"Another demonstration? Well that's fine I guess: I didn't get to show off any of these skills with the Princess earlier, and it'd be a shame to neglect them."
What he didn't bother telling them was that one of his new attacks was something he had never actually tried before. Maybe they'd be able to notice? It was a fact-finding exercise at its heart!
Spike brought up his claws into that unusually familiar stance, one half-clenched and the other flat, before exhaling a dense ball of fire. Stagnet kept it in place even as he added more material, the structure growing from an orb into a column and then into something like a target dummy. This wasn't what he wanted to show however: He immediately moved into his actual techniques.
The usual quartet he had built up across his time in the tunnels came out one move at a time, and he even used each one several times: Grasp and Slice and Pierce and Draw all breaking the pillar of fire apart into chunks and pieces. He made sure to use his External Mana Control to dispose of those safely inside of his Inventory even as he prepared his two newest attacks.
The X-Factor he learned from Pinkie Pie was extremely flexible and unpredictable, but some instinct told him it was best to keep it that way. So instead of trying out new things he used repeat words with the skill, Expose to pop open the outer layer of the flames and Exert to deliver a particularly nasty shot to the core.
His target piece was in pieces plural now, and there was only one trick left in his current bag: Alter. One of the annoying parts of these Disciplined attacks was that they didn't have any kind of full description, so he had to figure out how to use them himself. Whether it was the best way to use it? He had no idea. But the first way he thought of was to adjust the trajectory of an attack during the actual swing. So he started to bring down a devastating overhead with both of his claws together but then pivoted on his feet, altering the blow into a whirlwind slam to the side of the 'head'.
Given all the damage he'd already done? That sent the target's faux-skull flying across the room, dislodged from the rest of the mass by the strength of his blow. Spike went to dismiss it and then see how the mares had reacted... but they beat him to the punch quite literally.
Ardor Ray gave the rushing chunk of magically-frozen fire a completely bored look, just watching it pass by her with tired eyes. Her wings snapped up and fluttered, weaving and pushing at the air in some extremely precise fashion, and he watched in awe as the fire began to collapse. Starting from the edges inwards it began to run and trickle as if it were ice cream caught in the midday sun.
Before it got any further through the air Lilac Lack brought up one hoof and slapped the offending projectile: Striking it with her hoof, a dismissive sneer, and a verbal insult for good measure.
"Completely worthless."
As if it had emotions that could be swayed by her words the dripping flame started to dissolve, tearing apart and effervescing into the air. By the time it should have hit the far wall it was already gone, nothing but a thin sense of his own mana dispersing through the room.
By witnessing a shadow of an imitation of the power of the Sun, you have begun to see the way to make things [Melt].
By witnessing a glimmer of an imitation of the power of the Moon, you have begun to see the way to make things [Upset].
Spike took a deep breath to steady himself and then bowed to the two of them, although he was already smiling by the time his head came back up.
"So? I have to assume that last bit wasn't the verdict, because you seem like the kind of pony that would have slapped me directly for wasting your time."
Lilac actually laughed at that, pointing a hoof at him.
"See? Told you the boyo would understand me!"
Ardor just rolled her eyes, still slowly rolling and stretching her wing joints.
"Hrm."
Spike waited until one or both of them gave him some kind of answer... It took longer than he might have expected. Maybe they were using some sensory tricks to get a feel for how the situation had gone? Or just running it back in their heads. Whatever the case, it was Lilac who spoke up first.
"You came at this backwards. The reason you can't do anything meaningful is because your Art is a hollow thing, a frame with no portrait. It's stable and structurally sound but lacks soul. There's no dark heart: No lie, no hatred, no stress or breaking or misery, you don't have dichotomy inside of it. The Art has to be something that pulls you in two ways at once, a philosophy born of division. If it doesn't then it's just another uninteresting mortal endeavor, as far as I am concerned."
After she said her part, Ardor stood up and started to walk over to Spike.
"Despite her harsh phrasing I don't think Lolly is wrong here. Everypony I can name who does this sort of thing comes about it naturally, or accidentally. Many unaware of what they're accomplishing in the first place! They achieve their path to power based on pure instinct."
