NukEncore skimmed them once and understood the rest without needing the system to hold her hand through it.

The Skill Anchor would not let her lift Bloomcast from the staff neatly and move on. First, she had to flood the weapon with mana and force the skill to show everything it had become inside this vessel. Only after that could she wrench it free before it sank back into the crystal that had shaped it.

A slow, pleased smile curved across her lips.

"Ah. So that’s the game."

She pressed more mana into the glass.

The response came at once. The writing beneath the chamber floor lit in a precise sequence, one ring after another, until the entire formation glowed with deep crimson light.

Inside, the Cindervein Staff jerked upright on its own. The blackened wood began to tremble, and the branching red crystal at its core brightened until it looked molten beneath the surface.

Thin veins of light spread through the staff like fire racing along old paths. Heat gathered inside the chamber in dense layers, and the air around the floating weapon shimmered as if the pressure alone could bend sight.

The staff answered her greedily. Fire spilled from its tip, yet instead of shooting outward, it swelled around the weapon in a growing sphere of unstable red.

[First Bloom manifested]

The blast expanded without detonating. It pressed against the limits of the chamber like a living thing hungry for more space, more reach, and more destruction.

NukEncore’s eyes gleamed, and she fed it harder.

The first bloom thickened until it broke into the next stage. Secondary bursts flared around the main mass of fire like savage petals opening one after another. Each eruption flashed into existence with its own violent pulse, circling the staff in a halo of chained detonations.

Red light washed over the workshop walls. Shelves trembled. Even the floor seemed to tense beneath Martin’s feet.

[Second Bloom manifested]

NukEncore kept going, driving even more mana through the glass until the skill revealed its final habit.

The heart of the fire burst outward in glittering red fragments. Tiny ember-like shards sprayed into the chamber and refused to die. They hovered there, burning bright and wrong, unstable little pieces of crystallized fire that flickered as if they were waiting for the slightest touch to explode again.

[Third Bloom manifested]

Bloomcast had fully surfaced in a visible, instinctive form that felt far more real than a mere system entry. The Skill Anchor changed with it.

Fresh lines rose through the chamber floor and linked themselves to the floating fire. This time NukEncore saw them clearly.

Red channels stretched from the staff’s crystal core into the manifested bloom around it, branching through every eruption and every ember. The staff was not merely holding the skill, but actively shaping how it existed.

[Skill roots identified]

NukEncore laughed softly. "Ah, there you are. I was wondering where you’d been hiding."

She lifted her hand toward the chamber, and flames curled around her fingers.

They came from her rather than the staff, and that was what mattered.

Her mana reached through the Skill Anchor and wrapped around the exposed root channels. The moment it touched them, the entire chamber shuddered.

The floating embers burst in rapid succession, and the widened bloom slammed outward hard enough to make the glass ring.

Bloomcast resisted at once, as if it had lived inside the staff long enough to believe it truly belonged there.

NukEncore’s smile turned knowing. "Oh, please. You were always meant for my hands."

She clenched her hand. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Her mana seized the skill at once, pressing against the root channels, following them back through the crystal branches, and dragging at the heart of the spell with ruthless precision. One line after another snapped free from the staff’s core.

Each break sent a pulse of violent red light through the chamber. The Crystal Embers spun wild.

The second bloom detonations overlapped. The first bloom swelled again, as if it meant to swallow the whole process in raw force.

NukEncore stepped closer instead of retreating, as if the backlash had merely invited her in.

Rather than give ground, NukEncore read the backlash, took control of it, and pressed into it until the fire that wanted to spread outward met the pressure of her will and bent. The chained eruptions that wanted chaos were forced into rhythm. The unstable embers that wanted to linger as scattered threats were gathered inward and drawn toward a single point.

Toward her hand.

Inside the chamber, the blazing mass collapsed inward in layers. The widening bloom folded into itself.

The chained eruptions compressed one after another. The embers spiraled toward the center like fragments answering a call they could no longer refuse. Even the glowing branches inside the staff’s core were dragged out of the weapon and reeled into the forming skill.

The Cindervein Staff shuddered violently, and its glow dropped at once.

Then Bloomcast finally came free.

It emerged from the heart of the crystal as a condensed mass of living fire no larger than two fists pressed together. It floated in front of NukEncore like a red blossom shaped from explosion itself.

Layers of light opened and closed across its surface as if the skill were still trying to bloom. Small eruptions rippled through it. Tiny crimson fragments broke away from its edges, hovered for a breath, and sank back into the core.

It was beautiful, unstable, and furious.

The skill-form bucked the moment it lost the staff. A ring of red force burst from it, followed by secondary pops of fire and a spray of ember shards.

NukEncore met it with both hands raised. Her own flames wrapped around the unstable core, not to crush it, but to master its rhythm. She felt every part of it through the pressure fighting her palms.

It wanted to expand, then split, then scatter, and leave danger behind it. She answered each impulse with control, pushing back at the exact moment the skill tried to break loose and drawing it inward each time it tried to spread.

Bloomcast fought her over and over, and each time NukEncore forced it into a shape that could endure her touch.

The chamber gradually dimmed. The severed staff hung silent inside the Skill Anchor, stripped of the thing that had made it special.

In front of NukEncore, Bloomcast still burned between her hands, but its resistance had changed. The wildness had not vanished, yet it now carried a trace of awareness.

[Extraction successful]

[Bound skill acquired in unstable state: Bloomcast]

NukEncore’s smile turned slow and satisfied.

"Believe it or not, old man, I’m very good at handling naughty boys."