The first time Dee was seriously defeated was one of the worst memories in her life. It also ended the comfortable life she had had and had always thought she would continue to have.
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Dee glared at the person standing opposite her, hoping to psych her out. Inwardly, she was cursing in wild abandon. She had heard enough rumours about her opponent to learn not to underestimate her. Charls was the considered to be the unarguable winner of the clan tournament and it was a widely held belief that everyone else was just fighting to get second. Such a person, in Dee’s mind, should not have been involved in the first matches. Even if she is fighting in the first matches, shouldn’t she be used against people that no one thinks would possibly advance to the next round. Why the hell am I her opponent.
A crowd was already gathering, Dee supposed, to watch her get beaten into the ground. She decided that even if she was going to lose, she would put up a fight good enough to remove everyone’s assumption that she was the weakest out of the lot.
“Giving up would probably be a better option for you.” Dee looked at Charls’ gray eyes incredulously and noticed that they were full of apathy as if she wasn’t about to enter into an intensive fight to decide their district's position in the clan. It seemed as if Charls looked at this fight as if it was a light exercise.
“Giving up isn’t a thing I do, little one.” Calm Dee. No need to get annoyed at a 14 yr old brat. You’re one year older and more mature. Charls scoffed at her attempt at a put down and refused to make a response, continuing to pretend as if she didn’t exist.
Dee returned the favour and began to gather some ion for the fight that was starting in a few seconds. Regardless of her statements, Dee was well aware that she might not be able to match Charls and was planning on coming out with her most impressive moves at the beginning. If she was lucky and Charls miscalculated the flow of the fight, she might be able to get a winning blow right off the bat.
The bell that signified the start of the fight rang and immediately Dee lunged her strongest blow with all her strength. Or at least tried to. Dee tried to use all her energy to strike her strongest blow but unfortunately that was not an option. All she felt was a breeze across her face and the next moment she was on the ground. What happened?
Dee tried to get to her feet but found it surprisingly difficult to do so. As she tried to get up she felt such pain that she immediately fell back down on the ground with more force than before. The pain felt like someone had stabbed her with multiple needles that had been heated at the end. The pain was all encompassing when she tried to get up but as soon as she fell down the pain went away. From the ground she heard the cruel laughter of her clan members. As she tried to ignore the laughter and feign confidence, she received a spirit message from her father. You have to endure for a couple more seconds, Deidre. If not our district will be shunted further down. I know it’s hard but last for fifteen seconds in a fight with her and not on the ground. That doesn’t count as a fight.
Dee wanted to reply to her father that she did not think she could last any longer. Standing up was shockingly painful. Also, that strike from Charls seemed to have prevented her energy from flowing freely and she guessed that if she tried to force her ion something horrid would happen to her but one did not refuse her father. The last time someone did that a year ago, her father had ordered the man’s wife tied to a tree and said that for every hour of the man’s refusal, she would be flogged with a campar whip. The campar whip was something usually used as the last resort in the taming of strong but non magical wild animals. Using that to flog a non-cultivator was almost the same as killing them. The man lasted an hour before giving in and his wife died three months later from the injuries. Dee knew that she had to listen to her father and so tried to get up from the ground.
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“You should not stand up. It will not be good for you.”
“You don’t have a right to tell me what I should do or not,” Dee replied angrily. She had to stand up to reclaim the honour of her district and to disdain the people who were mocking her in the audience. However, regardless of how strong her willpower was, she knew that she could not stand up and face that pain again. Thus, she grunted and grit her teeth and at the moment when the pain came up cast a basic ice spell on every part in her body where she could feel a stab. She might be average in the physical side which cultivation seemed to focus on but she was extraordinary at magic and had an acute awareness of her body. Still, that just dulled the pain to an endurable level and took of her magic power. She had to bring out her best guns now.
“Very well,”Charls replied and for the first time there was an emotion, a flicker of surprise. Her hand went to her belt and she pulled out the whip she kept there. “You don’t have a bad grasp of magic so you should be happy that I’m letting you have the honour of tasting my whip.”
Dee wasn’t really listening to her, she just looked closely at her. I refuse to believe I won’t see her this time. I was probably distracted. When is she going to move? There… She wasn’t entirely certain what it was she saw but she moved regardless and sent a fire blast to detonate the fire pellets she had thrown while dodging. There was a loud bang and smoke covered the entire stage.
Panting as the stage began to clear, Dee saw something that frightened her. The place where she was standing before had been replaced with three deep grooves that tracked through the solid rock. Good thing I moved that would have been me. Anyway, although I know that didn’t get her, that should her hurt her a bit. She looked at the clock and realised that despite it feeling longer, only 10 seconds had passed. Well five seconds wasn’t much anyway. She might have as well as fulfilled her father’s order.
When the spoke cleared, it was a shock to see Charls standing there untouched and unhurt. Well not quite untouched, the hair pin she used to put up her hair had been knocked off her head and her dark hair came flowing down. Long black hair, olive skin and beautiful gray eyes. For a second Charis looked like a heavenly being who remained untouched by the mortal world. Her beauty made Dee self conscious of her shoulder length black hair and dark skin. Dee knew she was pretty but Charis was something else.
Charls looked down at her hair pin then up at Dee. She released her aura showing her cultivation had reached the acolyte level. A 14yr old at the acolyte level was a shock. For one to understand, you would have to know the way cultivation was in the continent. Most people started cultivating at the age of 10 and started at the Commoner stage which was divided into 5 parts-iron, bronze, silver, gold and then diamond. Dee herself was at gold Commoner stage on the verge about to break into diamond Commoner. But Charls was a low Acolyte. Even though that was two stages away, it was as different as a king sitting on his throne to a pauper on a tattered mat.
By the way the cultivation was Commoner > Acolyte > Disciple > Elder > Master. There were more cultivation levels above Master but Dee didn’t know much about them.Still what she knew was enough. Her father was a medium Elder and had been trying to break into super Elder for two years and he was extremely powerful. She had been trying to break into diamond Commoner for the past 6 months and had only recently made some headway recently so it was a shock that Charls was younger and still far ahead.
Still looking at her, Charls gave her a small, sweet smile. It was positively radiant that Dee could have sworn she was glowing. That was the last sight Dee saw in that fight as the next thing she knew she woke up in a small, dimly lit room. Frankly, that image stuck with her and was the only thing she cared about from the fight. It was later she learnt that she managed to survive for 15 seconds exactly excluding the times she was on the floor. At least she followed her father’s orders.
Dee often thought of Charls’ expression that day and found it sad that her first crush was the reason for so much sadness in her life. The day when she woke up, three days after the fight and after her family had returned to their region, Dee found out the ion veins in her body had been damaged irrecoverably and that she could never move ion again in her body. She was frozen at her current level but anytime she used her energy, what she had accumulated would seep away from her body. That day, her life changed.