THE SINGLE LIGHTNING ELEMENTAL MAGUS

My name is Lear-bane H. Selverbern and I come from a world different from yours. In my world countries wage wars frequently for numerous reasons such as wanting to see who is more powerful, trying to gain more territory and such. In order to limit the amount of wars we have, each country pick a candidate to fight for their country, and that candidate must fight other candidates chosen by the other countries.

The countries’ whose candidate won is considered powerful based on the candidate’s rank in the championship. The candidate can also gain status and money if they participate. The championship [All-Star] is done every five years, and anyone of any age as long as they are older than 13 years old are capable of participating.

In my world, we have something call Magicians. We have magicians for every element. The magicians that are considered powerful are those that have more than one elemental ability. Those like me that have a single ability are looked down upon, since we are only able to use one, no one expects us to win anything.

The countries in the world places bet during the All-Star championships, the countries that win gets attention, fame, money, and win the bets they made. The countries are not limited in any form of restriction in the bets. They can bet whatever they so desired, money, land, even individuals if they so ever wish. They can even bet who will be the next leader of a country using the bet system [although they have never been a country that have done so, but they could].

The All-Star championship is something I neither dislike nor hate. It is of no concern to me. All I ever wanted was to live my life the way I want, that is until something happened that forces me to participate in this year’s All-Star championship.

In an All-Star championship, you are brought to another country, in the middle of a field, surrounded by trees and violent animals such as lions and cheetah. You are then expected to fight your opponents until the last twenty standing (Of course you can kill then, but defeating them to make them unable to fight back is fine) then those last 20 standing are brought to a man-made area with a large stadium, and the last 20 fight in individual arenas verses each other. The 10 winners of this semi-final, then have to face against each other, until the last five standing. In the All-Star championship, there is a super computer that analyzes everyone’s data and fighting statistic and calculate the five individuals’ ranks.

Before, in the All-Star championships, the last five used to fight each other to the death, but the powerful countries realized that was terrible and that they would lose such valuable assets that can be used for the future, so, they changed the rules again. To make the last five be considered the winners of the All-Star championship and they do not have to fight to the death, and the super computer would decide their ranks based on ability used and fighting styles, etc.

In short, the All-Star championship can be regarded as a hunger games sort of tournament. Each country in the world is forced to participate in this championship by the other countries, or else, war will break loose. The reason why no one started a revolution and overthrow the government and change the system and do stuff like that is because, if we were to take away the All-Stars system, then countries will just go back to having wars.

At least with the All-Stars system it is only a couple of people every 5 years. But there is a problem. A problem that will change my future completely. My country is a relatively small country, my country used to be part of a bigger country up until 4 years and 6 months ago. During the All-Stars championship one of the other countries demanded the country we used to be a part of to get rid of the bunch of islands in the west-end. That makes exactly 3 islands.

We became separated from our big country. At first we thought, the other country that made that bet would just take us in their country, but what the other country said when asked was this:

“HAHAHA, I made that bet so you could lose some of your territory, Severd” said the country that placed the bet. “I never said that I would take those islands for myself, besides why would I need more land, I got tons of them already, I just wanted to see your face as you make the announcement that you would be cutting those islands off your country, that they will no longer be considered a part of your country. I just wanted to see your facial expression”

My country was shocked, or to be exact what my island used to be part of, was shocked, but there was nothing they could have done. Once you make a bet, you must oblige with it, or else the other country has a right to attack you, and other organizations might support the other country. So, what my island used to belong in, had no choice but to obliged.

That is the current problem. Ever since that moment, no one have had the gut to become the leader of my island, or the islands [since they are 3 islands in total, counting my own]. We have no king, emperor, or even a president. No leader to speak of. You would think that if a seat of power became available, people would rush in and take the seat, but no, not this time.

[have you ever heard of someone volunteering for more work and tasks to do if they are not getting anything for it, especially since taking the job will make everyone hates you], to explain, if someone become the leader of the island, he/she will have to pick individuals to fight for the country in the upcoming All-Stars championships, and no one wants to be chosen, if you are chosen, you must fight to the death.

Of course, anyone may participate, but you will have to kill people to win, so, no one wants to pick people to go their death, and no one wants their love ones to go. The leader of every country in this world are hated, except for select few countries such as Lustavannia, Lokerdevern, and Voltermorn that do not pick individuals to risk their lives in the All-Stars championship, but let the citizens themselves sign up to participate and make it seem that it is the citizens duty to participate in order to end war and risk their lives for their country. Those countries that follow that method almost always loses the championship, but then, they always try not to make bets with the powerful nations even though if they somehow won one of the bets, it could rely boost their economy, technology and so on.

Those countries are dying. Their economy is very low, technology and everything is in a declined. Sooner or later, they will no longer exist.

So, the problem is, the new All-Stars championship is starting soon, yet no one from my island have signed up, no one in the two other islands have signed up. [the list of the participants can be looked online]. My island and everyone is hoping the world would just forget about us and leave us alone, but I don’t think so. I don’t agree with them.

I think the other countries are just waiting for us not to signed up, to start bombarding us with everything they have, after all, it wouldn’t be the first time they done something like this to a country that haven’t signed up, even though my island isn’t a country exactly, but I am pretty sure since we aren’t a country, but we are still an island, that still classifies.

That’s the problem.

Let me tell you something about me. I am not one of those big shot magicians in those other countries with triple elemental abilities. I am someone that is very smart, at least I think so. My parents make me go talk to a therapist about my self-esteem problems. I am someone with low self-esteem, high-anti-social behaviors, I have very few friends [I wouldn’t call them friends, more like acquaintances that I see at school or I say hi to them, but we don’t really talk].

