Chapter Fifteen

The next day Draco began traveling northwest to the capitol of Targoria. Since they had time before the tournament officially reset that year Lienna didn’t try and force Draco to ride on her back so that it would be faster. But she and Galrin stayed outside the whole trip; usually off doing their own thing but they always returned to Draco before he was going to sleep. It was always comforting for him to know that those two were watching over him while he slept, he found much security in the thought and allowed himself to rest easy under the beautiful stars.

After several days Draco finally reached the outskirts of the capitol Targoria, but he didn’t go there straight away. Instead he spent a few days using his magic to craft himself a small home made with wood and stone. It wasn’t beautiful but it was sturdy and would serve his needs perfectly.

He went into the capitol early the next morning, walking swiftly moving through the crowds like a breeze of wind passing through them like they were hardly even there. He found his way to the Arena in a matter of minutes and signed up for as much matches as he could that day; which was 4 since there were so many other competitors eager to get their chance in for the tournament this year.

All of Draco’s fights were set two hours apart and his first one wasn’t for another hour, but he waited outside the Arena all the same until he could go into the competitor’s area.

When his first match came he could here Lienna whisper inside his head as he approached his pillar, “Me or Galrin would be able to destroy the pillar right away you don’t need to waste your time or energy on trying to summon the others.”

Draco got to his pillar and waited for the referee to signal the match start as he responded to Lienna, “No, you two are my most powerful allies it does no good to reveal you so early, especially in this simple sport. I won’t need much to win these matches, I know you hate staying in those cards, but it’s just for the time being.”

As soon as the match started Draco dashed forth with incredible speed startling his opponent as he aimed himself for the opposing pillar. He got to it within a few seconds and blasted it right away with a powerful ball of energy. The pillar cracked but didn’t break so he summoned more energy and hit again. It was almost destroyed but still standing, by now his opponent had gathered himself and attacked Draco.

Draco repelled the attack and his opponent with a gust of wind and then finished the match with one more energy blast. He was a little out of breath but still had plenty of stamina for his other matches. On his way out to collect his rewards he told Lienna, “I will probably need to use other elementals in the arena and coliseums of matches to come, but you guys shouldn’t be required. If you want I can bring you outside the capitol real quick so you can do whatever you please while I compete in the tournament.”

Lienna thought it over a minute then said, “You are sure you will not need us?”

“Yes,” Draco replied right away. “I will have all the other elementals to aid me in this endeavor and the behemoth will be my ace, I will need your help later when the time comes for us to destroy Ragnarock.”

Draco was already outside the arena and going to a restaurant to get some food when Lienna said, “After today if you prove you don’t need our help in these matches me and Galrin will take our leave, but keep ourselves within proper distance of your small house outside the capitol and return at night, sound fair?”

He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Do as you please.” Then he added, “Thanks for keeping watch over me while I rest.”

On his second fight that day Draco summoned only his Juggernaut to test its power. It was strong and could batter away most elementals and clear a path directly to the enemy pillar, but it didn’t have enough strength to destroy the pillar in one shot even while charging; and the moment it stopped to continue attacking the pillar, it became very vulnerable. Juggernauts drew their strength from momentum and he would need for it to clear a path for an attacker and keep the enemies elementals at bay.

He won the fight all the same and the next one he used his aether wyvern that, though more unique, also served him in the same sense the Juggernaut would. In his final fight for that day he summoned his juggernaut and aether wyvern, but kept them around as guards in case his opponents tried blitzing him while he gathered more energy for his next summon.

Instead of blitzing Draco his opponent summoned his own defenses, smaller elementals that could be summoned at a faster manner and he had massed over a dozen of them when Draco sent his Juggernaut and wyvern out to start clearing the way. As soon as his elementals made contact with his opponents Draco summoned his phoenix, and in a trail of flame it shot forward at the pillar, all obstacles cleared from its path. Its fire incinerated the pillar in less than a minute as the juggernaut and wyvern kept all other elementals back from the phoenix.

Draco won the final fight with ease and after claiming his rewards, walked out of the capitol and went straight to his small home. The next day he went to the arena since it was still the weekend, and he got their very early to sign up for as many battles as possible; which was a full slate of nine battles, each 40 minutes apart. There were dark storm clouds above and the arena had no ceiling over it, few did so Draco expected several water magicians to be competing today since this is when they would have the most advantage.

