Rain was pattering on the window when Cael woke up, hearing a noise coming from his door - "Cael, are you awake?"
"Damn it," Cael said, getting out of bed. Now was not the time to be late; he had to get to the palace today.
Slipping on some clothes, he opened his door, and there standing in front of him was his sister Alexis, who just as much as he did not want to be out of bed.
"Breakfast is on the table, Cael," Alexis said, turning around. It took Cael a second to comprehend what she had said, and then all of a sudden, his grumpiness had faded and turned into joy.
Following his sister down the hall, he smelt the wonderful smell of… tofu? Eugh, he thought, remembering how his mother cooked tofu.
It wasn't exactly his ideal breakfast meal, but oh well.
Sitting at the table, his family looked quite worried; after all, today was the day. Today, he'd be able to go on knight training and finally be able to use his abilities.
"Cael, are you going to be alright?" His mother asked with a face full of anxiousness.
"You know it's not easy to become a knight, you know? Both your father and I could only teach you the basics of the sword, and even then, we aren't good at using weapons."
"Mom, you know that I'm actually quite decent with swords, I should be okay, if anything, you should worry about the other kids."
Tapping his leg against the floor repeatedly, he realised that today he couldn't fail, otherwise he'd be branded as a failure.
Putting his fork down, he made a loud bang. Cael spoke, his voice stern and determined. "I'm going to go get ready."
Later that day.
Cael approached the castle, seeing a crowd of spectators, he froze; he wasn't one for public speech, let alone being one of the stars from a lineage house which had their abilities opened up to them. Of course, he already had an idea of what his abilities would be simply because it was in his name.
Soon, he found himself at the reception, which would allow him to join the trial to get into the knight school, when he suddenly heard, "Hey Cael!" As he turned around, he saw his friend Adonai walking up to him.
"It's finally time, aren't you excited?" Adonai said with a joyous expression, after all, Adonai was an exceptional person who was expected to climb to the rank of a Grand Knight, though Cael didn't see how, since Adonai was rather lazy.
Cael was just about to open his mouth, but then a bell rang, and all attention was directed at the king, who had made an appearance.
"Ladies and gentlemen," there was a long pause. The man said, "I am Waldo Terralith."
Cael stared at the man in stunned surprise. This was the first time a king had ever made an appearance, and even better, it was a foreign king.
Cael's country had a king, but it wasn't a clan because there were no abilities for them to claim.
Waldo walked forward slightly, and suddenly a chair appeared behind him, along with a glass of water.
A collective gasp went through the crowd, and this happened. After all, it was rare to see abilities being used in the city, and because it was a king who was using it.
The king said with amusement in his voice, "Well then, we begin?" and then all amusement left his voice. "Although we don't usually do winners, we just pick the best performers, I'm going to grant the person that comes out on top a special favour, I'm going to recruit them for my country and train them personally".
Cael was shocked. People came to his country because they wanted to get away from the bloodshed and fighting, yet this king—no, this ignorant king wanted to bring them back? A child no less.
Right as he was about to say something to Adonai, a voice shouted two names.
"Hedderick Windsrock and Adonai Emberrock, please step up"
Cael was shocked. The matchup wasn't good; it was earth and wind against earth and fire.
Cael could only hope his friends could fight hand-to-hand. But given the lack of training they had, he doubted it.
Once the two were standing in the middle of a large opening, they drew their weapons.
BOOM. CLANG. SWISH. And then the fight was going on, dirt was flying everywhere, and fire along with it.
Cael noticed that Hedderick hadn't used wind yet and suspected that he was planning something. Right after he thought that he saw Hedderick use earth to fling himself into the air, flying towards Adonai, and in a swift motion, position himself perfectly to strike him down.
Of course, Adonai knew better than to take that head on, and so he dodged and threw a ball of flames at the spot Hedderick was landing in.
Grunting, Hedderick rose to his feet. He had burns all along his left arm, and although it didn't seem important, only nature users would know that having an arm incapacitated was a death sentence for their element.
Propelling himself forward, he thrusted towards Adonai's chest. However, Adonai, with his quick reaction time, dodged and sent a counterattack at Hedderick's side.
SWISH, CLANG, CLANG, SPLURT, THUMP.
Hedderick was down; he wasn't dead, but he couldn't carry on.
The attack on Hedderick's side was just a feint; Adonai actually aimed for his legs. Although the first two attacks missed, he was eventually able to scratch the thigh of Hedderick, and while Hedderick was stumbling back, he put up a pyramid of stone around him and sent a wall of fire to burn him.
In the end, Hedderick had given up. He didn't want to die, and why should he? They were in the country of harmony, not of Pyrothys.