Sokokumo

The bushes flew apart as a heated chase blasted through them. The Mammoth Boar, a monster native to the region, thundered through the forest in an attempt to lose its pursuer. With its large, heavy body running was the opposite of its strong suit but running was it's only option now.

A young, pale warrior was close behind the gigantic monster aiming for the kill. It was a rare chance as the Mammoth boar was a A Rank Silver monster. Its hato was worth two gold yaks. Even with his unnaturally strong powers, earning that large of a sum was unheard of for him. White needed this kill to buy the equipment he was required to have in order to enter as a warrior into the Duel Ranked Argumentative Group. When I say group I mean hundreds of thousands of people. The ranks the founders set up turned out to become the continent's social status. Every young child dreamed of becoming a duelist as soon as they heard about it. Once a year, leaders of the DRAG would come to his village to accept new recruits.

There was four ranks: Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum. The ranks were separated further into smaller divisions called classes. Class E was the lowest, while class S was the highest. In between were a total of four classes:D, C, B, and A. Every duelist, after successfully completing the DRAG entry test, receives a crystal bracelet to record their current status and rank that they can improve over time.

White was a class C Silver rank after being a duelist for only five months. Normally an average sixteen year old kid would be an A or B Copper rank by this time. White had achieved S Copper rank and more after only four months. He, unlike others, had a powerful secret. White was part shadow.

The boar snorted loudly after assuming his pursuer had lost him. He was poorly mistaken. White leaped out of the heavy underbrush with his sword aimed at the monster's throat. With one swift strike, White punctured the monster's thick hide under the boar's jaw. The mighty beast quickly crumbled after recieving its fatal blow. White sighed as this chase had gone on many hours. After cutting any valuable monster parts out, he brought his loot back to the town.

Outside the local inn, the arena was in use. Ark, a man as big as a half giant, lounged at his masked opponent. With a mighty swipe of his large, tech battle axe, he was sure he had crippled his foe. All he had achieved was creating an axe-shaped crater and a dust storm. Ark watched as the man in the cloud disappeared. He was sure he had landed a direct hit but the axe indention proved him otherwise. A broad wall of fire emerged from the dust and approached Ark, sealing the fate of the match.

White walked out of forest relatively unharmed. After approaching the inn that he had lived in for nearly two years, he saw its arena was obscured by a small dust storm. This wasn't unusual but it meant a duel was in stage. White recognized the massive form of one of his two best friends fighting in the cloud. He had fought Ark many times and was quite sure Ark would crush the small knife fighter. Ark was accustomed to fighting magic users. He had element resistant armor and high level tech weapons. His magic resistance gave him an advantage over mages and his strength gave him an advantage over most tech fighters. White knew as a fact that Ark was a well rounded warrior and had a particularly high skill in fighting long knife or knife warriors. White specialized in long knives and short swords, and as he spared with Ark often, Ark had much experience in quickly dispatching most warriors using knives. White stood shocked watching his giant friend got engulfed in a wall of bright red flames.