1 Unmatched Ambition

A crackling red whip descended onto Acteon and wrapped around his neck. A hissing sound insured as the flaming whip ate away at his skin. Acteon let out a horrendous moan, and the stench of burnt flesh sipped into the air. The whip was pulled and Actaeon was yanked through the dirt and brought on his knees.

"Beg, slave" The owner of the whip said with a smug smirk. The crowd of apprentices cheered in pleasure. They all liked seeing someone weaker than them suffer. It made the forget their own faults and weaknesses.

The apprentice who was attacking Acteon was Alex. An advanced mage apprentice of the Blazing tower. He was the also the head apprentice of the mage's tower and oversaw all the apprentices except the peso-mages. To get on his bad side was certainly a death wish, but Acteon was no coward.

"No" Acteon said adamantly.

Alex smirk twisted into a frown and he tightened his hand on the whip. The flames dug deeper into Actions flesh and he hurled out in pain.

"Ok then, I will carve out that evil mark from your head then." Alex laughed maniacally as he took a curved dagger out.

Acteon quickly covered the sacred mark that inhabited the space between his eyebrows. It was the mark of nature. The plane had selected him as a participant to become the next Lord of the Wilderness. In the next couple of years the nature mage's holy land, the sacred groves will open and a bloodbath will ensue. The final survivor will become the victor and win everything. But most of the mage factions across the plane were against the ascension of the nature mages. Even the elemental mages, their ancestral allies were doing there best to suppress them.

"Stop, immediately before you doom us all!" a voluptuous woman screeched.

'Mage Lianna" They gasped, next to the head mage she was the second in command at the Blazing tower. Normally these apprentices would never see a person of her status so close to them. She appeared like a goddess amongst the mortals.

"You are foolish to attack him! I don't like the brat either but the high mage council requested us to keep watch over him. He is a participant of the nature trials! The plane will has blessed him to take part of it and who ever tries to stop any participant will receive terrifying consequences." Mage Lianna yelled

"But he is a nature mage! They waged war against the world and almost destroyed us all. That is why they were removed from the elemental council and their survivors fled the plane" Alex groaned.

"Shut your mouth, the plane still will's for their to be a new Lord of the Wilderness. It is not your place to question such things, apprentice." Mage Lianna hissed

Alex felt a surge of blood rush to his face and he quickly spoke in flame tongue. As the magical flame whip dispersed Acteon rapidly gasped for air and clutched his charred neck.

"Now, all of you leave here at once. The Blazing tower is participating in a mass mission handout " The great mage commanded.

Acteon got up and swiftly ran to his dorm. He barged into his room and raided the cabinets for supplies. He finally found his medical supplies and started to treat himself. 'They will all die a gruesome death, I swear it!' Acteon thought to himself.

Ever since he arrived to the blazing tower three years ago he was abused by the hands of apprentices and mages alike. His body displayed numerous black scars from all of the fire magics he had endured. Even though they were fellow elemental mages they hated Acteon to their core's.

To them he represents the centuries old feud that had almost destroyed the plane. They even deny him basic human rights such as access to clean food and fresh water. But the grievance Acteon truly cared about was their denial to teach him magic. He watched on enviously as the fire mage apprentices learned Valerian, the universal mage language for magic and conversation. Only a select few like Alex were talented enough or could afford to learn flame tongue. It was the language geared for commanding the flames.

Acteon even suspected they placed him in the blazing tower to suppress his progress. The fire elemental energies directly clashed with the nature element. The place was almost devoid with nature energies. Absorbing the energies here would do Acteon more harm than good. He had to intake neutralizing potions to counteract the fire energies he accidently absorbed during meditation.

Still Acteon didn't give up hope, he scourged the Blazing towers library for nature magic tomes. Unsurprisingly their collection mostly comprised of fire tomes and only the most basic nature tomes could be found.

Thus after three years the only magic Acteon learned was Nature's sense which was a passive ability. "User is given heightened senses in forests (including jungles, taiga, rainforests, woodlands, etc.) or places that is high in nature elemental energies." Normally he shouldn't have been able to accomplish anything given his circumstances, but the nature's mark helped him greatly. He was basically blessed by the plane in learning magic and absorbing elemental energy.

Acteon decided to learn nature's sense instead of a basic nature combat magic because he realized he would never succeed with combat magic initially. Him choosing an auxiliary magic made the mages monitoring him more at ease. But his primary reason to choosing it was to find rare nature element items that could aid him in the upcoming nature trails.

He was going to sign up for a mission as an excuse to venture to a place high in nature elements which would improve his situation drastically. Acteon realized there were some prominent nature element individuals and clans in reclusion and some of their apprentices had probably been selected to participate in the trials. These individuals are currently infinity more powerful than him which made Acteon worry.

The Moonlight council, one of the last few nature elemental clans remaining had announced one of their core disciplines a pseudo-mage was selected by the plane will as a participant. Centuries ago they were apart of the Nature elemental coalition until they lost and fragmented to their current council today. Their core discipline was a favorite to win the trials and many watched them in fear.

Acteon finally finished putting ointment on his burns and wrapped them in heavy bandages. The mages finally commanded a mass mission handout which occurred every couple of years. This was finally his chance to escape this literal burning hell and use this opportunity to rise.