Life is a game of both skill and chance.

-Merchant House Baccarat

“Father, perhaps I should turn on the lights,” Logan said to a portly man sitting on a chair near the healing vat.  

The green glow of the healing seal below the vat lit the otherwise dark room.

Logan sighed. His father looked like he had aged a decade overnight. He stared blankly at the person inside the vat. This was probably a better situation than last night when he cried incessantly, turning his bushy beard into a wet mop.

The man inside the vat looked the same as Logan. Their eye colors were different but at that time, his brother had his eyes closed. The healers could not say with certainty when his brother would regain consciousness, if at all. He didn’t ask what were the chances of Lucas fully recovering.

The transparent barrier of the vat felt cold. Logan ran his finger down its side while replaying what happened to Lucas.  

Their preparations weren’t enough to defeat Garett Berklaw of the Draconyx Discipulus.

Three, or was it four? All A-rank beaststones. That man was able to use all of them simultaneously. He was able to bear the burden of powering those beaststones. More surprisingly, his body did not break down from the various manifestations of the different beasts as he assimilated their special powers. It was uncommon for a person to actually transform while using a beaststone. A small horn, sharpened nails, patches of hair. Normally, only minor changes can be seen even in third-degree assimilations.

Garett was different. He barely retained his human form after assimilating all the beaststones on his body—not even humanoid.

Logan slowly shook his head. Paximillon blessed on all of existence. However, He blessed some more than others. It was a truly rare gift to be able to assimilate fully with the beast spirit residue residing in a beaststone. The human soul would fight back and resist the beast spirit residue. Logan could attest to that. He had his first beaststone removed by healers because his body tired to consume the foreign object.

Such resistance would vary from person to person. Many wouldn’t even manifest any transformation at all even if they pushed into the third degree of assimilation.   

Garett was blessed when it came to using Forge Spirit. They were not.  

But that didn’t stop them. It would take more than being disadvantaged to stop a Baccarat. They had no Bloodlines to speak of. Not one of their family was a Gifted. They didn’t have any of those so called prodigies that Milla Lyceum would accept. But they had tenacity, ingeniousness, and perseverance.

They spent years in becoming strong. Rising from being a normal human. They weren’t there when their mother died, for they were traveling abroad, looking for ways to become strong, ways to be able to stand up against those that shouldn’t be considered as human anymore. They have sacrificed so much. So much.

Yet, it wasn’t enough.

Logan breathed in deeply. “Frustrating, so frustrating. Why are they more blessed than us? Why weren’t we created the same way? Aren’t we supposed to be all humans?” He clenched his jaws and closed his eyes. This reality. This unfairness. He accepted this a long time ago. His family accepted it. His father was acquainted with such unfairness in a personal way. It was very hard to compete against these humans that don’t seem to be human at all.

His father had to kneel down and lick boots so that his business would prosper. Logan and his brother were ashamed of their father for doing that. It was mainly the reason why they chose the path of the warrior—to confront these human pretenders at their own game.

The body of Lucas was unblemished. The healers have erased all the physical injuries of his body. They were very good at their job. Logan couldn’t even see the scars where they reattached his brother’s severed limbs. His brother’s gaping stomach expertly sewn together and closed. The healers had to make new ribs support his collapsed chest.

“Thank you,” Logan said softly to his father. He deeply regretted being embarrassed of his father. His father had to lower himself to gain the favor of the noble houses that were…more blessed, so to speak, by Paximillon.

With the riches the patriarch of the Merchant House Baccarat had accumulated by clinging like a slug to those in power, he was able to buy each of his sons a Second-Life Drop. Logan touched his chest. The Drop should be somewhere near his heart. He didn’t even want to know how much his father paid for it.

A top-tier seal encapsulated in a crystal that was activated at the moment of death of the bearer. It would bind the soul to the dying body and give enough time for the healers to patch up the body so that it could house the soul again. It was certainly an obscenely expensive item.

