Opening a small space in the door was a suspicious man. “Kornovan Gartz?” Jin asked, uncertainty prevalent in both voice and gaze of his.

It had been an issue which plagued him for a long time. The trouble in remembering the features on people's faces. Titles had been always easier to remember. The unfortunate side was disrespect often came to people around him. And when it did, it disguised itself in the open; indifference came forth as arrogancy and contempt in the eyes of many.

It had been seven days since the last time Jin had met with Kornovan. Though it might seem like a short time to most, but to Jin it felt like an entire season had gone past. So many things had happened to him in that time that the features of the Disciple's face that he had spoken briefly before departing had rapidly faded as time ticked.

To Jin’s surprise, the man addressed him with an apologetic tone and a dubious expression, “Look if this is about last night, the toilet was already broken when I saw it,” said Kornovan as soon as he had the chance. Accompanying the dubious tone of his voice was a scent of alcohol that was hit him like a hurricane. Jin thought better of it and took two steps back.

"What?" Jin frowned in pure confusion, "No, I'm here for the..." The smell had stunned him so much that he had lost track of where he was, and who he was for a few seconds.

After all, why was he even here anyway?

“Oh shit, you must be here for the training session aren’t you,” Kornovan interrupted quickly with sudden enlightenment, then he nodded.

"Of course, of course."

“Yeah the training, that you approached me about,” Jin nodded, that reminder had been enough to bring him back. He wanted to train, and Kornovan was supposed to be his guide.

"I thought we had discussed this, to meet me on the afternoon past the seventh, but it is still the middle of the night, come on man, look at the time," Kornovan tried to appeal.

"Yeah, I decided to arrive earlier, the sooner the better right?" With a smile carved on his face, Jin eagerly rubbed his hands in excitement. This was the first day of training, and he was more than ready.

Kornovan stared at Jin for a couple of seconds like he was insane and let out a sigh, “Sure, you can start early…Get yourself to the Araucanthus Tree, one of the Disciple Guides must be already waiting for you,” Kornovan bluntly said, not trying to conceal how annoyed he seemed with his early visit.

Before Jin could gather an answer, the half-open door closed in his face. The noise had been so loud that two or three people in the hallway craned their necks alertly in Jin's direction.

"Who was that?" A feminine voice faintly asked from deep inside his quarters, Kornovan's bedroom. Laying there with her legs up waiting for her boyfriend to return.

“Some guy who awakened their nucleus recently. The dude is so impatient he can’t even wait for my training session to start as scheduled,"

“You were the one who approached him to train with and scheduled it for today. I heard it quite clearly from here though?”

"You surely have sharp ears for matters that don't concern you, my love," Kornovan said, holding her cheeks in between his thumb and index finger, “It is true, the High Elders told me to guide his advancement to the second step. But after this? I don’t know, I'm just not sure anymore,” Kornovan shrugged. “To come into my room, wake me up, and remind me of obligations at this time…not a great first impression I'm afraid.”

"I can see why you would say that, but still…the High Elders personally ordered you to train him?"

"Not personally, anyone can train him. Word has his brother led him to his first mission before even giving them the basic introductions in harvesting the elemental. Somehow he came back in one piece,” Kornovan said sourly, as he joined her in bed.

“They sometimes point some greens in my direction. Like him, mostly the ones with no House to sponsor them and clueless than a child.”

"Purist are as fragile emotionally as a seven-year-old child, but sometimes prodigies can appear,” the girl said, “It wouldn’t be the first time, I'm sure.”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“People surprise me for all sorts of motives. Though this time I have the impression they're the wrong reasons,” Kornovan groaned.

“Give him a chance, maybe he got into Sanctum out of his own merit and elemental potential.” She squeaked as a pillow flew into Konovan’s head; wiping the smug out of his face.

Kornovan shook his head and dully said,” I doubt it, that's the son of the Champion of Aurora."

"The Sacred Brother from Elba?"

“The one and only,” Kornovan replied, “You cannot get an easier path to Sanctum with such an influential parent. That disgusts me. Do you remember how difficult the entry threshold was when we were greens? The price we had to pay?

