> 10 Minutes left.

Tom started a countdown on his communication device to ensure the rules would be followed.

Vren ran towards Kaidan without a warning, sword at ready in his right hand. Kaidan stumbled to get into some type of defensive position with the spear, deciding to opt for what seemed the most reasonable position: the pointy edge aimed at the enemy.

“Barriers!” screamed Kaidan. The boys obeyed, a brief blue light forming around the three.

Right before reaching Kaidan, Vren sidestepped away from him and moved in between the three, his sword changing colors from green and decaying towards blue. The dust inside it dispersed, sending a blast of air from where Vren was, hitting all of them. Dylan lost his composure, allowing the spear he held to fall from his hands as he fell to the ground. Tom held his own, holding the spear across like a shield and keeping his feet firmly at the ground while Kainda just shook slightly.

Vren moved towards Dylan, the boy quicking grabbing the spear from the floor, holding the shaft sideways to block the incoming attack from the dull blade, this time not surrounded by any dust, every blow passing through the barrier.

Vren relentlessly kept attacking, blow after blow, hitting the spear, as Dylan kept moving backward. Vren raised the sword upwards, Dylan moved the spear slightly up in an attempt to deflect the blow, failing to notice Vren raising his legs and giving him a frontal kick in the stomach, the pain made Dylan let go of the spear, and the upwards blow came down, hitting him on his left shoulder.

“Had I used some dust, you would’ve -” but Vren was interrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching quickly.

Tom was running towards Vren, holding the spear horizontally with both hands, the spearhead pointing towards him. Vren didn’t seem bothered by it, he sidestepped once again, moving out of the way, in a blink he moved his sword down and then made a blow upwards, hitting the spear’s shaft and lifting it upwards, the movement took Tom out of his run, moving his arms upwards, and then he flew back as his core was smacked by a sidekick delivered by Vren as he held his sword up.

Kaidan thought of running towards the boys to help them, but Edgard moved towards him with a speed that seemed impossible for one wearing such exquisite armor, the spear he held horizontally behind him with the tip pointing to his back, not forward.

When he finally reached Kaidan, he moved the spear with a lower horizontal sweep, and Kaidabn didn’t think, he jumped to avoid the “slash”, just to notice the orange dust surrounding it left a trail where the slash had happened, and as soon as he landed on the floor, the dust moved, collapsing into itself, completing the dash as if the spear was still there, following its trace. The impact of it hitting his legs wasn't as strong as he’d imagined the spear would b, and yet, he kneeled.

> 9 minutes left.

Kaidan quickly stood up, looking to see if any trace of the weird effect he just saw with the orange dust could be noticed anywhere, but no traces of it were left.

He moves to the side, trying to keep Edgard and Vren in view as his hands move through the spear’s shaft in search of ways to activate the dust. He noticed three distinct buttons, acting like triggers next to the five Rings contained in the spear’s shaft. He pressed them desperately, noticing the first one respond, making the ring vibrate and spin, the dust surrounding him in the air changing into purple.

Vren was ready to attack him, but Edgard stopped him with a hand gesture.

“Thunder Blossom,” Edgard began, “the stage that covers the sky every night. It is also completely uncontrollable. The discharge will fling towards the highest point from the ground, so I would recommend moving into the next stage as fast as possible.”

Kaidan wanted that to happen too, but unlike the Ring’s left by Uroa, where the color would change to blue fast, the first Ring never stopped spinning or vibrating, instead, it oscillated between them.

“But they are not Interlocking,” mentioned Kaidan.

“Automatic Interlocking is a feature in newer models. For a training spear though, it’s better if you know how to do it yourself.”

The sound of the steel greaves from Vren’s armor being hit by a kick echoed across the room calling everyone’s attention. When Vren looked downwards he saw a spear coming towards his helmet from Dylan, who was lying on the floor next to him.

Vren held the shaft with his free hand, stopping the spear in its entirety. Purple dust began to appear around the shaft, Dylan held the first trigger pressed until sparkles from the purple dust could be seen.

“Even if it's a random direction, your chances -” Dylan said, letting the trigger go…

… and the dust shifted to blue.

> 8 minutes left.

“That was a stupid move boy,” Vren said. “The thunder could’ve gone towards you.”

“Or fried you inside the metal armor,” laughed Tom, now standing, surrounded by sparkles of electricity.

“Dylan,” exclaimed Kaidan, “how did you do it?”

Dylan let go of the spear and rolled away from Vren.

“No idea sir, I figured the brightest point would be the most powerful and let go at that point, but it was an accident to have it change.”

“Brightest?”

