Chapter 3

There she was. Standing opposite him in the arcane circle, awaiting the signal to begin the challenge. They were both advanced enough in their studies that the most practical education they could now receive was sparring against their peers.

No one ever wanted to spar against Fan-Min. She was unreal as a sorceress. Her arcane power rivalled even that of Li-Ming, and therefore, also the very elders of the Yshari Sactum. Her power was so great that even legends like Isendra and Tal Rasha were not outside of her realm. She made her peers look like untrained children.

She stood looking at her older brother. Her face was beautiful. Her pale, white skin was bold against the outline of her long, dark-brown hair that cascaded down the sides of her face and over her shoulders. It blew elegantly in the wind. Her fierce blue eyes were anything but welcoming. She had locked onto her prey and she was going to demolish him.

Fan-Huang was less focused. He didn't take arcane as seriously as his younger sister. Despite her short stature of 5'2", she was a force to be reckoned with. She cared deeply about being as great as Li-Ming. Fan-Huang only cared about being close to his little sister, and now, his older brother, Kazur. He looked to his peers watching. Kazur was there in his strange, but yet elegant arcane equipment, his golden amulet reflecting brightly from the sun while nestled in his dark chest hair. His face was warm and encouraging. He gave Fan-Huang a goofy, un-ceremonial thumbs-up. Fan-Huang just smiled back nervously.

His attention went back to his little sister. She wore the same arcane equipment as he did, though, the female fit of it. They both wore typical mage robes designed to mystically charge their arcane power, granting them more mana to prolong their casting abilities. Her small body was totally enveloped in black and purple robes layered with veil-like cloth that flowed as hauntingly in the wind as her dark-brown hair. In her hand was an ornate, golden eagle orb, a weapon specifically designed for arcane users.

Fan-Huang raised his own weapon in his hand. He carried nothing more than an enchanted book. The book was relatively heavy, but it was worth carrying around. The mages that enchanted it were far more powerful than he, and had made the book so that the carrier knew all the spells within it simply by touching it and could unleash them with very little effort of his own. The book practically did it all. Fan-Min had given him the book to help him with his arcane abilities. It was one of the ways she showed her care for him.

The loud horn echoed across the open space of the Yshari Sanctum's training courtyard. Instantly, magical bubbles appeared in the air, small, purple, and moving wildly around the arcane circle's area. Their peers watched as both of the arcane students being tested began vigorously launching arcane spells at each bubble, trying to be the student who hit and destroyed the most bubbles.

Fan-Huang decided to use a simple arcane bolt because of its quick launch speed and light mana consumption. He hit one. He hit another. He launched bolt after bolt and kept hitting and destroying the bubbles. He was actually doing it! He felt so charged from the excitement of his success. He looked at his sister and was immediately deflated.

She was also launching arcane bolts, but she was on a whole different level. She was launching five arcane bolts at a time, each traveling and hitting a different bubble. There was no way for him to catch her. In just a few dozen seconds, they had erased every last bubble from the area. She had won.

They immediately went onto the second challenge. The instructor created two large cubes of solid arcane energy. The students were to launch their most powerful and controlled attacks at the cube. While the first challenge focused on agility, accuracy, and the ability to think and cast spells quickly, this second challenge focused on raw arcane power and the caster's ability to control a spell of great destructive power.

Fan-Min immediately took the lead. While Fan-Huang began launching arcane orbs, swirling purple orbs of concentrated arcane energy that would explode on contact, at the cube, one after another, Fan-Min took a better approach. It was an approach Fan-Huang could not imitate.

Her eyes turned a glowing purple and her feet planted into the ground as her hands, then pressed together pointing away from her body and toward the cube, shot out a large stream of flaring, crackling, raw, arcane energy. Fan-Huang knew the spell. It was a spell that Li-Ming had coined. It was called Disintegrate. The arcane energy that was shot out simply destroyed anything in its path. It was incredibly dangerous, difficult to control, and drained the user's mana very quickly. However, Fan-Min seemed to be casting it with ease.

