Chapter 17 - Meeting

A few months after Chris' training course change, Priestess Hama returns to the temple with a new orphan to host: a scruffy girl named Fanny. In a matter of minutes Hama leaves the temple again and the monks have no choice but to lead the newly arrived girl to her new life.

On her first day, Fanny met the rest of the orphans, but she didn't respond positively to all the attention of the other children, so it was easy for them to keep their distance. "It's a very big temple, we won't even see it all day." It is what they think when they discard it.

Having once again arrived on the most important day of the year, Yamamoto again appraises the orphans, but that year only Fanny was untested, resulting in the rarest element of all: Air.

Having a solo training for the great advantage that the other orphans took her, she took the lessons at her own pace, with great freedom as indicated by her element, which gave her a lot of opportunity to fill her empty agenda like the pockets of her clothes.

Exploring the temple on her own, Fanny runs into a boy as lonely as she is:

“...” she doesn't know what to say or do, but she stumbles when trying to take a better look at the young man.
“Excuse me, I'm trying to meditate.” Chris says without even bothering to look at the source of the noise.
“Sorry, ehm, I was just walking around and.” Fanny doesn't stop babbling trying to explain herself.
«Please stop talking, I just want to meditate » Chris cries internally.
“Ah, my name is Fanny, I arrived at the temple a couple of days ago.” the newcomer who Chris never asked about it is introduced, “What do you do so much?”
“I just want to meditate, in fact, every word I say is a step back towards my goal.” Chris replies, trying to get rid of his distraction.
“Oh, you're meditating, I'm sorry, and why?” Fanny's curiosity overshadows her manners.
“Because I want to.” and while he doesn't mention it, that's all Chris is going to say in the rest of the day.

Fanny watches as Chris meditates, even as the hours pass, she stays more immersed in Chris’ meditation than he does. Even if he doesn't do any action, Chris can feel the look of the girl his own age. He gets fed up and takes Fanny out of the meditation room and she realizes what she had done.

Just as she begins to withdraw from the place, her stomach roars quite loudly, which embarrasses her in front of Chris and causes him a slight laugh. While Chris laughs his stomach also roars and there is no choice but to eat after a fruitless day.

As the two skipped a meal and Fanny is a newcomer, Chris has no choice but to cook for two. A simple white rice and some boiled vegetables is all he could get at such short notice, but Fanny enjoys the food. It is very different from the food prepared by the monks, she fails to understand why, but it is the first time she can enjoy the food since she lost her family.

Seeing Fanny vent with the food, Chris decides to prepare the food for her from time to time and she thanks him wholeheartedly. Karen is sneaking through the halls in search of a nightly snack as she has always done since she arrived at the temple and sees the two friends having dinner and after a few minutes of continuously looking she retreats back to her bed.

From then on, Karen tried much harder in her training, while Fanny supported and encouraged Chris in his meditation, and they always ate together. Having got close enough, Chris reveals to Fanny that he left the adept course to concentrate on the spiritual arts and Fanny upon learning this begins to take her own training seriously.

In a matter of months, the adept course became a daily competition between Karen and Fanny, as the two became the most outstanding of the course. Although this rivalry was only declared by the other orphans and not by themselves. The daily spectacle that caught the attention of both orphans and monks became a daily life.

Two years after Fanny's arrival, the course has begun to conduct combat exercises. The two prodigies instead of competing with each other are responsible for keeping the rest of the group in shape while they, to make progress, fight against the instructor monks, exposing to a notable difference in experience ensures the development of the student.

Having reached the age of 13, Chris finally finished his spiritual training and resumed his training as an adept. But seeing the class from afar, he realizes that the road to reaching them has become much longer than before, and even more so when he sees Karen and Fanny give their all in their training.

Without saying a word, Chris stopped eating with Fanny and went to train alone in a lake at the foot of the mountain surrounding it. The journey was too much to do in a single day, so Chris prepared rations and did not return in days and only did it when everyone was busy in their affairs, so he did not interact with anyone.