Edgard moved towards Kaidan.

“We are on the right track then”

Kaidan moved away, trying to keep his distance from Edgard while paying attention to the colors of purple around him. He noticed that for a second, he could see a brief indigo shift popping up. He let go of the button when the indigo shifted in and suddenly the dust around him moved into the blue shift.

> 7 minutes left.

When he looked at Tom, the boy already had his spear all the way towards the green.

“Inversion is what we call the second stage,” began Edgard, “it creates a force that propels objects in the opposite direction. It’s this stage that allows control of all the stages that follow, but it's hard to control by ourselves.”

The dust surrounding Edgard’s spear moved down from orange to blue.

“Each object will have a detector that will assist on how to track the direction you want the dust to act.”

He pointed the spear in Kaidan's direction and pressed the third trigger. The blue dust blasted from the spearhead to its target, launching Kaidan away from Edgard.

“It’s pretty corrosive by the way,” said Vren, “so unless you have armor like us, don’t try forcing it too much to fly, at max, walk atop of it…. Now let’s continue.”

Vren held Dylan’s spear at ready in one hand, and the sword in the other. He began moving towards Dylan, propelling himself with blue dust slightly flying above the ground.

That is, until a blast of green dust passed right in front of him, which prompted a sudden stop in midair leaving him to fall to the ground.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

He looked at Tom, holding the third trigger pressed with a grim smile on his face.

“I think I’m getting the hang of this.”

> 6 minutes left

Vren flashed towards Tom, flying in his direction. Tom evaded the sword blow and backed to avoid a spar thrust. He pushed his spears upwards, simulating Vren’s movements from earlier, but the knight didn’t lose his composure, instead, he charged his sword with blue dust and expelled it, the blast moved Tom further away for a brief second, but Tom quickly charged towards him once again.

A wall of blue dust formed in front of Vren, launching him back towards Dylan, and there he began an onslaught of attacks, of which the boy could only evade a few as he had no weapons at hand. The barrier surrounding him couldn’t stop it, after all, those barriers could only stop projectiles at really fast speeds.

Tom didn’t know how to proceed, the two were so close, that a blast of green dust could hit Dylan. Instead, he decided to move to the Fourth Ring, and yellow dust began to surround the weapon.

> 5 minutes left.

“Blight is the name of the third stage,” Edgard told Kaidan. “It melts almost anything that has a weak atomic bond. Thankfully Iron is quite stable as you might know.”

Kaidan had his spears aimed at Edgard and pressed the third trigger, a brief flash of blue dust particles appeared where the green ones were, and propelled each speckle of dust forward.

Edgard didn’t bother to move, his armor took the hit.

“Obviously my armor isn’t invincible, but this amount won’t even put a dent in it.”

Kaidan pressed the second trigger just to try it, and the dust moved back one stage, from green to blue.

“As you might’ve gathered by now, unless you have a Second Ring operating, you cannot control any further stage.”

Kaidan decided to go offensive, dashing in Edrgard's direction, spear held horizontally in both hands. He waited to see a flash of green before letting the first trigger go, interlocking the Third Ring.

He made a sudden stop before reaching Edgard, pressed the third trigger, launching the dust forward, and then moved the spear horizontally from left to right. The dust flying forward began to move following the spear’s direction, faint blue particles directing the green where to go.

Edgard was hit by it, but as expected, he didn’t care.

> 4 minutes left.

“If this is the game you’re gonna play, I can do it too,” Tom screamed at Vren, pissed.

He moved towards the girl they called sorcerers earlier, who had been watching the scramble for a while from the side.

“If you’re gonna attack the weakest link, so will I,” he said, pressing the third trigger, releasing a yellow flash being carried by blue particles forward. Midair the yellow dust fused, becoming something similar to a rock. Seconds before hitting Allerie, the dust simply vanished in thin air, returning to its neutral state with a single weave of her hand.

Tom’s face looked incredulous.

Allerie snapped her fingers, and yellow dust merged in front of Tom, combining into a giant wall of something akin to a rock.

“This stage is called Force,” Aloorie said with a smile, “and it hits like a brick wall.”

With a gesture of her hand, blue dust propelled the wall forward. Tom pointed the spearhead towards it. The contact between it and the wall shattered both the spear and the wall, and pieces of it smashed against Tom, bruising him all over.

Covered by dust, with the remaining of the spear shafts at his hand, he looked at her incredulously. And she looked back at him smiling.

“I wasn’t even participating in this battle, and looks like neither are you anymore.”

> 3 minutes left.

“Stupid,” Vren murmured from behind his helmet, looking at what just happened.

