346 One of a Kind Part 1 of 3 (1/2)

Two days later, Roley and the rest of the highest scoring students accompanied the teachers of their academy to Elementi's capital. Once there, they would have to take part in the competition that would ultimately grant them a spot amongst the elite members of the faction. However, that was not the only goal of this competition. The secondary objective was to garner the attention of the leaders of the elemental faction, a group that was composed of the oldest human cultivators, as well as the oldest elementals.. Also known as the Lords of Mana.

This competition was known as the picking of mana's inheritors, and was an event held every five years with the purpose of selecting the cultivators that showed the most passion and predisposition to become elite members of the Tyrants of Mana.

After two days of tests, the cultivators would be ranked based on their personal score. Their rank would dictate the amount of resources and help they would receive in their future. Once they would reach the appropriate level of power, they would undergo the procedure that would change their bodies into that of a half elemental.

Contrary to what many would believe, these tests were not built to find out which one of the competitors possessed the highest battle prowess, but instead, to understand who possessed the highest affinity to each element.

Of the thousands of participants that would undergo these tests, all of them possessed a perfect comprehension of the essence they had chosen to master.. But even amongst cultivators who had achieved a perfect comprehension of an element, there were some who were able to use their powers much faster, or in more efficient ways than others. After all, those specific abilities were dictated not by cultivation and power, but by intelligence, memory, and affinity.

Roley was standing in a group of thousands of cultivators dressed in robes of various colors, and each of these colors were indicative of the elements that the individual that wore them had trained in.

Amongst these cultivators were a few that were dressed in an identical robes, but instead of being colored, they were white and with colored stripes around their right sleeve. The number of stripes indicated how many elements these students had mastered, and their colors showed which ones.

These white robed cultivators, while more talented than the others, were scorned at by the others, and the reason for that was simple. During the procedure to become an elite member of the tyrants of mana, every cultivator would have to pick a single element to merge. Since that choice could be made at any point during the cultivator's life, most of them would chose to study a single element to begin with, as their comprehension of any other essence, after becoming half humans and half elementals, would ultimately go to waste.

In the eyes of the cultivators with colored robes, theses white-robed cultivators appeared like jacks of all trades, while they were masters of one. Their control over the essences they had mastered was also underestimated, as each of these cultivators in colored robes had spent virtually all of their lives training their control over a single essence, while the white robed cultivators had chosen to split their attention over the mastery of multiple essences.

The more colored stripes one cultivator would have, the more the others would look at them with disdain.

However, the numbers of stripes were never above the three or four. Or at least, that was how it had always been in the past, because during this event, for the first time in history, was a cultivator in white robes with seven stripes that covered his arm from underneath the shoulder, all the way down to his wrist.

This cultivator was, of course, Roley.

He was standing in the middle of a cleared area within the crowd, and was waiting for the event to being. This cleared area was formed by the many cultivators who, instead of bothering to talk to him, ridiculed his lack of foresight.

Not all white-robed cultivators were seen the same way Roley was, after all, having a perfect comprehension of multiple essences did not necessarily mean that one could not possibly be as experienced in both of them as a cultivator who focused on a single one. However, in their eyes, the more essences one had mastered, the lower was the chance that they had put as much attention into the specific essence they had the highest affinity in.

Amongst the crowd, were a very small number of white-robed cultivators with two or three stripes, that were treated with very high respect. Those were the ones that had been proven to be as capable as the others despite having mastered multiple essences, and therefore, were considered to be the true talents of the event.

”Boss! BOSS!!” Shouted a disembodied voice with enthusiasm.

When Roley turned to look at the direction where this voice came from, he noticed a skinny arm being raised high up above the heads of the other cultivators, making the position of the person who was shouting clear.

”I am here, boss!” He added before finally breaking through the circle, and revealing himself as a young man in his mid twenties, and dressed in white clothes with two stripes around his right arm. One of them was brown, while the other was dark green.

”What is the point of shouting, if you are running towards me anyway.” Said Roley with a hint of embarrassment. This young man had pestered him for the past couple of years, and he would have avoided him if he hadn't been the only one from which Roley had been able to receive any news regarding Daniel.

After reaching Roley, the young man calmed himself down, then said, ”It's urgent..”

More than two years had passed since the last time Roley had been able to obtain any piece of information regarding Daniel, and while for the first few months he had waited for any rumor to suddenly pop out.. That never happened.

Two years weren't long for a cultivator, so Roley decided not to assume the worst, and instead, he waited patiently until the day he would hear about another one of Daniel's crazy adventures. At the same time, he was moving towards his own goal, which was to obtain a way to teleport himself around the universe, and find the other members of the group.

Now that the word ”urgent” had come out of this young man's mouth, his first thoughts instinctively went towards Daniel. ”What happened?” He asked through a wisp of sound essence that reached the young man's ears alone.

”The Church of Damnation.. It's gone!” Said the young man out loud, and with shock. Then, after noticing Roley's confused expression, he added, ”You know that my father is one of the people in charge of selling essence spheres to the other factions, right? One of the contracts he was assigned to deal with, was the sale of essence spheres to hell's factions. However, when he arrived to hell's gate a week ago, instead of finding the usual demons, he found a member of the beastmaster faction, who bought everything he sold in bulk.”

”How does that have anything to do with my friend?” Asked Roley after listening carefully to every single word the young man said.