During that two-year span, Karen decided to dig into the spiritual arts in hopes of seeing Chris, but she studied it alone until the end. Fanny missed eating with Chris a lot to the point of trying to cook like him, but she never succeeded, so she decided to concentrate on her adept training until Chris ate with her again.

Alone, Chris relentlessly trained his skills, learning every step of Earth's elemental power. Reviewing the knowledge of the scrolls about his element, he became familiar with that aspect of nature.

Sleeping on the solid stone floor of a cave or the soft earth of the lakeshore, being covered in mud due to his training, he even learned the smell and taste of the earth from different places, accidentally. Although all of that didn't serve to better control the earth, it wasn't until Hama's intervention that Chris made significant progress.

By the time Chris returned to the isolated world of the temple, everyone saw him very differently, for most of them it was a noticeable difference of 4 years, they are all teenagers, but the most drastic change is noticed by Karen and Fanny: their eyes have a brightness that they had never seen in him. Even out of the usual. Yamamoto that day had decided to keep an eye on the young apprentices close to becoming true adepts.

After so long of being separated from the course, Chris knew nothing about the dynamics of the group, so Yamamoto explains that the session that day was elementary combat. Instead of fighting the adepts, they make the elements fight each other, no one gets hurt and evidence is left of who makes the best use of their power.

Hama appears just behind Chris and proposes that he get a showdown with Karen and Fanny in one-on-one duels and Yamamoto agrees. As the two of them are the best of the course, they will be the most effective to know his level and prepare an adequate regimen for him to train with supervision.

All the students are excited to see the top two in the class beat Chris, but he keeps his composure. Karen is happy to see Chris again, but she knows that she should not be distracted from training and even more so being an undefeated student in any kind of duel within the course of adepts.

“Don't think I'll hold back just because it's you, Chris.” Karen says with an expression full of emotion as she lights a fireball in her right hand.
“That's what I want, Karen, come with everything!” Chris replies, holding his ground.

She throws her fireball, and it expands as she moves, proving that Karen has control over the fire even after she has released her power. Chris responds by molding the earth to encapsulate the great fireball but seeing that the wall begins to break by the great power he is trying to stop he blows the earth under the fireball, leaving the entire site covered by a cloud of smoke and dust.

Chris can't see anything, but he feels something coming and when he looks up he sees how several fireballs are coming towards him, this time smaller, but they all move more elegantly than the first giant one. He puts his hands on the ground and molds the earth to generate arms from the ground and grabs the projectiles, returning Karen her own attack.

She uses snaps from her hands to defuse each of the fireballs as they head towards her. With the sound, Chris identifies the location of his opponent and sends pieces of land using the arms he molded. The first projectile does not hit Karen but alerts her and begins to move to dodge the rest.

When Karen gets to where she remembers Chris was, she realizes that he's not in place before the explosion either:
«Surely he went to where I was, we exchanged places. » Karen deduces as she tries to predict Chris by the years she has known him.
Chris is looking for Karen, but can't find her:
“Here I am, Chris!” Karen shouts from above.
«Did we exchange places? » thinks Chris when he seeing that Karen used the fire to jump from where he was before and shoot him down with a moderately large fireball.

He molds the earth to block Karen's attack, but with the difference in speed, Chris can only generate a wall very close to him and not thick enough. The others conclude the duel when they see Chris' inevitable defeat, but Fanny realizes that he has prepared a way out.

When the fireball falls on him, the ground below collapses and the two fighters sink into the earth.
«He softened the earth to cushion the impact of the fire attack. » Fanny is impressed by Chris’ improvised strategy.
“It's not over, Chris.” Karen says as she resumes the attacks of her flaming element.

She throws flares and Chris blocks them with extremely thick walls, but they only manage to cover enough to prevent the attack from hitting him directly. Being exposed to the heat released from the fire, Chris begins to get tired and knows that at that rate he will end up defeated by heat stroke.

