It was the beginning of the summer and Nick was practicing under water once again. Zia got bored of these exercises already during the last summer and didn't always accompany him. Nick even preferred it this way since he could concentrate more and stay under water till late until it was time for his alchemy training. The aristocrat trio, even though they were still practicing Qi and sword a lot, were busy each with their own family matters.
In addition, Steven began to frequently meet Zia's sister Conny, the second youngest princess. And, despite her being a bit older than him, they seemed to enjoy each other's company a lot. The rest of the gang teased Steven about it a little, but not only was he not shy, he even felt happy and proud.
All of this caused Nick to smile – he has been a teenager once and knew how it felt. His theory was that probably because he still had a child's body, it somehow influenced his mentality and he had no interest in a romance at all and maybe only after few years he would get some testosterone storms. Until then, he preferred to not waste any time and train hard.
Based on the dagger technique manual that Julian Rollen lent, Nick created his own style and named it after his weapon – 'Wakizashi style'. Although it was a bit crude and required a lot of polishing, Nick was happy he had another goal. Lately he especially enjoyed the research and making improvements to his techniques and skills and it showed interesting results, especially the fourth Qi technique.
In the beginning of the last autumn he noticed his Qi becoming thicker and darker, almost in the color of the deep sea water, but it was not in a way where it would condense anytime soon. When he consulted his majesty about it, the king couldn't really help – although he was incredibly strong, he never extensively researched foreign Qi techniques. He suggested to ask advice from doctor Marbel, but, after seeing the demonstration and performing few experiments, the old alchemist only scratched his head and said this should be a good thing.
Thus Nick sat between corals fifteen meters deep in the water and watched Qi revolve in his Dantian. Although his Qi was much thicker than what he had seen on other people, it had the same properties, except he felt he could manipulate it much more effectively. Also he noticed that he was, in fact, able to perform the strengthening meditation technique the grand elder and elder Sonor taught him. And it allowed him already to start strengthening his pathways considerably even though he was only a Qi practitioner.
When he got back home and was about to practice alchemy, he got a message from Zia. Prince Andrew was coming to Aurora and issued an official challenge again, but this time he was challenging Nick to compete in a more friendly way. In addition, several other youths from Nola kingdom will come along and issued a challenge to the youths of Aurora to compete in strength and speed. Nick just smiled and shook his head at this – who knows, maybe it could even be fun.
On the next day he got an idea and suggested Zia to organize a basic sports tournament for the guests from Nola kingdom. For the bored princess his words were like oasis in a desert. She energetically started to plan the competition.
Zia listened to Nick's advice and decided to hold simple events like hundred meter dash, weight lifting, distance jumping, archery and throwing. She decided to forgo any possible direct contact fighting activities to preserve the friendly relationships between their kingdoms – there was no need for any of these youths to grow up with a grudge.
And it was decided that anyone could take part in this competition as long as they were not older than eighteen and hadn't reached a Qi master's level yet.
Also for some reason she really liked the Nick's 'original' idea and decided to call this event 'the Olympic games'.
The king was very supportive of this novelty and suggested to hold it in the main arena. Also he took the responsibility to provide the prizes for the winners. Then Nick had another 'original' suggestion – for the three winners of each category there would be a special token as a prize – gold for the first, silver for the second and bronze for the third. They would call them 'medals' and order a jeweler to engrave some symbolic picture and words that would glorify the particular winner – they could hang these medals around their necks for everyone else to see. Both the king and Zia liked this as well and the idea was approved.
To limit the number of competitors that would take part from the Aurora's side, they had to hold a preliminary selection. At this point Zia suddenly realized that she as an organizer couldn't really take part herself and got upset. But when Nick explained how she would be the main person in the whole arena and could boss everyone around, all the sad feelings evaporated.
The preliminaries went on for almost fifteen days and at the end Zia was barely standing. But her proud smile told everything – she managed to choose worthy twenty five strongest youths to represent the home city, five in each category.
When Nola kingdom's delegation arrived in Aurora just before the Midsummer festival, to their big surprise on the streets they received an extremely warm welcome. People were cheering and waving at them, some girls even gave them bouquets of flowers and wished luck.
All their questions were answered at their residence where Zia, as the main official of the Olympic games, explained the rules and told the set date and place for the tournament.
