"Contestant 047!"
My breath hitched.
That was me.
I rose, my legs feeling oddly heavy, and began to walk towards the designated stage.
The one closest to the royal box.
I felt the eyes of thousands upon me.
A palpable weight that threatened to crush my resolve.
But I pushed it down.
Drawing on the strength of my grandfather's lessons.
The memory of his unwavering belief in me.
"Contestant 048, Elara Meadowlight!" a voice boomed.
A young woman stepped onto the stage beside me.
No older than myself.
Hair the color of spun moonlight.
Eyes like polished jade.
She offered a polite, almost imperceptible nod.
Her expression calm and collected.
A stark contrast to the whirlwind of emotions I felt churning within.
Her robes were a simple, flowing white.
Embroidered with delicate silver patterns that seemed to catch the light.
In her hand, she held a staff.
Carved from a pale, luminous wood.
Its tip crowned with a crystal.
"You have a nervous tremor in your hand, contestant," Elara observed.
Her voice was a soft murmur that carried easily across the quiet stage.
"Are you quite certain you are ready for this?"
I met her gaze.
The words were unspoken but understood.
Are you ready for what you might unleash?
"I've been ready for this my entire life," I replied.
My voice was steady.
Betraying none of the lightning that now danced beneath my skin.
As I spoke, I drew a dagger from my waist.
It was simple, unadorned steel.
Not a ceremonial weapon.
A working tool.
Elara's calm facade wavered for the first time.
Her eyes, those polished jade, widened with a mix of surprise and disdain.
"A dagger?" she scoffed. "You intend to face the power of Terra with a piece of steel?"
"Then let us see how well that readiness serves you," Elara responded.
Her jade eyes narrowed slightly as she gripped her staff tighter.
A faint, emerald glow began to pulse from the crystal atop it.
Casting an eerie light on her determined face.
The hum of her aetheric power was a gentle, steady stream.
Unlike the tempestuous storm brewing within me.
A storm I was only just beginning to understand.
The world is a vast playground, and I am its master.
The stage was set.
The crowd a hushed, expectant sea.
Elara's calm facade was a stark contrast to the burgeoning storm inside me.
The emerald light from her staff pulsed, a silent challenge.
"Such confidence," Elara murmured.
A hint of a smile playing on her lips.
"Let's see if your actions match your words, then."
She raised her staff, the emerald light intensifying.
A bolt of pure energy shot towards me.
I sidestepped.
The blast scorching the stone where I'd stood a moment before.
"You're fast," Elara commented.
Her voice devoid of surprise.
She began to circle me.
Her staff tracing patterns of light in the air.
"And you're predictable," I retorted.
My dagger, an extension of my arm, began to glow with a dual-colored luminescence.
Elara's smile widened.
"We'll see about that."
She lunged, her staff a blur of motion.
I met her attack with my dagger, the steel ringing against her luminous wood.
The force of my dagger, powered by a fraction of my true strength, sent a shockwave of raw energy through Elara's staff.
It was a deliberate, controlled tremor.
A gentle tap meant to measure, not to break.
Yet, the impact was enough to send a visible ripple of green light up the luminous wood.
For a fleeting instant, the emerald crystal dimmed.
An Adept-rank knows his own strength. A true master knows when to hide it.
Grandfather's voice echoed in my mind.
He had spent years hammering that truth into me.
I was an Adept, a rare class of warrior who could command Ignis, the element of fire, with a thought.
My true power was a raging inferno.
A sun waiting to be unleashed.
But here, with thousands of eyes upon me, I was a flickering candle.
Unwanted attention was a dangerous thing.
Elara, a Channeler of Terra, the element of earth, regained her footing.
A flicker of genuine annoyance crossing her face.
She was fighting against a ghost.
"What was that?" she demanded.
Her voice a sharp, cutting edge.
"You have no rank, no power to speak of, yet you stand against me with a knife?"
I simply met her gaze.
I was watching her.
Truly watching.
