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The horn blew once.
Then twice.
Then came the voice of the announcer, magically amplified across the arena with the used of Prana :
"Let the Tora Trial… begin!"
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The crowd roared as the first test was unveiled: a multi-stage gauntlet, designed to eliminate the weak quickly.
Agility. Strength. Focus. Spirit.
Hundreds of hopefuls surged forward.
Among them — Damon Lancaster, barely eight, the youngest by far.
But he moved.
---
"Is this a mistake?" a noble scoffed.
"Is that a child?" someone murmured.
Euphelia leaned forward, hands tight around the edge of her seat.
She had never seen Damon like this — focused, fast, and silent.
Below, Kael pushed through the outer crowd, heart pounding.
"Let me through! My brother's in there!"
Guards held him back.
"You can't interrupt the Trials!"
---
Damon ran low under swinging axes, slid beneath burning poles, then climbed the rope tower — slipping once, then gritting his teeth and pushing harder.
Lina, frighten by how the situation was spiraling out of control , clutched Kael's hand from outside the fence.
"Will he be fine ?" she whispered.
Kael didn't answer.
His heart twisted.
---
By round two, half the candidates had been eliminated.
But Damon remained.
His form was messy, but his resolve was clean.
Each trial pushed harder:
- Lifting stone weights
- Evading illusion traps
- Channeling raw prana through focus rods
Euphelia's mother whispered, "A Luckan child? How… unusual.
Euphelia said nothing — but inside, she was screaming.
---
Then came the combat round.
Ten spots. One-on-one eliminations.
Damon stepped into the ring.
His opponent: a noble boy, Ducan, bigger and trained.
Kael, from the outside, slammed the fence. "DAMON!!"
The boy didn't look.
The match began.
---
It wasn't clean.
Damon got hit hard, twice.
But he never stopped moving.
He used his small size to dodge under the boy's blade — landing a blow to the leg.
Then a spin. A trip.
And finally — a knock to the side of the head that sent the noble crashing.
Silence.
Then cheers.
Even Kaizen leaned forward in surprise.
---
Damon Lancaster had won.
He advanced.
One of the top ten.
Kael… fell to his knees.
And Euphelia — for the first time — had no words at all.
---