While he concentrates his hands to build walls and protect himself, his feet are responsible for molding the earth in the surroundings and attacks Karen from all sides. She was so distracted attacking that she didn't realize the counterattack that was going for her. Karen quickly concentrates a lot of fire on a tiny incandescent ball and releases the fire into a whirlpool that incinerates everything around her.

At the end of Karen's defense, she is exhausted from using so much elemental power suddenly, and Chris come out of the earth and gobbles her up until she only exposes her head, being buried almost completely:
“You almost killed me with your fire, plover head.” Chris says exhausted.
“But you survived, so make do with breaking my perfect record.” Karen replies in frustration.

All the students and monks can't believe that Chris defeated Karen, having been an unattainable figure and an uncontrolled mess for them respectively. Fanny is called to fight, and Yamamoto re-establishes the training ground with his power. All the wrecking that the two young did in a duel was undone with a simple swipe of Yamamoto's finger, showing that he is far above them in skill.

Now Fanny confronts Chris and one of the students gives the signal to begin the elemental duel. He prepares for whatever comes, but she gives up:

“I don't need to fight you, I'm just glad you come back.” Fanny confesses with a sweet smile.
«Good thing, I was completely exhausted after Karen, I wouldn't have been able to deal with Fanny so soon » Chris thinks relieved as he endures the tiredness.

The whole group of students was dissatisfied, but they cannot cope with the one who defeated one of the prodigies of the course. Chris now has prestige among his peers, but he stays away from everyone, he just wants to rest after a big win.

In the dining room, Chris is cooking his own food and eating with Fanny after so long. While enjoying the meal Karen approaches the table and Chris offers her a seat next to him:
“You must be hungrier than me, you're more gluttonous than me, after all.” Chris says as he brings her food plate closer.
“Thank you, Chris.” Karen thanks while crying a little while being with her old friend after so long.
«Were the two of them so close? » asks Fanny to herself as she sees them together in front of her as she continues to eat quietly.

The three eat happily, talk about everything they have done for the past two years, while Chris was isolated from everything and everyone. Karen had a hard time with spiritual meditation and Chris agrees, it is extremely difficult to enter the inner world. Even if you manage to immerse yourself in your own soul, you can get lost in the huge ocean of your own thoughts, emotions, and memories.

“When I meditated, the first thing I thought about was how lonely I was when I arrived at the temple.” tells Chris to his only two friends, “My life was so empty, then I unearthed the memories of my life before I got to the temple. How I was abandoned here, I don't want to live it again and I have realized that this is how I made you both feel. I'm really sorry.”
“That's not true! Of course, I missed spending time with you a lot, but I knew that you would return sooner or later, although I tried to look for you I could not get close to you and I understood what you felt when you stayed behind us.” Karen replies, showing her true feelings.
“You still owe me a lot of meals; you better be prepared.” Fanny says as she carries one more bite of food in her mouth “Ah, how I missed this food.”
«It's true, I'm not alone anymore, now I have the two of them in my life. You made me happy for so long and I didn't know it. » Chris thinks as he sees the two girls eating and talking in front of him, «I hope I can be with you for the rest of my life. »

Back to the present, a new day at the hot spring hotel, everyone is exhausted from not being able to sleep much, so they decide to sleep late in order to be well. Although Hanna decides to look for Chris to find out if he is resting properly for his final recovery... He's nowhere to be found.

Back in the city, Chris is wandering until he finds a huge building, upon entering he finds a large number of people coming and going, contemplating the architecture and relics that are on display. He is in a museum, but not just any, it is the Museum of Legends, Chris listens from the vicinity to a guide explaining the tour and decides to keep a low profile and mix with the crowd.

As the group progresses Chris can see relics from many places and times, from swords, armor, to documents written on parchment. Each and every artifact present was used by the legendary warriors who rose victorious at the top of King's Mountain.

