Chapter 96 - Karel

The eagle was several hundred meters up in the sky, when all of a sudden, several figures dropped toward the ground. At first they were falling quite quickly, and many people feared that the falling people would become mush when they touched the ground, when a sudden wind started to blow against the incoming figures, and sustained them as they then fell graciously into the ground as soft as a feather.

Both Cynthia and Reno were a bit surprised by this entrance which was a bit flamboyant. They looked at the five people that had landed, all of them dressed in a pure white, with their red sash that made them look quite simple yet dignified. Both were a bit pressured by the middle aged man named Toby, the Magick Emperor, since he seemed to be a part of the environment, and Reno felt that he was looking directly at a mighty storm. However, what surprised him the most, was that this clearly dignified and powerful Magick Emperor was being quite deferential towards the young man in front of him.

This good looking teen had a head full of auburn hair that reached his shoulders. His golden eyes were quite clear and looked like radiant gold nuggets, and his bearing was quite ethereal, almost as if he was not even there. The teen had a gentle smile on his face, and for a single moment, the proud Reno felt somewhat ashamed of his inferiority, yet he quickly vanished the thought, and started to somehow loathe himself for thinking himself inferior to another, and started to convince himself that this was all in his mind, maybe it was a trick made by the other party. That was his only confort.

The teen looked at both his hosts and then said, "Greetings. We apologize for our sudden entrance, we did not know exactly what was the protocol to follow. My name is Karel and I thank you in advance for coming to greet me in this manner. Are you by any chance the scion of one of the Five Great Families of Ansem, from House Morena?".

As Karel's voice sounded, Reno felt somewhat lost and his mind was in trance for a second. Cynthia's eyes constricted for a moment, and her Qi reacted instinctively as the voice did not affect her mind. The Magick Emperor, Toby, coughed a bit and the entranced Reno woke up quickly, which made him a bit embarrassed.

"I apologize for my Young Lord. He did not mean to cause anything, his voice can, simply by talking, awaken and mobilize the Natural Energy of Heaven and Earth, and can muddle the heads of low ranked experts if they are unprepared. It's sufficiente to isolate the sound to just hear the words but be influenced by him, that way no one would be affected. Unfortunately our Young Lord's control is still not sufficient, so he can not control his own voice's influence." explained Toby.

Even though his words and tone were quite nice sounding, it was obvious he was quite proud of this Young Lord of his, and there was even a certain hint of disdain in his voice. It seemed to say that if you were affected simply by the voice of my Young Lord, then on what grounds do you think yourself able to be on par with him.

Actually, it was so. Karel was not a haughty teen, nor was he considered proud, however, it would be a lie to say that he was not extremely confident of his prowess. Since being born his natural talent was unmatched, his Master was extremely powerful, his power unsurpassed among those his level, and he was being lauded as a true favored of EON. He was born with all of the Auxiliary Meridians of his head opened, and it seemed as if he was loved by Mana. His senses towards the Natural Energy of Heaven and Earth were close to unmatched, and so far, as he could remember, there had only been one person among those he had met from his generation in the entire continent that was able to actually withstand his voice from the get-go. That person had left an indelible mark in his heart.

Karel St. Ajora was 13 years old. He seemed to already be a Mana Scholar, and his level was rapidly approaching that of a True Mage. Karel was about to talk once more, when all of a sudden he felt a ripple of power in the air and felt a certain tremor coming from somewhere nearby, inside the Royal Military School. Not only him, the man named Toby, and the other three attendants also felt something, though not as clear as Toby and Karel and looked towards the same place. Cynthia also felt something and looked back, however she did not think much of it. In that direction was the place for the tests being taken, and she never associated that such tremors were actually caused by Nerun when hitting the Drum with his full power.

…

The trembling of the room ceased after a while. Nerun noticed that there were actually some marks in the walls of the room that had lighted up at some point in time. The attack had lit up to four marks, and the fifth had actually started flickering on and off.

When the three examiners saw this, they could not help but be astonished once more. What was this? An attack by a Grandmaster level kid, can actually reach the standards of a Centurion, and is actually close to the level of a General. This is something that was practically unheard of. They were wondering if maybe Lieutenant Cynthia had asked them to amp the difficulties of the test in order to assess the true potential of this young man, and they thought this was actually the case, which made them excited. Maybe they were in front of a true genius.

The tests for the Super Soldier program required in the Might Test for one to be able to exert power above one level for a certain period of time. Nerun needed to do it continually, which he did. Also, his maximum power was quite shocking, though they also quickly noticed some of the weaknesses of the technique used, the point still remained, that Nerun, under certain adequate circumstances was able to actually exert the might of a lesser General.

The next test was a test of speed, agility and reaction and consisted of several parts. They would use their strength all the way to a Praetorian to attack Nerun from multiple angles at very close intervals, close to that of less than a second to see Nerun's defensive capabilities, and resilience under siege, which could be quite common in the battlefield. Afterwards, Nerun would have to fend himself as well, while moving at high speeds and dodging some obstacles. Later he would have to use his maximum speed to attack several points in different parts of the walls and ground.

