It was a clear, near cloudless day in the city of Tollton, well almost, Dark clouds began to appear around one of the taller buildings in the city, it stood at around seven to eight stories tall, made of white brick that seemed as though it shined slightly, lightning raced down striking the rooftop, it’s thunderous impact rang throughout the city, Barak appeared on the rooftop standing on top the large dark scorch marks left behind by the lightning strike, a burning smell lingered in the air, he stood there waiting for the door he was staring at to open,

‘odd, I’m sure he heard all of that noise I caused”, Barak said walking over to the plain grey metal door, he pulled on the handle, and to his surprise it opened, he made his way down a short flight of stairs, leading into a much larger open area, barak looked around the room, the dark brown wooden floors had lighter areas in what seemed to be random patches from them being worn down over time, but the floor had a shine to it as though it had just been polished, his eye feel to a corner that had a stone pillar reaching from floor to ceiling, with very distinct red markings on them, he made his way over to it, rubbing his finger over one of the red lines, the words Rak inscribed next to it, his old height measurements, a soft smile formed on his face, on the wall next to the pillar near the bottom, with the similar red markings, were the words, to be the strongest, it was his handwriting, next to a couple others, he could hear the feint sounds of his past, those day of training in this hall,

The large wooden double doors, creaked open, in walked an Older gentleman, with two other people behind him, The Older bald headed man towered over the two people behind him almost completely hiding them, his black and gre y beard pushed up into a smile upon seeing barak standing in the corner, the other two however ran forward in front of the older gentleman drawing their weapons, Barak got up, and looked at Elphante

“oh who’s the new blood we have here”, Barak spoke, walking forward towards the older gentleman,

“hey now guys calm down, this here is barak, and by dojo rules, you’re senior”, Elphante said, making his way pass his two students, they quickly hid their weapons and bowed,

“OUR APOLOGIES”, they both shouted in unison,

“no need to be so serious guys”, barak said, taking a seat in front of them on the floor,

“It’s not like you to leave the roof door unlocked”, barak stated,

“well when you can see lightning strikes going off so close to the city, it can only be you, and anytime you’re in town you come and visit, besides when you landed earlier you shook the entire building, scared my class of new students half to death”, Elphante said, He took a good look at Barak and realized that his body was bruised and he was clearly still in pain, his mind wondered, The two students, a boy with long dark locs with a scarf tied around his head, and eyes so sleepy he looked like he was paying half attention to the conversation, and a girl with brown curly hair, and a long ponytail that sat on the ground next to where she sat, she had a scar running across her left eye that seemed as though it tugged on the rest of her face pulling it tight,

“is that why these two came with you, thinking I might be an intruder”, Barak mused,

“ well I let them think that, truth is I wanted them to meet you”, Elphante said, stroking his beard, he stopped to rub his cheek, where the end of a scar poked out of his bead, matching the scar that ran on the top of his head,

“ why would you want them to meet me”, Barak said, eyeing the weapons they had, the boy carried a similar style sword to barak, the girl on the other hand carried a shield and spear,

“well they both have natural blessings of Lightning, and have become my top students in the dojo, however they are still lacking in some departments”, Elphante said,

“so I was hoping since you’re here you could help hone their skills a bit”, Elphante continued,

“yeah sorry, I can’t, I have my own stuff going on right now, which is actually why I’m here”, Barak said, Elphante let out a deep sigh, as if he already knew what barak’s answer was going to be,

“of course, what mess did you get into this time”, Elphante said,

“Barak by no means would I consider you weak, but someone did a number on you”, Elphante said, taking stock once more of the wounds and bruises about his body,

“that is an understatement, I barely survived this fight”, Barak stated,

“so which of the three of them finally caught up to you, was it Aster, cause if it is I’ve been warning you about how driven he is to defeat you”, Elphante said,

“it wasn’t any of them, it was someone new, they came from the shadow continent”, Barak explained,

“oh the shadow continent, that brings me back, yeeah they do have some pretty strong people over there, this one time I”, Elphante said,

“yeah yeah yeah, I didn’t come hear to be told your old stories, I came to train”, Barak said,

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“speaking of coming here, why did you come here without a shirt on, rule number 3, only take off shirts when sparring, any shirts off will be taken as a signal for sparring”, he added on,

Barak, put his hands to the back of his head and looked off at the wall, with as strong as he was he still couldn’t look his former master in his face when he was breaking the dojo rules,

“ you saw that little display a couple days ago huh, well that was just some family stuff that was happening”, barak answered,

“don’t change the subject, find a shirt now, unless you wanna go right now”, Elphante said, barak let out a sigh,

“actually that is exactly why I came here , as I just told you the person I faced is very powerful, and I got myself roped into a pretty dangerous situation, as always with me”, Barak said

“well I can’t have my best student getting beaten up, besides like I said, these two could use the extra training, so I guess I’ll train you”, Elphante stated,

