"They started training at the age of five?! What stage are they in now then?" 

Of course, if I reached the seventh level in just two years of training, then they must certainly be so much stronger."

"Why are you scared like you will face a dragon? They are all around the seventh level," Adam replied nonchalantly.

"What?!"

"Don't think too much about it. They didn't put all their time into training like you, they have their lives to live, and it's considered that you are already talented if you can reach the seventh level by the age of 15, you just happened to take a small shortcut." The man added, "oh and remember you will not just meet people from the middle world, there a lot of students from other countries, mostly are high ranking or rich people and even princes, I remember his son is also in the second year probably."

'Wow, am I going to meet real princes for the first time in my life?'

"Alright, then. Put it in your mouth and sit down."

"What? Oh, right."

I look at the pill in my hand he just gave to me then followed his instructions and sat down, while he sat behind me, saying, "Don't swallow it, just suck on it like a lollipop. remember this pill is full of mana, Direct the extracted mana toward the core and try to merge it. I'll assist you as usual."

After three minutes into the process, the pill completely disappeared from my mouth.

"We're done now. You can open your eyes."

I opened my eyes and noticed that my body was saturated with mana. It felt heavy and light on the skin at the same time, both discomforting and comforting, but one thing was it felt addicting and I felt so strong, yes I knew I was finally at the peak of the eighth level.

"Okay then," I said and quickly closed my eyes, ready to breakthrough.

Bam!!!

"Ouch! Why did you punch me?!" I said in pain as I placed my hand on my head where I got hit.

"You fool, were you just trying to breakthrough?!" Adam said, grabbing my ear.

"Yes, what's your problem?" I said, annoyed.

"Did you forget what I was just talking about? Weren't you supposed to train on an element?" the man yelled.

"Oh,.... right," I completely forgot.

I rubbed my neck, feeling embarrassed then said, "Hehe, I forgot for a moment."

"Humph," Adam left me and asked, "So, which element will you train on?"

"...Is that it? Aren't you going to give me any advice?" I said annoyed.

"What advice do you want? Just train on what you want to train on," my teacher said indifferently.

Is he being serious? I can't just say I will train on fire or water, I don't even know what elements exist in this world and Amber only loves to brag how her fire is one of the best, of course it's the guy that made me his student and left me with other people to train me, this stupid, I shouldn't expect much from him.

"You are really so... Ugh Fine," I thought a little before asking. "Which element is the strongest?"

"Hmm? Just a moment," Adam took out a piece of paper and a pen and began writing on it, then threw it towards me.

frustrated, I looked at the paper to find a simple explanation. "Fire burns nature, water extinguishes fire..." He gave me an explanation that even a kindergarten kid could understand.

"Wow, this is really useful," I said annoyed as I continued reading, then, "Hmm, is darkness stronger than light, and light stronger than darkness?" I raised my head towards my teacher and said, "What kind of nonsense is this?"

"The method of training is what makes the element stronger or weaker. No element's good in all aspects. If you're good at something, you'll be bad at many other things. What determines these aspects is your perception and training," he explained.

"What the? ... Okay, I understand," I didn't understand, I just put the matter aside for now, I knew he is so useless in explaining.

I kept thinking about which element would be the strongest, an element that always wins against the other elements, weakens the opponent's defence to make it easy to penetrate, and also weakens attacks when used defensively. But the problem here is that there is no element with such properties.

'Unless...'

***

"Hah!"

The teacher Yawned with boredom as he looked at his student who was contemplating his decision. A person couldn't directly train on complex elements because they're difficult, so simple elements were always the first choice because they're straightforward and don't need evolution.

"Teacher."

"Hmm? Yes?" Adam replied, waiting to hear the small boy's question.

"Can I create a new element?" 

Adam's eyes widened by what he heard, then he grinned widely and began to laugh, then said enthusiastically, "Do you have an idea in your head?"

"Yes, I think so," the boy said confidently.

'Look at this little rascal. If it were any other warrior, they'd say he's crazy, an ordinary that started training for one year wanting to make a new element.'

"Alright, take this," Adam threw a book towards the boy.

"What's this?" the boy said, looking at the title of the book, then continued, surprised, "Is this the ...?!"

"Yes," Adam nodded and said, "The Elemental Body for Martial Arts, the technique I was going to teach you."

The boy stared at the book as if he were seeing a shining gold ingot.

"I'm going now," Adam began to leave.

"Hmm? Where are you going?" 

"Tradition. After you finish developing your own element, train on the technique in the book. Then you can break through," Adam said, waving his hand back as he left, "Make sure to surprise me later."

"Alright, just wait," the boy said grinned confidently once again, then Adam left the place and just disappeared.

In reality, he didn't leave but moved to a suitable distance to monitor his student and move in case of any danger.

"My teacher, it seems that my student is going to create a new element from scratch," Adam said, laughing.

***

Four hours later...

"Yes, I did it!" I began to jump for joy at the success I achieved. I had invented a new element, I felt so proud, of my perfect element.

After finishing my jumps and celebrating my success, I moved on to learning the technique in the book. I opened the book.

"Huh?! Oh, you have to be kidding me." 

The book was empty, all the pages were white.

I started flipping through the pages of the book one by one and found nothing until I reached the last page.

