Interesting(Ugly) Looking Man

To register for the training camp, Mark and Amelia had to go to a building a few streets away from the teleportation diagram. The building didn't look special, except for the symbol on the door. The symbol was the four elements, earth, fire, wind, and water, in a circle.

The walked through the door and were greeted with a room filled with table. At the front of the room was a counter, and people were lined up in front of it. The people would walk up to the counter and place the crystal ball, one similar to the one Mark saw at Aerock.

The crystal ball at the counter would light up when someone placed their hand on it. Depending on how bright the crystal ball lit up, the man behind the counter would either tell the people to leave, or sit at a table. He wore black and golden robes with the same symbol that was on the door imprinted on the front of his cloak.

After asking around, they learned that what all of the people were doing was the procedure to determine whether or not they could join the training camp. Mark and Amelia lined up after learning what they had to do.

Amelia felt slightly nervous because she didn't know what the crystal ball was testing. If they got into the training camp their power could greatly increase, but if not, it would be harder to increase their strength. Luckily she always had the option of travel by caravan..

The line moved quickly as the procedure took no longer than ten seconds at a time. In just a few minutes Mark and Amelia were at the front of the line. The line never grew shorter, however, because more and more people came as the line moved forward.

Amelia went first. She placed her hand on the crystal ball and waited to see what would happen. The crystal ball started to light up, but it dimmed before the light got brighter. At its peak, the light was still dim.

Mark activated his Light Marking and looked at the crystal ball. When he looked he saw red light instead of the normal white light that was there before. Red light rippled out of the crystal ball and slowly grew in size. At its crescendo the red light covered the entire room, dying it blue. In the very center of the red light there was a sliver of silver.

Mark didn't know what the colors represented, but he wanted to check what the colors would be when other people went up.

"You fail, please leave," the man behind the counter coldy said to Amelia. Her face quickly changed from anxious to sad, and from sad to depressed, before changing into a resolute face. She walked off to the side and whispered to Mark, "It's your turn now."

Mark did as the others did and placed his hand on the ball. His eyes were still using Light Marking as he did this. Blue light started to come out of the crystal ball. The blue light rippled outward before caving into itself and condensing into a much denser looking blue light.

"You fail, please leave," the man said, repeating the same sentence he said to every other person who failed.

Mark didn't see how bright the white light was, and he wants to know what it represents for the test to be based off of it, so he asked the man in a meek voice, "What does the light represent?"

"*sigh* I'll only say this once, so everybody listen up. The light that comes out of this ball represents your talent in training Mana. When the light is bright it means that training in Mana will be easier and more rewarding, while a dim light means that training in Mana will be harder and less effective." The man continued after explaining, "I'm the judge of whether you have enough talent or not. There was no light from the crystal ball when you put your hand on the ball, so it would be nearly impossible for you to train in Mana."

Both Amelia and Mark failed, so they left after the man explained. Amelia was a little sad that she had weak talent, as it meant that getting revenge would be harder.

Mark wasn't sad or depressed, but he was curious. "Pass, how can I have no talent when I haven't had any trouble training Mana up to this point?" Mark asked Pass

[The crystal ball created light from the Mana that it absorbs from people. Normally this would indicate how much Mana a person has, but since training makes your Mana denser and constantly pulls more Mana into your soul, the crystal ball could only force a tiny amount of Mana out of your soul]

"What about the different colors I saw with Light Marking?"

[The colors represent someone's affinity for whatever element the color represents]

They were almost outside the door, before a very (ugly) interesting looking man walked up to Amelia.

"Hey you, the one with red hair. If you come with me I'll bring you with me to the training camp," the interesting looking man said to Amelia with a rather disturbing look on his face.

"No thank you, I already have plans," Amelia said in the kindest tone she could manage. From what she has learned, it's better to not randomly piss people off, even if their ugly in her opinion.

"Humph, with this weak looking brat? Any plans you have don't matter, just come with me to my room for a night, and you can go to the training camp even with your shit talent," the interesting looking man said, his face looking uglier and uglier to Amelia as he spoke.

Amelia ignored him and left in a hurry, before she blew her top and started fighting.

"Hahahaha, you'll regret blowing me off when your too weak to even protect yourself, hahahaha," Amelia clenched her fist, but still managed to hold back.

They left before the ugly man said anything else.

Amelia was very angry as they walked toward the exit of the town. She was angry at herself for always being to weak, and angry at the unfairness of the world. She has always worked hard to get stronger, but no matter how hard she tried, someone was always stronger than her. The people stronger than her didn't even have to work hard. Everyday she would have to see them, and everytime they made fun of her.

She wanted to release her anger on something, so she went outside of the town to find a beast to slay. Not long after leaving she found what she was looking for, a green goo.

"What's that called?" Mark hadn't learned what they were even after having seen them many times.

"It's a slime that's about to be dead," Amelia said with anger still in her tone. Her anger only grew as she remembered her past on the way here.

Large amounts of fire formed a circle the size of a melon in her hand. Mark looked in astonishment. Until now it hadn't dawned on him that she was a fire user. He had managed to talk to a female after such a long time, so he must have been trying to ignore it even after he saw the red light from the crystal ball.

Mark backed away from the fire in Amelia's hand before she threw it at the slime. The fireball flew through the air and landed directly on the slime. It exploded upon contact, leaving bits and pieces of green goo on the ground.