In the beginning this caused quite a confusion. Prince Andrew only wanted to challenge Nick and didn't really care about anything else, but most of the other youths who came with him were intending to humiliate the 'weaklings' of the Sun kingdom for everything their prince had 'suffered'. But soon their competitive spirit was triggered and they began to look forward to this respectable competition.
Nick already guessed that Andrew wanted to compete with him in private and asked Zia to organize a lunch for them at the "Sunshine". He hoped to wash away any possible negative feelings prince might still have with a piece of tasty pizza.
To Nick's great surprise prince didn't hold any grudge at all. He said thanks to Nick and told him that it had been a good wake-up call back then. After the return he even started to seriously train and stopped fooling around with some random lazy good-for-nothings from aristocratic families.
Since they were not going to fight, but compete, they decided to compare their strengths in running, archery and weight lifting. Nick was a bit excited as well, because he was confident only in one of those disciplines.
While they were busy, there was another delegation that arrived in Aurora. Prince Taio, the younger brother of the crown prince from the Styx kingdom came to visit. Of course, the Styx kingdom was on the Eastern continent and they came by ship to enjoy the famous Midsummer festival of the Sun kingdom.
Although no one paid a special attention to this delegation, they were still appropriately received and all the traditional banquets were held. To his great disappointment, prince Taio didn't have any chance to meet any of the princesses which was, in fact, the main reason for his visit. He liked his brother's choice a lot and, as soon as he realized that princess Cira had four more sisters, a plan was created – Taio would come to Mainland continent to look for a wife himself. He was sixteen this year and he thought it was a good time to start making some important decisions in his life.
When the Midsummer festival started, excited Taio was invited to the famous event in the Royal ball hall, but to his great disappointment most of the activities here were discussions on politics and business. Even bigger disappointment was when none of the Sun kingdom's young ladies were paying attention to him. He was well built, as good looking as his brother and even had this exotic touch because of his eastern ethnicity, therefore he couldn't understand why the local girls didn't flock around him here like they did back in the Styx kingdom.
He observed three of the princesses, but one was too old, one he didn't like that much, but the third was busy with a youth around his age and he figured that she was already taken. There was only the last option left, but the youngest princess was nowhere to be seen not only at this event, but on any other day as well.
Zia was not really to be blamed for this. Following Nick's advise she decided to put a lot of effort in the Olympic games and had to take care of plethora of tasks, like security for participants and viewers, hiring judges, providing water and towels for participants, organizing music for the reward ceremony and, of course, solving the main problem – she had to order a new costume for herself.
One big problem she couldn't decide on was the seating for aristocratic families in the arena. The royal family historically had its own spots in the very front and so had the three big aristocratic families as well. But for such a huge event the smaller aristocrats would definitely want to reserve some spots.
When she asked Nick about it, he said, "Why would you even care about it? The arena has fixed number of seats and when the appropriate number of people have entered, the rest will stay outside. If someone doesn't like something, they can try and complain to the guards who will shoo everyone away. The entrance is free for everyone, so if they want to watch, they will have to stand in line before the event like the rest."
Zia really loved this solution since she basically didn't have to solve anything. She removed the problem in its core pretending that there were no aristocrats or that they didn't matter. Later it caused a small commotion and, when the king received complains, he replied that this event was organized by the princess and all questions should be addressed to her. That was the end of it – who would be foolish enough try to reason with an aggressive twelve year old girl?
In the morning of the big day rows of people formed a line in front of the arena. Zia didn't need to organize any additional advertisement – the preliminaries were enough and for a few days before the event people already were gossiping and making bets in taverns.
The seats were filling quickly and soon the only spots that were left were the ones for invited guests. The three big families arrived, queens, princesses and honored guests from Nola and Styx kingdoms followed them right after. When the arrival of the king was announced everyone stood up to greet his majesty.
Then king held a short speech on how this event is an opportunity for the younger generation to prove themselves and how it will strengthen the relationship between the two kingdoms. He also announced that from now on such event will be held every four years and the participants from all friendly kingdoms will be invited, of course, that was another one of Nick's 'original' ideas. Then king declared the start of the competition and accompanied by the loud cheers from the audience participants entered the arena.
Although all of them knew that the seats most likely will be full of spectators, the sight and the loud noise astonished all of the participating youths. Especially those from the Nola kingdom were not prepared to gain so many fans just few days after their arrival.