Chương 15: 15 Domain

Ha Ha Ha

Battle cries woke Ben from his thoughts as he found himself at a wide training ground with young men and women going through their training drill. Lord Williams made this place to train the younger generation who were able to nurture elemental seeds, of course there are a few talented ones without seeds. But once the former has an increase in strength the latter would be left behind. Ben from a distance tree found out a duel was going on so he decided to stay and watch.

It was a match between two elemental swordsmen. One had a red light glowing around his forearm. His opponent was covered with a pale blue glow meaning one was fire and the other an ice elemental swordsmen.

"Dragon Slash!" The fire elemental swordsman shouted as he gave a front slash followed by a back slash making a perfect X mark that flew across the arena towards his opponent. It was clear this person has just advanced to a first level elemental swordsman

Seeing the giant fiery X coming at him he changed to a defensive position by bringing his arm up then shouted, "Ice Sacred Shield" Maybe because of the helmet or exhaustion the voice sounded a bit feminine.

"Lucy can you run a status on the two dueling?"

"Sure, please wait... the swordsman with the fire element is 6 feet 3", has a body mass of 67 lb, can lift up to 200kg of weight. He's pretty strong. The swordswoman with ice element is..."

"Whoa wait, you said swordswoman not swordsman. She's a girl?" Ben asked immediately he heard the description.

"Yes, she is, 5 feet 8" in height and can lift up to 100kg of weight. In other words she's a strong woman, you should go for her Ben."

"What!? since when did you learn how to make side comments? Ah whatever I brought this upon myself." Nevertheless Ben was still astounded by the result. The strength of the weaker sex and difference in elemental seed should put the fire elemental swordsman on top, the duel however says otherwise.

It's like this, you can not compare the Earth Shield of an earth elemental swordsman with an ice elemental swordsman's Ice Sacred Shield to give the same defense, as the earth element in a whole is meant for defense. It is rumored that once an entrance level earth elemental swordsman withstood the attack of two first level elemental swordsmen with one of them already close to becoming a second level elemental swordsman, yet only after draining his entire energy could he have made both men retreat in defeat.

"It seems to be a domain of the ice element." Lucy's voice came in.

"Domain?" Ben looked thoughtfully at the dueling ground, that was when he noticed the ground having a thin layer of frost raising steadily as time continued. And if he wasn't wrong since he could vaguely see the red and blue dust particles in the air (fire and ice element). He could see that the domain is preventing the red dust particles from gathering in the air above the dueling ground. There was only one person who has such ability in the entire mansion and is the only one also amongst the younger generation found with such talent. "Could it be...?"Ben dared not conclude on anything even though the person in mind lives around the mansion he had almost no memory of her but have heard of her. Around the mansion Ben was indeed a shy person who always stay under the shadow of his father. The previous Ben that is.

Leaving the tree Ben walked closer to the crowd that was around the dueling ground.

"Oh man, Flint's just going to get hurt again. Now look, snow has already started to gather." A boy around the same age as Ben exclaimed as though expecting it.

"Come on man, he's already a first level elemental swordsman, I think he should still have a chance." Proclaim another youth. Looks like he is a friend of this Flint guy.

"Who's the opponent Flint is fighting?" A voice suddenly asked from behind the two.

"Are you kidding me?! It's Mia, who doesn't know that... ooh he's definitely a goner. Yeah, who was asking such a du... You!" The first youth said annoyingly before turning to see who asked such a stupid question, only to turn and see that it was Ben.

He was surprised but it was quickly replaced with a bit of anger and disdain. Surprised because no one would have expected Ben to come back to the training ground of the Williams mansion. Anger and disdain because he and Ben had once had a friendly spar like the one that was happening now which had him landing a few strikes on Ben's body and head with a wooden sword for practice, yet the young brat cried home, this brought the attention of Old Williams who stormed into the training ground and scolded the young boy till he piss himself. So, since then onwards no one like Ben who cried to his father at every moment he gets hurt. Ben understood Cain's feelings, he couldn't help but give a wary smile.

"What brings you here spoilt brat?" the older guy called Gutt asked. Obviously he too didn't like Ben. Ben didn't mind his words, besides that 'Ben' is no longer here.