“Lucas. Why are you still unconscious? What did that warrior from the church do to you?” His brother was floating inside the vat. Body and soul. Both were present. The Drop did its job perfectly. Nevertheless, his brother remained unconscious.

Logan was about to leave the room when his father stirred. Slowly sitting straight, his father beckoned for him to come. The gaunt eyes of his father stared at him. His father reached out for his hand and held it in a weak grip; the skin felt clammy and dry. He placed his other hand over his father’s and knelt down beside him.

“Forgive me, father. I wasn’t able to take care of Lucas.”

“No, no,” his father said. His voice was raspy. “It’s not your fault. There are people who are stronger than you are. There always will be.”

“There are those who are stronger. I know that! Humans are not equal. We have not been blessed by Paximillon.”

“I know. That is why I am proud of you. Of both of you,” his father said while he took a glance at Lucas. His father held his hand tighter.  "Normal humans, that we are. Yet, you chose not to accept this."

"So close. Lucas was already in the quarter-finals."

"I imagined that it would be the two of you against each other in the finals."

"That would have happened if we are all normal humans. Equal at birth." Logan looked down as he shook his head. "Now that my brother lost. It is up to me."

"I will support you."

"You will not stop me?"

His father did not reply. He would meet Garett in the finals.  He knew that his father was thinking of the possibility of him ending up like Lucas. He couldn't blame his father.

"I will not stop you," his father answered finally. 

"Thank you."

"I know that you will not listen to me if I stopped you," his father said. "But promise me that you will win. I trust that you will find a way to win against the one that placed your brother in this state."

"Don't worry father," Logan said as he stood up. "My brother and I have already planned for this situation where one of us fails." He walked towards the vat. The body of his brother floated peacefully. "I will use Lucas's stone as well."

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The Stonewark blared and lashed about as it stepped on yet another hole. Air bellowed out of several flaps of skin on the sides of its neck. Orvin assumed it was a neck. It connected a cluster of jagged rocks – which looked like a head ­– to the rest of the boulders. Its thick armor of stone moved to cover its sideflaps as it turned around to find where Orvin ran off.

Orvin cursed his teacher for his choice of beast. In beast-taming, the goal was to overwhelm the beast with power to make it respect you. There are two types of beasts that were especially hard to tame. The first type were those extremely proud beasts that would rather die than submit. Falling under the second type were those with exceptionally high defence; they would probably won’t notice any attack that hit them—an example of which was the Stonewark.

With the clump of meldew still in his hand, Orvin struggled to stay to the back of the beast, keeping his distance while circling it. Whenever the beast came near him, he would conjure several holes in front of its path. The beast would step into a hole or two and halt its charge so that it won’t flip forward.

It had four legs; four pillars of stone of different heights propped it up. While it ran with an awkward gait, it was faster than what Orvin had expected, given its size and weight.

The holes he scattered all over the stage were doing their job of hampering the Stonewark. Walls and shields would be useless against the furious assault of the Stonewark. On the other hand, stepping into holes threw it off balance with the help of its own momentum and weight. It would take a couple of seconds to regain its footing. Add in a breather of a few more seconds because the Stonewark, after it pulled out its leg, would decide to stomp on the holes as if it was taking out its anger on the ground.

It was a good thing that the beast was dumb. Its eyes followed the meldew that Orvin held. But Orvin did not know how long he could keep this up. He could play keep away from the Stonewark for the whole day, but the beast-taming competition had a time limit unlike the combat tournament held on the other side of the arena.

It does not look like it will get tired anytime soon. Anyway, tiring out the Stonewark was not the goal.

“I hope my fireball can get through,” Orvin said. He knew that it was a vain hope, but he wanted to gauge the thickness of the Stonewark’s armor.

A choir of cindertoads sang their croaky song as they appeared one by one at the feet of Orvin, hopping this way and that. With each croak, the cindertoads spewed out a ring of grayish smoke. Soon, a cloud of smoke hung over Orvin. He quickly waved it away and ordered the cindertoads to gather around him and be still.  