"My dear future student, this is your wonderful teacher Adam from the past."

'It seems he wasn't any different from the present.'

I continued reading, "I don't know who you are, but you're lucky because I chose you as my student and to receive this wonderful martial art. And because your luck is more than great, you got it after I completed its development, and this page here is all you need." At the bottom, there were brief steps of the process.

"First, saturate your body with your transformed elemental mana, not just your external body but let it pass through the internal organs, blood, and bones. Second, focus on the smallest cells and molecules and insert the element particles into the cells, imagination is key here. Repeat the process until you're sure all cells are merged with your elemental mana. Now, the hardest stage is to force these cells to divide to form new cells saturated with the element mana. After succeeding in this step, now focus on the breakthrough with these new cells in your body."

"breakthrough." as I said this word and applied every step with focus, my body exploded with mana, and I finally broke through to the seventh stage. 

"I did it at last."

I tried to pass the energy of the element from the mana core to the outside of my body, but I was surprised by the tremendous speed of its exit. The element mana used to move slower and heavier within the body, but now it took only one second to exit through my hand instead of five, in addition to increasing my energy level and improving my muscle shape, the technique is really amazing.

"It really deserves its name," I said with great satisfaction about the result.

"Isn't it?" 

I looked behind me to find Adam standing there smiling.

"Did you create a new element?"

"Yes."

"And are you satisfied with it?"

"Definitely," I confidently replied to him. "This is the strongest element."

Adam just grinned at my confidence and started laughing loudly. Then he said. "That's why we only pass our technique to only one person each generation."

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

"well, most schools have a lot of students to teach their techniques but this technique is a secret one so you can only have one student to give it to, and they have to be ordinary like us."

"I see... but what if you don't find any new ordinary?"

"that's impossible but well if you don't find there is no need to keep it a secret then."

"Well, I don't have to think about that now right?"

"True," here he grinned again and said, "alright then, shall we go and see the nature of your new element?"

"Let's go," I said excitedly.

We returned to Mirage and headed straight to James' laboratory.

"Congratulations on breaking through to the seventh stage and obtaining your element."

"What's happening here?" We found in the lab Hans, James, Amber, Carol, and Alvin, it seems they all gathered to celebrate my breakthrough. In fact, more surprising than seeing all of them was Carol's presence; I could say she wasn't pleased with me after our two meetings.

"Don't worry, I only came because your annoying teacher told me I would be surprised by what you achieved," the Ice Queen said to me, seeming annoyed but still keeping her cold face, well this makes sense now.

honestly, I felt like I had to apologize for my teacher bothering her.

"Thank you all."

"Well then," Amber said cracking her fingers with a scary grin, "What are we waiting for? Let's see how far you'll go."

Usually, I would have been terrified and tense, but now I had my new element.

We all headed towards the training room, and as the others watched our fight from the side, Amber and I stretched our bodies to prepare.

"Don't disappoint your big sister," the girl said with a smile.

"Don't lose this time, big sister," I mocked with a smirk.

"Hehe, you managed to provoke me," Amber said and entered a ready position. "Let's start."

"Alright," I said and also got ready.

***

Amber prepared to perform her usual attacks, raising her hands upwards.

'I'll use level six attacks this time.'

The girl thought that I had chosen an element opposing fire, like water, and that's why she was confident of winning this time, so she tried to attack with stronger attacks than usual.

"Take this," the girl threw fireballs from above onto Ali, waiting for him to penetrate the attacks as usual or avoid them. But...

"What is he doing?" 

Ali changed his fighting stance and stood straight, then passed what looked like a dark blue mana around his arm and moved his arm around creating something like a shield forward as if trying to stop the incoming fire attack.

'This is not water, no is this really an element? I never saw it, well it doesn't matter he is just a seventh-level child, even if it was water he wouldn't be able to stop my attacks.'

Everyone was confused by what the boy was doing except for his teacher, who remained smiling and confident in him.

But what Amber and the others didn't know was that this wasn't a water element.

As soon as the fierce attack reached Ali and touched his hand, part of it disappeared, leaving only a small flame that simply disappeared into the air.

"WHAT?!" 

Everyone in the room was surprised by what happened. It wasn't that the fire had been extinguished; it had simply disappeared.

'I don't know what trick he is using but let's attack again to test it.'

Amber attacked again with several attacks larger than the first, while Ali advanced quickly towards her, moving his hand to touch the fire attacks in his path to make them seem torn apart and disappear. When he reached a distance of twenty meters from Amber, who hadn't yet realized her attacks had disappeared, the boy focused a large amount of the strange blue mana in his hand and released it towards her.

'I can't believe my attacks didn't hit a little boy, I'll show him.'

The girl copied the boy's movement and placed fire in her hand to catch the next incoming energy ball. She didn't have to copy his exact attack she just needed to teach him a lesson to humble him, she pressed her fire to be smaller and faster.

"you still can't win against me, little brother," Amber said, throwing the small fireball towards him.

"We'll see about this," the boy said, grinning and covering his chest with his weird mana.

"What?!"

The fire disappeared immediately, and Ali's energy ball struck her.

"Hahaha, I won, big sister," Ali said, smiling proudly while Amber stood there shocked.

'M-My fire was cancelled?!'