That’s my life. But there is one cool thing about my life, I take martial arts classes. I am in the top martial art dojo in my island, I won 2nd place in the martial arts competition that was held this year.

People tell me I am really good, my parents tell me I have talents, but I don’t think that’s true at all. The truth is my magical ability that I have isn’t in the known elements of this world. I have lightning elemental magic. I haven’t told my parents yet, but when I was in the martial arts competition and I concentrate in my opponents’ movements, my sight suddenly changed, and I could feel this electricity in my eyes and it’s like this boost that I get in my sight, and I am able to see a couple of seconds in the future.

While using martial arts to fight against my opponent, I could control the electricity in my body and send them throughout my body, making my body as hard as steel. [it’s a form of defense that I named lightning defense]. And it is by using that, that I managed to get second place in the tournament. It’s not that I was stronger than everyone, everyone had better skills and probably trained a lot harder than me, it’s just that my body was turned to steel [more or less] and I could see the future of my opponent’s movement.

To explain my eye ability, I send electricity [or the lightning in my body, whatever you want to call it] in my eyes, and my sight changed, I am able to see the electrical impulses in my opponent’s body, and by using that, I can see what movements my opponent is about to do before he does the action. That is how I got second place, I could read each and every one of my opponents like a book, and if I could read them, then it all turned into a matter of dodging and blocking each attack they tried to use on me.

The reason I didn’t get first place was because the last opponent majored in super-fast movements, and even though I could see the future of his movements, it was useless, because he could move so fast, I didn’t have time to move to dodge or block, I was like a punching bag for that guy. But then again, he is someone with 7 years of training, so it was more or less expected I would lose, in fact, it was kind of weird to everyone how I even managed to get second place.

I kept my mouth shut and didn’t tell them, I can see the future. Thanks to that lost, I practiced my lightning magic until I could send it throughout my body to make me move super-fast, now, I am even capable of flight, and can even send lightning attacks.

Since no one knows much about the lightning element, or to be exact [there exist a bunch of elemental magic in this world: Water, fire, wind, earth, light, dark, lightning, life (creation magic) and death magic. Those are the elements that make up the world.

Water, fire, wind, and earth are the most common, most people get one of those, or double, triple of those. So everyone naturally knows more about those kinds of magic.

Then you get light and darkness elements, those are slightly rare, some people get one of those, very few have both of them. But those elements are well study, and if you do research, you can find out what weaknesses they may have.

Then you get the big three. The rarest of rare. The lightning element, not much is known about it except for its ability to control lightning, the world hasn’t seen someone with a lightning elemental magic in 5 centuries. Life (creation magic) the ability to completely heal someone no matter how significant the injury, only one country has a mage like that and that’s Lyrtherndan (One of the most powerful country with probably the most money, using their single mage with that element to heal people for the highest bitter. And death magic, the country of Syltern have a mage with that ability, and he participated in the last All-Star, he was ranked as number one. He dominated the world with his death magic, still, no one knows much about death magic and he have only used one spell technique in all the matches, and even though everyone saw what kind of spell it was, no one could overcome it, all his opponent turned to dust.]

This is the extent of this world's knowledge of the rarest of the rare, the big three. Even though, legends have it that these are powers capable of changing the world, we haven’t seen that yet.

In this upcoming All-Stars competition rumors are going around how Lyrtherndan’s miss is going to be participating in it. By Lyrtherndan’s miss I mean the young girl with the life elemental magic. [guess she learned a magic attack] and the rumors are saying she also have earth and light elemental magic as well.

This upcoming All-Stars competition is going to be the most heated confrontation from all the previous All-Stars competition. It’s going to be between life and death, which one will be number one? Or so they are saying on TV. On the internet people are saying how cool it would be to get a lightning elemental magus to participate and then the competition would really get interesting.

Those people are going to get their wished come true, since, I am planning in participating in this year’s All-Stars competition. I am planning on making my island a country again and I will make it connected with the other two islands, to form a country. I don’t think anyone is going to sign up for All-Stars in any of the three islands except for me. Even though no one in the news is talking about my island, I am sure they haven’t forgotten about it, and if my island does not participate, something bad could happen. That’s what my common sense and feelings are telling me.

My parents made me go see a therapist about my low self-esteem and I explain to my therapist that if I didn’t have low self-esteem, I would be making terrible decisions and would be making a lot of mistakes. I always get 95 or above in all my classes, I study a lot, my parents have never told me “Lear-Bane get good grades and you can make your dreams come true”, my parents were too worried about me not having a dream to care about my grades. I did everything I thought a good son should do, I listened to my teachers, I participate in clubs (But I barely talked), I was only a couple of times late for school, I don’t get home late, but my parents always tell me, if I could just wake up and just follow my gut even if it included not doing any of that (Getting good grades, listening to the teacher, worrying whether you are coming home late) , that would make them happy.

My parents told me that even though I make a good son, I don’t look happy, and that I feel lifeless, devoid of any energy and that I am only always serious and calculating. [which is true, but I don’t find anything weird with that!!!!!]

So, that is part of the reason I decided to risk my life participating in this All-Stars championship. Since my parents as well as myself realized that I have no motivation in life, I decided to fight in a life or death situation, to see if I’ll fight with everything I have to survived or will I just give up, like I have done many times as I grew up. I decided that I needed to find myself, and I believe somewhere inside me, my heart and my mind, just wants me to wake up and feel the blood rushing in my veins, to feel alive, and I have only felt that feeling once. And that was when I was using my powers to win the martial arts competition…..