Elias Sikigiti — POV
I stood up from my chair the moment I heard what he said.
"I'm an Aoki."
His words stayed with me, circling without settling. I couldn't stop turning them over and over within my mind.
Aoki?
But isn't Lucas the only child Aoki family have?
I looked at Ren's face and thought of Lucas. Now that I was actually looking — the resemblance was there. The small mole beneath his left eye. The green hair. How had I not seen it immediately? The hints had been everywhere across his body.
A flash of Tavon stupid face crossed my mind and broke my concentration.
Of course. That idiot is still rattling around in my head. Why is he so persistent.
I sat back down, picked up my pen, and wrote into the notebook. He is an Aoki. I underlined it twice, then looked back up at Ren.
"Just to be certain—" Darius leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table. "You're from those Aoki's? Lucas's lineage? One of the three S's of Nivalis?"
Ren closed his eyes and looked at the floor, his hair falling forward over his face.
"Yes," he said. "Those Aoki's. From the capital. Nivareth."
Wait. Is this actually happening?
"Elias!" Darius's voice cut through my thoughts.
"Do you hear all this?"
"Yes."
"What should we do?"
"I don't know." I replied, „Just Act normal."
"If it's not too much trouble," Ren said, "I'd like to ask something."
"Go ahead."
"I'd like to keep my surname hidden from others here. If that's possible — I'd ask you both to do the same."
"You want to hide your surname?" Darius asked. "Why?"
"I have my reasons. But I can't share them yet."
He wants to hide his surname from the others. I wrote it into the notebook.
"Is it too much to ask?" he said, quietly.
Darius and I exchanged a glance. We both nodded.
"Of course not," Darius said, with an easy smile. "Why would it be a problem if that's what you want?"
I side-eyed Darius. He did the same back to me — one eye sliding in my direction, clearly waiting for me to say something to move things along.
"Ahem." I cleared my throat, tapped the papers against the desk three times, and set them down.
"I think you already have an idea of what we're doing here, Ren. So i'd like to ask you some questions Ren, is that okay?"
He nodded.
"Good. there's two questions. First: do you have any plans? Second: do you have any experience with essence — though I suspect we both know the answer to that."
"The first question I can't answer. For the second — yes, I have experience with it."
I wrote into the notebook. Cannot/will not state plans. Has experience with essence.
"What can you do with your essence, Ren?" Darius asked.
"I can manifest two elements and control them at will."
"Two?"
"Yes." He said opening his right palm in the process.
A small current of energy moved from his source up through his arm and into his hand. A few small pieces of earth lifted from nothing above his palm, floating there for a moment before slowly drawing together, turning, shaping themselves as he guided them. The control was clean — no hesitation, no wasted movement.
Good control, I noted internally, watching him.
The earth pieces formed into a wine glass, identical in shape to the one I'd been drinking from earlier. He set it on the table in front of Darius without saying a word.
"Impressive," Darius said. "And what about the other element?"
Ren looked at him, then extended his arm toward him. A wind began moving from his direction — steady at first, then growing stronger with each second.
I picked up my pen.
— Two elements: earth, wind— Good control over energy— Uses energy as primary source
"Elias," Darius said.
I glanced at him.
"Is there anything else worth asking?"
"I think that covers it," I said, tapping my pen against the page.
"Then we're done here. You're free to go, Ren. Send someone else in on your way back."
He nodded, stood, and walked to the door. I watched his back as he moved — and I noticed it before I could stop myself. His posture was the same as Lucas's. The same straightness to it, the same unhurried confidence in the way he walked. Even the way his mind seemed settled, uncluttered.
He really is Lucas's younger brother.
He opened the door and left, and for a few seconds the room held only silence.
"Elias, did you take all of that in?"
"Yes," I said, still writing.
"He's Lucas's younger brother. What should we do with him?"
"Better question — why is he here at all?" I said. "He could have trained anywhere else. All doors would be open for him, yet he choose to come here, to this specific program Why?"
"It must be because of me," Darius said, straightening in his chair and briefly flexing. "He must have heard about the legendary Darius Virvit and his training methods and decided there was nowhere better, it's so obvious."
