Jak was on his fifth fight. Each time he had managed to get by just using the one move he had trained for. It felt a bit ridiculous, but it was working. Until now. As each round finished, the contestants reduced by half, and the ones remaining were watched more closely. Everyone had noticed the strange boy who just the did one move over and over. His fights had become quite popular, with some people wanting to see him taken down, while others wanted to see him keep winning with such a dumb strategy. The scary man who oversaw the fighters was watching Jak with a frown.

Jak faced his opponent, a shirtless boy with muscles rippling all over his torso. That couldn't be natural. Jak held his stance, waiting for the boy to strike. The problem was that the boy didn't strike, and instead held his own stance, waiting for Jak. He must have realized that Jak's move started with a counter. Jak wanted to smack his forehead. He hadn't trained any other way, he _needed_ the boy to throw the first punch. The two fighters stood there looking at each other until it was awkward. "Fight or leave." the scary judge said. Jak sighed and dropped his stance. He stepped quickly toward the boy, then dove into a tackle, trying to catch his opponent around the waist. Instead the boy stepped sideways and brought his knee up into Jak's stomach, at the same time dropping his elbow into Jak's back from above, turning Jak into a sort of pain-sandwich. Jak dropped to the ground and quickly rolled away from the boy before springing back onto his feet. As soon as he stood up he found the boy tackling him, the exact same way he was trying to do earlier—only this time it worked. Jak was thrown to the ground again, with the boy on top of him. The boy started to rain punches down on Jak, who flailed his arms around trying to block the hits and push the boy away. Eventually he succeeded and they separated. Jak stood up, panting heavily. His face was going to be a mess of bruises, but he tried to put that out of his mind as he stared at the boy. The boy saw the damage he had done to Jak, but Jak didn't yield, so with a smirk the boy stepped into to deliver another blow. His mistake. Jak could barely think straight, but as the boy's fist came toward him, his body simply carried out the same simple movement. Block, step, punch. It connected beautifully, and Jak followed it up with a flurry of punches, slaps, knees, whatever seemed good at the time. It was enough, and eventually the boy yielded, giving his ribbons to Jak. Some of the crowd cheered, while others groaned and passed coins to the cheering ones. Jak blinked. They were actually betting on him.

Jak had 8 ribbons, but this victory gave him another 8, bringing it to 16. A judge asked him if he wanted to stop with 16, or keep fighting to try for more.

"How much will the school cost if I stop here?" Jak asked. The judge looked at his ribbons.

"You've done quite well, with 16 ribbons it should be about 50 gold." Jak winced. If he was here alone, that would be fine with the gold he got from the enchanted club. But he couldn't let Alya down. He'd never seen her so excited about anything. He needed to impress the judges. He asked for another fight, and they assigned him to another contestant. As Jak approached, he saw his opponent quickly hide something he'd been holding, passing it on to his friends. Jak saw the briefest flash of purple light and frowned. Weren't magical items forbidden? The boy walked onto the arena without the device, so Jak shrugged and stepped onto the sand with him. People cheered, and started placing bets for how long Jak would last. His opponent was an inch shorter than Jak, but powerfully built. He had a mean sneer on his face, like he had spent a lifetime looking down at others.

"Your fighting is an insult to the academy" the boy said, "the rest of us are here with actual talent, not one weird trick. Your journey ends here." With that he rushed forward and threw a punch at Jak. With no other strategy, Jak started the same routine, but as soon as they connected Jak could feel something was wrong. He had tried to push the boy's arm aside, like he'd always done, but he could barely move the arm at all. Instead of blocking, there was a faint flash of purple Jak got hit so hard the world spun, and he landed in the sand several feet from where he had been standing. People started shouting about cheating and magic, and those who were about to lose bets were on the verge of causing an uproar.

"Silence." The judge said. The crowd stilled and looked at Jak who had gotten up to his hands and knees, the world still swaying. The judge looked at him for a while longer before saying "sometimes the world is fair and kind. We don't want fighters who depend on that. Do you yield?" Jak slowly got to his feet, stumbling a bit as his mind started to clear. He didn't say anything, just looked to his opponent and raised his fists, back to the fighting stance. The boy, realizing he wasn't going to be punished for cheating, broke into a wide grin and laughed. "That's right one-trick-pony, welcome to the real w—" his monologue was interrupted as Jak started to run toward him. As he got closer, Jak carefully opened up his aura, trying to focus it just on his left arm and right fist, hoping it wouldn't be seen. As soon as he was in range, the boy swung another purple-infused punch, but Jak smoothly stepped in to block it with his left arm. This time, it worked. The boy's eyes widened in shock as Jak's right hand came flying in. It caught the boy on the jaw, made a loud crunching sound, and the boy collapsed unconscious. There was a moment of silence, before the crowd erupted in cheers. Jak could barely hear them. He knelt down and picked up the boy's ribbons, and walked to the judges. He gave them his 32 ribbons and they gave him a letter of acceptance to Elwind Academy, with a fee of 15 gold. Barely conscious, Jak was led to a nearby tent, where somebody put his hand on a device. There was a bright flash of purple, and Jak's dizzyness suddenly stopped, replaced only with tiredness. He thanked whoever had helped him, and stumbled out of the tent, looking for Tim. He found him sitting next to Ash, watching the mage tryouts. He lay down next to them, and fell asleep. What felt like three seconds later he woke to Alya jumping on him and shouting something. He groaned, still feeling the tiredness of whatever had healed him in the tent. Then he remembered the 15 gold he owed for tuition, and asked Alya how much she needed, hoping with a clenched heart for the best. Beaming, she handed him the letter she had received. He handed it to Tim, who started reading.

"This letter qualifies Alya for entrance to Elwind Crafting Academy..." Jak smiled. She was granted entrance to Elwind, same as he was. He tensed for the next part. "...upon payment of zero gold." Jak looked up.

"Completely free?" he asked. Alya's reponse was to squeal and do a strange little octopus dance that he'd never seen her do before.