The trio barely managed to get to class in time after going to get their stuff from the classroom, they sat down on their desks while waiting for Professor Pate to make an appearance, which didn't take long as she quickly went inside the classroom and left her stuff on her desk.
Professor Pate looked quite young, the Cobalt-colored fire that made up her hair rolled downwards like a waterfall, she wore a white button-down shirt and gray pants, her sapphire blue eyes looked around the room to check if all the students had made it to class.
"Seems like everyone is here! Could two of you please go and get the books we are going to use? This time it's "Our Wonderful World" By Wallace V. Willoughby, thank you~" She spoke while preparing something that was inside of her satchel.
Two students got up from their desks and left the classroom, after a bit they came back with the books and left one in each desk before sitting down.
"Great, Now I'm sure Professor Bronn has already explained everything about the competition, right? Well, let's cut to the chase then, I want you all to study for the exam that is coming in about a month, it will be about basic Elemental Beast knowledge, like what to do when encountering certain common but deadly ones, I also want all of you to know the first twenty pages of the Elemental Beast Bestiary like the back of your hand, it will be an oral tests to make sure you actually do it.
But that's just the homework part, today I'm going to teach you something far more... Practical."
She took out a piece of scaly light blue skin and a combat knife from her satchel.
"This piece of skin comes from an Icicle Snake, a kind of Elemental Beast that has ice fangs, with these fangs the Icicle Snake injects a powerful cold venom that lowers the victims temperature and induces hypothermia, their skin, as I'm going to show you, it's incredibly tough"
The she proceeded to try multiple methods to make the knife cut through the skin, from putting it on her desk and stabbing it to folding the skin around the blade of the knife and doing the motion of sheating and unsheating it.
After that she showed to the class how the skin barely had white lines while the knifes edge looked duller.
"As I have demonstrated, this piece of skin is rather tough, can someone please explain to me why that is?" Professor Pate asked the whole class.
"That's how it normally is?"
"The Icicle Snake it was taken from is a variant with tougher scales!"
"Its a trick question! That knife is made from regular iron, it obviously wouldn't work on the scales of an Elemental Beast."
All these questions questions got the same answer "Wrong, but only kind of..."
Seeing that the class couldn't figure it out Professor Pate decided to give out the answer.
"Alright, you guys really need to start paying more attention in class, the answer is: The sample of scales I showed you is from a Icicle Snake almost nineteen years old, older than all of the people present with the exception of myself, and if you had paid attention in class you would know that as they age Elemental Beasts get stronger because they saturate their body with Elemental Energy, thus refining it, with this Icicle Snake having reached its full potential long ago, but if this Icicle Snake was so strong, how did we kill it? The answer to that question is this..."
Professor Pate held the skin with one hand and the knife with the other, the knife was suddenly engulfed in a thin sheet of Cobalt flames that seeped into it, then she stabbed the skin with the knife, it easily stabbed through but only left a stab mark and no burned parts.
"As you see, the skin offered little resistance now, even after the knife was already quite dull, this is obviously because I fused my Element and Weapon as one using a technique called Conjuring, you will learn more about this technique on your second year, but for now let's focus on the why, why did the skin offer so little resistance now? Remember, I showed you there was no burn mark, only a stab, so the knifes temperature had nothing to do with it." Professor Pate showed the class the stabbed skin and waited for their answers.
The Lightning Elemental Max remembered from before raised his hand and spoke "It's because of the Elemental Energy of the knife! The Fire Elemental Energy dealt with the Ice Elemental Energy, leaving the skin defenseless, the skin is also old and wasn't preserved correctly, that's why it was defenseless, with fresh skin from an Icicle Snake it would still have taken some effort."
"Correct! Like Jul just said, the Elemental Energies canceled eachother out, but that was a because I restrained it, if you over-power it instead..." The Professor stabbed the skin with the same flame-covered knife, except this time the skin burned to ashes near instantaneously.
