Holcure Academia

The city of Glendorf is a bustling hub for all traveling cultivators. Siewardes (students of the blade), Murdontrials (stutents of the martial arts), Aykceers (students of the range combat arts), Contrures (students of the path of full cultivation) and Reiales (beast tamers) alike all come here either for the grand tournaments that it's known for, or the cultivation materials that it provides, or the excellent environment that is dense with essence, or even the quality of the housing and rest stops that are provided here.

Out of everything though, the main reason anyone would come here is the one and only, Holcure Academia. This prestigious institution has been producing high class cultivators for over 17 centuries! All of the greatest and most prestigious clans, guilds, and families always train their children to there ultimate best so that they don't lose face to the others by not having a generation attend the academia.

Anyone who didn't have the right start in life could only dream of even touching the hem of the school's uniform to call it their own.

In the back waters of Glendorf, far from the eyes of the naive and the ignorant, is a different story from the bright and vibrant city.

In this area, the atmosphere is stale and heavy with the stink of sewage and rotting food. The essence present is far below healthy conditions, and the actual health factor of this area is even lower!

The residence here all suffer heavily. All of the adults are withered practically to the bone, and the children forced to grow up in these conditions are even worse! Those people lucky enough to have a steady flow of income have to work to the marrow to get even a loaf of stale bread into their homes at best!

They have no other choice but to steal from the much better living conditions of the class above them to survive, as well as anyone unlucky enough to walk here for the first time in their lives. Anyone higher would be too risky as they are to weak to effectively steal from them.

From a rundown apartment building situated in one of the better areas of this hell, a cloaked figure emerged and made to step off into the streets.

"Take care dear!" A pale looking, stout woman called out to the figure, waving her hands after her excessively.

"Thanks Mom!" A beautiful and dignified voice called back. With that final send away, the figure turned away and continued walking, feet covered with plastic bags to protect the shoes it wore. As the figure walked, it passed many kids strewn about the street. Their eyes, glazed over with defeat and with no form of hope in them, struck a heavy cord in the figure's heart and it picked up its pace to reach the border between the lowest and the second lowest classes.

The figure couldn't rush yet, as any and all signs of weakness would instantly stir the area into a frenzy, and they take fast moving objects as fleeing pray.

"Stop! Leave us alone! We know people at Holcure Academia and they won't let this slide if you do this!" A young female voice rang loud and clear, obviously trying to sound brave and sure of herself, heck maybe a little cocky too if possible. But none of those were present, and this fact was painfully obvious.

Clearly the person, or persons, the voice's owner was trying to convince saw through their bluff because another, deeper voice started up.

"Hahaha! Do you really think I'm that stupid! No self respecting cultivator would even acknowledge your presence, let alone give you time out of his precious seconds to give you wh*res protection! Now be good little b*tches and come over here and give my pals here a good time!" The voice rang out across the area so that even the little children who were pretty much brain dead woke up and retreated a few steps.

This was a regular occurrence in this place so people wouldn't even blink upon hearing this, let alone actually get up to help the soon to be victims, so the voice's owner didn't need to be worried about being too loud.

With a sigh, the cloaked figure turned around to walk into the closed off alleyway to confront the situation.

"Enough!" The figure said as it crossed a fence and maneuvered around a few mountains of boxes and arrived at a sunlit seen. The area was over-run by trash on both sides except for a small clearing were everything was going down.

"Oh? And who might you be?" The first voice, the leader apparently, asked in a mocking tone as he and four others turned to look at the newcomer.

Taking a deep breath, the figure took a step forward and introduced herself, "Ellisia Dewer, student of the Holcure Academia!"

***

*yawn* *stretch* *crack* *crack*

"Ugh, what time is it?" A disoriented youth mumbled to himself as he shook the sleep out of his bones and sat up in his bed.

"It's 7:15 Turen. Your late." A girls voice whispered to him and he practically jumped out of his skin in surprise.

"Winda! What are you doing here!? You almost scared me half to death!!!" Turen shouted after his big sister in surprise, his heart racing at a mile a minute.

"Relax scaredy cat. It's not like I haven't been here before ya know. Jeez, you're acting like you've seen a ghost!" she responded, clearly enjoying the look of shocking torment on her brother's face.

"Well I wouldn't have been too far off." he mumbled to himself.

"What was that little brother!?" Winda called at him.

"Nothing important!" he quickly said back. Then, suddenly, he registered what his sister just said to him.

"Wait, oh crap I'm late!!!" Turen cried out as he got ready to rush around for his clothes. At that point, he remembered that he was in nothing but his boxer shorts.

"AHHHHH!!! Sis get out of here!!!" he shouted in dismay as he found that his sister was looking at him while he was practically naked.

"Huh? And why would I do that little brother?" She said in a mocking tone. She then saw his flustered face and then continued with a mischievous smile, "Oh, is it that my little runt of a brother is getting conscious of his body? Relax, kid. It's not like I haven't seen what your sporting down there before ya know." She ended of with a giggle.

"Yeah yeah, whatever, just get out of here already!" Turen shouted back from under his sheet, which was where he went the moment he realized his predicament. He couldn't even bare to explain his actions for that would be even more embarrassing.

