“Tsk! How the hell is she so strong?!” Tianmen muttered under his breath, seeing his hired assassin fail. “Men hurry up and protect the cargo! We are getting robbed!” He ordered as his entire security detail of 50 warrior eagle and 10 rainbow mage scrambled to get into formation. He himself was from a great owl tribe; hence he knew a thing or two about mind control, the ability that has been blessed upon them by the mind elemental lord.

“I sure hope you are not planning on leaving with my items are you?” a voice resounded confidently from behind them. Turning back around to face their original direction of travel, they found that a young elf child with shimmering silver hair was standing in front of them, blocking their path. The voice was dreadfully familiar. Tianmen had heard it one before, when he was in the auction over the soul flower.

A smile sprout on the elf’s face before he could even say anything. Then the child disappeared into thin air, materialising atop the 4 boulders that the convoy was hauling. The within a blink of an eye, all 4 floating boulders vanished, seemingly in the same fashion as the child had earlier, except they never reappeared.

“You! Where are my merchandise!? Men! What are you doing?! Kill these uncouth bandits!” Tianmen was raging at this point. His brain could not process what had just happened to either his merchandise or to the elf. He only knew one thing, he was being robbed.

“We are not bandits. We merely want to negotiate a deal with you.” Kiefer replied slowly, reappearing by Kina’s side. Kina was now strangling the assassin in a chokehold from behind, her elbows clamping down tightly on the birdman’s neck. Within seconds, a sickening crunch was heard as the neck snapped. With a wave of her arm, Isana quickly stored the limp body of the assassin within her PD, knowing her daughter would enjoy the meal.

“What do you mean negotiate!? You are clearly robbing us!” Tianmen argued back, a little taken aback by the little girl’s actions. Their masks gave them an air of mystery and it only made the warriors fear the trio even more.

“We will overlook the blatant attempt at my daughter’s life earlier, if you would duel my daughter. If you win, you shall have your items back, but if you lose, well, we shall see what we can do in that scenario.” Kiefer answered back, just as Kina and Isana removed their masks to reveal their elegant and beautiful faces. Even the warriors were taken aback by the beauty and did not even stop to consider that these were intruders not only in the city, but on the entire continent of Yurza itself.

“Hey. You bought that lightning herb treasure thingy earlier didn’t you? How about this? I’ll only use electric attack against you. This’ll prove just how much you are lacking to even breathe the same air as me,” Kina taunted as she strode forwards on her own mana platforms.

“Hmph. Useless human, challenging me to a magic duel. I’m a level 7 mage almost going on to level 8. I have close to an unlimited supply of mana potions and elixirs. As long as I have mana to supply the dragonheart herb, I’m immune to all lightning based attack. Come on then, I shall put you in your place.” Tianmen humphed as he strode forwards confidently under the blood moon.

“Watch my attack carefully because you won’t have time to regret later,” Tianmen warned as he began chanting a spell verse. Kina yawned as she waited for the bird to finish his spell. Within moments, the wind kicked up around Tianmen and shot forth in the form of 5 translucent arcs.

Slightly opening her eyes after the long yawn, Kina muttered a single word. . Immediately, 5 arcs of razor sharp wind rose from her side and met the 5 incoming spells from her opponent in exactly a mirrored fashion, cancelling out his spell effectively.

“Are you done? My turn then. ,” she casted while pointing her finger at Tianmen. Arcs of blue lightning emerged from the skin of her wrist, palm and hand and coalesced into a bright orb at the tip of her finger. Then a bright blue and white lightning bolt cut through the air with a deafening crack as it scorched the air and snaked its way towards Tianmen at an incredible speed. There were occasional forks along the way but each fork always found its way back to the main bolt of lightning that was as thick as a finger.

As the lightning bolt advanced towards Tianmen’s face, Tianmen stood still, not because he had confidence in withstanding the attack, but because it had happened too quickly for him to react. Then, as if it experienced an attractive force, the lightning changed course and bent towards his breast pocket where the herb was held. A crackle could be heard as a small translucent sphere seemed to absorb the lightning. As the lightning bolt dissipated, cracks could be seen forming all over the sphere as Tianmen suddenly collapsed. The herb had protected him from this spell, but in return drained almost all his mana to keep itself intact.

“You… just what are you!?” Tianmen graoned as he took out several blue vials and downed them in one go, realising just how powerful that attack had been. Without the herb, forget being paralysed, he would have been cooked on the spot.

“Me? I’m your worst nightmare. You couldn’t even withstand the most basic of lightning spells? Tsk tsk tsk. How about this then? ,” she asked nonchalantly, once again pointing her finger at Tianmen. Instantly, a beam of green light shot forth from her finger and landed on Tianmen, enveloping him in a light tinge of green aura which hugged his body closely.

“What is this!? Your previous spell was ineffective, now this spell is even worse!” Tianmen scoffed, but dreading this unusual green aura that was now hugging his body.

“,” Kina replied with an evil grin. Instantly, the green aura flowed down towards Tianmen’s feet, collecting below his soles and then quickly forming a large circular green rune. As the rune glowed brightly and slowly dissipate, leaving onto the outline of a faint green circle roughly 20 metres wide, storm clouds began to form overhead just mere metres above their heads.

The first crackle of lightning descended from the clouds, landing near Tianmen but quickly curving towards the palm sized sphere of light around his breast pocket. The dragonheart herb began absorbing the lightning that fell close to Tianmen. Meanwhile as more lightning fell from the skies all around Tianmen, his guards had already scrambled for their lives, keeping a fair distance from Tianmen who seemed to be in the eye of the storm.