In his first fight he refrained from using his phoenix at all expecting too much water for it to handle so he kept with the juggernaut and wyvern as before and this time with the sun blocked out he summoned his wraith for offense. He went with the same strategy and as he expected his opponent was using water elementals, they were slightly above average but Draco had confidence in his elementals.

Unfortunately that proved to be fatal for them since he didn’t realize their stamina levels as they were still exhausted from the previous day’s fights. They managed to hold back his opponents elementals while his wraith went for the pillar. He had won but his wyvern and juggernaut were destroyed in the process. His wraith had also taken a fair beating so he knew he couldn’t use it until next week since it would need a couple days or more to fully recover.

As he was declared the winner his opponent stared him down, she looked like she was about to attack him and Draco made sure to keep his eyes on her carefully incase she did try anything. But to his and everyone else’s surprise she didn’t attack him instead she swiftly summoned a powerful beam of light aimed at his wraith which he had yet to un-summon. The beam tore right through the wraith and it shrieked in pain a moment then disintegrated into wisps of shadow.

It was a cheap trick and not fully illegal, but Draco was still enraged by it, he was about rush after her when the referee acted and jumped between them and gave her a severe penalty warning; if she tried anything like that again she would be banned from the tournament that year. She and the ref argued a little then she stormed off, Draco starred her down as she left gritting his teeth struggling to hold back from attacking her. Finally though when she was out of his sights he managed to calm down enough to collect his rewards and go into his meditative state a little bit before his next match.

He was still fairly mad by his next match but the cold rain pouring down on him helped a little. There was a high amount of hydro energy around and this would be perfect to summon his aqua dragon in since it would be so easy but Draco had another dragon in mind.

Draco watched his opponent as he greedily gathered in hydro energy from the rainfall and started summoning his elementals within minutes of the match start; and powerful ones too. Draco smirked and raised a hand into the air then shot out a bolt of lightning that flashed once and disappeared. The electrical energy however didn’t, it instead multiplied from the water conducting it immensely and Draco was able to gather in a huge some of it. And before his opponent was confident enough to attack Draco summoned his lightning dragon which tore right through his opponents elementals and shattered the pillar in seconds.

He was careful enough to summon the dragon at a fair enough distance from him so he didn’t get zapped by it when it came out in all this rain. The rest of his matches went just like that as the rain continued on. He would shoot out a small bolt of lightning gather the excess energy and summon his lightning dragon with it.

From time to time his opponents would blitz him, but he simply kept them at bay with a streak of lightning that darted around the raindrops paralyzing the oncoming elementals. If his opponents were smart they would use stone or gravity magic or elementals to counter his lightning so they could get an opening on him, but they did not so it was an easy day for Draco.

His weekends in the Arena didn’t prove overly challenging as he went from elemental to elemental as need be for the fights. He kept winning in arena without a loss or loss of an elemental. However when he hit the coliseum in his third match of the day he had gotten a little overconfident and had lost his gold eagle and phoenix. Still he had won the fight and started using his archangel and aqua dragon in a pair until they were too exhausted where he would use his manticore and chimera as a pair.

He also used his lightning dragon when one of the other elementals needed more rest or when he was fighting another water magician. He kept on with these elementals for months until he had amassed more than enough points to compete in the annual tournament this year by fall. He had yet to reveal his behemoth and Lienna and Galrin were still nonexistent to anyone else but him so he still had his aces.

With all his points Draco waited through the months until he could take the boat to Aeon Toris to enter the annual tournament. Lienna insisted they fly there but Draco pointed out he would blend in more perfectly if he took the boat like everyone else and that it wasn’t worth the risk of them getting spotted due to her impatience.

* * * * *

In the last two months Noah fought back to back fights in the capitol arena as much as he could and in the coliseum. His stone of ever life gave him an insurmountable advantage against his competitors as he breezed through the battles and somehow before winters end he managed to get enough points to enter the annual tournament.

When it was time he went down to the docks several miles away from the capitol and boarded the boat to Aeon Toris. But little did Noah know that he would soon find himself challenged like never before at the cross roads of destiny.