"…"
I stared at him.
"…I don't think that's the reason. But sure."
"No, wait — but actually. How did he end up on our list?" I said. "Did you add him, Darius?"
"No. This is the first time I'm hearing that Lucas has a younger brother."
"Then Ren must have been invited by him."
"Most likely."
- Twenty minutes later -
I was writing notes from yet another interview that we did.
Cannot use essence, I added to the page.
"Do your hands ever get tired from all that writing?" Darius asked.
I turned my head toward him. "No."
"I'm getting bored of all this. Can we speed this up?"
"No."
"Why did we had to invite so many of them…" He muttered it almost sounding sad.
"Rules are rules, Darius. What can I say."
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Come in!"
The door opened slowly.
A young man stepped through without any hesitation. His silver-white hair was cut short, except for two longer strands that framed his face and trailed back past his shoulders. It stood out sharply against the dark shirt he wore. His steps were measured, deliberate — each one composed and even. His expression gave nothing away, neither arrogant nor uneasy, and a pair of cold gray eyes moved quietly across the room before settling on us.
Interesting.
There was no fear in his posture. His shoulders were relaxed, his breathing steady. Unlike most of the others, he didn't look around out of curiosity, and he wasn't unsettled by our presence.
He simply walked forward and sat down in the chair. As though he had already decided he belonged here.
"Name?"
"Rylan," he said. His voice was calm but grounded. "Rylan Vale."
Vale.
"All right, Rylan. Let's keep this short so neither of us wastes other's time." I leaned forward slightly. "Do you have a goal you want to achieve?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
His eyes locked onto mine, his tone dropping to something flat and absolutely certain. "I want to become the leader of my clan."
Darius let out a short, sharp whistle. "How ambitious."
"My clan is losing its pride because of poor leadership," Rylan said, his fists tightening on his knees. "I'm going to change that."
"You're nowhere close to that position yet, rookie," Darius said it sharply. Directly looking at him.
Rylan didn't blink, nor did he looked surprised either — It's as if he'd expected to hear those words. He simply held Darius's gaze, his gray eyes cooling a fraction.
Darius's smirk widened. "But with the training we offer here, you might actually survive long enough to try. If that's genuinely what you—"
"Darius." I tapped my pen against the desk. "Stop playing with the candidate. We have a checklist."
"Ehhh." He leaned back into his chair. "Fine."
"Rylan," I said, pulling his attention back. "Have you had any contact with essence?"
"Yes."
I wrote it down.
"All right. You're free to go."
He stood and left without saying another word.
"That's really how you're ending it?" Darius asked.
"Ending what?"
"He said he's had contact with essence and you just — let him walk out? You didn't even ask him to prove it at least?"
"…"
I looked at him.
"Wasn't it you who wanted to speed things up because you were getting bored?"
"Yeah, but — I got interested in him. I wanted to—"
"Choose one, Darius. Speed, or thoroughness. Not both at the same time."
"…Fair enough. My bad."
This man…
Knock. Knock.
Someone knocked as the thought finished forming. I was still side-eying Darius.
"Come in!"
The door opened.
A young man entered with calm, even steps. Snow-white hair, short and naturally tousled into soft spikes that spread in every direction, near the center it naturally parted, letting several thin strands rest over his forehead.
A pair of green-blue eyes swept quickly across the room before settling on us.
"Elias — that's the one Lucas brought in." Darius's voice came through my mind.
"I know."
His expression was unreadable. Not nervous, not overconfident. Just — still. He walked to the chair and sat as though he had already made his peace with whatever came next.
I looked at his face carefully. The silver earring on his right ear — three interconnected chains — caught the light briefly. But what held most of my attention were his eyes.
They were empty in a way that was hard to look at directly. No emotion visible on the surface, no matter how long I looked. And yet, the longer I watched, the more I found something underneath that emptiness — something I couldn't quite name. Was it sadness? Or is it confusion? I couldn't tell.
The more I watched him, the more it seemed like he was on the edge of something — like he wanted to cry, but the moment I blinked that impression would vanish, as if it had never been there at all.
What the hell?