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“Ahahah! What did I say? You really do have dicks for brains! You should discard that herb you stupid bird, its attracting lightning towards you even if they weren’t going to hit you. You are just wasting your mana keeping that herb on you,” Kina roared arrogantly over the constant crackle of thunder that accompanied the spell which was lighting up the area like the night sky on the 4th of July.

“Hmph! We’ll see just how long you can keep up a spell of this magnitude!” Tianmen roared back as he began gulping down elixir after elixir. I  his experience, such a wide area spell with devastating attacks would consume mana much faster than his was being depleted. As such, he should be able to outlast the young girl that was less than half his age, even if she was somehow a mage of the same level as he was.

“Ok then, how about this. Show me how you dance in a lightning storm. ,” Kina sneered as she once again shot a tongue of lightning directly towards the dragonheart herb. In a series of crackles which were masked by the constant thunderclaps, the little orb of light finally shattered as the herb quickly wilted inside Tianmen’s pocket.

In the midst of the battle, what no one seemed to notice was Kiefer’s suspicious activity. He had been fiddling around with his tablet, quickly hammering in instructions as the bright and excitingly one-sided battle took place. Unknown to everyone within the vicinity whose attention was occupied by the lightning storm, the loud hums of rotor blades went unheard within the thunder that resounded every second, almost causing everyone to go deaf.

Seeing his dragonheart herb wilt and crumble into a pile of soft dust in his pocket, a feeling of dread overcame Tianmen as he watched the scores of lightning flickering around him threatening to leave him disabled for life. Cold sweat poured down his back as his frantic eyes saw the smirk on Kina’s face. Not believing that he had actually been cornered this far by a young girl, a human no less, he grit his teeth in anger.

“I submit!” he yelled through his grit teeth, his heart flaming with fury and fear. The instant he yelled out, the storm clouds dispersed quickly, revealing the blood moon once again.

“So we are done here?” Kina asked gleefuly, elated that she finally could vent her anger by crushing someone.

“Don’t be stupid. I just agreed to duel you. It still doesn’t change the fact that you robbed me, even if the rocks are in your possession now. There is nothing wrong with robbing the robbers. Guards get her and her whole family!” Tianmen yelled out loud.

Even after his order, nothing seemed to happen. Looking around, Tianmen finally understood why his order fell on deaf ears. His guards were already on guard against a foreign threat. A total of 20 metallic creatures with rotating wings had surrounded them, each and every one the size of a small dragon. They had an imposing aura, and his guards were slowly inching backwards, being herded like a group of sheep.

“Wha… what are these creatures!? Guards what are you doing?!? Kill them now! Mages cripple their wings!” He yelled frantically as the guards hesitated to take action. Then just as he gave the order, one of the beaks of the new creatures began spinning and immediately after a series of explosions could be heard as the sound of a minigun reverberated through the night sky.

As if on instinct, the guard hired from the auction quickly rushed in front of his employer and conjured up a thick earthern wall, causing the bullets from the minigun to be embedded in the dirt wall. Kiefer’s eyes widened, clearly impressed by this man’s reaction speed and reflexes.

Fiddling with a few more buttons on his tablet, the same harrier jet retracted its minigun into the body, and what emerged in its place was an even more frightening gauss cannon. As the charging siren rang out, a single bolt shot out faster than lightning, completely crumbling the earthern wall. However, a loud ring echoes out as the projectile was deflected and the hired guard was thrown off several metres before restabilising himself.

The gauss round had deflected off a large sword, approximately 20cm wide and 2m long. The thing that piqued Kiefer’s interest was that the round barely left a scratch mark on the sword, which seemed light as a feather, floating in the air in front of the man. “Gravitite sword,” Kiefer thought to himself.

“Come girls,” Kiefer called out as he blinked towards Kina and Isana. “We have what we came here for. Time to leave. Mister Wang, please bear in mind, we will be meeting again very soon, and I hope for your sake that by that time, you will have learnt of your place in this world.”

Then with a snowstorm appearing out of nowhere and subsiding as soon as it appeared, the trio was gone, nowhere to be seen. The harrier jets that had originally surrounded the convoy were already speeding off in different directions, faster than any of the birdmen could chase after.

As Eril and Jielin paced around nervously on the ground outside the entrance to the auction house, they were startled by the sudden appearance of Kiefer’s family. As they walked over smiling, Eril knew they had concluded their business. Regrouping with Kiefer’s family, the 5 of them disappeared once more, reappearing within the small house in the woods just on the outskirts of Jielin’s hometown.

“Kina, what kind of weapon do you want? I’ll craft something for you from these gravitite ores,” Kiefer asked his daughter.

Kina thought for a while, then finally made up her mind. “I want something that is completely overbearing, something like the sword that the other guy used to block the gauss cannon, but bigger.”

“Ok, go train then, I’ll need some time to prepare your sword. Eril, do you know anyone who is skilled at using greatswords? I want you to find the best teacher to teach her how to handle the sword.” Kiefer replied, asking Eril for some contacts.

“There is one guy, but he is terribly hard to track down and has a worse attitude than me. He is mostly either drunk or sleeping, are you fine with that? There is no one better at handling weapons than him on Yurza.” Eril replied after a moment of deep thought.

“That’s fine. As long as he does his job, I won’t need to squish him.” Kiefer replied as he turned around, three large rocks appearing and floating behind him as he dragged them along with his mana ropes. Isana bowed, smiled and turned to follow Kiefer who headed to the back of the house.