The Grand Arena was where the yearly eclipse festival was held. Aerin had been resting for most of the day to prepare herself for the events. It was well known what each event was; it was the event that determined nearly your entire future amongst the Draakin.

Dug deep into the mountain the Arena was a massive hollowed out complex that included various routes to various levels of the city.

The line to register was long, but Aerin was willing to wait since the early morning so she wasn’t too far behind in the line. The Dragon King would be at this festival since it was a ten year anniversary for the festival every ten years it was considered a larger and more important event. Draakin were long lived people whose sense of time was often disproportionate to normal humans.

The fact that the King would be there meant that all the most important figures of the nation would be there and that was a good thing. More chances to be snatched up by someone who wanted their talent for one reason or another.

Aerin approached the table steadily behind the table sat a woman who was patiently registering the youth that had made their way here. After signing her name the attendant directed Aerin to the left to go to the woman’s waiting area.

The rounds of the festival were fairly simple. First was a blood purity test which determined the percentage and type of blood in their body. This round clearly favored those who were thought to be descendents of dragons over wyverns or drakes.

After the first was the mana test that tests one's innate attributes for most Draakin it was fire most of the time. There were nearly countless attributes amongst the races, some were much more frequent than others.

The third and second to last round was a mass free for all battle that lasted until only one hundred youth remained capable of competing. This would reduce the number by thousands.

The final round was a tournament where the top one hundred could show their skills.

Aerin was excited and nervous. She knew that her first two rounds would likely be lacking, but in terms of fighting she truly believed that if she could catch the eye of even a minor lord her family would improve their lot in life significantly. Allowing her parents to relax and look after her younger siblings without worry.

Walking into the room there were several hundred in this section. Each section one boy and one girl would go out and perform their rounds and once only a handful of people were left in the elimination round the next group would go until they reached the final one hundred. All the youth got to choose a blunted weapon prior to going out. Aerin herself had never even touched a weapon besides basic farming tools; her teacher was an old farmer who was once a wildlands adventurer and specializes in fist techniques.

Grabbing her linen cloth fist wraps her mother had personally made her she quickly looped them around her thumb and began to wrap them up. Aerin was unsure if she had any mana as poor villages did not have resources to test their children so the first two rounds were completely uncertain. While her old teacher Mr. Hy’Lorat seemed to be highly skilled; she had no one to compare with so that was another question mark, though she knew she would at least do better than the other small village kids likely which was a surprising number the amount of true elites any year was not as much as the so called peasant classes.

The sounds of battle came from the entrance to the arena, it has been an hour or two since the roar of the crowd began. An attendant had announced they would be next. Aerin could feel the anticipation rise into her chest. She had dreamed of this since a small girl and even though her parents supported her they still tried to dissuade too much dreaming so that if she failed she wouldn’t be crushed. This was her moment, this was when she would rise or fall. Aerin clenched her firmly wrapped fists and bit her lip slightly with the corner of one of her sharp canines to focus herself.

The giant doors slowly slid open revealing a bright red light that was from fire crystals which were red crystals infused with fire to give light to surroundings the more fire infused the longer it lasted. Her group of female youth walked out. Her eyes saw the male group walking out as well. Draakin society was fiercely fair minded the boys would not be soft on the girls just because they were women. This meant that many girls had to overcome their basic biological disadvantage to defeat them, not impossible though magic and the martial techniques more suited to women they could overcome the strength component. The physical differences between men and women Draakin wasn’t nearly as steep as between normal human men and women.

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Two middle aged Draakin men with medium length graying beards began to call up one female and male at a time who were pricked on their finger to allow a single drop of blood to fall into a basin of water. Aerin watched intensely as the first two who were both dragon descended. The two men looked at the basin intensely and stood up announcing the results.

“Dragon class of the third tier!” the first man said of the girl Draakin.

The girl stepped down and her face had a shadow overcast. She was obviously not happy with the results which was puzzling to Aerin who was certain this was a good result, but perhaps she was one called a frog at the bottom of a well who did not see the full scope of the sky.

