Next morning.
As ordered by the King, the tournament will be taking place in the largest coliseum of the capital 'the Coliseum of Goliath'.
As with all the buildings, the outer walls of the coliseum were painted with gold and it was large enough to contain hundreds of thousands of people.
The Coliseum was already packed with people with hundreds of thousands of commoners occupying the lower seats, hundreds of nobles seating on the middle seats, and very few royalties from neighboring kingdoms on the upper seats making the upper seats relatively empty.
Even though everybody was talking to each other, the place was not noisy at all.
The Goldsborn family was already present at the top uppermost seats with the King occupying the largest seat, the Queen to his left, and the princess to his right, both of their faces covered by a veil.
Surrounding the trio were other top members of the Goldsborn family.
The signature trait of the Goldsborn family is their golden hair representing their enormous talent for the element of time.
The people in the coliseum could not help but gaze at them with fervency.
What further increased their admiration was how the men of the Goldsborn family were dressed in golden suits and the women in golden dresses making them look like immortals.
The king stood up and was about to give a speech when from the distance, two small dark dots appeared.
The two dark dots seemed to get larger by the second showing they were traveling at extreme speed and in a short five seconds, two large wyverns appeared above the coliseum.
Both wyverns were covered in green scales and had a wingspan of about 30m.
One wyvern descended in the middle of the opened field of the coliseum while the other went up to an empty area meant for royalty where it lightly landed.
A well-built man with dark hair got off the back of the wyvern, bowed slightly toward the king, and sat down with grace.
The king nodded to him and looked at the center of the coliseum where a little boy stood beside the other wyvern.
He could not help but look him up close as he thought, 'So this is the dark prince rumored to have dual magic that has only ever appeared in the legends?'.
Shaking off the miscellaneous thoughts, he opened his mouth, causing a deep voice filled with power and demanding authority to resound in the coliseum, "I welcome you all to this tournament where our young geniuses have gathered to show us their talents. The winner of this tournament will get my daughter's hand in marriage."
The people quietened and looked at the King with a respectful expression on their faces.
"Without wasting more time, let the competition begin," the king said grandly as he waved his hand before returning to his seat.
Seeing this, a tall man located a bit lower from the position of the Goldsborn family stood up. This man was a Duke of the kingdom. Dressed in a white coat, with auburn hair and sharp eyes, he was the one to oversee this tournament.
"Let the combatants come out," he said in a deep voice.
A large gate slowly rose at the right bottom side of the opened field of the coliseum
Many young boys in their teens appeared from behind the gate, and they all moved to the center of the field with measured steps where the dark prince was alone, the wyvern having left.
When all the combatants appeared at the center, suppressed gasps could be heard all around the coliseum.
This was because, among the nearly 70 participants, a tall girl with red fiery hair and eyes could be seen.
The situation was very odd as she was the only girl amongst the group of boys and she could not be vying for the hand of the princess…right?
The said girl seemed impassive to the attention she was receiving as she simply closed her eyes, waiting for the tournament to start.
The duke could not help but shake his head dryly as the 'said girl' was actually his daughter, the best friend of the princess. 'You really took after your mother,' he thought.
This was simply his daughter's way of standing up for her friend. And the duke didn't know what to say about it.
He silently sighed in defeat before he cleared his throat and continued, "You all will be given a box to choose your number. You will then be grouped..."
"Okay, okay, we know already, this that this that blah blah blah," a lazy voice echoed out followed by a lazy yawn.
...…!?
It took a while for the audience to realize what happened and it was because of the implications of what was playing out that what followed for the next several seconds was...
Absolute silence.
All heads turned to the source of the voice, which was in the middle of the field among the combatants where a young boy of twelve years was seen yawning and stretching.
Feeling the pressure directed towards them, the other young contestants quickly distanced themselves from the culprit.
He had silver hair and matching vibrant eyes that seemed to pull the world into it.
He was adorned in…rag clothes, that is right, rag clothes. A simple shirt torn at the front and back with several patches here and there, and short black pants that barely reached his lower thigh.
Worst of all, was that the pant was slightly torn at the backside showing some soft white skin.
With a small thin stick in his mouth and a left hand in his pocket, his appearance seemed to scream… BEGGAR.
Looking in the direction the royalties were sitting, the boy's face flashed with defiance as he spoke:
"All my life, I have been treated as air. I had no one to lean on and could only rely on myself..."
The Coliseum became silent as all the people present gazed at the young boy intently, wondering what he was trying to pull. The incredulity of the situation left all these people, young and old, noble and commoner, weak and strong, speechless. Just what the hell was going on?
Nevertheless, the boy seemed unaffected by the attention he was receiving as he continued, "...That was until I awakened. The acquisition of a great power changed my life and filled me with hope. However..." the boy paused once again as he shot a glare at the king.
"It turned out my power was treated as shit. The space laws are only revered for its teleportation ability and nothing else. When I heard this, I felt my world crumble before me. It turned out that in the end, I was nothing, and society had no need for me. But, I discovered that I am different." The boy clenched his hands into fists before he continued:
"Today, I will show you how gravely wrong you are for treating a supreme law as nothing."
"Today, I will show my parents who abandoned me and the world that shunned me that you have seen wrong."
"Today, this daddy here will open your dog's eyes!" he bellowed out loud, acting cool and mighty, the thin stick almost falling from his mouth.
Everyone opened their mouth in shock and stupor, not believing what they were seeing.
"What? Cat got your tongues...huh?"
The stunned look on the face of the duke slowly but surely morphed into an ugly grimace. He was just about to order the execution of this foolish brat who seemed to have yet learned how to spell the words, 'courting death', only for his expression to change once again, an incredulous look gracing his face once again. The shift in his expressions these past few seconds was simply comical. But the duke couldn't be blamed. After all, he just received a voice transmission from his queen. And the instructions he received left him speechless.
*****
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