An old father sat on the weathered concrete, his infant son cradled in his arms. The boy is decades too young to be the man's true son, but not a one among the world would dispute it. The old man had skin of leather and hair of perfect silver. Gone were his days as a burly man, and his brown hair had fled him. This troubled the man not, nor did it give solace to those that would harm him.

The father was as the stones are. Weathered though they may be, for the passage of time spares nothing, they are merely shaped. The father paid father time’s due, as none would be given free passage. The father was not weakened as some were, as he was as the stones are. Thin, wiry arms belie his strength, and crooked back and bent neck hide his height. No longer was this man a giant among men as he was as a youth, but that mattered not.

Weathered as he was, time had shaped him well. There was no arrogance in the way he held himself, only surety of purpose. Those who looked upon him saw a giant still, for what was a man like the father except a giant? Small and bent though he was, he stood as tall as mountains to those that would look upon him.

Cradling his son in his hands, the son that was not his by birth but by right of care, he looked as the mountains looked. Thieves would not trouble the father, for what thief would dare steal from the mountains? Nor would knights or chosen alike. For no matter the power of one of the chosen, they would not defy the mountains. Seldom would the father’s spot at the market be busy with others, as no one would dare steal it.

The father was too weak to work, but he and his son would never grow hungry. Food would arrive as it did to all others bereft of work. Begging was not beneath the father, for it was to feed his son. Food would come each day in surplus.

The son, too young to be aware of the world, would feel only his father’s embrace day after day. Wiry white hair would tickle his head as the mighty white beard of the father drooped upon him. Worry was never among the son, for he was too young to feel it. Thin arms held him and cleaned him at all times of the day. The father was a father in earnest, not to be made ashamed of cleaning his beloved son.

The king would send men to deal with the father eventually, as the soldiers feared him. The king's men had feared to approach the old man when they were sent and had requested reinforcements. The guard had come then, bespeckled in jewel and royal colours in equal measure. They, too, fled the father’s stare. Finally, the captain of the king's guard approached the old father.

In the center of the market, in the middle of the night, sat a wearied old man. Grey hair and beard flowed from the man's wrinkled face in a torrent. Wrinkled skin and wiry frame alike greeted the captain. He was an old man in earnest, as he had always been described. No taller than five span would he stand, and he would no more lift a boulder than a nert would become king. The father was a cardboard legend, paper thin and without substance, assumed the knight captain.

He approached the father, standing above him as he attempted to speak down to the old man.

“You will remove yourself at the king's order,” he shouted to the old man. The father was as bothered by the words as the sea was by the rain. Father time’s due had been paid, but the father had paid him short. His body was as the mud was, for it had been washed away by the ever-flowing current of time, but his mind was what made the man.

Old, bent, and broken, the father’s face split into a wearied grin. The knight captain, watching the old man like a wyvern would its prey, suddenly felt pressure he had never seen emanate from the man.

“Be ye knight of men or herald of Gods, you are no one to tell me what to do, young knight,” the father boomed. No longer was he an old man to the knight, for now, he had become a giant. Still, an old man sat before him, but the knight captain felt dwarfed in every sense. In his heart, he knew that the greatest boulders, even the hills, and the valleys, were nothing to the father. In his gaze, there was no lost look that chased the old and senile alike, but a young cunning. He was not a man stolen of his senses, but one as sharp as the blades the captain carried.

Weathered as the father’s body was, he was refined by that age, for he was as the mountains were. Age left its mark, but no more. The captain, controlled by a fear he could not explain, steadily backed away from the father, all the way to the guard's barracks. The father would be considered off-limits to all of the king's guard from that day onward.

With that, the old man sat more comfortably, but still never quite gave into comfort entirely. He was not on edge as the young were, he was simply sitting with purpose, as if constantly on guard. Bent and broken, with wrinkled skin and hair of perfect grey, the old man sat in perfect stillness in his home in the centre of the market, holding his small son gently at all times. His son would not remember him, nor would the father live to see the son become a man. Still, his father sat his vigil, with pupilless black eyes staring into the souls of any who would come to wish him harm. The father was not chosen as men were, as he had no use for the gifts of Gods. As the world passed by, the father watched.