Amelia felt better after that, so she smile at Mark.

"What's wrong?" She asked when she saw the scared and distressed face of Mark.

Mark stayed silent, feeling as though he had been betrayed again, even though it wasn't Amelia's fault. He was going to leave when he saw another fireball heading towards Amelia, so he yelled, "Move!"

Amelia dropped to the ground and looked around to see what Mark was yelling about. When she turned her head to face the sky, the fireball flew past the top of her body and continue forward before exploding.

"Who's there!?" Yelled Amelia.

"Hahahaha, you got lucky there, but it won't happen again. You should've listened to me when I gave you a choice," the ugly looking man from before appeared from behind a tree about twenty meters away from them.

He cast another spell that sent multiple fireballs into the air. After they soared high into the air, they began falling around Amelia and Mark, before exploding on the ground. None of the fireballs hit Amelia or Mark, but they seemed like they were only used as a distraction.

Amelia ran forward, casting her own spell. Her spell created gauntlets of fire from her elbow down. Amelia reached five meters away from the ugly man, when he cast another spell.

The ugly man's spell caused fire to erupt all around him within five meters. Amelia was just outside its range, so she wasn't hurt. She tried sending a fireball at him from outside of the firewall, but it was just absorbed into the fire.

"There's no way you can defeat me, you might as well give up now. This fire wall won't go away as long as I keep supplying it Mana, so you can't touch me. I might forgive you if you spend three night at my place, hahahaha," the man's smile grew even more disgusting.

Amelia was starting to feel despair. She was going to run, but the ugly man cast a second spell. Amelia could see that this spell must be a rank three, because it surrounded them in a twenty meter circle of fire.

"This is my strongest spell, so you can forget about escaping. I don't even have to supply it with Mana," the ugly man's disgusting smile grew bigger as he threw a rank two Mana stone into the twenty meter circle of fire and one into the five meter circle of fire around him.

Amelia now felt like she was sinking even farther into despair. It was one thing to lose a fight and die, as it was a common occurance here, but for females their ends were usually worse than that. Not only that, but she dragged Mark into it as well. She looked to Mark and prepared to apologize to him.

Mark ignored the ugly man's words and sent a ball of water at his five meter circle of fire. The ugly man's face distorted when the waterball put out the fire surrounding him.

'So your aligned to the water element… I owe you one Mark,' thought Amelia. Her despair lessened, as she now had a fighting chance.

"*Clicks tongue* Lucky bastard. Don't think that just because you have a water user with you that you'll be able to beat me!" The ugly man's snarled.

The ugly man launched more fireballs into the air, but this time they fell in the direction of Amelia and Mark.

Mark was ready for the attack, so he finished casting Water Whips before the fireballs started their descent. His control over them was lousy at best, and he only managed to stop some of the descending fireball, but it was enough for Amelia to have time to attack.

She was already in front of the ugly man and sent a punch his way, her fist's covered in fire. Amelia's right fist made contact with the ugly man's gut and sent him thirty centimeters into the air. Before he landed on back on the ground, Amelia sent another punch at his gut, this time with her left fist. In mere moments, one after another, she sent fist after fist onto his body. Right fist to the face, left to the jaw, another right to the face, left then right to the gut, and finally, with all her power, a right fist to the face.

Amelia's last punch sent the man sliding across the ground for several meters. He wasn't dead, thanks to the Mana he used to protect his body, but he still got burned and bruised all over his body. The worst was his face, it was completely black and cracked. Out of the cracks on his face came blood.

The ugly man groaned in anger, "That's it, you can forget about leaving here alive. You've left me with no other choice!" After the ugly man went sliding across the ground, he had slowly backed away while he was talking. He took out a paper with some type of inscription and placed a Mana stone of unknown grade onto it.

Amelia's face paled when she saw that. It was one of the advantages of being rich, you could by inscribed papers. By inscribing a spell onto a paper, someone who was normally to weak to use that spell would be able to at the price of Mana stones. The cost for inscribed papers was astronomical to Amelia, not to mention the cost of a Mana stone to activate one.

The ugly man pointed the paper at Mark because he was the one who ruined his plans. "Have a nice time in the afterlife, bastard!" The ugly man screamed before throwing the paper into the air and running through the fire circle he made.

Mark was already preparing a Water Ball to counter the spell, so he threw the Water Ball at the paper. Amelia calmed down when she saw that. All of her fatigue was about to be released, but what she saw next forced her fatigue back down.

The paper ignited, and from inside of it came a large spinning mass of fired. The Water Ball collided with it but only made it shrink slightly.

Amelia was about fifteen meters away from Mark as she began running toward him. Mark was running as well, but the spinning mass of fire followed him. He stopped and tried to think of how to avoid it. He didn't have that much leisure time, however, as the spinning mass of fire started rapidly descending towards him.

Time slowed for both Amelia and Mark as they saw the spinning mass of fire inclosing on Mark. Mark was thinking of any way he could escape the spinning mas of fire, while Amelia was trying to reach Mark before the fire.

One of them accomplished their goal. When the spinning mass of fire was less than a meter away, Amelia collided with him, sending him hurtling away from where he was standing. The spinning mass of fire didn't change direction this time.

As Amelia was falling to the ground, it collided with her.