There was no need to engage with them so Ben decided to step back. Before long the duel was over with a half shocking result. Mia won. Ben saw that ice and snow has increased a lot, making it harder to move freely. Plus, imagine staying there to be frozen into a popsicle, your blood vessels slowly getting frozen by the low temperature. Ben knew she won not because she was stronger on the contrary her opponent has two times her strength, she won with a prolonged fight. Freezing the flow of blood and the bones of her opponent slowly.

Once the winner was announced everyone slowly dispersed, a few guys brought Flint away, because now, he could hardly move properly while only one girl came to help Mia out. Ben was surprised but didn't mind.

"You did great." Ben stood behind the two saying.

Turning around to see who have come to get their own share of beating they were shocked to see it was Ben. Mia was really good at not showing any expression, even not being in a good condition after the fight she wasn't crying in pain. "Thanks." were the only words said before she turned and left.

"See you later?" Ben asked.

"Can't tell." Mia said without turning back.

Ben for now choose to return to training as a swordsman. He would have some problems with his schedule, at most he'll only get a lot more tired at the end of the day. When the training instructor announced Ben's return the other students weren't happy about it.

The following days for Ben was like a broken record. Gather some fire Starfields, get breakfast, brew some relatively simple potions Lucy provided from her records, he sent a servant of his to buy the stock from the shop he visited last time. From there he'll go to the training ground like every other youth. But unlike other youth he had to be privately taught since no one wanted to be around him. After coming back home he'd grab his dinner then back to gathering his Starfield. Ben assigned one of his trusted bodyguards to stay with Anna 24/7. He is also the one to receive Anna's drugs from the doctors.

At first when the doctor saw the new development he thought he was exposed, the guard said "the Lord has been informed by the servant attending to the miss that she smuggles away her drugs by hiding them in her clothes, therefore I have been assigned to spoonfeed the miss her drugs. You are only allowed to do every other check up."

Ben also changed the cook cooking Anna's food with a new one. This way he gave the new cook the consumable lotion to apply in Anna's food while cooking. No one else was allowed to bring in Anna's food except this servant. The drugs the guard collected? well they could only say it was used to decorate the 'chamber pot'.

One week had passed and now it was a weekend. This was the only time the youths could have time for themselves. Ben found some positive changes in Anna's body. More than half of her broken bones had grown back and her pain was completely gone. The doctor himself was quite shocked by the development, but to him it wasn't a good sign. When both Ben and the doctor saw they silently stared at each other for some time, as the doctor stared with a frown, Ben smiled. Spending some time with Anna he bade her farewell.

And as for Ben's fire Starfields he had completed about 80% of it into its flame Halo. Although Ben hadn't strengthened his mind power, he went ahead to look for the material needed to strengthen Anna's. Once her body condition becomes better she would have to start her training, as for him he would have to wait.

***

The next week

Ben had stayed in the training facility for over a week and discovered that this could be considered a school, although not a standard one. They do teach general knowledge about demon creature, their strength and weakness. Yes, even though the nation is protected there at still some demon creature that manages to cross the safe zone barrier but the citizen do not know they are still in constant danger and only the higher ups do, so to continue sleeping the people to live happy lives without fear of knowing that demon creatures could take their lives at any moment the higher ups created what is called hunters, where all types of occupations such as fighters, swordsmen, elemental swordsmen, even wizards and many more work together to form a team called Hunters. These Hunters can go ahead to name themselves, where in truth 80% of different types of hunter squads are owned by the government, as for the remaining 20% they are all private organization. The downside of these private organizations is that they are highly expensive.

"Gather up everybody! gather up!" A middle aged man at the front who is there main instructor shouted to get their attention, which he did. "In the next two weeks we are going out of the city's safe zone to put the knowledge and skill you've learnt to the test. Everyone of you will be put in a group that we will organise. This test will last for two weeks, you are going to fend for yourself for the whole time. So I advice you to prepare yourselves." when these words left the instructors mouth there was an uproar from the youth.

"Two weeks!? we would be dead by then and the only thing that will the remains of us will be our bones!"

"Bones? try incomplete corpse."

The youths below were in a frenzy about the news.

"Settle down! settle down! Yes, this is a two week program and there will be many difficulties, that is how things are. We might be able to help but since we too are in danger we are not able to aid you at all times. If I must be crude some of you might even die." After hearing they'll be fine their hearts that was already on their neck went back down but the last words almost made them puke blood.

"What's the difference?"

"Oh dear, we are all gonna die!"

Another uproar came. As that was all there was to know they where dismissed.