Once the pegasus mare reached him she sighed and placed a wingtip on his shoulder.
"Your method might have advantages in the long run: A skill born from truly knowing what you're doing and why, learned by grueling practice and scientific methods... But that is a Faith that is exceptionally hard to nurture. After all, the very word faith means you have to have uncertainty. You cannot have Faith in something you absolutely know or it would just be trust instead."
While he didn't actually have his subtitles turned on? Spike could tell when ponies were going out of their way to capitalize a proper noun. They were talking about a capital-A Art and a capital-F Faith, probably their own Disciplines and how they perceived them. And that tracked with what he already knew from Lyra... and so did their feedback.
When they discussed it over their training period in the past few weeks, Lyra had referred to her Discipline as a Style. Her advice hadn't been quite as biting or dismissive, but she did make it clear that he was missing something. As far as she knew, Styles were all based on emulation, either imitating or being inspired by an outside force. Martial arts were usually modelled on the behaviors and techniques that came naturally to animals and other foreign species: Lyra has based her own unusual style on humans of course, grasping and pushing and using tools to her advantage.
All three of them pointed to the same thing: It lacked a soul. It was based on knowledge instead of instinct. It didn't have a clear inspiration. Even his system agreed...
This skill should have an active form.
But...
You have yet to create the thesis.
Spike cupped his claws together and bowed again, the way Lyra had reluctantly shown him.
"...Thank you both for your time."
Lilac got up from her seat as well, striding across the table to meet them.
"Hah! He acts like we're going to leave after we've said our piece. Come on, don't you want to actually get some advice on how to improve? Most ponies wouldn't be satisfied with just getting criticism and letting us walk away afterwards."
"But-"
Ardor moved her wingtip from her shoulder to cover his mouth.
"No. We should give you some more structured advice, because it's clear that you're already making huge strides of progress. You can't have been capable of this for more than a few months at the most, by my estimate. That's a staggering rate of growth even with Princess Celestia's aid."
"...and without it?"
She boggled at him for a moment and then laughed, shrill and high.
"Really?"
"She's a busy pony! I can't just go bugging her every time I have a life-changing magical upheaval."
He winced when he realized he might have given away too much. But these were both perceptive ponies, and it was clear they already had suspicions that he wasn't showing them all that he could do. The frozen fire alone probably tipped them off to that, come to think of it...
"Come on, tell us what your real problem is. It's clearly not the lack of outside help, and it's definitely not a lack of power. For all that it lacks a heart, your Faith is clearly well-sculpted."
Ardor had just presented a good question. What was his real problem? Was it the uncertainty built into these new powers? Was he overly reliant on the abilities of the Gamer, menus that spelled everything out in perfect regimented Twilight-like detail? Or was it just that...
"I don't know what to do. I have all this power and all of these abilities but I have no idea how to apply them or put them to use. Should I be helping the Elements save the world and risk getting in the way or causing accidents? Go out and try to make my own changes in the world even if they're changes for the worse? I have too many choices and abilities and all this power, but no reason to like... motivate me. No direction for how to use it all."
Ardor frowned at him, clearly not accepting his line of thinking.
"My answer here is no different than what I would say to anypony else: Do what you can."
"It's too much. I have all these abilities, so many directions to go... I could do anything!"
Lilac laughed in his face, swatting his nose with her tail as she walked away.
"So? Answer's not changing boyo: Do what you can. If you can do anything? Just do everything."
Right. Obviously. Of course that was the solution, just... Why become Spike the warrior or Spike the paladin or Spike the magical craftsman or even Spike the freaking short-order cook when he could do all of those and more? The fact that his power had grown further than he'd ever originally dreamed didn't change that: He could do it all!
...yeah, that was it wasn't it? He'd even said as much when he took Pinkie's eerily similar advice all those weeks ago, the very first day of his life as the Gamer. He could do it all, try everything and master life itself: Be a Spike of all trades.
...In the distance, he heard a little hint of Pinkie's laughter.