I guess it's your lucky day.

The next morning, I awoke at my usual time. I dressed in my practice clothes, but today I decided to throw a cloak on top of them.

The mating season had just begun, so High Lord Volanti could still easily replace me as a participant if I acted out. My uncle may have said he'd disown me if I came home unmated, but I doubted he'd actually do it if I didn't do something heinous. His greed and his pride wouldn't allow him to give up on the estate.

Therefore, I had to pretend to be an obedient female for at least a little while longer.

I left my rooms heading for the stables. I was going to try to find a suitable location for my training and thought there might be such a place in the King's Wood.

However, the castle seemed different in the low light than it had before. The walls and floor appeared darker and my footsteps sounded muffled.

I followed the unfamiliar halls trying to find my way outside, but I ended up going in what felt like circles. Finally, I paused at a fork in the hallway. I knew I was lost. Turning around, I jumped.

I was standing at the top of a dark, winding staircase heading down. A thick layer of dust coated the floor. I had just come from a straight hallway, not a stairwell.

Sighing, I turned around again and blindly went left. After two minutes, I found myself at the top of another staircase heading down into darkness.

Looking at the floor, I saw a pair of footprints in the dust. They were mine from the last time I faced this staircase.

Even though I guessed it was futile, I retraced my steps and tried find my way back to my rooms. Within a minute my feet were making a third set of footprints in the dust on the stairs.

Sighing, I headed down the stairs as a nagging uneasiness settled into my chest. Obviously, I was somewhere that I shouldn't be.

I remembered my mother telling me that the Dragon King's palaces had been built on places of magical power. That they used stones from existing ruins in those places to construct the palaces.

Judging from the puffs of dust rising from my steps and the numerous cracks on the walls, I had found my way to these ruins.

As I followed the stairs downward, I began to notice the temperature gradually becoming warmer. The deeper I went, the hotter it became until my body was soaked with sweat. Just when I thought I'd pass out from the heat, my foot hit flat ground.

I stumbled. I had gotten used to stepping down. I'd had to have spent at least a half hour going down those stairs.

Now, instead of the endless turning stair, I faced a hallway that was filled with some sort of white shifting fog. I swallowed as the uneasy feeling in my chest grew. My ears caught the sounds of clicking and skittering as if numerous large insects were scuttling around in that hallway.

I shivered. In general, I was fine with insects, but the idea of running into a large one or even a hoard of them, when I was nearly blind, filled my chest with coldness.

I had no choice though. After I took a few steps down the stairs, I'd tried going back up. After a minute, the landing that I had come from did not reappear. I didn't know for certain but I guessed that if I had continued going up, I'd still be climbing those stairs now. I could only go in the direction that the ruins were pointing me towards and hope that my death was not waiting for me at the end of this.

Blindly pushing my way through the nearly scalding mist, I made my way forward.

At first, I was relieved that the temperature began to drop as I walked forward, but after ten minutes, I was wishing for the heat again. The hallway was freezing. My hand on the wall rested on cold, wet ice. Pulling my cloak tighter around me, I tried to ignore the numbness that settled into my extremities, and continued forward.

Suddenly, I was on my butt. I gently rubbed my sore head as I tried to figure out what I'd hit. It was still so misty that I couldn't see. Gingerly, I stood and reached out with my right hand.

My fingers hit wood. Rubbing them slowly over the wooden surface, I detected indentations. My foggy brain realized that these were engravings.

I began tracing the pattern on the surface. It appeared to be a spiral. I traced the spiral inward and my hand felt freezing metal. A door handle!

The moment my fingers touched the handle, a wave of skittering sounds and clacking erupted behind me, growing louder with every second.

I had no choice. I turned the handle and raced into the room.

It took all of my efforts to shut the door against the heavy battering from the other side, but I managed it.

Leaning my forehead against the door, I took a deep, gulping breath. That was close. I didn't even want to think about the dark, massive shapes I'd seen as I shut the door.

I stayed like that for several minutes.

Slowly, I became aware that my hands and toes, rather than feeling like ice chips, hurt. It was then that I realized this room was pleasantly warm, not noon in the tropics hot but a balmy May sort of warm.

I sighed in relief and began massaging my hands to increase my blood flow again.

Sitting down I looked at my feet in my boots. Then I blinked. I could see my feet and the room.

