The word 'ten' wrote itself on Karlyle's right wrist in cursive handwriting. The tingly sensation caught his attention. He held up his wrist with his left hand, inspecting the number. It didn't take him long to realise that the number was the ten minute time limit he had. He quickly headed to his room to pick up his packed bags. In the end, he didn't pack much so there was only two bags he had to carry and they were fairly light.
The countdown shifted to nine, followed by the sensation once more.
"Damn what is the point of this, I already said I won't resist..." Karlyle dropped the bags and rubbed his wrist. He noticed that the feeling of the countdown was more painful, even if slightly, the less time there was on it.
"I should've just actually tried to win the other two times. Now everybody is going to be trying even harder. They probably all trained through the gap year while I just did farm work."
He continued to talk to himself, a habit that shows when he's nervous, while the time slowly decreased.
The number now faded into eight with the sensation leaving behind a small sting.
Karlyle picked up both bags once more and headed out of his room, ignoring the sting. His parents and younger siblings were gathered in the living room. Asher was visibly on the brink of crying and so was their mother. Emilia, as usual, had a poker face on but Karlyle knew she was worried even if she tried to hide it from herself. Karlyle's dad however was not even trying to hide his disappointment. His eldest son failed the first two tourneys and now he might lose his kinetic. How will this represent the family? The business? It'll all go downhill.
He hugged each one of them one by one, starting with Asher although Asher technically was the one hugging him. Asher jumped off the couch to hug him the moment Karlyle's bags dropped out of his hands. For a 12 year old, his hug was bone shattering. Once Asher finally let go of his brother, Emilia and Amelia hugged Karlyle together. It was a quick hug as the longer they held him the harder it was to let go. Karlyle's father paid no attention to his departure and left the room, heading to his bedroom.
"Don't worry about him, he'll come around," ensured Amelia.
Karlyle picked up his bags but then the number on his wrist changed once more, this time to five and the pain felt like multiple paper cuts crossing each other. Karlyle's hands reacted to the pain and dropped the bags onto the floor.
"I'm coming calm down creepy soldier! Sheesh.." Karlyle shouted, rubbing his wrist in an attempt to soothe the pain.
Karlyle didn't even realise time was going by so quickly and the parting hugs distracted him from the previous pain of the count but it was now time to go. Picking up his bags, again, Karlyle headed out the door. Crossing the threshold, the soldier followed closely behind him.
"Can you take this thing away already?" Karlyle asked. He pointed to the magical countdown on his wrist that felt more like a leech.
"It'll disappear once you enter the carriage."
"You've got to be kidding."
"That's how Councilman Kyanar's enchantment works, I can't change it."
"I understand, would you change it if you could?"
"No, now get in."
Without realising, Karlyle had already reached the enchanted carriage that would rid him of this cursed clock. The door opened by itself and Karlyle hopped in, letting the soldier take his bags and put them in the back. The enchantment on his arm spread into the air, resembling a swarm of little specks of glowing emerald dust before fading away into nothingness.
"Finally..." Karlyle's talking to himself resumed, "I wonder what the city is like, I've never been there so a week there won't be that bad. For the tourney I just have to get into the passing 50% of members. Hey! Soldier person! How many people are taking part in this tourney?" He shouted.
"The entire Elite corps was sent out to collect 18 year old participants and even that wasn't enough. For your information there are about 5,000 Elite corps members and all of them went after 1 person each."
"Oh. How are the winners decided?"
"Instead of winning a certain amount of battles like in the other two tourneys, this time you'll be rated based on shown skill, behaviour in battle, time taken to win or strategy used to win, and other categories that aren't disclosed."
"Why isn't there a tourney for 17 year olds?"
"Well there's two reasons. One reason is so you can train your control over your kinetic and the second reason is that, for whatever reason, kinetics become unstable at the age of 17 when in battle."
"Ok. Final question, how long till we get there?"
"A few seconds."
"Wha-" Karlyle was cut off by the sudden increase in speed.
The carriage had entered some sort of tunnel, as when he looked out the windows on either side all that could be seen was trails of bright green and black energy flowing past.
"What's happening?" Karlyle questioned, breaking his promise of no more questions.