It is practically contemplating the history of the world, heroes who managed to forge a path to the future of the world, monsters that almost destroyed it in their desire for domination, each and every one of them had fixed objectives about what to do with so much power. As he moves deep into the showroom, Chris begins to fill himself with melancholy and insecurity about whether to take up the challenge.

Then they arrive at the most important piece of the entire museum, the Twin Stone. It is a huge indestructible monolith, prostrate in the sight of anyone who shows the names of all the Kings of the World, those who reached the top have their names immortalized in it.

There is a reason why it has the word "twin" in its name, its counterpart is at the top of King’s Mountain, and legend has it that you must be recognized by the stone at the top for your name to be engraved on both.

Everyone retires after a while, but Chris is left seeing the last names written, only the last two are marked, according to the guide means that those people are still alive. When they die, the mark will fade, but the strange thing is that they have been alive for centuries.

There is also a legend about those last two names: The War of the World. Four hundred years ago, a man came out of nowhere, gained adepts throughout all the lands, and reached the top of the world, became the most powerful of all, and eventually his power reached every last corner of the world.

One day he showed his true identity and betrayed the whole world. Brandishing his sword shrouded in the flames of hell, commanding hordes of demons with pure intimidation of his determination, he almost destroyed the world and was called the Demon King.

It was then, when heaven, earth and sea were submerged in darkness, that a light pierced the skies of the whole world and a woman confronted the Demon King. That woman was known as the Heavenly Queen, and the two fought for four uninterrupted centuries in different places around the world.

For more than thirty years none of them have been seen fighting again, some fearing that the fight will continue very soon, while others trust that the Heavenly Queen managed to defeat the Demon King and thus save the world.

On the ceiling of the room, at the top, that legend is described in painting, the author remains unknown, but witnesses affirm that she was a direct witness of the last of her legendary battles and therefore immortalized it in that painting on the ceiling. The clash of good against evil, light against darkness, the two sides of the same coin, a confrontation that has lived in people's hearts since the beginning of time.

A story that leaves Chris stunned, he remains silent, processing what he just noticed in the painting, the illustrated Demon King's sword is very similar to his own sword. The dots begin to connect, the sword carries a powerful curse, his master handed him the sword, the dark arts are mostly curses, the Demon King wrapped his sword in the flames of hell and his master was a Fire Adept, incredibly powerful does not do him justice.

Chris becomes increasingly confused, everything points to that conclusion, his master is the Demon King, but why? What motives did the Demon King have to stop fighting and isolate himself on that mountain like a hermit? What happened to him to end that legendary battle?

«That they have done nothing to deserve this? It is quite the opposite, by doing nothing they allowed injustices to happen to real innocents. Humans without powers are just blind cattle, before the six-lord system they almost caused the extinction of the adepts. It was poetic justice that the Demon King came out because of them. » Chris recalls Ryuken's words during their confrontation.

One thing is for sure, the Six Lords have some connection to the Demon King, so Chris heads once again to the resort, to talk to that person once again. Karen is on the same bench as the night before, totally exhausted by what happened.

As he approaches her, the rest of the group begins to gather around him, fearing for what might happen. “As one of the Six Lords, what do you know about the Demon King?” She is left with a blank look, everyone is surprised with what has just been mentioned.

Chris puts Karen in context, about what he just discovered about his teacher. Despite what happened in the past, Chris is asking for Karen's help, and that is already an advance for her, so she decides to accept her request, in order to improve her situation.

“About four hundred years ago the Six Lords System was founded, each of them is a powerful adept with the ability to guide all his people and defend the territory from humans. But who was the founder?"

Chris knows where the story is going, but he keeps quiet so as not to jump to hasty conclusions.

"A boy lost his family in an adept hunt by the Imperial Inquisition, growing up, the young man became a powerful adept, brandishing his sword engulfed in flames. Back then the Adepts Creed was that elemental power was to interact with the world, never to attack our fellowmen.