The room was made of the same cracked and crumbly gray stone that lined the stairs. Floating two feet above the floor in the center of the room was a large black crystal. I boggled at it. That crystal had to be at least as tall as me and three feet in diameter. How in the world was it floating like that?

I walked forward and looked at it more closely.

The crystal wasn't entirely black. Deep, rich colors swirled inside it. There was a flash of purple, then blue, then gold. The way the colors were swirling, it seemed as if the crystal was more of a cloud than a crystal.

Hesitantly, knowing I was doing something I shouldn't be, I reached out and lightly touched the crystal's surface.

I froze as pain ripped through my body. I felt at once like I was burning, freezing, drowning, being flayed alive and my head felt like it was exploding. I knew instinctively if I could pull my finger back, the pain would stop, but I couldn't move. I was a statue.

After a few seconds my vision grew dark but the pain didn't stop. I couldn't help it. I begged for death.

Someone was screaming shrilly.

"Shut up already!" Someone else shouted. This one was a male.

I realized that I was the one screaming. I willed myself to stop, as I tried to remember what happened. Pain stabbed through my skull. I gasped as I remembered the endless agony. My mouth opened to scream again but I stopped myself.

Grimacing, I rolled to my back and stared up at the cracked, ceiling.

A message appeared in front of my eyes.

Welcome to the NOVA System, it said.

I blinked. I hadn't had a system before. My eyes widened and I turned to stare at the now clear shattered shards of the black crystal.

"Oh, so you're finally conscious now." The male voice said with satisfaction. "I was thinking I'd have to kill you to shut you up." I focused my eyes in the direction of the voice. I saw a flaming iris.

"Eep!" I shouted and closed my eyes. When I reopened them, the blue flaming iris was still there but now there were two of them inside the head of a humanoid fire person.

"What- What are you?" I asked timidly.

"Wouldn't the better question be 'are you going to kill me?'" The male asked in a mocking, high pitched voice. He was clearly imitating me.

"No," I retorted, "if I am going to do I am going to die. You telling me that you're going to kill me won't change the outcome. The question I asked is better because if you do kill me, I will know which race to exterminate when I am reborn." I felt a mix of emotions roll off the the creature, annoyance, anger, confusion, and lastly amusement. The last one stuck and the creature laughed.

"How amusing that a half-breed thinks she can exterminate the Spirits of Fire." He chuckled.

My jaw clenched not at what he said but at what he was. Kane and Rhana were Fierous. When they reached their maturity, they would form contracts with Fire Spirits.

"Are you bound to the Essenvir Clan?" I asked coldly.

Another message popped up in front of my eyes. Skill: Chill lvl 1 Activated. I ignored it.

Rage exploded from the Fire Spirit.

"You would imprison me!" He shouted.

I forced myself to my feet.

"I will kill you, if you are bound to House Essenvir." I said icily as the temperature around me dropped farther.

The Fire Spirit turned a bluish-orange as flames erupted from him towards me.

Another message: Activate Skill: Light Shield? Y or N.

"Yes." I said in my mind. A barrier of light winked into existence in front of me and the flames were deflected to my sides.

The Fire Spirit roared and the next second a flaming sword was crashing down on me. I brought my daggers up to meet it.

Boom!

The doors to the room broke open and 3 eight-foot-tall black insects with pincer-like jaws and razor sharp forelegs skittered into the room.

The Fire Spirit jumped back and laughed.

"Survive this then." He sneered.

I grimaced. He was right. The insects were heading for me, not him.

"Activate Skill: Crush lvl 1?" A new message read.

"Yes." I said aloud.

An instant later the insects screamed as their bodies crumpled into the floor leaving craters.

I didn't have anytime to celebrate however, as another wave immediately climbed over their corpses.

I crushed them too.

Over and over, yet more kept coming.

Eventually, I ran out of Earth magic and had to switch attacks. These other attacks were less effective because of the bugs' thick exoskeletons but I couldn't give up. I kept going.

As the message, "Magic depletion: 99%. Magic exhaustion setting in," appeared before my eyes, another wave of insects climbed over the corpse piles. I activated Freeze and they froze on the spot.

I slumped to the ground, unable to stand anymore. I waited for a moment, then let out a breath in relief, as no more skittering noises reached me.

A slow clapping sound came from my right. I turned to look at the Fire Spirit as my eyelids fluttered.

"I guess it's your lucky day." I laughed. "Just-just make it fast." I slurred my last few words as tiredness over came me.