I glanced at Darius. His face had done something I rarely saw — brows drawn together, lips turned slightly down, a quiet, genuine bewilderment written across his features. The word what? Was practically written all over his face.
He moved his head toward me. Until our eyes met.
I raised my shoulders slightly. I had nothing to offer him. Then I looked back at the boy and scratched the back of my neck.
"Name?" I said, falling back on procedure.
"Lazar Kiyokazu," the boy answered.
His voice matched his face — quiet, a little strange, but not unpleasant to listen to.
"What a strange name," Darius said.
"Indeed."
"Lazar — do you have any goals you want to achieve?"
"Goals?" He looked at the floor.
His eyes stayed there for a moment.
"I don't have any," he answered simply, lifting his gaze toward Darius.
"There's got to be something you would want," Darius said.
"But there isn't, sir."
I rubbed my finger slowly in circles across the desk, thinking. I channeled mana to my eyes and heightened my senses simultaneously, searching his body for any trace of essence — channels, flow, anything at all.
Nothing.
Not a trace of mana. Not a trace of energy.
Strange.
"Last question then — do you have any experience with essence?"
"I've never had any."
That explains why I can't see any essence within him then.
"All right. Thank you. You can go."
He stood, walked to the door, and left.
When the door closed, I leaned forward in my chair, placed both hands on the desk, and crossed my fingers. I rested my chin on my thumbs and looked at the closed door for a bit.
Come to think of it, it was the fastest interview we did. How much did it lasted for, a minute or two.
"Aren't you going to write something on that paper?" Darius asked.
"I don't know what to write about him."
"No ambitions like the others. Strange. No essence in his body. Yet Lucas brought him here." Darius paused. "The pieces don't fit here."
"Add to that list the fact that his build isn't as built as the others'. It's below average—probably just a little better than Tavon's."
"No essence, no goals, not even a good physique — and yet Lucas brought him here."
"Could it be that Lucas made a mistake?" I said out, after a thought a bit.
"I strongly doubt that, Elias."
I stood from my chair and went to the drawer where the folders were kept. I opened it with my right hand and began searching through the folders until I saw a folder with the name Kiyokazu Lazar written on it.
I took the folder and brought it back to the table. There was three papers in it, each containing information about him, and his parents. On the first paper in the upper right corner a name Keigo Drooken was written, on the second Maya Kiyokazu and on the third one Lazar Kiyokazu.
"There it is," I murmured.
I heard Darius's chair shift to my right, and a moment later the edge of his beard appeared at the corner of my vision.
"Everything looks normal," he said.
Liva Village. Sixteen years old.
"Yes," I said. "Everything looks normal. That's exactly what I don't understand. Why would Lucas bring a perfectly ordinary sixteen-year-old boy from some small village to this program?"
"Guess we'll find out eventually."
I was still looking at the papers when the door opened without a knock.
A new candidate stepped in.
He entered with one hand held behind his back, eyes closed, moving with a kind of deliberate confidence that filled the room ahead of him. First step. Second. His leg swung forward for the third —
And then his foot moved faster than he intended, as if the floor had suddenly become ice beneath him. His entire body lurched forward to follow it.
"WHOA!" ° ᗣ °
DUMM!
His surprised shout was the last thing I heard before the heavy impact hit the floor and a cloud of dust rose into the air.
I pressed a hand over my nose and waved the other slowly up and down. Then I channeled my mana and pushed the dust toward the window with a short wind technique, clearing the air completely.
The boy pushed himself slowly up from the floor and began brushing dust from his clothes with both hands.
"What a dirty trick that was…" he said, to no one in particular. "A true strategist would have anticipated such an unexpected possibility. It seems I have truly misjudged this…" A pause. "It seems I have lost this battle."
"Ehmm... What are you talking about?" Darius asked, looking genuinely puzzled.
"My apologies, teachers. I hope that small slip-up won't affect your first impression of me."
"It will," Darius said flatly.
"Yeah it definitely will," I added, without hesitation.
The confidence on his face crumbled slightly, replaced by a long, quiet stare that he held for several seconds. Then he walked to the chair and sat down.
He opened his eyes, revealing his purple-colored eyes for us to see.
His eyes grabbed my attention, seeing eyes with such colors is a rare occurrence.
