Malcon opened his blood red eye, the room was dark, but that wasn't a problem since his ability allowed him to see well at night. Instead of training he had slept for a whole day, and the king was said to be coming tomorrow.
"You slept all day," Bane said, as Malcon came down to the dining hall.
"yeah…I was tired," Malcon said smiling." But I want to train now…do you want to join me?" Malcon asked.
"nope, I've had my fill with training" he said laughing.
Malcon went down to the training ground, everyone was already done with their training and probably sleeping, that means he had to be quiet, so as not to wake anyone up. At first he wanted to train himself on his martial skill but thought otherwise, for a whole year he had been training his body, and now he wants to cultivate.
He sat down on a lotus, crossing his legs, taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes. He could see the yellow mana core floating in mid air, and he started absorbing mana into it.
A mage powers are graded into six stages, and as you advance in power, the colour of your mana core changes.
Any mage at the rank of a novice, his mana core should be green, and advancing in power is the greatest achievement of anyone, most people didn't even get to enter the novice stage throughout their life. After years of proper cultivation with beast crystals or mana, if the mage is lucky his mana core would turn yellow, putting him at the rank of a specialist. At the rank of a specialist, you will have little or no problem with attacking or defending yourself from beasts. The next stage is the veteran, at this stage your mana core turns blue. Veterans are considered so strong as they could even hide the aura from their body, making it hard for one to sense their rank. After the veteran the next stage is the expert rank, at the expert rank your mana core turns red. The next rank after the expert is the master stage, at the master stage your mana core turns black, only very few people evolve from the master stage to the elite rank. In the elite rank your mana core turns white, people at the elite rank are rare and are regarded as the strongest mages. And finally when a person's mana core turns gold, Malcon had never heard of anyone that has achieved such power, having a golden Mana core places you at the rank of a legend.
Malcon knew he wouldn't be able to advance from the specialist stage to the veteran before tomorrow's duel. Opening his eyes he saw ivy standing in front of the training ground, staring at him.
"You scared me." Malcon said, standing up.
"sorry." she apologised, smiling.
With the warm smile she appeared even more beautiful, her pink long hair was parked to a ponytail and she wore a loosened white gown.
"You're already a specialist," she said, looking at Malcon.
"yeah"
Looking at her, Malcon could see the green aura emitting from her body.
"Aren't you feeling sleepy?" Malcon finally asked.
"Couldn't sleep." she confessed
"Why…what happened?" Malcon asked.
"I mean…the kings duel is tomorrow and I wanted to train"
Malcon was normally not the person to interfere with other people's problems, and she seemed to have noticed malcon's slow attempt to leave her.
"Could you help me train?" she asked politely.
For a while Malcon thought of the best way to tell her no.
"Please!" she pleaded, with her puppy dog eyes.
"Fine…I will give you a few tips," Malcon finally agreed. She jumped up excitedly and her gown followed suit.
"But first…change your cloth." Malcon said.
And that was when she realized what she was wearing, her cheek turned rose red, and she ran back to the house.
Few minutes later she came out wearing her black uniform, she went to the store and brought two wooden swords.
At first Malcon wanted to teach her how best to defend herself with a sword. Over an hour had passed and she was picking up really fast. After about two hours, Malcon taught her the best way to attack someone, making sure she understood the fact that tricking your opponent was one of the wisest things to do.
Over three hours passed, and he could tell ivy was tired, so he decided to call it a day. And they went back to their rooms.
****
The captain had woken them up, to prepare for the king's arrival. They got dressed and went to the dining hall, where they took their breakfast and waited for the king. Everyone looked a little bit anxious, as they sat down waiting for him, only the Captain and the vice looked normal, but if they were pretending, then they were doing a good job at it.
Three hours had passed and there was still nothing. Most of them were already sleeping, but their eyes sprang open as they heard a loud noise outside. They all ran outside only to see a blue magic circle, looking at the magic circle Malcon remembered Ecard, the man who had teleported them to meet the king for the first time.