She was preparing a new move.
A Channeler's greatest strength was their connection to the world.
To bend the very rock and soil to their will.
She raised her staff.
The emerald crystal began to glow.
The stone stage beneath us began to rumble.
Cracks appeared.
The air filled with the scent of damp earth and crushed minerals.
"Let's see if you can cut through this," she sneered.
She was so focused on the power she was gathering.
She didn't see the tiny smile that touched my lips.
She was a Channeler.
She was connected to the earth.
She was predictable.
With a powerful shout, she slammed her staff into the ground.
A pillar of stone, jagged and sharp, erupted from the stage.
Hurtling towards me.
It was a fierce attack.
But I was Kael.
My dagger flashed.
A blur of motion.
I met the oncoming stone with a precise, controlled stroke.
The blade didn't cut through it.
It deflected the pillar, splitting it just enough to send it careening into the far wall of the stadium.
The crowd gasped.
Elara's eyes narrowed.
How had I done that?
She launched another pillar, this one from a different angle.
My dagger, a shimmering extension of my arm, met it with a twist.
The stone broke into dust.
She tried a third, a fourth, a fifth.
Her movements becoming more frantic.
Her Terra magic less controlled.
She was losing her composure.
She was struggling.
The stage was a ruin now.
A field of broken stone pillars and gaping fissures.
Elara stood panting in the center of it all.
Her hair matted with sweat.
Her robes streaked with dust.
Her emerald staff was a beacon of furious, untamed power.
But it was all for naught.
"You're just dodging," she spat.
Her voice laced with venom.
"You have no power of your own."
"You're using brute force," I replied.
My voice calm, almost bored.
"You're so focused on the big picture, you've forgotten the small things."
"The wind. The heat. The things that can't be controlled by Terra."
Her eyes widened in understanding.
But it was too late.
I was no longer just observing.
I was moving to action.
The storm of Ignis within me, the inferno I had been suppressing, roared to a soft, controlled whisper.
I raised my dagger.
A single, small spark of fire danced on its tip.
No bigger than a firefly.
Elara, exhausted and out of ideas, simply stared at it.
Her emerald staff held uselessly at her side.
She couldn't comprehend a power so refined.
I didn't lunge.
I didn't strike.
I simply let the mote go.
It drifted towards her.
A lazy, unthreatening thing.
Then my body shimmered.
A flicker of heat.
A ghost of a movement.
I was gone.
And then I was there.
Behind her.
My dagger, its point now a cold, metallic whisper, rested a single inch from her neck.
She froze.
Her eyes, wide with shock, stared at nothing.
A gasp escaped her lips.
Her power, her connection to Terra, was gone.
The emerald light that had filled the air winked out of existence.
Her staff, now a useless piece of pale wood, fell from her hand and clattered to the stone.
She stood on a ruined stage.
A Channeler without her channel.
Her power now nothing more than a memory.
I stood over her, my hands now empty of any light.
My face a calm mask.
The crowd was silent.
A quiet that stretched on.
Then the roar came.
A thunderous wave of sound that shook the very foundations of the stadium.
They were celebrating my victory.
But I saw only the broken pieces of Elara's crystal.
The look of bewilderment and defeat on her face.
My victory felt hollow.
Like an empty promise.
The judge's voice, a booming crescendo of noise, finally broke through the static in my mind.
"Contestant 047 is the victor!"
I raised a hand in a small, tired gesture.
The crowd roared.
I turned to leave.
But a hand on my shoulder stopped me.
It was Elara.
Her face, though pale, had regained its composure.
Her jade eyes, though weary, held a new, quiet respect.
"That was a good match," she said, her voice soft but steady.
I met her gaze.
"Thank you. You also fought very well."
She gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.
Then she was gone.
Walking away from the ruined stage with a quiet dignity.
I turned away from her.
From the crowd.
From the cheers.
I found a quiet corner in the stands, away from the noise and the prying eyes, and simply watched the next match begin.