It just moments, Fan-Min's cube was completely vanquished, while Fan-Huang's was simply cracked. He had done damage to it, but nothing like Fan-Min had done.

Finally, it was the last challenge, the one everyone was waiting for. They fought against each other. Only non-lethal spells were allowed, and they had a healer standing by for after the battle. Fan-Huang looked nervously at his baby sister. She had an iron-will and it showed. Her steely gaze bore into him as a cocky smirk crossed her lips. She had already won. The whole battle had already played out in her head and she had won. The horn went off and it was just as she had known. Fan-Huang took a step to the side to try to dodge whatever spell she would lead off with. At the same time, he launched a cloud of freezing magic at her to stop her in her tracks, but she knew it was coming. She danced around it with angelic grace and launched at him a wall of fire burning hotter than Hell. The fire engulfed Fan-Huang and the match was called.

Fan-Min had won, but somehow, Fan-Huang had walked off the arcane circle without sustaining any damage. He looked at his sister with confusion. She just winked at him with a cocky smile. The instructor stepped forward.

"Great work, Fan-Min." The instructor said. "We can all tell that you're keeping up with your studies."

Fan-Min laughed haughtily. "Please." She said sarcastically. "I have no need for studying. The challenges of the Yshari Sanctum are merely the games of children. I haven't broken a sweat since the day I was brought here."

The instructor stood speechless as Fan-Min's peers began rolling their eyes as she went into another one of her stuck-up monologues about how great she was. Fan-Huang tuned her out as he sulked over to Kazur.

"I told you I'd lose."

"But you did well!" His friend encouraged him. "No one else would have lasted any longer than you did against her."

"You would have." Fan-Huang said with a smirk across his mouth.

"Well, I've been here longer than those in your level have." Kazur admitted. "But even so, I'd not beat her. She's a prodigy unlike I've seen since Li-Ming."

"I guess. What I don't understand is how I'm not burnt. I could feel those flames as they came at me. Those were the fires of Hell."

Kazur laughed. "She's your little sister, Kid. She's not going to hurt you. She'd certainly never hold back, but that doesn't mean she'd hurt you."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean she did something even more impressive than hurt you."

"So she just showed off more." Fan-Huang laughed, not entirely knowing yet what had happened.

"Just before the flames hit you, she had casted a protective shield around you. It protected you from the flame, but left you at her whim. You were defeated without even being hurt."

"At least not physically. There's my pride, you know." Fan-Huang laughed. Despite his humiliation in front of his peers, He was both impressed and proud of his little sister. She was amazing.

Once all of Fan-Huang's peers had finished their tests, Fan-Min made her way over to him and Kazur. No one in the courtyard could miss that she had just obliterated her classmates in the challenges simply by the proud sway of her hips in her stride. "Hey guys!" She said through a bold grin.

"Hey, Min." Kazur smiled. "Great work."

"Seriously, it was nothing." She oozed confidence.

"It definitely looked like something." Kazur praised her. She loved that. Her smiled broadened. Her attention shifted to her older brother.

"You did really well today." She started. "For you, I mean. If I did like you I'd probably never show my face here again." She patted her brother on the shoulder with genuine intention. This was as close to a truly kind compliment anyone would ever get out of Fan-Min.

"Thanks, Sis." He addressed both Kazur and Fan-Min. "I only made it this far thanks to you two."

Kazur and Fan-Min spoke at the same time, but their words in bold contrast.

"Nah, you did this all yourself." Kazur said.

"No kidding. Without us you'd probably be dead already." Fan-Min spoke with a snarky giggle.

Fan-Huang laughed at the polar opposite personalities his two closest confidantes had. Fan-Min ran her hand through her hair, which very obviously caught the eye of Kazur. It was quite apparent to Fan-Huang that Kazur had a crush on his sister, but he wasn't sure Fan-Min knew. She wasn't an idiot, so it was possible she was aware, but at the same time, she wasn't at all focused on sentimental things like that. Her attention was always entirely on two things: arcane power and Li-Ming. So it was possible his romantic interest in her went on totally unbeknownst to her.

