The Third Star

Chapter 33 – Surprise Us

Third Person’s POV (12 yrs. Old)

From time to time, the rubies would fluctuate with power, a brand new development in the Dragon Clans researches, a magic armor, making the user able to tap in the jewels magic reserves and their element compatibility, in this case, the rubies compatible element would be fire. She didn’t wear any helmet, and on her side, a sword sheathed in a silver scabbard.

As the girl walked towards the entrance of the village, the butler and the scholar followed behind her while the soldiers remained where they were, as she approached Klein whom was dumbfounded but rolled his eyes internally thinking to himself ‘royals’,

She stopped in front of him looking into Klein’s eyes as if signaling something, immediately kneeled and bowed, sending a mental image to all his people including the humans to kneel and bow before the girl, and so they did.

“Hail to Miss Lang Wyvern, first princess of the Dragon Clan.” said Klein, upon hearing the greeting, the girl dragon, named Lang, looked around before her, a smug light in her eyes before looking back at Klein and said.

“Rise.” a cold tone reverberated on the otherwise silent crowd, before everyone deliberately rose to their feet. The scholar at the left side of the princess walked in front and said.

“The royal family has approved of letting the princess train under you, a favor given by the king as he was saved by your disciple, the… human.” as he said the last part, he felt slight contempt, as he could not believe a mere human to save a Dragon King, imagine what would the higher ups think of their highness of this, and as it did so.

Many dragons with high standings on their kingdom disapproved of the King’s decision, the Queen whom had always had a fair standpoint on both sides was torn in between, but finally no one could stop the King from sending his daughter,

As he had said, that it was his final decision, it was this precise though that the scholar held some disgust on the so called human who saved their King.

“May the King live eternally, please do give him my thanks.” Klein said indifferently, looking at the scholar with cold eyes, clearly insulted by the way the scholar spoke of his human disciple.

Although he was quite confused as to who saved the King of the Dragons, he had no prior knowledge about it in fact the news shocked him initially, but covered his shock by feigning indifference.

“That I shall.” the scholar replied before walking back to his position behind the princess.

Before anyone could escort them towards the reception area at the cave of the Continental Snake -where Klein and Ken fought, the area being devastate by their magic, but was cleared up and restored to its former glory, decorated with beautiful lights and ornaments-, the princess shouted…

“WHO AMONG YOU SAVED MY FATHER?!” she looked at the six humans one by one at the left side and the three behind Klein and the other leaders one by one, assessing them.

“YOU! You have quite a strong power, did you save my FATHER?!” she said to Wilbert, who was stunned on his position, cold sweat broke on his forehead, before he snapped out of his stupor before looking around and then at the princess, pointed to himself, in a questioning look.

“Me?” he said.

“Yes you.” Wilbert didn’t know what to say, and suddenly a voice broke out on the tense atmosphere.

“I did it your highness.” the one who spoke was Ken, who had a small smile on his face but sprouting cold gazes, he could not believe that the first time he would encounter dragons, they would insult his friend, he even idolized them so much.

‘This is a bit disappointing.’ He thought.

The princess looked at Ken with a perplexed expression, she thought how could a mere weak human like him save his powerful father, and when she checked out Ken’s power with her magical senses,

She deduced that Ken isn’t as nearly as strong as she is, and so came her thought of humiliating him in front of so many people, in a confident and somewhat prideful voice she said…

“I want to challenge you to a duel.” Everyone around except the dragon and village soldiers were stunned at what her highness just said, some whispered how she could be so barbaric as to challenge a human, while others talked about how Ken would survive such an opponent, others just talked about how pitiful Ken became as he was targeted by the princess.

As they had though that there is a power difference between the two but to one specific person thought that no they were terribly wrong, all was heard by her highness, she swept her eyes around the place including the leaders of the village and confidently added…

“Let’s see how strong you are… human.” A display of arrogance to which Klein didn’t fail to notice, so he said…

“Your highness, please be reasonable, this is the first day of your visit as our guest and you both still haven’t qualified to face one another, with the lacking of information between the two of you after all.” so many thing was on his mind, but what prevailed the most was the safety of his disciple and of his people,

If the both of them decided to go all out due to provoking one another, he can’t even begin to think how much damage the two would be able to dish out during the battle.

As the leader of his village, he is often doing business to better accommodate, and improve the livelihood of his people, who are mix races, compatible and incompatible variables are present on his village,

A certain example are those water and fire beasts that don’t get along due to their incompatible affinities, so he would always take the opportunity of traveling to other places and learn of other beasts lifestyle and try to make adaptations towards the similar lifestyles of his people back at the village, on one such visit, he had visited the Dragon Kingdom, specifically the palace.

He was regarded as one the important figures in the magical beasts world, as so his title says, the Continental Snake, who had made a name during the war of the magical beasts tribe, although it wasn’t him who made the name, it was his grandfather,

But he has made a name for himself, due to his travels, he was called the traveling Continental Snake, you can guess the reason behind the title.

In the palace, he had seen the princess’s power and control over her magic, he can also say the same thing with Ken, which was the reason behind his anxiousness of what the two may do, but before he could completely abolish the thought of fighting Ken in the princess’s mind, Ken spoke…

“I accept your challenge.” Klein was stunned on his position, and hang his mouth internally, while keeping a stoic expression.