"It's a translocation spell. It can only be used once a year once the participant has been collected. We entered a separate dimension, I guess, and it acts as a shortcut that will lead to Enchark no matter which way you go. I love it."
The carriage slowed down as the outside view faded away, revealing trees and mountains once more.
"Ok get out," the solider commanded and the carriage came to an abrupt halt, launching Karlyle into the seat that was opposite to him.
Annoyed, Karlyle muttered, "I guess they don't teach you how to drive..."
The door, once again, opened by itself and Karlyle jumped out after picking himself up off the floor. He patted down his sweatpants and looked around. His eyes locked onto the giant tower that was hidden away behind the rows and rows of buildings past the city gates. Karlyle's legs moved by themselves towards the city gate, they were as taken aback as he was.
"WELCOMING AMBASSADOR!" The soldier shouted behind Karlyle while bringing the bags around.
Karlyle turned around to see a ragged shed with a badly painted sign that said 'Welcoming Committee'. Its door was slammed open by a girl with curly blonde hair tied into a bun that sat atop her head. Her lips curled into a large grin as she saw that it was her turn to guide someone around Enchark.
Her body quickly dispersed into dust before gathering again to form her body directly in front of Karlyle.
"Hi there! I'm Mimi!" She was talking so quickly that Karlyle barely kept up, even with such a short sentence.
"Cool it with the kinetic, Mimi."
"Calm down Foster. We're not on Enchark's grounds yet," she turned around to face the soldier and her smile disappeared, evolving into the same poker face that Emilia had.
"Hey don't reveal my identity!"
"All those anonymity spells yet its so easy for a local to tell who you are... anywho! What is your name?" She turned back around to Karlyle, with the same grin that quickly disappeared during her dispute with the soldier, or Foster if you will.
"I'm Karlyle."
"Karlyle..." she waved her hand, signalling him to continue.
"Karlyle Montgomery."
"Great!" She handed him what resembled a badge, "tap the circle in the middle of that and don't say anything else."
Karlyle obeyed her instructions and quickly tapped the engraved circle on the badge. The badge split halfway and opened to reveal what looked like a lens for his eye.
"Put that on your eye."
Karlyle picked up the eye lens with his index finger and faced his head towards the sky. He gently placed it onto his left eye and blinked a few times in response. His head dropped back down and when he opened his eyes fully, the eye lens slowly absorbed into his iris.
From his point of view, swirls of green energy appeared in front of him and formed a welcoming message.
[Welcome KARLYLE MONTGOMERY! We congratulate you on joining the Arkana Network and we wish you luck in the 107th kinetic tourney]
The text dispersed and formed a menu.
[Name: Karlyle Montgomery]
[Age: 18]
[Kinetic: Pyrokinesis | Manipulation of Fire]
[Kinetic Status: Unapproved]
[Citizen Status: Tourney Participant]
[Combat Rank: Not Calculated]
[Strategy Rank: Not Calculated]
"What does kinetic status mean?"
"That just tells you if you passed a tourney since the system knows you're a born kinetic user."
"What about citizen status?"
"That's your rank in the city's hierarchy. I assume you're a tourney participant and that is the lowest one. You're only allowed out in the city from sunrise till sunset and you are not allowed to use your kinetic anywhere but tourney training grounds and, obviously, the kinetic tourney itself. If you win the tourney you'll achieve 'Permitted Resident' status."
"What about these ranks?"
"You'll get them once you participate in the tourney."
"And how do I get this to go away?" Karlyle felt like an elderly person trying to grasp the concept of something that came into existence 60 years after they did.
"Just say: 'Menu close'"
"Menu close."
The menu disappeared instantly from his view and he placed the badge into his pocket. He didn't yet know what use it had apart from storing the eye lens.
"What is that meant to be?"
"That's the Arkana Network silly, it collects the data of every human registered, especially kinetic users. Now, let's go walk around the city!"
Mimi skipped towards the city gates and Karlyle followed along. Foster was already gone from sight with Karlyle's bags but nobody realised.
Once they both crossed the gate, Mimi turned around, continuing to skip but backwards, and announced: "Welcome to Enchark, the City of Enchantment."