"Khm. Kuh. Hah."
To my right, I heard the unmistakable rhythm of someone laughing while trying not to. Darius, his shoulders moving in small, suppressed jerks.
"Ehhh…" I exhaled.
The boy's eyes dropped to the desk — specifically to the papers from Lazar's folder that I hadn't put away yet. I gathered them quickly, tapped them against the desk twice, and slid them into the drawer. His attention followed the motion.
"Name?" I said.
"Magnus Kageyama."
"Magnus — before we go any further, I have to ask." I looked at him directly. "How did you manage to slip when there was literally nothing on that floor?"
"Don't ask me that, teacher!" He said it a degree louder than necessary. "I don't know!"
"Next time," Darius said, "try walking with your eyes open, it might help."
Magnus's face went red. It was immediate and complete. I moved quickly to change the subject before Darius could add something more to it.
"Tell me, Magnus — what goal do you want to achieve?"
"I want to become the greatest strategist the world has ever seen," he said, and the embarrassment evaporated from his face entirely, replaced by something bright and completely earnest as he spread his arms wide. "Just like General Aldric Voss — the Undefeated."
"Aldric Voss? But didn't he died early in his early thirties or something like that?" Darius asked.
"Yes. At thirty-three, from an internal illness, while riding in the morning."
"So does that means you want to die in your thirties?"
Magnus looked at Darius. Then he shifted his eyes to the right, placed a hand on his chin, and stared at the cabinet near the wall.
"Well, if I could achieve what he achieved — I wouldn't mind dying in my thirties at all."
I picked up my pen, flipped to a clean page, and started writing.
"Last question," I said. "Have you had any experience with essence?"
"I haven't, but my father did. He talked about it constantly. It's something connected to the body, I think. That's all I know."
No direct essence experience.
"All right Magnus," I said. "You're free to go."
Magnus stood, walked to the door, and opened it.
"Be careful not to slip again, Magnus!" Darius called after him. "We need you in one piece!"
The door closed. With no reply.
"Harsh," Darius said.
"You laughed in front of his face. What did you expected?"
"I'm the professor here. I can do whatever I want."
"…"
- Twenty minutes later -
I glanced at the clock on the wall. Nearly a full hour had passed since we'd started. Both of us had begun to feel it — and judging by the sounds carrying through the walls, so had the candidates still waiting in the other room.
We decided to speed up the process. No long explanations or drawn-out back-and-forth—just short questions, short answers, and moving on to the next person. That approach proved better than we had expected. The interviews began to flow at a steady pace, and soon only one candidate remained.
I was still writing notes from the previous interview. Darius, to his credit, had shifted into something closer to genuine focus over the last stretch — asking real questions, offering observations that were actually useful, giving me more usefull informations I could write onto pages.
It surprised me to be honest. For the first time since we'd met, I found myself actually glad he was here.
I extended my mana outward and listened through the walls.
Footsteps. Steady, unhurried, growing closer until they stopped just outside the door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Come in!" Darius called.
The door opened.
A young man stepped inside. Dark brown hair, naturally messy spikes, two longer bangs hanging loose over his forehead — one falling close to his left eye. Bright green eyes moved quickly around the room, taking in every detail before landing on us.
Then his expression did something unusual — it landed somewhere between curiosity and faint disgust, almost at the same moment.
"It's so dusty in here…" he murmured.
But I caught it. My mana-enhanced hearing picked it up clearly even from across the room.
He took two more steps toward the desk.
"Wow," he said, looking around openly.
"You like the room?" Darius asked, tilting his head slightly.
"Absolutely not. This might be the dustiest room I've ever set foot in." He glanced around again. "That's why I said wow."
"I mean, really. You could win an award for this."
"How is th—"
"Stop," I said.
He stopped mid-sentence.
"Name?"
"Ryuto. Ryuto Krast." He sat down slowly.
"You said this room is dusty, no?"
"Yes."
"Then how about this — you clean it."
His expression shifted into something approaching mild alarm.
"Do us the favor and clean all of it, thoroughly. Not a speck of dust remaining. Will you?"
"Great idea, Elias!" Darius added, "It definitely needs a bit of cleaning."
