C2 Riding the worm

Métis stands up, blushing suddenly, and Ren after a quick glance at her resumes his seat at my side "if, theoretically, someone close to you was to ask you to burn down a city that had nothing to do with you,what would you do?" That's not a very Ren-like thing to ask, especially since he's always searching for a way to peacefully resolve things "I'd burn the bitch down, who am I killing and why are two things that can come later. You said it yourself, I stand on top of the world, who can stop me and with my beauty, who's going to try?" He grins suddenly "of course I'll charge them, but don't worry my contractor owns a city, it won't kill him to pay a little sum." He pales suddenly and I laugh, leaning against him "if I were to, theoretically of course, burn down a city, I would have something to give him that belongs to someone else, I'm thinking maybe he could help me give it to her in return for me helping him, you know, we scratch each other's backs." He sighs and looks at Métis, I'm not the only one that can hear a lot, though the exact words were veiled, he probably heard that part. "I've chosen my student. let everyone else fight it out, but only one child here is favored by the sun." He nods and we return to the fight, the first trial is just a fight, the second is a test, it isn't hard but if you've been living under a rock you're going to fail, and the third is another fight, only this time they'll be going into the forest and desert, they'll be facing the beasts straight on. The sun is starting to set when the first fight comes to an end, out of the innumerable people the second test has about three thousand people left, while there are another seventeen thousand who have already completed it, they'll be split into almost one hundred groups and sent into the wilderness in batches "have both numbers seventy one and four sent out with my group, I want to see how they'll react to enemies." Ren nods and start filling out the sheets, that's one thing I've always liked about Ren, no matter how much stress it puts on him he always takes care of it himself. He has multiple information agencies scattered through out the land, and along with my school his warriors number over one hundred thousand, those schools and armies are the reason not everyone in the country came here to be my student, most of them already get to see me once or twice a month. Soon there are enough children running around to give me a headache and I round up my group. They'll go with me straight to the inner area of the desert.

"Miss, out of curiosity, could you tell me what this is for? When I got to the city everyone was lining up and some guy told me that he was sick, he gave me his number plate and told me to take over for him." I struggle not to laugh, this is coming from my chosen student, and he doesn't even know what he's being chosen for "the maiden of the rising sun is taking a student, she's testing to pass on her legacy before she attempts the next realm." That's what I've told everyone, even Ren, but it isn't the full truth. The rising sun scripture has two parts,rising sun, and scattered shadow. I am trying to raise a shadow, he, or she, will be my partner for the rest of our lives, I must choose well. That's why I've given three tests, the first is a test of temperament, do you kill your enemies over the smallest slights? Will you let live someone who could come back to bite you later? The boy that I've chosen fought five enemies, he killed one, and the other four got off with light inguries, only he and I know why the fifth guy died. The second test is to know if you can be calm in the face of something unexpected, we released rumors stating that there would be three fighting rounds and then we would be taking them out for a controlled dive into enemy territory, so the written test wasn't in the menu. The third test will tell me if these kids have the will to overcome adversity, and whether they'll protect their comrades or leave them to die. The children converse in hushed tones while the sand worm I caught takes us where I intend to drop them off, and when we finally get there I kick them all off and ride into the distance, even if I were an entire world away it wouldn't take me long to get back to them, I am after all, the rising sun. Watching these kids I can already tell that out of my three hundred kids I don't like at least one hundred of them. Some of them are cowards, which isn't bad in its own, it's good to have a certain amount of fear for your enemies. The others that I don't like have too much brashness, in the grand scheme we'll be living together and likely will fall to our desires, I don't want a being that can't at least take the time to talk to me. It seems my soon to be protege is kind, and an upright person, however he isn't afraid of getting dirty. "Well?" I jump as Ren opens a portal and steps out beside me, the portals still open so he can go through if he needs but apparently he doesn't think they'll need his help. "The kids good, what's his name anyway? Do we even know?" He hands over the script and I look through it "he said that he filled in for a kid." He takes it back and after a second the portal closes again, he then steps through and disappears, after a couple of minutes he comes back "don't know the kid, who is he?" I look over and glare at him until he laughs "I honestly don't know he got here this morning, just in time for applicant number four to get hurt by an enemy before he could join the queue."