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An interesting fact Micheal discovered was that it was considerably easier to sneak someone out than it is to sneak someone in. He had thought getting Samantha out would have been a task fit for one of the epics, and had been almost disappointed with the sheer ease of it. Near the end of the first hall, they had pretty much given up hiding Samantha’s identity at all. They hadn’t even needed to hide her eyes, since his were exactly the same anyways! Still, Micheal wasn’t exactly upset with the ease of which they had gotten Samantha back to the lower hall, since not being killed for being somewhere you shouldn’t is normally considered to be a good thing, even if it is a little on the boring side.

What that did mean was that Micheal was now not only bored, but also alone and bored. If he at least had Samantha here they would have been able to talk about their usual nonsense, or if they were feeling particularly productive, their plan for the tournament. Instead, he was burdened with that same crippling loneliness that he always seemed to find himself in. admittedly, his personality in his first few weeks had likely not helped him build his case for a strong friendship candidate. He probably wouldn’t have befriended himself either. That meant that, when he finally got back to his own room, it was time for some solitary training.

It was clear to anyone that Micheal had progressed by leaps and bounds with his control of his apostle, much to his dismay, but Micheal still felt he was lacking. True, he felt his power would be enough to at least challenge the lower middle end of bone-ranked chosen, but what did that matter? Aryth was average for an earth-ranker, but there was no comfort in that. The gap between bone and earth was a chasm wider than that of bone and lost. The rankings for chosen weren’t uniform by any means, of course, as what constituted earth in Dasgad would be bone in a city like Ralthor or one of the empire’s other great cities, but even with that consideration Aryth was easily more powerful than Micheal. Micheal’s bone rank and Aryth’s earth were night and day as far as power was concerned, and if Aryth would have been merely a bone rank in some far off city in the Empire, what did it matter? Rank or not, their gap in not only pure strength, but technique as well, was very real.

Sitting on the end of his bed in the lotus position, Micheal sought to rectify that fact. First Micheal tested his control of his Apostle, and willed the crystal within to move to his right shoulder. Every part of Micheal had the potential to turn to crystal should he want it, at least in theory. In truth, Micheal had nowhere near the level of talent or expertise for that to be the case. It was said that for some of the great genius chosen it was mere child's play to summon their apostle to any part of their body at all. Micheal, on the other hand, was limited only to his blood.

As one of the lost, Micheal had a great connection to his mortal body. While other kids his age had summoned swords of bone and shields of ice, he had been left only with his hands. With his body he had become an object of fear and brutality to the other lost at the orphanage. The blood that flowed through him was not only his life, but his power as well. The beat of his heart and the expansion of his lungs had always been what power felt like, and now his apostle reflected that.

Blood rushed into Micheal’s shoulder like lightning before an explosion of white and black crystal, making a cracking sound as his bones were transformed and then shattered in short order. Micheal merely gritted his teeth against the pain as he willed the crystal to expand downward to his arm. The crystal sluggishly obeyed, crawling down his arm at a snails pace, slowly covering it down to his hand.

Within the crystal Micheal’s mobility was limited at the cost of great versatility and power. The crystal on his arm would withstand any attack that someone of the bone rank could produce, and perhaps even someone from the early earth rank, without breaking. Not only that, but with enough fine control, he felt he would be able to grow crystals sharper than any material found on the continent. He had the potential for great offence and defence with only a singular utilisation of his ability. If he had to break a few bones to use it, so what? The kids at the orphanage were far, far more inventive when it came to inflicting pain.

Reality continued to be a downer, however, as he knew he lacked the capabilities to utilise his apostle to the fullest. Currently it was his limit to form crystals in unorganised clumps around his body. This was further limited to his connection with blood that he simply could not get rid of. This forced the crystal to travel along his veins before it could reach where he wanted it, whereupon it would finally expand rapidly. This had limited his offence to a stubbed club in previous encounters and was the first thing Micheal wanted to sure up. His defence was satisfactory enough, given the strength of the crystals he had little need for subtlety in his defence. Simply put, as long as he could get the crystal there in time to interfere with the blow, it was probably good enough.

