Dig raised his arms and shrank back behind their shield as the flames shot toward him like a fiery death. After several long moments, he opened his eyes and peeked toward Mogdo Dal. He did not see the bear-like man, nor any flames, for that matter. Instead, he saw a wall of black smoke with chips of stone swiveling around in it.
The blockade of smoke and rocks was about as big as his torso, but it had blocked the flames. It crumbled away and disappeared the moment Dig tried to focus on it, though.
"What was that?!" He shouted at Mogdo Dal as soon as he saw him again.
He had just thrown a fistful of fire at a child!
Mogdo Dal shrugged with one shoulder.
"It worked, didn't it?"
"I could have been seriously injured!"
"But you weren't. Now, relax, and try to do it on purpose this time."
Dig glared at Mogdo Dal for a few more moments before sighing. Setting aside the pyromania, Mogdo Dal was right. It had worked.
Now, Dig could summon a tiny cloud of smoke and rock around his hand.
"That's an ominous one. What did the Boon look like before you claimed it?" Mogdo Dal stepped closer and asked with apparent interest.
"A smooth black stone."
"Oh, the egg-shaped one?"
"Egg-shaped? I guess it was. Wait, you know which one it is?"
"Yeah, it was an unresponsive Cob that ended up in the Vault a year or so ago. I thought it would turn out to be a Curse once it found what it was waiting for."
Dig felt a chill run down his spine. Mogdo Dal had already demonstrated his keen insight, so if he thought the Cob was a Curse, it probably wasn't for no reason.
"How does it feel?" Mogdo Dal asked, nodding toward the cloud swirling around his hand and wrist like a supernatural glove.
"Odd. Cool."
"Do you want to test it out?"
Yet again, Dig just had to nod to answer a question that Mogdo Dal already knew the answer to.
Since the elevator was still closed, they took the stairs to one of the open floors meant for practice. There were a few supporting pillars. Other than that, it was a completely empty place. There weren't even any windows.
Of course, since it was in the middle of the office building, it wasn't meant for all-out spars or testing destructive Boons. But it was enough for Dig to get the hang of his Skill.
After Dig stopped, Mogdo Dal continued walking until he was ten paces in front of Dig.
"Have you been in a fight before?" Mogdo Dal asked. Winter Russel was famous in the company for being overprotective of Dig, going so far as to send Arker to be his personal driver as often as he could. He had even tried to build the most secure building in the city just to keep Dig safe from the world.
Seeing as how even Winter got kidnapped, it hadn't succeeded, but the money spent on the building was still known to most who had worked with Winter for a while.
It wouldn't be strange if he had kept Dig away from danger for the young boy's entire life.
"Not with Boons." Dig shrugged lightly.
That meant it didn't matter whether he had been in a fight before or not. Scrapping with bare fists was nothing like a fight between Blessed.
But there were two things a fight could teach someone, regardless of the weapons used.
Pain and willingness to use every ounce of strength in oneself to hurt another.
"Do you want to come at me or…?" Mogdo Dal asked.
Dig raised his hand with the back of it facing Mogdo Dal. He gestured for Mogdo Dal to come at him.
Mogdo Dal shrugged and took a light step forward. His foot pressed against the floor and launched him forward at a speed Dig didn't think a human could achieve with just their body.
Still, he was slower than the flames he had thrown before, so Dig raised a barrier of stone and rock in front of him. There was just one problem.
"I can just do this," Mogdo Dal said, stepping around the shield like a dancer and tapping the side of Dig's face with his knuckles.
Although it only looked like a light tap, there was no denying the strength slumbering in the well-grown man's body. His 'light tap' felt like getting hit by a truck to Dig. It was almost comparable to the pain he felt when he got hit by the arm on the back of the Snake in the Underbelly.
It sent Dig spinning and tumbling until he eventually fell down on the floor, which, for some reason, was spinning like a circus ride.
As he lay there trying to understand what had just happened, four Mogdo Dal's approached him and crouched to take a look at his cheek.
"Why didn't you block that?" They asked, confused.
Dig tried to focus his gaze on the leftmost Mogdo Dal.
"I didn't feel like it."
"Right. Anyway. Try to use your Skill on your face."
"Yeah, I'll do that next time."
"No, I meant now. Some Boons can be used to speed up the body's healing and prevent things like concussions and brain hemorrhaging."
"Huh?"
"You do it the same way you raised that shield, but inside your head instead. Be careful, though. With some Boons, it doesn't work at all, but with a rare few…"
In Dig's ears, Mogdo Dal's voice grew quieter and quieter like he was getting farther away until he finally couldn't hear him. He wondered if it had anything to do with the sudden pressure in his head from when he tried to use his Skill the way Mogdo Dal had told him.
Gradually, however, those thoughts of his vanished, and blood trickled out of Dig's ears. His body went limp, and his unfocused eyes lost their light.
"Ah, shit," Mogdo Dal cursed.
"I thought it was a defensive Boon, not an offensive one." He knelt and caressed Dig's head.
"Sorry, kid. Well, at least now you won't have to run the company."
Dig's body went up in flames.