But one day, while some adepts were being sent to the stake, the young man rescued them using his powers, fighting to prevent their deaths. The struggle of the young man became that of more and more adepts, they began to unify into a movement instantly, they organized, allied, got resources with the jobs they could do in a simple way and expanded the influence of the movement by each continent.

Thus, in a matter of a few years, around the world, the adepts designated their territories in natural fortresses, which were only habitable and accessible to the adepts. The Territories of Adepts were founded, the nations that today are world powers for their great military potential and skills impossible to reproduce with current technology.

That young man could not be everywhere, so he appointed his most faithful and powerful allies as the leaders of each territory. It was in this way that the Six Lords System was born.

There is only one leader, the most powerful has the highest authority, but no one could know what would happen next. Once the territories were established, the nations of humans began to ally themselves in order to try to match the power, but they could not do anything, the massive armies had inevitable deaths due to the extreme conditions and the difficulties of access.

When each continent had lost the vast majority of its soldiers, the human nations were left at the mercy of the Six Lords, but the young man decided not to attack them. Instead, he decided to forge alliances with them, in order to prevent more adepts from dying at the hands of humans without powers.

The whole world was amazed by such a display of kindness, "Goodness is not measured by good deeds, but having the power to do something bad without consequences and still not to do it.", those were his words. World leaders agreed without complications.

On the day of the agreement, just as the world alliance was about to take place, the place was completely destroyed. That man destroyed all the leaders, kings from all over the world, and the Six Lords remained as accomplices of that betrayal.

But the power of them was enough to take the reins of the situation, the Six Lords turned against that man, who would show his true facet as the Demon King. The hordes of demons were too powerful for all the unified adepts against them, but then the Heavenly Queen appeared and fought alone against all the darkness.

Since then, the Six Lords isolated themselves from the rest of the world, and with the passage of time the Nations of Adepts distanced themselves, leaving the world increasingly divided.”

That's all Karen knows as one of them, Chris analyzes what happened, but there are still no clear answers about his teacher's current motives. That the Demon King founded the Six Lords System is already too hard to believe, Chris thanks Karen for revealing the information he wanted, but he remains confused with what to do with his life.

She just puts her hand on his shoulder and makes it clear that she will support any decision he makes. But then she speaks quietly in his ear, asks him where his teacher is, but Chris does not answer, despite being the Demon King he is still his teacher, he is the one who will fight him if necessary.

Karen leaves but not before making one last comment:
“Was it Ryuken who gave you a clue about the Demon King? If you made him speak during his duel, then maybe you have a chance against his brother, Volt.” the childhood friend asks seriously in Chris' ear.

As Karen moves away on the horizon, Chris asks Guilian about Volt, as he was mentioned on several occasions at the Adepts Tournament in Heinburn. Guilian claims that Volt has a great rivalry with Ryuken, they have fought deadly duels on many occasions.

Also, that the guy with whom Chris fought in the first round, Morgan, is one of his commanders, Volt is also known for being the most warlike of all the Six Lords, as he uses his people as an army to destroy the kingdoms of humans and expand his territory and influence.

Chris processes the information for a few moments, but before he gets going someone suddenly arrives, somewhat familiar boy:

«He's the guy who faced Caellach in Vodheim. » Hanna admits to the young man.
“Hey, hey, did you follow us from Vodheim? “Guilian asks, “You should consider building your life around yourself.”
“Close your mouth, Guilian, don't you see that he is tired of traveling to find us?” Tsubaki rhetorically asks, “What do you want, child?”
«Child? If we are the same age. » the young man thinks as he tries to catch his breath.
“He managed to withstand a one-on-one fight against an Imperial General, Tsubaki, you have to give him more credit.” Chris says of the young man in front of him.
“I need your help, Chris.” replies the young man, trying to explain himself between gasps, “I want you to help me defeat Volt.”
«Is this for real? If just a few minutes ago we were talking about him. » the situation is strangely convenient for Chris, «With so many coincidences, it's surely 'her' doing. »

Chapter end