Heavy pounding told Orvin that the Stonewark stepped into another hole and was currently preoccupied with taking revenge on it. He concentrated on forming a fireball from the fire essences that provided by the cindertoads. Eight cindertoads eagerly helped him conjure the most powerful fireball that he has ever made.  

The Stonewark turned around and stared at Orvin with his group of cindertoads. Two points of light glowed through the cracks of the rocks that formed its head. It pounded its front legs on the ground and started charging Orvin.

A condensed ball of white flame flew over to greet the Stonewark. Ripples of thin blue films washed over the beast’s body as the fireball hit it. The beast simply nudged at the fireball with its head, dispersing it before Orvin could say the word “fireball”.

The young fire mage gaped as he realized that the fireball he was so proud of couldn’t even singe the moss growing on the Stonewark’s back. Fortunately, the cindertoads croaked at him to remind him to evade unless he wanted to become one with the ground.

He hastily dug out several rocks from the ground and formed them into a crude staircase to the air that he stepped onto to get out of the path of the beast. The Stonewark passed below him and crashed into the shields, unable to halt its charge.

As his feet touched the ground safely, Orvin called for his cindertoads that scattered all over the stage in fright. He felt rather guilty that he left them to fend off for themselves in front of an enraged Stonewark. They hopped eagerly back to him, ready to feed him fire essences for fireball making.

“That thing has some sort of magical shield,” Orvin said as he furrowed his brows. He bit his finger as he thought of another way to damage the beast. How was he supposed to gain its respect if it he can’t even make scorch marks on its rocky back?

The earthy trumpeting of the Stonewark nearly deafened Orvin. He didn’t need to be an expert on beasts to know that this one wanted to crush him and rub him on the ground as the same way he rubbed the meldew grass on his clothes.

“Wait. Its armor opens up when it makes that loud call.”  He needed to make the Stonewark open the armor protecting its fleshy side flaps, then his fireball can swoop in and burn its unprotected flesh.

With several holes between him and the Stonewark, he ran towards the other side of the stage with his clump of meldew held high. The cindertoads hopped after him; they did not want to be left behind with the Stonewark.

The ground rhythmically quaked, signalling the dreaded charge of the meldew loving beast.

“Let’s see how fire-resistant your bare flesh is.” Orvin spun around and cast another fireball spell. He was surprised at how much he had improved in controlling the fireball. It didn’t lose out any energy since its heat was trapped near the surface of the fireball. An ice cube held near the fireball would just melt at a normal pace. However, once his fireball made contact, it melts through its target.

Unfortunately, the Stonewark was an exception. It didn’t mind his fireball at all.

A thumping on the ground ended abruptly as one of the beast’s legs found one of the holes. It dug its other legs into the stage, breaking up large chunks of it.

It was probably getting angry again since its glowing eyes turned red. Anyone would get angry after stepping into holes that many times.  

The stone armor plating at the sides of its trunk-like neck shifted to expose its sideflaps. Orvin covered his ears with his hands as the Stonewark announced its rage. His fireball zoomed up to the side of the beast, perfectly timed to melt the exposed flesh as the armor opened.  

“Grakk it,” Orvin cursed under his breath.

Glancing off the thick meaty sideflaps, the fireball instantly sputtered out. Orvin’s only consolation was the slightly reddened color of the flesh.

He released the summoning of the cindertoads. No point in wasting more mana in something that wouldn’t work. He focused on what he should do next. The result was expected; his teacher told him many times not to try the fireball he made with the help of eight cindertoads. He grinned as he wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeves. His teacher’s going to get angry at him—if he surviveD the Stonewark.

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“Calm down,” he told himself. “Only one way left.” There was no use getting angry at himself for wasting mana on fruitless efforts. He wasn’t even sure his trump card, if it can be called as such, will work.

