In every year, at the start of December, more accurately on the third day of the month, the annual First Blood event was held. Although the name was not creative at all, the people of Ade Lai usually preferred straightforwardness. This was the time for the children’s first real fight, one which were not against their fellow classmates but some kind of animal or monster.

Up to this point, during their practises with others, they were instructed to place safety above anything else as they were still considered kids, so injuries, especially serious ones were quite rare. Fighting in a real battle, however, required blood to be shed and that was from where the name came. Furthermore during the fight, the adults only intervened in the last case scenario, when someone’s life was in danger.

The event was held on the school fields and the first participant had to start at exactly nine in the morning. Even an hour before it, the whole place was loaded with people, forming a large ellipses -- a great part of the city has decided to take part in watching the event. Inside that a smaller circle was formed by the students sitting on benches, and an even smaller circle was created by several teachers and soldiers. Protected by them, inside this last circle, on a temporary stage was the fights to be held.

After everybody arrived and everything was at their intended place, the principal of the school announced what kind of creatures would the kids fight against. This time there was only a single type, which was the Shrieker larvae just like in the previous years. Obviously there was not much reason or justification needed for this decision, as currently these monsters were the biggest threat for the city and although they have not made any great move yet, the legions often encountered groups of them in the Wilderness.

As the time passed one student came after another and battled with the monsters. Though they were successful without exception, many of the fights lasted for quite a while and some of them got even seriously injured at the end. Fortunately for them, water element healers, lead by Nyra were ready to treat any kind of injury when needed to.

Quin did not have to wait much and it was already his class’s turn. The majority of them had only simple, average elements, which he thought was not worth his attention and thus he paid them no mind. His attitude changed when it was time for his friends' turn though.

The first among them was Alinor and his fight ended in mere seconds, as he shot a hot ball of magma, which a scarlet hue to it, from his right hand and it completely destroyed the beast. His element turned out to be magma, which despite not being as rare or unique as Quin’s lightning, was ranked in the top five known elements without a doubt. Alinor’s control over it had to be praised as well, as he could even make the element’s notoriously slow speed quite manageable. Maybe it had to do with the fact that his was probably not a simple magma element, but a variant. His spells always had a scarlet hue to them, which further indicated this theory.

His twin, Aline was the next in the row. She was known for having an element never seen before, being even more unique than Quin himself. It resembled to fire, but it was even hotter, was painted in purple and behaved differently as well. Though it still had an explosive property to it, after a thorough inspection the teachers found out that its main ability was to devour and incite. Sadly without having any experience with this kind of fire, they had no ability to teach her to her possible limits.

The fight itself was spectacular and uncommon: she shot a fireball at the Shrieker, however it done no damage to it. Then she started waving her arm in a circular motions, the creature first stopped in its track and after a moment it started to vibrate in its place, shrieking in seemingly pain. It was not long after the larvae spat mouthfuls of blood, and then died with its three eyes exploding. Without saying a single word, she smiled slightly and walked down from the stage.

Dreon had to expend a bit more effort, but with the help of his air element his movement was quick, his attacks sharp and managed to execute the monster under two minutes with his air blades without any injuries.

Finally it was Quin’s turn and he slowly walked to the middle of the stage, where he was face to face with the Shrieker. He had thought what kind of spell and how he would use it: he wanted something unique and flashy enough to show off.

What was his best? It was his qi output rate without a doubt, which could even rival those in the -- next and final sub-stage of Qi Foundation -- the Qi Culmination, with an amount of sixteen unit of qi per second. Although he usually made great use of the various techniques and spells, in truth most of the time he simply did not need them and could have just overwhelmed his opponent with the sheer amount of his qi. Maybe in a real battle, where every drop of qi mattered it would be inefficient, but he thought that this would be the best kind of method to show off his superiority.

Just before the battle begin, he started to pump out his lightning qi in a cone shape in front of him, as fast as he could. Though he could not control qi outside his body, he still had some kind of connection to it and could somewhat sense it, which proved useful in perceiving the changes in the environment during his trainings. However this time, that was not the reason he did it for.

An ear-piercing shriek signaled the start of the battle, but the battlefield was already under Quin’s control. At first the Shrieker seemed to fly unhindered, only trained eyes could see that something was amiss, but then the closer it got to him, the slower it became and the creature also began to twitch wildly. Finally it dropped dead just a meter in front of him, though the twitching only stopped after a few moments.

When he started to fill the area with his qi, he made it so that it would be gradually denser the closer to him. Although the larvae managed to survive the electrical charges for a while, the density of Lightning Qi simply crushed and drowned it, without Quin having to have to move even an inch.

Haha! Look all of you, how great it was, I killed it seemingly without any spells and so easily, just by staring at it! I guess they are all flabbergasted! He was excited and happy but did not show it, as he looked around with only a slight, modest smile. They had the expression he had hoped for: shock and awe in the kids’, pride in his parents’ and instructor’s eyes, happiness in his friends and some other kids seemed to be even jealous of him. You’re jealous of me? Laughable! You should’ve trained as hard as me, but no, instead you all just wanted to play and have fun and now that I achieved this all by myself, training day and night, improving both my body and mind restlessly you are jealous? You won’t get something just by wishing or desiring it, only by hard work! Anyways, it’s not like you with those average elements could catch up to me, to someone who’s got the strongest element of all: lightning! Then, after he was content with the outcome, he walked away from the stage towards his friends.

As Quin reached Aline, he looked at her and stopped, still gazing at her. He did not know why, but her bearing, face and aura just mesmerized him. He knew that he had developed some kind of attraction toward her in the previous months; he often caught himself watching her and felt happy when he could talk with her. This moment was not like the other ones however, it was entirely different. It was something new, unknown, he felt like in the past he had been blind or deaf and now a whole new spectrum of senses were revealed, but this time it was all about Aline. For some reason to this day he had not realized it, he had not noticed all those things about her. He could not just put those into words, they were more than mere beauty or a great personality. When looking at her, seeing her smile he also felt warmness and a new emotion rise in his heart. What is that? he wondered. It’s... Is what I’m feeling, love?

“Hey, are you okay?” the girl interrupting his thoughts asked with concern showing on her face.

“Uh... Yeah, I’m okay, sorry, I just... uhm dazed off a bit,” Quin said visibly embarrassed.

“Oh. By the way you were awesome back there, how did you do it?” she gave her another smile as she asked.

“Uh... It was nothing special.” He scratched his head and put on an awkward smile. His mind was still in some kind of daze and he felt he need all of his willpower to speak intelligible. “Honestly it was one of the simplest thing to do: I just constantly released my qi in a cone before me and the thing could not handle it. But you were also great, I guess even the teachers didn’t know how you did it!”

“Thanks!” Her face reddened a bit. “But pumping out your qi like that? I knew your output rate was exceptional, you told us about it before, but that’s on a completely new level and you only had a few moments to do it,” she was quite shocked, but spoke in a praising tone.

“Well, it’s as high as someone in the Qi Culmination, so it wasn’t that hard,” he straightened himself and answered, while trying to make it look like it was not anything special, but naturally on the inside he was actually quite proud.

“Really?” The girl was undoubtedly surprised, to which Quin simply nodded.

After a couple of silent moments, Quin had an idea and asked her, “Hey, Aline, are you free tomorrow?”

Author's Note: There's still not much fighting in this chapter, but you don't have to wait too much for it, as the first proper fight scene will be in the 18th chapter, and after that the story's pace will gradually take up.

Edited on 2016. 09. 20.