"When one Energy over powers the other it goes on a rampage, that's why not only should an experienced Hunter always be mindful of Elemental Venoms like the one the Icicle Snake possesses, they should also use this to their advantage against an opponent with little Elemental Energy remaining.
It's like two objects being shot at eachother with the same starting force but one losses speed on the way while the other gains it."
Professor Pate used a simple to understand example while writing the activities for the day on the chalkboard.
"Right, for today we're using pages twenty-two to thirty, "Elemental Energy And Its Incredible Applications", would anyone like to read it out loud for the class?" Asked Professor Pate after finishing writing on the chalkboard.
•••••
After 3 hours the class was done, it was the first time Max never got bored during a lesson as Professor Pate knew how to keep the class on the subject and focused, showing examples by taking out and showing stuff like body parts of Elemental Beasts, small Elementally-Attuned weapons and even Elemental Beast Cores she kept on her seemingly bottomless Satchel.
Max couldn't believe his ears when he heard the bell signaling the school day was over, the 3 hours passed by way too quickly.
He said goodbye to Vitria and Gareth while going to his locker to leave his textbooks, after that he took the bus to go home, but rather than going there he went to a park just a bit away from his bus stop, deep inside the forest of that park and hidden away from the world was a patch of scorched and cracked earth, all the vegetation around that patch was burned to cinders and not even ash remained, right in the middle of that patch was Max, he sat there and remembered.
•••••
A few weeks before school started Max got the news he got rejected from the Short Range Combat Department, his mother told him that it was inevitable, he was just a Plant Elemental, the least suited for combat out of all the elements unless they were extremely talented or had massive reserves of Elemental Energy, both things Max lacked, or atleast he thought he did.
After being told multiple times to accept it and to focus on his education, Max decided to go for a walk to clear his head, but instead he went to that very park and went deep into the forest, there, he remembered.
Many years ago, on that hateful night, he made her a promise, a promise he swore to never break, but now it would be broken for him, he would never be strong enough to protect the people he cared about, to hunt Elemental Beasts, to get revenge.
He felt to the floor on the same patch of earth, still full of vegetation.
He felt powerless, bitter and angry, his dreams were broken in front of him, but... he was a Plant Elemental after all, what could he do?
He hated that thought.
The memories of powerlessness.
The memories of being frozen by fear and his lacking bravery.
The memories of pain and grief.
The memory of her last moments as the light faded from her eyes....
They overwhelmed him, yet it all reached a breaking point with a thought...
"Never again."
And then, a Core Awakened, Two Cores Connected and the ground shook.
Not of fear, joy or any other emotion.
But of pure rage.
And at that moment, the entire world felt it, the Elementals, The Elemental Beasts, and even those inbetween.
[Earth's Fury]
It lasted barely a split second, but it was enough to make them all fear for their lives, the Primal Fear one feels when they see a tsunami or feel an earthquake, the fear of the forces of nature themselves.
After that, the world stirred, trying to find what caused it, what gave them the feeling that they should fear that their existence could be snuffed out with but a thought.
Meanwhile, the cause of the incident felt true power for the first time in his short life, the power to become who he wanted to be, to challenge what fate had in store for him.
The orange fire that made up his hair burned brightly, his orange eyes shone like two gemstones and his skin was full of vein-like yellow lines, meanwhile the flames that covered him entirely seeped back inside, when they retreated the area around Max had turned into a patch of scorched and cracked earth.
His hair returned to its normal light green color, yet his eyes remained the same.
Max inspected his skin and his spotless clothes, not noticing the changes on his hair or eyes yet, but that was for the better, honestly.
After that Max felt utterly spent and slowly walked back home.
•••••
"Never again..." Max thought out loud as he recalled that day.
Then he instinctively flexed his arm and inspected his hand, on his palm was just one yellow vein-like line.
'Atleast it worked this time...' Max thought as he made his way home.