'Speak of the devil,' Malcon muttered under his breath. Ecard walked out of the magic circle, his blue hair still tousled in a messy yet stylish way, his blue eye glowed more than the magic circle itself.
Following him closely was the dwarf of a man. his cold deep sea blue eye scanned them as he steped out of the magic circle, as though he was trying to sense any threat, after a while he raised up his aristototic face of an archbishop and stepped aside. The king stepped out of the magic circle with a warm smile on his face.
"You've all grown up," he said, smiling. And they all bowed on seeing him.
They were told to go and train while Ecard and the dwarf prepared the battlefield. The captain and the vice had taken the king to a private place where they were probably discussing Sam.
After about an hour, the vice captain called them all to assemble in front of the house.
"I will be sending you all to an arena where the duel will take place," Ecard said, raising his hand, and a blue magic circle slowly appeared.
"Perfect Ecard." the king commented on seeing the magic circle.
"Thank you, your grace," Ecard said bowing. "if it pleases your grace." he added, stretching his hand toward the portal.
"I'll meet you at the arena, kids," the king said, still wearing a warm smile on his face."And I am expecting a lot," he added, walking into the magic circle, and the dwarf followed suit.
"Please, you will all be entering one by one." Ecard instructed.
As Malcon entered the portal he saw himself standing beside a chair, with the number fifteen embedded in it.
"Malcon take your seat." bane called out.
Malcon was still staring at the structure of the arena. The arena was bigger than what he expected, and the chairs went round, enclosing the arena.
"it's a nice place." Bane commented as Malcon sat down.
"Very nice," Malcon added.
Few minutes later, Ecard appeared inside the arena. "Hope you like the place?" he asked, smiling, and they all clapped and cheered.
"The rules are very simple" he said as a small box slowly appeared in his hand. "Inside this box, contains the number of the various seats you're sitting on." he said, as he slightly lifted up his hand and the ball floated In mid air, going up to where the king sat.
"His grace would randomly select two of any paper in the box, and if the number of the seat you're sitting on is selected, you're to make your way to the arena," he said, arranging his tie.
"Listen carefully," Ecard's voice echoed.
"Only two rules will apply in this tournament. One, once your opponent says yield, you cease to attack. Two, never kill your opponent." he instructed, with a cold voice. "With that understood may we begin."
"candidate number five, and candidate number three the king called out.
Diana slowly walked into the battle arena. She was a tall girl with short red hair that barely passed her neck, and her thick red eye glowed with determination to win.
The second girl walked into the battleground not looking so determined as Diana. Susan was an average girl with black hair that lay down in waves across her back, she had watery black eyes and looked as though she wanted to forfeit the match. As if she knew her faith if the match was to commerce.
She walked toward the wall of weapons that had appeared in front of her, and selected two small daggers, while Diana selected two long spare.
They both stood at a measurable distance with Ecard standing in between them. He slowly turned at both the opponents.
"Begin." he signalled the match to commerce as be vanished leaving them
To fight.
Diana quickly conjured up a fireball and sent it toward Susan. On seeing the fireball her brain jogged back to reality, as she swiftly evaded the fireball.
Malcon was very familiar with both Susan and Diana. Diana's was the third best fire mage among them and equally well skilled. Susan on the other hand was also a fire mage, but less specialised compared to Diana. But with both of them as diagon, their fire element was practically useless, and this would probably be a battle of skills, Malcon assumed.
Not wanting Susan to stand on her feet, she conjured up another fireball and shot it at her. Still of balance, Susan saw the fireball coming toward her, knowing fully well that avoiding the fire was impossible, she quickly shot a fireball, letting the two fire collide.
And out of the black smoke that hovered in midair, from the coalition of the fires, she met Diana cold gaze. A gosh of airwave escaped from Susan's mouth as Diana fist made contact with her stomach, sending her crashing through the sand.