"Alright fine, ya little drama queen!" Then with a little laugh and shake of her head, she left, much to Turen's relief.

He got up out of bed and started to look for his towel to take a shower.

"Boo!!!"

"AAAHHHHHHH!!!!!" Turen screamed as he jumped back under the covers when his sister burst back through his door.

"Hahaha!!! You're way too innocent, you know that!" Winda squeezed through the fit of laughter she entered from seeing her brother's reaction.

"Just get out already!!!" Turen shouted at her while throwing a pillow at her face.

"Fine fine." she said after expertly catching the pillow and throwing it back. Then she finally left Turen to his own devices.

***

"Alright mom! I'm leaving now!" Turen called out to his mother.

"Did you do all of your chores?" his mother called back.

"Yes mom!" he called back while putting on his shoes.

"And did you clean your room?" she asked back.

"Yes mom." he called back as he was going to open the door.

"And did you wash your hair?"

"Yes mom."

"And did you wash behind your ears?" At this point, Turen was getting impatient. "Mom, relax. I have done everything you could possible think me to do in the house. Now can I go?" Turen asked, becoming frantic. He was late as it is to get to Holcure Academia for the one event that they hold that allows others to walk on the compound and he was being held up!

"Come here for a second sweetie." Turen's mother said gently as she walked up behind him. At this point, Turen gave up on leaving any time soon and turned around to face his mother.

She stepped up to him and straightened out the little kinks and ruffles in his red-fronted, black-backed shirt and his brown, well kept hair. No words were exchanged as Turen allowed his mother to go through his attire as she does every year at this time.

"You should be at that age right now correct?" her voice startled him back from a semi-dazed state but he answered swiftly regardless.

"Yes mom." he responded softly.

"I see." she said in almost a whisper as she finally eased up off of her son and paced her hand on his pale cheek, "My how you have grown."

Turen began to prepare himself for the lecture that follows up with his mother's current mood. "Listen sweetie. Now, I know that I've told you this before....."

"Countless times before actually" he muttered to himself.

His mother didn't hear and just proceeded, "....but remember, even though you have not been able to access, or even sense, your own foundation element, I want you to know that you are still special to me." she said as she reached out to hug him, but hesitated.

Turen decided to help her out and walked into her and rapped his arms around her.

Her figure was pretty much slimmer than his so he could get her completely encompassed and then some.

"Mom, I already told you that doesn't bother me anymore, so stop worrying, okay?" He said in his most reassuring tone.

The age she's talking about is the year when children can finally tap into their element and utilize it through cultivation. That age was fourteen, and he had his fifteenth birthday a month ago.

In truth, he has been trying for days on end to get even a little glimpse of foundation element's essence, but it almost always turned to naught.

The few times he did, it vanished almost instantly. And the one time he tried to dig closer to it, he ran into an aura that left him shivering in fear.

He told his father about it, and his father brought it up with the heads of the town, but they couldn't see anything there so they just dropped it as maybe an effect of not having an essence. Turen didn't think it was that simple, so he checked again to be sure. Though he couldn't sense it after that, he was still wary of it so he decided to leave it alone for now.

"Alright then, I'll stop keeping you. The ceremony only comes once a year so I would hate to be the reason to miss it this year." His mother said as she finally lets him go.

"Sure mom, I'll make sure to bring you a souvenir." Turen called back as he ran off.

***

The annual awakening and graduation ceremony of the Holcure Academia students is by far the largest event in the region, as it signifies the appearance of the next generation of potential experts and the setting off of these experts into the world.

Every year is even more amazing than the last as new ways of teaching, training, and preparing the students appear, and old methods evolve as well, as the years go by.

This means that newer, better, and brighter futures are set out of its walls every year!But this year is even more special than all of the others combined!

This is because, a new program came into light a few years ago that shocked people to the bones in its absurdity. The Holcure Academia actually decided to sponsor one child from a low class family for a full course at the institution!

And what makes it worst was that they struck gold on their first try!

The child that they took under their wing was a genius in all sense of the word!

While everyone had to wait for their 14th birthday to be able to utilize their foundation element, she - yes, a she - was already using hers at the age of 8! And now she's going to graduate the academia at the top of her class at 15 years old while her peers are all 6 years older than her!

With this in mind, nobody wanted to miss the occasion for anything. Especially not Turen. Sadly, he lived deep in the forests behind the slums of Glendorf, which is as far away as possible from Holcure Academia as they could possibly make it, which is roughly about 20 km away. So in order to even get to see the middle part of the ceremony, he has to wake up really early to do so! At this moment, he is in a mad dash to get there.

Now, normally, he would do everything in his power to avoid the slum area - because of the danger level even though he is better off health-wise, he would still get mauled to death by the joint efforts of its population - thus putting a lot more distance between him and the academia. However, this year, he couldn't afford to have that gap their so he took the shortest route there is, straight through the area!

He only made it to about half a block before he had to retreat to the roofs and continue running. Then he only jumped over three roofs before he had to take a rest before the fatigue killed him.

"Alright! *pant* *pant* I'll just rest here for a second." he determined in his mind.

After the blood stopped racing through his ears, he got up to move when suddenly...

"Stop! Leave us alone! We know people at Holcure Academia and they won't let this slide if you do this!"