A young noble, and an esteemed child of the Gharris family, Valnar Ghariss, was always told they were special, even among their family and classmates. A special technique which mutated from a noble technique, which normally should only allow them to manipulate ice, allowed Valnar to manipulate the moisture in the air ever so slightly, cooling until becoming ice.
This small mutation, alongside his family ability in which he inherited, allowed him to constantly be armed wherever he went, having an arsenal of ice weaponry in which he could quite literally pull out of thin air.
He had always believed he was destined to become the strongest in the continent, since very rarely do such powerful mutations happen. He dilligently worked on his ki, and never slacked when training his technique.
This powerful young prodigy.. was currently on the backfoot in a fight between a young man who lacked any of that. An individual who didn't even know what ki technique they possessed.
Valnar, currently holding his block to defend against a surprise maximum ki technique, was now blinded by debree being thrown into his eyes, temporarily blinding him.
Tre made sure to announce what he had done, otherwise people might misunderstand, yelling out;
"Surprise pocket dirt!"
This, of course, alerted Valnar, causing the young man to shift his stance to a heavily defensive one, raising his forearms to cover his face, and his biceps to cover his torso, lowering his body's surface area overall.
"Pocket dirt!? You filthy-"
His sentence was cut off by Tre jamming his fist into his ribs, causing his legs to buckle. Valnar was eventually going to come back to his senses, and there was no guarantee that he wasn't going to use his ki technique. Tre had no intel of his technique, so this had to be prevented at all costs, especially at this close range.
Following the momentum of his previous strike, Tre lifted both his arms, and slammed his palms into Valnar's ears, completely dazing him.
The young man's already failing defense was now crippled, with him losing access to both his sight and hearing.
Valnar was already starting to open his eyes though, scanning his environment to find his opponent.
Due to him now reinforcing his body with ki, he was faster, more durable, and much, much harder to take down.
Valnar couldn't find him for a split second, due to his eyes still being partially blinded, with him squinting to let his sight function ever so slightly.
Crouched down in front of the noble child, Tre sat, getting ready for another trick to really make his reputation plummet. He wanted to be known as a cheat, someone who would throw dirt in a noble duel isn't someone worth knowing. This plan was cut short though, as Tre felt it.
The air began to cool, biting into Tre's skin. The hair on the back of his neck stood, not just because of the cold. He knew this was a ki technique.
The source could only be one person. The man he was currently in a duel with.
Not missing a beat, Tre stood quickly, revealing himself to the still partially blinded noble, before winding up a punch.
"There you are, you little rat! I'm going to actually cripple you! You've sullied the Gharris name, now y-"
His sentence was cut short by Tre clobbering him in the chin, one punch after another. Usually it only took a single punch to knock someone out, but those with ki were just too resilient.
After about 15 punches directly to his chin, the air began to warm up again. The boy fell to his knees, before collapsing on the ground. Everyone around was completely silent. Tre didn't need to look at them to know how they looked, or how they felt.
They were utterly furious. To make a mockery of this sacred practice, and to win on top of that to rub salt in their wounds. That was the goal, but..
'I may have underestimated their spite and vitriol. These duels are a means to an end, they shouldn't be so upset about it.'
Sigh
Walking away from the unconcious boy, Tre glanced at the science club leader, Eirini, gesturing them to follow. The group of teens surrounding the duel made way for the two.
Walking in the direction of the dorms, the A building, Eirini was brimming with questions. Sifting through all of them, she decided to ask first;
"What exactly did you want to show me there? Sure, your techniques were precise and fast, but that is just something I can learn with time, right?"
Tre glanced at her for a second, casting his gaze forward again.
"I suppose so. What I wanted to show you was something important you should know. After all, I'd rather not have a weak ally when overturning the King and all of those knights."
Eirini gave a look of hesitation.
'When did I agree to that part though..?'
Tre continued;
"I prefer to use my hands over a sword, despite a sword being more dangerous. Do you know why?"
She thought for a moment.
"Unpredictability? You always know what you're fighting when facing a sword, but when facing someone with nothing, they could be using any martial technique from across the word. Right?"
Tre grinned at this answer.
"That's exactly right. But not entirely. As you saw before, not holding a weapon can grant you easy access to many things like my trusty pocket dirt. Believe it or not, that's helped me out more than once in real fights. Hiding a dagger allows you to pierce their eye socket once their guard is in shambles, you know. It's something I ultilise a lot, since knights rarely wear helmets. I wanted to show you my fighting style which is.. rather archaic, in terms of how it's performed. I grew up in a place where if you didn't do whatever you could to survive, you would die, without anyone ever knowing your name."
Eirini heard this, before asking;
"So what you wanted to show me was..?"
Tre stretched his arms, continuing on;
"What I wanted to show you was a different style to your own. Your own fighting style is based on the sword, right? That steel gladius you use, without that sword, are you confident you can claw at your oppenent until they give in? Are you confident that you can scratch at their flesh until they eventually bleed out?"
Eirini paused for a moment, understanding what Tre meant.
'So he became as strong as he is, not because of training, but because of the environment he was born into, and had grown accustomed to..? What type of life has this has this person lived until now..?'
After some silence, Eirini cleared her throat.
"So uh.. knights.. they rarely wear helmets? Why though?"
Eirini has never even seen a knight, and any story told about them is always embellished slightly so that they are seen as immortal guardians of the land. Them not wearings helmets though.. she's never heard of such.
"It's simple, really. They think that if they were to get hit by an attack that could hurt them, their helmet would offer them no protection. After all, their ki is much harder than steel. They rarely wear armour as well, which would only serve to slow them down. This, of course would make them vulnerable to things like.. dirt or sand in their eyes."
Eirini paused for a moment, glancing towards Tre.
"How.. do you know this..?"
'Had Tre fought knights in his life before coming here? No way.. even with his skills, there's no way he could beat a knight without using ki.. maybe..'
Tre was about to answer, before he noticed they had arrived at the dorms. It was stacked with orange bricks, which looked rather strange in comparison to the weathered stone buildings that neighboured it.
Heading towards the wooden door which acted as the entrance to the dorms, Tre cast a soft glance at Eirini.
"I'll tell you later. It's a rather long story."