First things first he removed all of the crystal currently on his body’s exterior. It was stronger than the crystal that coated his organs and bones, but it was far easier to remove. He had discovered that, while it was possible to remove the crystal that coated his innards, it was by no means a good idea. With each chunk of crystal he managed to forcefully remove by strength of will, a piece of him came with it. Micheal shivered as the crystal fell off his body, landing with heavy thud upon the floor. All of it would fade into an odorless vapor within the next few seconds unless he willed it to stay longer, which made cleanup fairly convenient.

“Now for the fun part,” Micheal whispered sarcastically to himself. There was only one way of improving his fine control of his apostle, and that was to use it. Over, and over again. Prayer could grant his apostle and body strength. He would grow stronger, faster, more able to take a hit even, but that was only a single step. Rich scions of noble families could be born with great inheritances of power and still fail to rise through the ranks for one single fact. No force on the planet, be they God or king, can give you skill. Skill was borne only of practice and hard work, and made the difference between the chosen that would make it to the next level on their paths. For most it was a path of worship that pushed them to train for their goal. For Micheal it was a path of hate.

Micheal sluggishly began to move crystal to his left hand to attempt sharpening it.

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Victor channeled his apostle into his arm in a familiar motion, and in less than a heartbeat, desolation was brought upon the enemies ranks. jagged stones rose from the ground in wave on wave of unerring destruction. Great tsunamis of stone and earth broke upon the shore of bodies that were his enemies. To a man the great army fell, crushed by stone and impaled by spike.

The remains of the field of battle were littered in corpses and monolithic stones alike. The dead this day would not be counted by the hundreds or even the thousands, but by the millions. In each stone spire there were the bodies of tens of thousands of men, each in a pyre stretching long miles into the sky.

Victor, for his part, felt little at the sight. as the rain of blood showered over the field of a grand battle, a mockery of mother nature's cleansing rain, victor sighed and made his leave. It had been decent practice, at the very least.

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Liane, in armor of shimmering gold and shining silver, sent her apostle to both of her arms at once. A mighty golden sword shot out from her hands and reached high into the heavens as the princess let out a ruthless smile of brutalist savagery that would make even the brutes in Rhezket look twice. She swung down at the waiting chosen before a shield no less than five span wide blocked her sword in its entirety. A sword that could reach the greatest peaks on the continent, blocked by the apostle of a single peasant - an Apostle only five meters wide? That was an affront to her royal authority if Liane had ever seen it.

“please your Majesty! I meant no respect by blocking your attack, but there are children in the village!” the ant shouted up at the Princess. She would place her somewhere in the iron tier, but what was an iron tiered waste of space to someone like her.

Liane released her aura, and the world shook.

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Michelle focused on her training. With each swing of her sword and movement of her body she felt the shadow of her God imparting her with power. She moved her apostle through her entire body and materialised it and let it dissipate in rote, practiced motions.

Each time she swung her sword she felt the earth scream as she tore it to pieces beneath the weight of her tiny rapier. Within each and every movement was the power to tear mountains from the earth and banish clans to dust. She was power eternal, and destruction manifest. She was the disciple of a greater God, and she would make the world her own.

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Micheal felt time flow as if through syrup. His head ached and screamed each time he moved his apostle through his blood because of the mental strain, and each and every one of his muscles swore vengeance as he continued to tear them again and again. His body was bruised, his mind long gone into disarray, but stile he trained. The crystal was no long tinged solely of black and white as it fell off of his body, but red as well. Blood was sometimes said to flow in the apostle's of chosen, but for Micheal, it suffused it down to the core.

Micheal felt the crystal in his blood flow down to his arm where he willed it into a point. The crystal tore from his hand in an explosive ejection. The force of a steam engine tore Micheal's muscle and bones like tissue paper, but Micheal kept the connection at last. he didn't dare control the explosion, but with his blood, his body, a part of the crystal. he could influence it. With an effort of will Micheal managed to push the crystal into a sharpened point at the end of his hand.

The jagged crystal, black with the taint of the elder Gods and white with the taint of the fair, leaked blood onto his simple wooden floors. Micheal shouted a gutteral shout of victory, his throat raw from his agonized screaming. After hours and hours of breaking bones and tearing Muscles, he had sharpened his apostle. He could finally bring more to the table then a jagged mace of a weapon. He collapsed onto his bed in a fit of exhaustion in moments.