Next to the girl the boy had a small sneer on his face he was obviously confident in his own heritage. “Dragon class of the second tier!” the man yelled causing the boy’s sneer to instantly fade.

“That can’t be right!” he yelled “test me again!” angrily holding out his hand for another pin prick.

*Bam!*

A palm struck the boy’s chest sending him crashing to the ground level of the arena, his face more shocked than wounded.

“How dare you! Do-do you know who I am? I’m---”

“Silence you arrogant punk! Do you think the Dragon Shrine would make such a basic mistake as a simple blood purity test? Who your family is or your clan is, that is unimportant and irrelevant even if you were a prince of the realm. There are no second chances.” Both men looked down on the now red faced arrogant youth.

Turning to the rest of the participants both men calmly beckoned the next to approach. The collective atmosphere had gone from anticipation to dread among the group of youths. Aerin felt a chill. The idea a second tier was worthless in the eyes of the rest was obvious enough to her that this wasn’t as simple as dragon class being superior to wyvern or drake. Aerin felt that there was something that was unspoken among the higher classes to the lower classes, but the general idea of superiority between the different classifications was still not something that could budge so easily.

The next pair that moved up was a wyvern girl who had wings folded into her sides and a dragon boy both who had surprising results. The boy had a dragon class of five which got a few middling chatter among the crowd while the girls results got a serious amount of mutterings from the crowd which was a seventh ranked wyvern heritage. Which confirmed her suspicions that being drake class did not doom one to inferiority.

After nearly ten minutes had passed Aerin found herself letting others budge ahead of her despite being one of the people near the front who could go forward at any time. The group untested had dwindled down to a handful of girls and boys on both sides.

The highest ranked of each class thus far was a female dragon heritage at the seventh tier which got applause from the crowd. A boy wyvern got a seventh rank as well who appeared to be a brother to the girl wyvern. The highest drake so far had been sixth ranked. The highest tier was of course ten, but such a figure rarely ever came even if five festivals passed.

Aerin finally saw she had to go as the rest like her were nervous to go up, not a single dragon descended was left in the untested group and only a few drake descendents were left. Steeling herself she made her way up the stairs opposite a drake boy who had a short stubby tail for a drake. Though it was better than Aerin who had no tail. If it wasn’t for her horns and clawed hand people would question if she had any blood at all.

A few laughs could be heard coming to her as she approached the basin. The middle aged man looked down on her as he towered over nearly all the youths. The man was clearly a high class dragon priest of the dragon temple, but was more intimidating was his bull-like horns which seemed to come from bull dragons which were known to be aggressive and unyielding.

“Don’t mind the laughter child. If such laughter can discourage you then you have already failed at upholding the pride of the Draakin.” the middle aged man said with only a hit of compassion seeming to leak out from him.

“Thank you milord for your words” Aerin was truly thankful the Dragon Shrine was the religious body among the Draakin who worshiped the dragon god who was said to have shed his own blood to birth the Draakin people. While Draakin society was hierarchical the Dragon Shrine did much more than the lower classes despite this.

Without acknowledging her thanks, he nodded and pricked her held out hand. The blood pooled onto her finger slowly before slowly dripping off and landing into the basin. The dragon priest looked down intently, her eyes calm as he looked at the small cloud of blood that swirled in the waters.

A flash sweep across his eyes he looked down his eyes glancing up to his colleague. Aerin couldn’t tell what was happening, but clearly it was either going to be a fortuitous event or a disastrous result.

Without waiting his colleague announced the boy next to her was of the fourth rank drake class.

The man in front of her stood up, his penetrating eyes on her did not cease until he looked up to the crowd. His deep rumbling voice announced her results.

“Herrm rasss der en!” his voice seemed to be muffled in her brain as she tried to make sense of the odd words he used which were clearly foreign to her.

A deafening roar could be heard when he spoke her results. Aerin looked around shocked as the crowd all pointed and cheered. The middle aged man put his hand on her shoulder snapping her attention to his deep green eyes; his large bull-like horns came just above her own as he crouched to her level. “Did you hear me, young one? I said Wyrm class tier ten.”

“Ehhh!” Aerin couldn’t hold in her shock and let out a confused shout.