Fan-Huang couldn't blame his friend. Fan-Min was intelligent, strong, and gorgeous. He didn't have a problem with the idea of his sister and best friend being together, but the mental image of them made him laugh. After all, Fan-Huang only stood at Kazur's chest. Fan-Min was even shorter. She didn't even reach his chest! Them standing next to each other looked like a father with his little daughter.

The instructor yelling brought Fan-Huang out of his thoughts. "Kazur, get over here! You're up!" Apparently, the higher level arcane students were taking their turn at sparring.

"Sorry, Kid. Gotta' run." Kazur said as he ran toward the arcane circle.

"We'll be watching." Fan-Huang said with a smile.

Fan-Min sighed. "Not that there's anything impressive to see. I'm done. The show's already over."

"I know, but we can still support him."

"Right. 'Cuz that makes a difference in a fight."

"Whatever." Fan-Huang laughed silently to himself. He knew that underneath her bad attitude and narcissism, Fan-Min did truly care about him and Kazur. However, he wasn't so sure of her concern for the rest of the world. Being stuck in the Yshari Sanctum didn't really give any of them a chance to have any attachment to the world as a whole. Their life was the walls of the Yshari Sanctum.

Kazur's challenge was a simple one for him and amazed the other students. He specialized in premonition arcana. He could use his arcane power to actually see the future. This made the first challenge easy. He followed in Fan-Huang's footsteps and launched arcane bolts at the bubbles, but he never missed because he could see where they were going to be before they were even there.

The second challenge was not as easy for him, but he still won. While his opponent used traditional means to destroy the arcane cube: arcane orbs, Kazur took a less traditional path. Kazur focused his arcane power into his body and charged the cube, ramming his body into it hard, and then proceeded to break it apart by punching it repeatedly. It was an arcane fighting style that only someone as large and tough as he was could pull off. He had pulverized the cube within minutes, which was arguably unimpressive next to Fan-Min, but next to the average student, it was very impressive.

The final challenge was barely a real fight. The opponent couldn't even hit Kazur because he always knew where the attack was coming from and what it would be. Kazur had him pinned on the ground in a few quick moves. Kazur was impressive in these one-on-one fights, but he always told Fan-Huang that he'd be less useful in a prolonged battle because the premonition arcana took so much of his mana so quickly. He'd be exhausted far too early in a battle to be of any real use.

He returned to his friends who greeted him with praise. "Great job!" Fan-Huang said through a big smile. "That was as awesome as always!"

"Thanks, Kid!" Kazur said enveloping him in a large bear-hug.

"It was fine." Fan-Min said flatly. "Brutish and unappealing, but it got the job done." Kazur smiled and pulled Fan-Min into the big hug. Her face scrunched up. "You are covered in sweat." She made an audible gag. "And you smell."

"You like it." Kazur joked.

"I'd rather sniff the bile upchucked by a wretched mother."

"Mhmm." Kazur said as he gave them one last tight squeeze before releasing them. "I guess I'll go clean up, if I really stink that badly."

"You do." Fan-Min informed him matter-of-factly.

"Another long day done with." Fan-Huang sighed with relief."

"You said it, Kid." Kazur agreed.

"If you call these days long." Fan-Min stated. "It's all a giant waste of time if you ask me."

"You're just too smart for your own good, Sis."

"That's impossible." She said with a smirk. "Even Li-Ming has more to learn."

"You really respect her. Don't you?" Kazur asked.

"Yes. She's what I think a real arcane user should aspire to be like." Fan-Min's eyes seemed to brighten at the thought. "I'm going to be like her. I'm going to somehow get her attention so that she'll teach me. The stuff they teach us here is child's stuff."

"Right." Fan-Huang brushed her off. "Let's just focus on getting our studies done tonight. Meet in the library after dinner?"

"Sure thing!" Kazur agreed even though he was studying more advanced material in a totally different arcane area than Fan-Huang.

"Whatever." Fan-Min said.

"You're coming, right Min?" Kazur asked.

She sighed. "I'll be there."