Orvin began chanting the contract for the named cindertoad, archaic language that reached across the planes to offer a named fire spirit mana in return for their aid. He did not have a lot of mana so he wasn’t exactly sure what he was offering to the named cindertoad. Why were elemental spirits attracted to him, anyway?

The Stonewark seemed to have forgotten about Orvin. It spun around the middle of the stage, rearing up on its hind legs and craning its neck to increase its height. It scanned the stage, turning its head left and right, its eyes blazed a bright yellow.

Was it looking for the fireball? Or the cindertoads?

Orvin thanked the God Paximillon for his good fortune. He drank all the mana potions that the arena provided for participants before continuing his chant. Please let this be enough, he prayed.

A name burned itself onto his mind.

“I summon thee, Vrak the cindertoad!”

Sensing danger, the Stonewark focused on Orvin. It opened its sideflaps and boomed its displeasure at having another creature present on its territory.

Instead of having a flashy entrance, that Orvin expected, with pillars of fire and clouds of smoke, Vrak just instantly popped into existence in front of him. He raised his fire-resistant robe in front of him and took a several steps back from the named cindertoad. The heat it was giving off was on a different scale from a normal cindertoad.

Sneaking a peek from behind his robe, Orvin saw that the named cindertoad he summoned was somewhat just a larger version of the normal ones. If he was to stand beside it, its height would reach somewhere near his chest. It wasn’t the epitome of majesty but it did have golden lava veins forming circular patterns all over its body. Thorny black spikes lined its back while white flames coated its webbed feet.

So intense was the heat it emitted that it was slowly melting the stage beneath it. Vrak the cindertoad must have sensed that it was sinking into the stage because the white flames rippling beneath slowly died down. Orvin lowered his sleeves as the heat receded.  

Two golden globes with black horizontal pupils stared at Orvin.

“Hi, um, Vrak,” Orvin said. He gave the cindertoad a big smile, trying to look as friendly as possible.

Before he could say anything else, the named cindertoad turned around and looked at the Stonewark. The Stonewark pawed the ground and shook its head left and right.

The cindertoad turned its gaze back to Orvin.

“I’m Orvin,” he said hurriedly. “I’m the one who summoned you. I need your he—”

Vrak the cindertoad hopped away, leaving the Stonewark and the young mage behind. The beast and the young mage stared at the spiked back of the cindertoad, bobbing up and down until it reached the edge of the stage. After looking at the thousands of people in the stands, the cindertoad promptly squished its face against the shield.

“Hey,” Orvin called out weakly, as his body felt the strain of feeding mana to the named cindertoad. Shouldn’t the cindertoad obey him? It was, after all, his own summon. “I need your help in subduing this beast,” he said, a little bit louder while pointing at the Stonewark.

The Stonewark turned its attention back to Orvin. The yellowish glow of its eyes changed into red once again.

“Why do you hate me so much?” Orvin said, breaking into a run. He headed towards the holes that he had made earlier. He could barely cast any spells while maintaining the named cindertoad; he needed to save mana for a fireball. Canceling the summoning was not an option. Who knows when he could succeed in summoning a named cindertoad again.

He looked over his back while running, expecting to see the Stonewark tumble among the holes.  His eyes and mouth opened wide at what he saw instead. The Stonewark jumped over the holes, an angry bunch of boulders sailing through the air.

“It was looking for all the holes!” he exclaimed as realization dawned on him. It wasn’t that dumb after all. After being tricked so many times, it was bound to learn.       

Panting, his face covered with sweat, Orvin continued running. He reached inside his robes. No more potions. What the grakk was the cindertoad doing? He veered off to the side, intent on circling back to his summoned fire spirit.

The Stonewark blocked his path. With uncharacteristic courage that even surprised himself, Orvin charged at the beast. The beast skidded to a halt at the sight of the young mage coming straight for it. It reared up on its hind legs and bellowed through its sideflaps.

