I had bright golden hair and looked like any other ugly baby I've ever seen.

One thing I completely overlooked was my lack of a soul flame. Since I had my soul flame ability active whenever I looked at someone, I instinctively activated it while looking at the mirror just for nothing to happen.

My mothers flame didn't show up either so I decided to try and find a way to see my soul flame within my body.

After shedding blood sweat and tears for so long, I was finally able to find a way to see my soul flame. It was the same method I used to sense the magical elements around me which subsequently allowed me to see them inside me. The only difference this time was that I had to see my soul flame, not my mana, and holy sh*It was that one hell of a difference.

First I had to find a way to feel the soul flames and the only way I would be able to do that is from what I guessed would be the heat the soul flame will likely emit.

Through this, will I not only advance in being able to sense soul flames in general but it could mean I can detect anyone around me no matter what? Since the flames carry the will of their host, they will probably emit heat accordingly.

If this is true, it means that the human instincts can also perceive 'soul energy' as I like to call it, yet less efficiently than I will be able to when and if I master sensing the energy around me. This is seen when your hair stands up in the face of danger, probably due to either your fright or the fact your body's sensing the dangerous aura of the other soul flame, notifying you to flee or dodge.

It is also probably why we feel like we are being watched sometimes and why before making a decision, our stomach turns which we call a gut instinct.

Anyway, By Spring I had been practicing every day expecting to feel the 'soul energy' around me, I felt a flicker inside me and a heat enveloping me. My vision turned purple and black while my body started to shiver uncontrollably in front of this flame.

My baby vessel was pale as a few memories flashed through my head before disappearing. The violet flame that had previously enveloped my body followed suit and retreated towards below my rib cage and above my navel area.

This violet flame burned violently and brightly. It was larger than my sister's flame and brighter than any flame I've seen in my two lives. It burned with the passion of the sun flickering vigorously at all the negative memories about my past life being replayed in my head before slowly fading away as though they were being swallowed whole.

Those thoughts no longer scared me, all that was left was unbridled rage and a small sense of nostalgia towards those memories. The only thing that had calmed me down was the worried face of my sister who seemed to have realized that I had turned pale and started to shiver all of a sudden.

The large violet and black flame became smaller and smaller before stopping at a size slightly smaller than my sister's yet larger than any of my other siblings or parents.

The purple slowly seeped into the epicenter and the vibrant golden returned to most of the flame, yet it was different from everyone else's soul flame.

The epicenter was pitch black which slowly became more and more bright golden as you got to the edges of the flame. The tips of the flame were burning brightly and vigorously with a golden hue while the center seemed to be black with a tinge of purple trying to escape.

This scene didn't scare me as much as it should have, I was calm and the color had already returned to my face a long time ago. To think of it positively, I now have a cool purple flame that I vividly remember seeing when I died, and that I also achieved soul flame/ energy-sensing.

Even though my sense is limited to myself right now, it should be able to expand in the near future to allow me to sense the soul energy of others, to better differentiate between the emotions and feeling people are feeling rather than guess it from the flickering of flames.

In the last few months before spring, while I was stuck at home and everyone else seemed quite busy, I had also gone through two other breakthroughs.

The most prominent ones would be the range expansion of particles I'm able to feel and resonate with, and the progress with the elemental particle manipulation.

In the last week or so before spring, I had finally been able to move some particles that are in the air to concentrate into a certain spot of simple movement from one area to another. This did not mean, however, that I could use any of those particles.

Moving those particles was like pushing a car while manipulating a large amount at once while trying to manipulate every particle to do a single task was akin to moving a whole plane with just one person.

Yes, eventually I'll learn how to refuel or even pilot the plane, but without a teacher or even a manual pointing me in the right direction, I might as well recreate the entire stone age and try to evolve society intelligent enough to create a renaissance from scratch.

The other problem was that I had to input my will into every single particle that I wanted to move, which is the wrong way to do it from what I can see from both my sister and mother.

Normal particles are invisible so I can't really see them, but by sensing them I can control them individually. What My mother and Aroura are doing is clotting a bunch of them together, big enough for me to barely see with my naked eyes, to put them into practical use before using their innate will/mana to shape them with a thought or s chant.

From just that, I can see multiple things I am doing wrong, yet I can't fix any of them since it requires me to have enough personal energy/ mana to release from my body.. While the latter requires me to be able to control my imbued mana/ my will into those particles and move them as a group rather than singular particles.