"So... Flester, are you going to participate in the trials...or not?"
Kael asked Flester who blinked in surprise. "Why would I want to? I am here to challenge you for the Flame symbol." Flester said and he nodded.
"No worries, you might change your mind, and during the time of trials, which comes only twice a year, you can't challenge me. So you would have to wait at least 3 weeks, what are you going to do between those three weeks?"
"Flester." Kael continued. "My advice is to participate in the trials, it will be a new experience for you too."
Flester thought for a time, he did not have anything to do until the trials were over and he certainly could not just train for that long and stay in a single city doing absolutely nothing.
"Alright, I'll participate, how do I do it now?" Kael smiled at Flester. "Just give your details and this guy here will register you himself, you will get further details about this by tomorrow."
Kael walked off leaving Flester with the other guy who immediately swarmed him with questions.
"Where are you from?"
"What's your full name?"
"Are you from any famous clan?"
"Are your parents any famous mages?"
"Do you have any past experience in these types of things?"
Flester sighed, He was already preparing for a tiring interview from the guy before him.
"Let me be fast, my name is Flester, I am an orphan from Frosthold, I don't know who my parents were, and I can give you my word that whoever my parents were, they would not have been strong."
"I take it you are from Frosthold, are an orphan and have no past experience in this, that's all."
Two days flew by faster than Flester had imagined, he had bought new clothes and had also explored the library finding a rather interesting book.
"What is this place?" Flester muttered to himself feeling a small trace of magic behind a certain book. Taking the book out, Flester read the title.
"How to make a magic staff..." He stared at the book and decided to buy it. He had heard about these staffs, he did not know how they worked but he now was exited to explore the book more.
He did not open the book, he stored it away deciding to read it after the trials, and so the very next day, he received news that he was supposed to go to the Emberhold Stadium.
"Wonder where that is." Flester thought going to the terrace of the apartment where he currently lived for a few days, and immediately his eyes found the large stadium just a few streets away from the hospital.
"How in the world did I not notice that?" Flester asked himself, and he jumped from his apartment landing on another, and soon, jumping from building to building, he landed right in front of the entrance of the stadium gates.
"Your name?" A woman, asked him.
"Flester. Just Flester."
"You are lucky you are the only one with that name, it took faster than I anticipated." Then, the woman stood up. "You are one of the few arriving so soon, that does not mean you will get some special treatment, now I assume you know how this works?"
"No, I don't have a clue of what I am supposed to do." Flester said cheerfully getting on the lady's nerves. She sighed before looking at Flester.
"First, you are to pick a paper from this bowl." She points at a medium sized transparent bowl in the desk, inside which were at least ten papers.
"From that, I can say which room you are supposed to go to fight a strong mage specialised in a single element who will decide, according to your performance whether you progress to the next stage or not, and then you can find someone to explain you the rest." She sat back lazily as she spun the bowl and kept it back in the desk.
Flester took a deep breath, and took out a random folded paper. "Steel." Flester read out the only word in the paper.
"Alright, fold the paper and keep it back in the bowl, and go to the last room after you take the left."
Doing as instructed, Flester turned to his left and walked past three rooms and stoped in front of the last one, opening the door, he entered the room or rather by what Flester could see now, it was a battlefield. A metal ground, and some metal rocks and spikes, and in centre was his opponent, spiky long silver hair and yellow eyes.
There were also spectators in the stands, at least at a floors height.
"Even though this is only considered the training fields before the main match in the main battleground, there are spectators, they came to watch this steel user fight. I did not expect that." He thought to himself.
"I am Draven Ferris, and I will be your opponent, young mage." He said with a kind smile, and all the spectators stopped what they were doing, and got ready to see the first duel in this battlefield.
"My name is Flester, I look forward to a great duel."
"Not a duel, but a fight, and I too look forward for this fight."
Respectfully blowing to each-other, the umpire began the match.
Rushing at his opponent, Flester aimed a punch at the steel user's head which he dodged with ease following by aiming a kick of his won to Flester's gut which was blocked by his hand.
Flester jumped back a few feet to create distance and immediately Draven was right in front of him, launching a magic-enhanced punch aimed at his face which Flester avoided ducking in the last second.
Flame covered his hands and Flester punched the unguarded Draven in his gut sending him skidding a few feet back.
"That was quite strong." He commented without any injury or pain. "You did not feel my punch?"
"Oh, I did."
Flester narrowed his eye at the smirk he received from Draven. "Draven, beat that kid to his senses!" One of the audiences, a fan of Draven shouted with a smile followed by cheers of all the spectators screaming Draven's name.
"DRAVEN! DRAVEN! DRAVEN!" The chanting went on.
Flester blew a gust of flame out of his mouth, heading straight for Draven.
"Good!" Draven commented making a sword out of nowhere, and deflected the flame with a swing of his sword.
"Was that materialisation?"
"No, all steel users can do this, we are born with it, materialisation is a cheap copy. Weapons made through that is made of magic, and are much weaker than this technique a steel user uses to make his weapon."
"I did not expect a full explanation in between a battle." Flester rushed towards him forming a similar looking sword with his materialisation
"But thanks for that." Flester said with a confident look.
"It's no problem, newbie." Draven said with a smirk.