And then, Dylan grabbed at the spear and pressed the first trigger.

Vren began to shake, but the boy held tight to him. The dust surrounding the spear shifted towards blue before Dylan moved from the first trigger to the third one.

Seconds before Dylan pressed it, Vren let go of the weapon, but the impact of the blue dust being dispersed launched Dylan away from him, with the spear in hand, while the knight lost little to no composure but was sent slightly back nonetheless.

“I’m impressed,” Edgard commented, “you boys seem to learn fast. Let’s wrap this up then.”

Edgard looked at his spars, surrounded by the orange dust.

“Convection is the final controllable stage. As you might've surmised from my previous moves, once you let go of it, it creates a trail. The particle at the back of the trail will then follow the first after a delay, simulating the movement and speed of the object that drew the original trace. As with all the other stages, there is more to it than the simple idea I gave you, but I’m afraid we don’t have time to explain everything.”

“Wait!” Kaidan said, “We still have two more minutes at least, and two stages are missing.”

“The next stage is the Redshift. Once the Diffusion Effect hits that point, the particle can’t sustain itself and forcibly creates a fission, exploding. Since it breaks so fast, you can’t control it.”

> 2 minutes left.

“The other missing stage you saw yourself today. It’s the Indigo color that follows the Purple. It exists for a single second or two before vanishing, no Ring Interlocks it properly, and as far as we know, it does nothing. Unless you’re trying to reach a Redshift, having a Ring for it is unnecessary.”

“No, it does,” Kaidan said, “it makes you feel all weird inside. Anton - a man, used a weird antenna or rod to control and activate it. I felt really bad around it.”

“Well, whoever this man is, he certainly doesn’t need any money. There are so many prizes waiting for one who can keep it active for more than 3 seconds.”

Kaidan's mind returned to that night, the snake hypnotized, the pain in his body, the indigo particles all around… Sean’s last words… his sense of time was lost

“So, will you answer a few questions from me?”

“Hmmm… there is still a minute left, if you can hit me once during this time, I promise to do so.”

> 1 minute left

“Dylan, come here!” screamed Kaidan, sprinting away from Edgard.

Kaidan quickly charged the spear to green and tried to shoot it at Edgard, but this time he dodged it with ease using blue dust to propel him sideways.

Those damn armors must have Rings inside them or something.

He turned to Vren, preventing Dylan from approaching, and quickly charged blue dust, dispersing it close to Ven. The knight lost a little of his composure which allowed Dylan to pass him by.

“Run to Edgard, duck next to him, and hit him in a way his spear will move upwards,” Kaidan said as quietly as he could, seeing the two men running towards them in a pinch maneuver.

Dylan nodded, pointed the spearhead to Edgard, and dashed in his direction, charging his spear. Edgard noticed him coming and prepared to move away from him.

Dylan pressed the third trigger as he ducked and moved his lance upwards. The blue dust released from it pushed Edgard’s spear up.

Kaidan stepped on Dylan’s back and used it to propel himself up with a jump, his spear, surrounded by purple dust.

And there, in midair, he let go of the first trigger before the Ring interlocked. A spark of thunder flew from it, searching for the highest point from the ground nearby it.

It found its prey at the spearhead lifted by Edgard. Once hit, the electricity flew through the spear shaft and progressed to the armor, fading seconds later.

“Curious idea, I liked it,” Edgard said. “I am thankful those armors have systems to prevent electricity from frying me.”

“So,” said Kaidan, staring deep into Edgard’s helmet, as if he could see his eyes behind it, “does this count as I hit, am I right?”

Edgard removed his helm and looked at Allerie for a second before speaking to Kaidan.

“Hope you have your questions ready, this is the only chance you’ll get.”

“But Master…” said Vren.

“I know Vren, but aren’t you curious where all of this could lead?”

“Well, if that is what you want,” Vren replied with respect in his tone, despite the word choices.

“Kaidan wasn’t it? Before your questions, I have one of my own: why did you choose to speak with us, out of all the training knights around here?” Edgard asked.

“Huh, well, you were the closest ones to the door.”

Edgard let a quick smile come out, with a laugh of incredibility attached to it.

“Well, I imagined something else but… a promise is a promise. To your questions then.”

Apart from all of them, Tom approached Allerie. “Why did you lie to your boss?”

“I didn’t. He knew and just checked if I was alright with it. Something your boss told him might’ve picked his interest I guess.”

Tom looked at the chronometer he had started, trying to understand.

> 0 seconds were left when Edgard got hit, the countdown had already finished 10 seconds before that.