“but didn’t even ask for your help”, barak replied,

“really, you just said you came here to train, and I know you weren’t planning to do that yourself”, Elphante said,

“and you’re gonna need it anyways, especially with the state you’re in”, Elphante told Barak,

Elphante had a pleasant smile on his face, because truthfully he was just happy to see his old student,

“so what is it you want me to teach you now, not that there’s much that I can”, Elphante stated,

“there’s plenty you have left to teach me so cut with the BS”, Barak quickly retorted,

“but to cut to the chase, I need to become more powerful and I figured the only way for me to do that is by learning about the power that you’ve been hiding from me”, Barak explained to his master,

“how do you figure that I’ve been hiding my power from you ?” Elpante asked his student,

“i’ve sparred with you countless times, since I was a child, from the first time we sparred I knew you were holding back, but I had enough commonsense to figure that you would hold back against a child, but after years of growing accustomed to your strength, it still felt as if you were fighting with chains on, but I never thought any thing of it, until now”, Barak continued to explain,

“so tell me what insane kind of power have you been hiding from me”, Barak finished saying to his master,

Elphante looked down at the dojo floor, then back to barak, “fine, but first tell me about this opponent that you fought”, Elphante said,

“okay, his name is Aluric, from what I gathered, he comes from akingdom on the shadow continent called”, Barak started

“dracht”, Elphante finished, “did he have a girl by his side, small stature, Golden eyes, annoyingly upbeat personality”,

“No she’s the one who sought out our help, How do you know this”, Barak looked on his brow lowered, filling his face with a look of suspicion,

“as I was saying earlier, I’ve encountered them before, in fact Aluric was the one who gave me this scar”, Elphante said, rubbing his hand over the scar on his head,

“how, is that possible, he doesn’t look like he’s old enough to have fought you in your adventurer days”, Barak said stunned by what he heard,

“those two are practically geniuses when it comes to combat and strategy, I’m forty now, when I fought him ten years ago he was only seventeen years old, she was eighteen, but they had built a reputation for their ruthless efficiency in a fight, we had began to hear the rumors about them a year before, but that didn’t prepare us for what they we’re really like, I only survived that day because Maria was there, she damn near killed one of the members of his party, she literally tore off a limb, Luckily he cared for his friend so he decided to retreat, but by that time I was barely conscious from all the blood loss”, Elphante told his story,

“I…. I didn’t know that was the story behind your scar”, Barak said, visibly shaken, Elphante’s other two students, were almost pale,

“so yes I’ve been holding back, but that was due to you clan not wanting me to teach you this, so they kept me under tight watch while you trained here”, Elphante said, Barak’s eyes widened for a moment, his body tensing with anger,

“those old bastards, always meddling with us”, Barak expressed,

“but if it’s Aluric you’re dealing with then I have no choice but to teach you what I know, these two already know the basics of it, so let me explain to you the power that was ordained by the gods”, Elphante said,

Back on the island

Levant, Polaris, and Aster, were listening to yumi explain what their training was going to be,

“Okay boys, so the next couple of weeks are going to be hell on earth for you three, you three will be trained so that by the end of it you will be physically stronger, enabling your bodies to handle a lot more of your powers, Levant, I’ll start with you”, yumi explained,

“while you are very accurate with your weapons you rely on them to much as a catalyst for your powers to activate, you have control over fire, act like it,” yumi continued,

“with that being said, I’m going get you to push how hot your flames can get, as well as have you keep them active while doing your physical training, but you don’t have to worry the other two will also be doing this”, she continued, as she shifted her attention to Polaris,

“you, polaris, need the most physical training, even though you three are above average, you Polaris are lacking the most physical strength, which you try to compensate for by being especially good with powers, but along with that, your body will have to get accustomed to being in the freezing cold, and the boiling hot”, she stated with a very concerned expression on her face,

“Aluric has the power to take, physically speaking, as far as I know, he can take a portion of a persons blessing or natural blessing, allowing him to weaken the physical attributes of said power, while allowing him to use that person’s blessing at a high proficiency”, Yumi said,

“so that is what I felt when he grabbed ahold of me”, Polaris stated,

“and finally, aster”, she lamented as she shot a cold stare directly towards aster,

“you are the complete opposite of Polaris, you are physically impressive, but you might as well give your powers to a child, you have zero finesse with them, and only use them in destructive attacks, so we are going to have to work on that”, she said as she laid it onto aster about how he used his powers,

“okay, but two questions, why do you sound like you’ve done this before ?, and how do we know that what you’re saying will even be useful ?”, Aster asked looking at yumi, with a very displeased expression,

Yumi’s Expression softened a bit, “look before I opposed him, I used to work for him, and his guild, I was know as the Battle scientist, though, I have studied actual areas of science, but because of my eyes, I pick up on very minute details, I was responsible for whipping the Adventurers into shape, so that they would make it back home alive for the most part”, Yumi explained, looking into the ground with a reminiscent look.