Ryuto's eyes moved carefully around the room — left, right, up, then down. °△°
"Not a single speck," I repeated, keeping my voice flat.
"But — I — Y—" He started and stopped several times. Then closed his mouth and looked at us, accepting it.
"Fantastic," I said, closing my eyes briefly.
"I knew you were a good man as soon as I saw you, Ryuto!" Darius said, with surprising sincerity.
"Anyway," Darius continued, "let's get back to the point. Do you have a goal you want to achieve?"
"Yes!" He shifted in the chair. "I want to live an exciting life — full of experiments, challenges, and things I haven't seen before."
"…"
"And while I'm doing that, I want to learn how to use this power I have properly."
I noticed he hadn't sat still for a single moment since he'd walked in. Constant small adjustments, shifting weight, one thing then another.
"What power are you talking about?"
"My father told me I inherited some great power from my grandpa. But as we started working on it he died, and I never got to learn what it actually was."
"Can you describe it at all?"
"My grandpa said it was connected to the body — and that I'd need to develop my body and something called essence if I wish to do it. That's about all I remember."
Interesting… I thought, putting a finger on my chin. Could it be a technique or perhaps a element?
I channeled mana to my eyes and sharpened my vision. Ryuto's body lit up in my enhanced sight — a network of separated channels glowing in yellow and light blue, running through him in dozens of threads. The essence moving through them didn't flow the way it normally did. It rushed from side to side, back and forth, in a pattern I immediately recognized.
It was energy. Flowing in an unusual pattern as usual.
I released the technique and my vision returned to normal. I wrote it down quickly.
He had answered both the questions I needed without being prompted for either — goals and essence contact in one continuous answer.
"Ryuto," Darius said, looking at him with curiosity, "do you happen to have ants in your pants?"
"…"
"No," Ryuto answered. "Why do you ask?"
"You've been constantly moving so I had to ask.."
"Oh, that." He glanced down briefly. "It's just a habit I've had since I was small. I can't stay still in one place for a long time. So, I move around like this to make things easier."
Darius nodded at that with a perfectly straight face.
"All right. You're free to go."
Ryuto stood and left.
As he left I began gathering my things from the desk — pen, clipboard, notes. Then I stood.
"Oooooh—" Darius stretched his arms back with a long sound, almost wearily.
"Finally"
"What is it grandpa? Low on calcium?"
"Hah." He straightened. "Now the real work starts."
We walked toward the door. He reached it first, opened it, and then stepped aside, gesturing through the frame.
"Ladies first."
"…"
I looked at him. He looked back at me, completely unbothered.
I sighed as I walked through, stepping into the hallway him walking right behind me.
"I guess I'll have to give this papers to him now," I said, looking at the papers in my hand.
"You're not coming along?"
"I'll be there as soon as I've handed these off. Go ahead."
"Understood." He turned and headed toward the candidates' room.
I went the opposite direction, toward the building's exit.
As I walked, I leafed through the pages. Several names stood out as I scanned them. Renias. Luiz. Magnus. Ryuto. That blue-haired candidate, even that disaster Tavon.
Maybe this program won't turn as bad as I've expected.
Then I paused.
There was one I still hadn't written anything for.
"What was his name again?" I asked myself, going back through the pages.
"Viktor Rathen… Link… here." I found it. Kiyokazu Lazar.
I pressed the paper against the wall and uncapped my pen.
But the words didn't come.
I stood there for a moment, pen hovering, thinking about those empty green-blue eyes and the nothing I had saw when I looked for essence in his body.
What do I write about you?
Eventually, I wrote something. I wasn't entirely sure what — just whatever came, whatever small observation I could put into words about a boy who had given me almost nothing to work with.
Then I capped the pen, tucked the papers under my arm, and stepped outside of the building, to the cold outside. A cold wind hit me immediately, good thing I have this clothes at least.
Well, now it's the time for you to shine, kids. I wonder how many of you will remain once these two months that awaits you pass?
I'll keep my fingers crossed for you all.
With that being said, I turned right, moved through the snow-covered softwood trees until the path opened into a small clearing ahead.
And so I began walking down that path.