Sound of metal clashing against each other echoed through the cheers of the spectators, though for an experienced mage, it looked clear that in a sword fight, Draven was clearly superior.
"He's strong for his age." Draven thought deflecting another slash, Flester jumped back once again, his sword disappearing and replaced with a perfect sphere overflowing with flame magic energy, blasting the orange-reddish ball of energy towards Draven, Flester put his index, middle and ring finger of his right-hand in the ground.
"Magical Flame String." Flester whispered, and from the three fingers, orange light seemed to enter the ground, and as Flester rose, the three thin orange energy, as if swimming found its way to Draven's feet, unnoticed, and before the Flame sphere had reached him.
The Flame string climbed onto Draven's ankles and that was when Draven noticed though it was too late, with his sword covered with visible magical energy, Draven cut the flame sphere in half which blew up a few feet behind him.
He was pulled towards Flester the next moment, as he flew towards Flester as if someone were pulling him with his legs, and this time, he braced himself as he met Flester's magic enhanced punch to his face with nothing to block or protect him.
Flame burst out of his mouth again, this time sending the steel user backward skidding with his legs to a stop.
"Steel wave." Draven shouted with his hands outstretched in front of him, and forming out of nowhere, a wave of steel flew to Flester before he could do anything.
"That was fast." Flester thought to himself. Draven dashed to Flester forming a magic ray which he launched towards Flester who formed a magical ray of his own to counter it.
"AHH!" Flester screamed as pain coursed through his body, as he looked onto his right knee where a sword was impaled in his kneecap which tore through his flesh, muscle and bone popping out in the other side.
He grunted falling to his left knee, losing concentration, his magical ray disappeared. Even with the pain, he barely avoided Draven's ray which brushed his hair, though he could not escape Draven himself who, with a burst of speed impaled his sword through Flester's gut.
Draven pulled out his sword from Flester's gut and stepped back seeing the teen scream in agony. "You are strong, but it seems you don't know when to think and when to let instincts take over." Draven said, a dark look in his eyes.
"I'm not done yet..." Flester stood up with shaky legs glaring at the older man. Draven jumped back avoiding a huge flame hand which erupted from the ground.
"It seems as if you still can fight."
"Flame portal or the second stage? Which one should I reveal? I can't reveal both." Flester thought. Forming another sphere of flame, he burst it towards Draven who neutralised the attack with a iron wall protecting him which erupted from the ground.
"Steel arts: Maze." Huge walls erupted from the grounds of the battlefield, it was so high it almost touched the ceiling.
Looking from atop, one can say clearly that Flester was trapped in a maze, with Draven high up sitting atop one of the walls.
Creatures slowly formed erupting from everywhere, the ground, the huge walls of the maze- creatures that looked like magic beasts, humans, and even some mythical creatures like dragons began to rush towards Flester.
"What in the-" Flester dodged a ball of magic from one of the steel beasts.
"Damn, these steel products have their own magical energy?" Flester said out wide-eyed.
"Damn we can't even see anything." One of the spectators shouted.
"We missed our chance on looking at him getting beaten up." Another said, and soon they all began chattering as if it was a break between the first and second match.
Flester fell down unable to bear the pain in his knee as tears threatened to fall out of his eyes.
"I can't even stand, even going into second-stage would only give me 3 minutes of fighting chance, that taken only if I don't strain my knee more."
He slashed his sword to the right, unleashing a blue-and-orange arc that sliced through the beasts, cutting many of them clean in half.
"Still, without Blazion's help, my chances of winning are nearly none." Flester thought panting.
"If only I knew how to heal." He stood up with shaky legs only to fall down again, he watched as the beasts neared him in frightening speed, he could only close his eyes and curse.
"I really did not expect to use this so fast." He muttered. "Flame portal.."
Arrows of pure flame shot out at double the speed of Flester's usual attacks as it hit beasts in all sides of Flester.
Flester outstretched his hands towards one of the walls, and a ball of compressed flame magic shot towards it breaking it, Flester threw his sword after the ball of flame, the sword covered with flame and light magic as it tore through all the walls until Draven jumped down to deflect it.
His eyes met Flester's, and then narrowed. "You're really a mystery to solve." Draven said to himself as he dashed towards Flester who still was not able to even stand.
Chains erupted at high speed from the portals towards the nearing Draven, who jumped up dodging but instead Draven ended up crashing into a wall. "This is not like me, there's no way my legs are this clumsy." Draven thought looking at both his feets.
"Is it because of the weird move of his that appeared at my feet?" He asked himself but the next instant found himself dodging the chains again. he shot a ball of light towards the chains which met head on and yet the chains remained as if they were untouched.
"This kid...is not normal." He concluded landing down and continuing his way towards Flester breaking walls at his sight, and appearing behind Flester, his sword raised high and ready to cut down the young teen.
"You are slow." Draven thought and just when he began to draw the sword down to cut his opponent, his eyes caught it, a quick moment, a fast weapon flew towards him from one of the portals front of Flester, barely dodging Flester, heading for his thighs, his body reacted late, and out of instinct he tried to jump only for the hot-flame sword to pierce him through his left kneecap and popping out of the other side.
"Materialisation." Flester whispered and Draven watched as the flame sword turned into steel, equally hot.
"It looks like both of us are again equally matched, Draven."