Orvin nearly stumbled as the ground vibrated when the Stonewark dropped the upper half of its body back on the ground. The beast matched his charge and came running towards him.

“I have your meldew here!” he said while waving the grass. A flick of his wrist and he turned a small strip of the ground between him and the oncoming beast into mud. The muscles in his cheeks tensed and his eyes narrowed as he prayed to Paximillon that his plan would work. Getting trampled by the Stonewark was not part of his plan. 

Stretching his arms forward, he dove for the strip of mud as the Stonewark closed on him. He shut his eyes and hoped that he would come out alive as he slid over the muddied stage. The Stonewark passed over him in a thunderous gallop. The ground was shaking so badly that Orvin thought that the earth flipped over. Mud splattered on his face as he kept his head down. Pebbles battered him and dust clung to his hair.

As soon as he felt the beast has passed, he pushed himself off the ground and ran for the end of the stage.

Orvin could hear laughter and applause from the crowds. The cindertoad was forming a five-pointed star with its extremely long golden tongue. It waved the star at the stands outside the shields to the delight of the spectators.

“Hey! Hey! Mister… um…Vrak,” he begun to say. “I really, really need your help.” He glanced back to check if the Stonewark had realized that he slipped past under it. The dumb beast continued its charge to the other side of the stage.  But, it was already slowing down because its target was disappeared. He didn’t have much time until it figured out where he went.  

The cindertoad did not even look at him and continued with making shapes with its tongue.

“I’ll play with you!” Orvin said as he wiped the mud off his face. His robes were ruined, but that wasn’t the biggest problem that he had. “After the fight. I’ll play with you. Just help me now. I need you to gather fire essence.”

Its tongue formed a large circle while it turned to Orvin. It jumped through the circle it made. The cindertoad waved the circle at Orvin after completing another jump.

“You want me to jump through that?”

The cindertoad waved its tongue vigorously in reply.  

Orvin groaned. He had no choice. After collecting his long robe, he ran a few steps before diving through the hole.

The cindertoad croaked and hopped around Orvin. It’s webbed feet left imprints on the stage as if a hot branding rod was seared onto the ground. Forming another shape with its tongue, it looked up expectantly at Orvin.

“Let’s play later, alright?” He used his most coaxing voice. “That big pile of rocks wants to crush me right now.” As if on cue, the stage rumbled again as four stone pillars pounded its surface.

The cindertoad tilted its head while waving its tongue at Orvin, oblivious to the rampaging armorclad beast coming straight for them.

“I know of a fun game we can play,” Orvin said. He threw the handful of meldew grass into the air. “Catch that with your tongue,” he instructed the named cindertoad while he ran away.

Lashing through the air with blinding speed, the cindertoad collected all the blades of grass before any touched the ground. But they all burned to ashes as Vrak held onto them with its glowing hot tongue. Its bulging eyes followed the ashes fall to the ground.

Orvin almost felt sad for the cindertoad but he really needed it to help him. “The Stonewark’s coming,” he was barely able to call out as the clumsily charging rock beast barrelled straight for the cindertoad.

The stage shield glowed a brighter blue as it strengthened itself to take on the hit from the Stonewark. Orvin fell on his behind, his legs giving way because of the intense shaking of the ground. His mana flow has not yet returned to normal—a good sign that the cindertoad was still on the material plane. Leaving the meldew grass with the cindertoad was a gamble. He didn’t know whether the Stonewark would go for him or for the grass. Well, now that the grass was gone, he will surely be the next target.

“I’ll keep my promise and play with it later,” Orvin said while brushing off clumps of mud from his robe. He did feel a little guilty with baiting the Stonewark to charge the cindertoad. But that was the only way he could think of to force the fire spirit to help him. It was a named cindertoad, anyway. It wasn’t going to lose just from an attack of a Stonewark.