They thought they had been surprised enough by Nerun, but they were still in for a big shock. If Nerun's offensive could be considered to be outstanding, his defense was on a whole new level altogether. With the Second Form of the Free Flowing Fist, it would be quite hard to catch Nerun unprepared. Every attack, every movement no matter how minimal could be parried by Nerun with minimal wastage in his movements. His dodging speed was also uncanny, even though they noticed that he had not actually trained in any agility technique, and yet his moves were fluid, as if he was carving the flow of a river during his moves.

Nerun gave the name "Unbreakable" to the Second Form of the Free Flowing Fist, and although it was not truly unbreakable, it made a statement of the desire he wished to accomplish in his heart with this technique. He was sure that in due time when he was strong enough, he could very well become a moving impregnable fortress just by using this form.

Nerun's defense wasn't only due to his own strength of course. The reinforcement done by both Qi and Mana made it possible that most attacks had their strength halved by the time they reached Nerun. Joined to the fact that Nerun's slender body had actually been rebuilt from the ground up by Arbak in the past, and his constant training and nurturing by both Energies, his tender-looking muscles were actually hiding a great amount of strength beneath them.

So, even though the Examiners were attacking Nerun with the power of a Praetorian in a rapid fashion, Nerun was able to maintain his defence. His movements were fluid, and it was as if he had eyes in the back of his head. This was actually due to his Ocular Meridians, as well as his natural sensitivity to the movements of energies in the air.

When it came to the reaction to attack different places with accuracy, Nerun started to use <Flash Walk> liberally. After talking to Rafal and sparring constantly with Elijah, Nerun understood that his knowledge and way of using his techniques and spells was wrong. He did not need to go towards maximum offensive damage (unless there was a particular need), but he needed to go for maximum efficiency. He needed to spend the minimum amount of Mana required for the technique, while keeping the moves short, and stopping the technique right after it was used to diminish waste of energies, which was his shortcoming.

Rafal had explained to Nerun that the power of any spell, and martial techniques for that matter, depended on two things, for one, the amount of energy used to perform the skill, and on the other in the way you mobilized the energy through the correct means in order for the spell to work. Nerun decided to put all of his energy into the second part of the technique, and in the last couple of days, he had achieved some minor success, which was a pleasant surprise. Actually, it was not that hard for Nerun to achieve since by modifying the Free Flowing Fist, his body and mind had already become quite attuned to the flow of Energy in both the world, as well as inside his body. That and coupled with his eidetic memory, and enhanced Wisdom when analyzing things, made it so his techniques got a huge upgrade.

The power of his techniques was not still on the same level that a mighty Grandmaster level warrior or Adept could be able to do, but it was still quite close. And do remember, that Nerun's true power came not with the use of these techniques, but by the combination of all of his advantages with the Free Flowing Fist which was able to freely use both energies to attack.

As Nerun was going through the test, the examiners started to raise the difficulty, and their attacks were not only stronger, but the demand on Nerun's speed and reaction ability was already close to that of a Centurion. Nerun, however, had paid no mind to any of this. He had seemed to enter "the zone" as he went into an empty state of mind, and his everything seemed to sublimate as he was able to react instinctively with maximum speed and accuracy to anything that was presented in front of him. He went into an epiphany of sorts.

Nerun's use of Qi was close to the limit of what his body could muster while constantly using <Flash Walk> and without noticing, he used Mana to combine it with Qi to perform the technique. All of a sudden his speed skyrocketed and for a single moment, Nerun had seemed to be in several places at the same time, attacking close to 3 places at the same time.

After doing this Nerun stopped, while panting heavily on the floor. He had gone all out to see what were his true limits, and actually forgot to reserve any energy for the last test. However, this was not important right now, since he had achieved something miraculous. He managed to use both energies in another of his prior techniques and make it evolve into something new, completely his own. Moreover, <Flash Walk> stopped being something of a linear acceleration, but he even managed to combine it with some of the footwork of the Free Flowing Fist, making an amalgamation of both. This meant that in the future Nerun would be able to use a new technique while fighting, a true movement technique that was his own and that went perfectly with his Martial Art. He was truly ecstatic.

The examiners had no idea what to say. This boy kept exceeding their expectations over and over, and they were more than happy to see this young talent from Ansem, and they were even imagining that in the near future the continent would know that another great genius had appeared in the Kingdom of Ansem.

They were about to tell Nerun not to worry about the final test, and to rest for a bit, while they got him some medicine so he could do the last round of examination with his full strength, when all of a sudden the door to the testing ground was opened rudely, and the Vice-Dean of Education, Lieutenant Cynthia entered the room, followed by her brother, the young genius and Core Student from the Military School, Reno, as well as the guests that came from far away.

When Nerun saw them entering, he suddenly had a bad foreboding. However, before anyone could say anything, his eyes locked onto the young, handsome teen, dressed in white, who was surrounded by his four attendants, as if the stars surrounding the moon. When both of them looked into each other, both their eyes seemed to ripple, as the golden halo around Nerun's pupils got even clearer, and Kaleidoscope-like marks started to appear in both his pupils. Karel's golden eyes started to exude a mysterious feeling as what seemed to be runes and symbols as if they were formations appeared in his pupils.

This particular moment was the moment historians in the future marked as the first meeting between Karel St. Ajora, the Lord of the Elements, and Nerun Dai Armandia Dai Mikaeli, the Sword of Judgement.