This city-state named Dalonkan is located at the intersection of three continents, and is shrouded in a steaming, almost hallucinatory heat wave all year round. That does not come from the sun, but from some ancient active energy called "flame veins" deep underground. Three hundred years ago, the first "Fire Burner" awakened here. People discovered that when emotions fluctuate violently to the limit, especially when anger, protectiveness or the will to sacrifice reach their peak, a flame called "phlogiston" will be ignited in the body. This flame can strengthen the body and destroy enemies, but every time it burns, fuel is drawn from the user's life force. The more it burns, the greater the consumption. Some people become famous in one battle, while others burn to ashes.
On the walls of the city-state, there are still the charred handprints left after the war. They were the totems left by the first batch of fire-burners when they used their flesh and blood to block the cracks in the city wall in order to resist foreign enemies. The old people said that those handprints contain the cry and determination. From the time they are sensible, every child in Dalongkan must touch those marks and feel the last trace of warmth left by their predecessors in the world. But feeling is one thing, actually making a choice is another.
Today, Dalonkan is ruled by six "Fire Martial Arts Schools". On the surface, they teach young people to control phlogiston, but in fact they secretly compete for control of the city-state's only lifeline - the "Eternal Fire." Legend has it that whoever can completely integrate the flame will obtain the never-exhausting phlogiston...
The protagonist of the story was born in the most inconspicuous border neighborhood of such a city-state...