While Klein was in over his head, Ken’s thought were of confusion and curiosity, confused as to why would the princess fight him, for to him, it seems kind of pointless, and curiosity, as to what kind of power this new person possessed, and so his curiosity won.

Ken looked at his master with pleading eyes, using his cuteness to the max to help persuade his master.

Klein who thought that he had long been immune to his students acting all cute towards him especially when he makes them do harsh work, oh but not Ken, neither had he complained or grumbled about what Klein had made him do in the past, which were mixes of both harsh and relatively easy tasks.

So it was a REALLY big surprise for him to witness Ken begging for him, everyone knew how excitable and outgoing this child could be, but this, this was just pure t*****e, Ken had asked for the first time using his puppy dog eyes,

But everyone present can’t help but feel dread at what Ken asked for, to the princess, she saw this scene as a type of normal commotion, so she paid it no mind, thinking that Ken would forfeit the match.

“I hereby give permission to my disciple to officially accept your challenge your highness.” she was smug at first, but when she processed what Klein said, she was stunned out of her wits, she was thinking of how stupid this human could be, to accept a challenge from a dragon, the most powerful magical beasts in the planet.

She remained stunned on her place for a while, on the other hand the butler had no other thoughts but to prepare for any unexpected outcome, like the loss of the human child, or possibly a fatal injury to be inflicted to the human child,

The scholar though, thought that the human child was really foolish to accept the challenge of a dragon, especially a royal, but there was an underlying feeling that something was not right, why would the child simply accept the challenge? He would have to watch to find out.

“Please follow me to the training grounds.” Klein said, immediately snapping everyone off of their thoughts and those that were in a trance, the villagers were in a state of pity for Ken, while their guests, the Descendants of the Nine-tailed Fox, and the Guardian Avians all wore a perplexed expression, they were able to witness the power of dragons sometime in the past.

Ken and Princess Lang who was led by Klein together with a huge crowd behind their tail, arriving at the training ground, Klein gestured for the two to proceed at the center while he instructed his fellow leaders to lead everyone who wishes to witness the battle to stay at the sidelines,

Ordering anyone who can use special spatial arrays using space magic to cast a barrier around the training grounds open field, so as to give extra protection to those outside the barrier.

This action didn’t go unnoticed, as Princess Lang felt the fluctuation of magic around her and saw that several magicians -including the parents of Ken- and magical beasts had set up a protection barrier, she thought ‘why was it necessary to bring up a shield? I’m sure I can finish this battle in less than a minute’, to Ken he thought nothing of it.

As Her highness swept her eyes around the training ground, a plain field with trees on the edges, but something caught her eye on her left, -the entrance to the field is on the right-, she saw weird contraptions, and she fairly recognized obstacle courses,

As these were present on their own training grounds, but the other tools, if it was what they were called, gave her a funny feeling. (A.N.: think about gym equipments beside the obstacle courses, but made with wood and stones, I’ll explain this later)

“What are those things? They look really ridiculous.” the insult clearly struck Ken to the heart, but he wore an impassive expression, for even thought the princess had insulted the things he made, he can’t give away that it was him who made them, otherwise he would feel the brunt of the princess’s cockiness. He went on and feigned ignorance.

When the barrier was finally set up, Klein walked back at the two and instructed them to face one another and keep a reasonable distance before the fight begins, he added…

“The rules of this duel are simple, no killing one another, no inflicting fatal injuries, and just show your prowess, as we cannot have both of you dying in on us.” ‘And giving us additional problems’ he thought, he looked at the two, turned around and walked towards the edge of the field, before facing them again and said in a loud voice.

“Begin!”

“Before we both start fighting each other, I just want to say, I hope you don’t lose easily.” said the princess, to which Ken had only smiled, which irritated her.

“Fire magic: Pillar of flames.” The princess summoned pillars of flame two times her height on the ground towards Ken who didn’t bat an eye and just stood still.

After the flame pillar appeared on his feet a relatively larger circle engulfed his surrounding before bursting forth towards the sky, the height was two times the height of the trees,

The villagers including the parents of the three children gasped as they had seen with their own eyes as Ken took the brunt of that spell.

The princess smiled as she thought she had already won, but one person thought otherwise, and in a few moments of the flames rising up, a vortex appeared on the side before it engulfed the flames into a ball of fire, there Ken was, standing unharmed by the fire that engulfed him.

There he was a fire ball on his right hand seemingly twisting and turning, creating tails around its axis, a type of spell he created through his power ‘Concept’, he applied the concept of a black hole, one that sucks all even the light of stars,

But disregarding the circumstance of the black hole dispersing whatever it had sucked in to nowhere, which made him hold on to the flames the princess created, as he was still not familiar with the concept of space magic, he used this as an alternative. He still smiled and said…

“Fire Magic: Stardust Blaze.” with the power of the stolen flames from the princess, he amplified its firepower before tossing high into the air and fell in front of the princess before bursting in a series of flame waves around it, pushing her five meters away from her initial point.

Luckily she had used her hands to shield herself and her legs to steady herself upon landing back, the push wasn’t that strong as it didn’t cause a turmoil, but she deduced that if she had been caught at the center of the blast, she’s sure that she would have sustained damage.

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