White flames coated the cindertoad. It was hopping on the massive back of the Stonewark. The Stonewark wildly thrashed, bucking its body, stomping on the ground, attempting to throw off the cindertoad. The cindertoad skipped on the jagged rocks lining its back, spewing a variety of smoky clouds from its mouth.

Orvin waved his arms. “Vrak! Help me gather fire essence”

The cindertoad blew a thumb-shaped smoke puff. The seals on its body lit up and began to swirl.

“Yes. I’ll make a fireball with the help of a named cindertoad.” Orvin cupped his hands in front of him and felt for the fire essences that Vrak sent his way. They were on a level of purity that he has not seen before. Squinting his eyes because of the intense brightness of the gathering fire essences, he arranged the them into the rudimentary structure of a fireball. Mana lines connected the essences into a comb-like structure and melded the basic units of existence into a working fireball.

Casting fireball was something even a novice mage can do in his sleep, but this fireball was different.

Every ounce of concentration that he had, Orvin used it to stabilize the fireball. One fire essence out of place and he would end up barbecuing himself. Such was the power of the named cindertoad.

He willed the fireball to hone in on the beast before he was done casting it. The heat was too much. Falling on his knees, taking slow deep breaths, he willed himself not to pass out. An unfinished fireball. Would it be enough?

The Stonewark was running in circles, stomping madly, and tearing up the stage. Unmindful of the wrathful beast it was riding on, the cindertoad tried to balance itself on its tongue, further enraging the Stonewark. The armor of the Stonewark flushed in blue as its magical defences worked overtime to stave off the penetrating heat coming from the named cindertoad.

Salt from his sweat stung his left eye. His breathing was becoming rugged as if his lungs can’t properly expand anymore. “Open your armor, you grakking Stonewark,” he whispered. He wearily forced himself to stand up. The Stonewark’s eyes were flaming. He covered his ears.

As soon as the Stonewark slid its neck armor open, the fireball swooped in and entered its floppy flesh. The beast probably noticed something was wrong because it instantly closed its armor—with the fireball inside.

Orvin balled his fist and punched the air. The dumb beast was going to cook itself. Flames seeped out of the cracks of its armor. The magical properties of its stony carapace were useless when the spell that it was supposed to stop was already inside.

Vrak, the cindertoad, bounded off the writhing beast as it rolled on the ground, flailing its legs.

The young mage walked towards it, one laborious step after another. He was still standing after all this? Paximillon was certainly smiling upon him.

“Give it up. Healing won’t get you anywhere,” he said as he noticed the green aura about the beast. “You’re just prolonging this. The fire will keep burning inside you. I don’t think that you’ll die. But you’ll have a very, very unpleasant day.”

The Stonewark wouldn’t understand what he had just said but his tone would convey his message.

He strutted to the side of the beast and met its gaze.

“Submit!” He pointed to the ground. His vision was becoming hazy but he forced himself to remain conscious. The fireball inside the Stonewark continued to burn. Was Vrak helping him? If he didn’t stupidly try to burn the beast earlier with two fireballs he would have enough mana to keep this fireball burning. Hang in there, he encouraged himself. Quickly submit, you stupid beast.

The Stonewark moaned as it rolled to get on its mismatched feet. Its stony carapace was steaming. Flames licked the jagged cracks of its armor. 

"Do you want to go on?" he said while taking another step forward. If the Stonewark chose to swing its leg he would die instantly. 

Standing once again on its legs, the Stonewark looked down on Orvin. Something jumped on its head, driving its head to the ground. Orvin barely jumped out of the way.

Vrak the cindertoad sat on the head of the Stonewark. It blew smoke at the Stonewark's face. 

"Submit!" Orvin repeated as he stood in front of the beast's head. The cindertoad hopped a few times on the Stonewark's head, pounding it further into the stage. Rocks flew all around but Orvin stood resolute, never breaking eye contact with the beast.

The eyes of the Stonewark glowed blue and Orvin was instantly teleported out of the stage.