Later that night, Lance's little brother Nathan walked into his room. Nathan was only six years old, but to him, Lance was his strong and untouchable big brother. Seeing his brother training hard for so many years, Nathan was in awe of him and wanted to also start training.
However, Lance's father had other goals for Nathan. Instead of spending his days training like Lance, Nathan was slowly being groomed in literature and business practices. As Lance's father saw it, if Lance could be the enforcer of the clan in the future, Nathan could control both the business and growth of the clan.
This was decided the moment that Lance approached his parents wanting to start training to become an expert. If he hadn't done this, Lance would have been in the shoes that Nathan was now in. His father understood though, that those with enough potential shouldn't split their focus, or the heights they could end up achieving would fall short.
If the two brothers were able to tag team in the future like this, the Sacred Ember clan would be able to prosper between their hard work. And so, although Nathan felt a little insecure with his father always comparing him to Lance, he still admired and wanted to fully support his big brother.
With their father being extremely busy during the day, and their mother supporting him, Lance and Nathan for the most part had to fend for themselves in between their studies. Since there were plenty of maids to assist them, their parents chose to concentrate more on their work for the clan.
Instead of driving the family apart, this allowed both Lance and Nathan over the years to become rather close and very supportive of one another. They were not just brothers, but they had an unbreakable bond with one another which would last a lifetime.
"Hey Nathan." Lance said as Nathan entered his room. Lance was laying down on his bed and only looked over after hearing Nathan opening the door. Nathan may have been intelligent for his age, but he still didn't realize that Lance was crying all of this time.
"Big brother, you need to prove father wrong!" Nathan after closing the door behind him shouted out as he rushed over to hug Lance. Hearing this from his little brother warmed Lance's heart and even gave him a sense of passion which lifted his mood almost instantly.
"Don't worry, I don't plan on falling short tomorrow." Lance replied as the two brothers talked about their day until it was time for Nathan to retire back to his room to sleep. With confidence now brewing inside of him, Lance fell asleep as he was ready to cause shock around all the spectators.
Even as he continued to sleep through the night, Lance as usual, dreamed of becoming a powerful expert who was peerless as both a warrior and a mystic. A smile bright and full of hope, was unable to remove itself from Lance's face as this child slept without waking up until morning.
The next day, since Kong knew that Lance would be attending the mystic's test to see if Lance had any sort of elemental affinity, Lance took more time in the morning to get up once he felt fully rested. After eating some breakfast and getting ready, Lance's focus was keeping his unyielding confidence that he would be doing very well on the test.
It was unclear how exhausted the test would make him since his family never had the test done to themselves or their members. The reason was because there was no way for them to get their hands on even basic techniques given their current set of circumstances. However, Lance still put on his blue robe as he made his way over to where Kong told him the tests would be held.
Although the Sacred Ember clan's members only amounted to about thirty, the population of the town was upwards of five thousand. Due to so many citizens living here, it made for today to be a large spectacle. Every few years, a mystic would make his way over to test everyone in the town, but there hasn't been anyone who really showed an average level of promise.
This did not allow those willing to take the test to falter, as over fifty children at the age of ten years old were put into a small group before the mystic. Lance was one of the last of the children to arrive before the time the tests were said to begin, so he just joined the crowd with a proud look on his face.
"Today will go down in legends as the day that I Lance, began my journey down the path of a mystic. I just hope that at least one other person here can join me." Lance thought to himself as he smiled at the thought.
It would be very acceptable for Lance to possibly be the only person out of this group to move forward and to start the path of a mystic. In retrospect, if there was another individual as well who met the requirements, then Granite Town would be looked at a little differently when it came to the Griffin Academy.
"Ok since everyone is here, I will be introducing myself and explaining everything about this examination we will be conducting today on all of you. To begin, my name is Thomas and I am a 3rd rank mystic. I am here on behalf of my school to recruit prospects that show enough promise to join our ranks."
"This test will not cause any of you to lose energy, but some of you may become rather lightheaded if you have a small amount of elemental energy within you and are not used to tapping into it. Those of you who show at least an average level of elemental affinity with your element, will technically pass this test."
"The only way for one of you to enter into our school directly, is if you have a high elemental affinity for your element. Otherwise, anyone who tests low will automatically be disqualified while those who test average will be able to move on to another test within the city and if you pass that one, you will be accepted into our school."
Hearing this made almost every child who was ready to take the test shudder. There was a fine line between passing this test and failing, and even if they showed some level of talent as a future mystic, it barely qualified them to move on to an additional test!
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