"He has the right to train like everybody else in Sanctum Kornovan, stop being an ass just for the sake of it,"

“Look If he wants to train now, I can’t stop him, it just won’t be me there feigning support,” he shrugged with his starkly shoulders, “He needs to have the least decency in respecting schedules, I will still be there if he wants to join us at the right time,”

“You suggested him to go there at this time…she might cripple him, you heard the rumors too. Ionna is a menace even to Disciples, who knows what she could to an unexperienced elemental warrior,” she said, while her fellow disciple embraced her with affection.

With his thick muscles surrounding her, Kornovan whispered, "Love, if curiosity killed the cat as they often claim, then enthusiasm can do much worse to a spoiled brat."

There wasn't a day Jin spent in Sanctum that he didn't complain about the claustrophobic hallways. The bastion looked so big from the outside. Yet when it came to the inner workings, the inside felt much like an endless maze. There had been several rooms and gateways he was not allowed to enter. Until today, for time constraints no longer held him. One of the many pathways laid in front of him, at that very moment his heart skipped a beat. A different hue surrounded it, almost as if calling to him. Another notable aspect different from others was not only in the characteristics of the materials embroidered in it..

When Jin arrived in the training grounds designated for elemental warriors, he stood motionless. He had walked just three miles away from Sanctum, with nothing but the wind and his blade to accompany him. Its high walls could still be seen in the far distance, but his destination had been growing and growing at each step. Yet even standing so close, surprise grew tenfold as he he had to consciously remind himself that he was still within Sanctum. It certainly did not appear like the same place he had entered. How could it hold such an open space, and at its center such a magnitude of nature?

So massive it potentially eclipsed the brightest stars in the sky. The stem so thick not even five grown men were able to embrace such beauty of nature. The twisted branches crossed the skies like roads to heaven. Legends and songs had been written about the Araucanthus Tree.

The Araucanthus tree however was just one of the many resources available around the area. Taking Jin's concentration, he finally regained focus and realized that the vegetation of this plain left nothing to be desired. Circling every gigantic shadow that sheltered the green lawn from where he stood, thick forests grew around the shadowy plains.

Shaking his head, Jin tried to come to himself after finding himself enchanted by the grandeur of nature before him. His father had commented before. Of this splendor; Sanctum's walls housed but one amongst the great six wonders left by the elemental gods. Remnants of a time immemorial, such structures still preserved much of what they once boasted in the Age of Old. Looking out the plains in the distance, hundreds of silhouettes could be seen. With its arms outstretched and with a large space between each one. Jin furrowed his brows, wonder spread through the back of his mind.

A battle formation?

Frowning and questioning what they were, Jin decided to move closer. He had realized, even as a child in Kaban. The most important concern for the community had always been food. Survivability above all had been the city's motto. For birds such as crows and sparrows fed on recently cast seed and growing crops. So when spring came the wealthier families wisely issued forth word for hired mercenary companies.

And as the moon shone bright upon the sky, the parties who seized the offered coin watched them closely to guard and defend the crops from the feral hunger of predators. However, most farmers could not afford such a thing and had to resort to the old method. They dressed humanoid figures in old clothes and placed them strategically in open fields to discourage the wildlife from harassing their most essential resource. However, these plains had no crops growing in the soil, and that piqued his interest.

What purpose then, did these dolls serve here? A plain without shortage of warriors capable of single-handedly repelling a pack of wolves.

He knew full well this place had been soil for training grounds to elemental warriors across centuries. Yet for some reason doubt still lingered. Ever since he stepped through that door, there had been no sign of any human construction in this region, no farmer or Elemental Warrior in his sight. In fact, nothing scattered in the land apart from the gate he came from made Jin consider humans inhabited this area. The ground beneath his feet also rose suspicion. So green it seemed undisturbed for years and maybe decades. The smell of grass and fresh air that permeated the space gave him the impression that everything he saw had been made by nature itself.

Finally, within the touch range of the figures, Jin noticed that they all differed in size. Rough and warm to the touch, they were all wood-paneled on the surface. But the sensation that his hands had was as if he was touching a living being, which had blood flowing in its veins and warming its body. And that wasn't the only one around. While the one next to him looked less than three feet tall, the next one in the distance was twice as high. And even more in the distance, there were others ever higher, in monstrous dimensions that rivaled even giants.

Just what types of birds are they trying to scare away with these?