Crystal: The Tyranny of Demolus

Lazuli's test

“Your point is logical. But I will need to test your skills to see if your chance of winning is 0.05% or 0.0001%. At the end of the day, there is still the small money we have to spend on behalf of you for the ticket,” said Lazuli.

“Not that again. You are heavily underestimating me. Are the enemies really that strong?” asked Zohaifa

“No. In fact, the problem is that there might be none in the tournament who can compete with me. So, the insignificant amount of increase in luck may as well not be worth the money from the ticket. Now, are you ready to take the test?” asked Lazuli.

“The hell I am!” exclaimed Zohaifa. He then thought to himself, “I will prove to her that she is underestimating me.”

Zohaifa was taken outside to be tested by the arrogant government in the garden-like field she addressed as her backyard.

“So, show me what you think might help you win this tournament,” ordered Lazuli.

Zohaifa warmed up first with confidence intending to crush that arrogance of her.

“Are you ready?” asked Zohaifa.

“Show me already!” exclaimed Lazuli. Lapis and Marium both wished well for Zohaifa on the sidelines.

It started.

Zohaifa proceeded with ‘Lightning Velocity,’ the move he learned taking ideas from Marium. He began revolving fast around Lazuli. Zohaifa ran keeping his two hands swinging on both sides and simultaneously shot lightning from his fingers behind him.

“That’s like my ‘light velocity!’ He did train lightning after all… despite the anomaly in his heart!” exclaimed Marium.

“Seems nothing special. All you are doing is running and wasting energy,” noted Lazuli.

Suddenly Zohaifa stopped and changed direction towards Lazuli. When he came close, he tried landing a punch, but Lazuli easily caught it.

“Your movements are too telegraphic. You can’t even change angles while using that move. Your ‘Lightning Velocity ‘ seems to have a lot of weaknesses,” further noted Lazuli annoying Zohaifa a bit. Marium became more nervous than Zohaifa should be.

“What the hell does telegraphic mean?” asked Zohaifa trying to divert Lazuli’s attention from the fact that he was gathering lightning into the palm of the other hand.

“A telegraphic punch denotes to the punch before which you give physical indications,” she answered like a living encyclopedia.

‘Lightning ball,’ another move Zohaifa created, was attacked.

“Whoa! He trained secretly more than I thought! I don’t get it, why would he train lightning when he fears its side effect,” Marium thought.

But at the same time, what Zohaifa did not notice was that Lazuli was using her other hand to create a glowing yellow energy ball which she used to repel Zohaifa’s ‘Lightning Ball.’ A short blast took place. Zohaifa and Lazuli swiftly hopped backward from the blast to avoid probable impact.

“You waste too much energy in every move. That is why I could tell you were creating the ‘lightning ball.’ But you couldn’t even sense me creating the ‘Yellow ball’ of the same energy,” Lazuli criticized.

Zohaifa became furious and started shooting ‘Lightning shooter’. Lazuli dodged each of them.

“Again, too telegraphic.”

Zohaifa couldn’t think right anymore. The condition seemed grim for Zohaifa.

“Keep some hope in him,” Lapis consoled Marium in this impossible-to-win situation. That is when Zohaifa lost consciousness.

Later, Zohaifa woke up.

“What happened?” he thought.

He discovered himself lying on a sofa at Lazuli’s house. The light of the room was off, probably to give him rest. He went out of the darkroom with drowsy steps and found a servant passing by.

“Where are Lazuli and the others?” asked Zohaifa in a tired voice. Thus he was given directions by the servant.

Thus, he walked there, almost drooping. He knocked at the room where he was directed as soon as he reached there.

“Come in,” said Lazuli. She is working on a desktop with glasses on. This seems to be a working place. There are documents on different bookshelves. There are two sofas on one side of the room. But it doesn’t seem like it was used much.

“Where are Lapis and Marium?” asked Zohaifa in a drained voice.

“Lapis went back to his home. Marium is warming up in the backyard. I will be going there to train her in a few moments,” Lazuli answered while still working on the desktop.

“Lapis went back! I didn’t even tell him if I want to go with him or stay here.”

“If you leave with him, how else would I train you?”

“What! You mean to say I passed! But according to you, I was using inefficient moves. Furthermore, I even lost my containment and almost attempted the explosive move, ‘Lightning burst.’”

“Yes, I remember all of that. That is when I knocked you out. You could have hurt Marium.”

“But then why did you accept me?”

“Yes, indeed, all the moves you showed me were inefficient, yet you showed me a lot of potentials. You proved to me that if I train you for just a few months, you can improve very fast. Faster than any of my students, I hope. You only need slight adjustments to your moves. The logical approach would be to accept you as my student.”

“Really!” Zohaifa asked, losing all his exhaustion.

“Don’t get excited. Now your chance of winning is 0.05%. After the training, your chance of winning will be 1%”

“Eh? What kind of improvement is that?”

“If you calculate, that’s 20 times improvement. Now get ready to train!” said Lazuli.

By then all the tiredness of Zohaifa was replaced by excitement. He ran towards the backyard with sparkly eyes.

A few minutes later, Lazuli joined them in the backyard.

“Now, don’t get too excited. The logical approach to training is to start with planning. And I plan to pass on to you a move called ‘Yellow Splash!’ Let me show it to you first,” said lazuli.

Then, she stood facing backyards, keeping Zohaifa and Marium behind her to avert danger while both of them tried to observe it with maximum concentration.

“I will use a minuscule amount of energy to show you the move since I don’t want to destroy the backyard,” she said.

Thus she created a brightly glowing ball between her hands. She then clasped the ball in between her palm and when she opened it yellow-glowing water splashed out immediately penetrating the ground, creating holes on it alongside mild steam which implied its hot nature.