Don the Hero

After the doctor left, it did not take long for the news to spread throughout the village. By the next day, the 2 other neighboring villages had already heard about the girl made of flames with an A class talent. This new ranking system "Talent", became a hot topic in the Laire village for the next few weeks.

Power users young and old tested their talent to see if they were at least a third as talented as Maryline but as Dr. Stone predicted, most of them were at around level E. Those who had a higher grade, where treated better by the village and where given more personal teachings by Teacher Zen. speaking of Teacher, the moment he heard about this flame girl, he quickly made her his disciple. Teacher Zen went from teaching martial arts and cultivation once a week to twice a week. He also taught Maryline in private 3 times a week. Teacher Zen was not discrete in his obvious special treatment to Maryline but no one could blame him for focusing his efforts on the best crop.

Unlike Maryline who felt like a queen, Elijah felt like a great elder who had been knocked out by an ant. After just a few short weeks, Maryline's strength level has gone from level G0 to level G1. Compared to his sister's few weeks, Elijah who has had 2 years of training controlling fire, has only just reached level G6. Elijah's pride was breaking day by day due to this knowledge that one day his twerp of sister would surpass him. A reaction to this understanding motivated him to train harder than ever before. It was this drive that made him level up to G6 so quickly.

The mix of Maryline's new powers plus Elijah's motivation caused their parents a lot of distress. Before they had both gotten powers, they had a tendency to wreak havoc on the poor humble village. The local blacksmith and his wife who was a certified construction worker would mop every day. They had come to Laire village for easy work and peaceful day only to have to fix multiple buildings a day. It was only after Don started helping them fix sites and find shortcuts to fixing some small damages that they could find some time to relax. After Elijah awakened his powers, the battles became much shorter and the damages became minimal for 2 years which gave the couple a chance to have a baby and sleep a little.

This calm was of course before the storm. A month before Marylines awakening, the couple, Mr. and Ms. Finch and Don had found an area outside of Laire village where the monsters roaming around where level G3 at most. They planned out a nice big rectangular stage for the siblings to compete. While planning the stage, the couple had wanted to build it out of fire proof copper knowing that Elijah was a fire user. Before they could even finish their plans, Don had interjected and told them to use fire proof iron instead. It was a lot harder than copper but would take much longer to build.

If the person who had brought this up were any other kid or adult, the couple would have laughed and ignored them but this was not just anyone. This was Don, the kid who had helped them with many problems before. His ideas, although obscure at time where always right in the end. This couple had already decided in their mind that if this kid did not awaken, they would make him their disciple and would send him on the path to becoming an immortal blacksmith. Of course that last part was just a joke.

Luckily they had decided to spend an extra week building the battle stage in fire proof iron. In a matter of a week of the stage being used, it was already in a sorry state. With Elijah not holding back and Maryline's endurance and a secret technique, the poor stage might have not lasted a day with the copper idea. It has been 4 months since the flaming girl incident and the battle stage had already been broken 12 times. Luckily the blacksmith had a variant of earth magic, metal magic and was able to quickly remold dents and some deformities. If it were not for that, the couple may have already gone crazy.

A strange event had appeared in the last 2 months or so. After the blacksmith had fixed the stage for the second time, he was complaining to his old friend about how unrestrained the fire siblings were. The blacksmith was only drowning his stress in alcohol and gossip and did not expect his friend to think up another lucrative business scheme. This friend of his had already tried his hand at fast cash many times over the years and all had ended in failure.

Unlike the last dozen or so times, this time he actually asked for Blacksmiths help. His plan was to build an arena around the area where the fire siblings fought daily. Blacksmith could not help but make an ugly face. 'I came here to get away from work, why are trying to drag back there again?'. Although he did not want to do it, he knew his old friend needed this after his wife left him for the rich man in from Vernia city.

It only took him a week to build 3 more battle stages with the help of Don, his wife and some blacksmiths from the neighboring village. After the arena was built, his friend handed out the self-made poster to the 2 blacksmiths from neighboring village. To no one's shock, no one showed up to the opening day. Blacksmith's old friend was really depressed.

"I am a loser.... just a complete loser. No wonder my wife left me for Brad!!!! wahhh!" Blacksmith was in shock at his friend's reaction. His friend had failed many times before but just laughed it off, this time he just broke down. Blacksmith looked at his friend solemnly and patted him in the back.

"Malcolm, my dear friend don't lose sight of yourself." Blacksmith said softly.

" Look at those crazy flaming brats over there." Black smith said this as he pointed to Elijah and Maryline who had continued to fight intensely over Malcolm's crying. Malcolm slowly looked at them.

"They come here every single day to fight each other. If one falls they lose and have to wait till the next day to challenge each other again." Malcolm nodded as he heard Blacksmith's explanation. he already had a faint ideas of the rules. Blacksmith then turned to Malcolm and asked him,

"How many times do you think flame girl has won to her brother?" Malcolm thought about it a bit. Knowing that Maryline had class A talent, he knew she should have won a few time at this point.

" umm sniff ....its been about a month so.. 10 times?" Malcolm inquired. Blacksmith could only chuckle.

"Zero."

"WHAT!? How is that possible? are the Finches that blessed to have 2 high ranked talent children?" Malcolm exclaimed in confusion. Blacksmith grinned as he turned his head left and right slowly.

"You would think right? Maryline can beat all the 13 to 15 year olds and could probably hold her own with some 16 year olds but she has not won to her brother yet. do you know why?" Blacksmith asked, Malcolm just looked blankly at his dear friend.

" It's because it is 100 years too early for her to beat him or at least that is what he always says." He laughed as he said that.

"I don't understand Solomon, so just because he says that he doesn't lose to her?"

" No, it's not just because he says that, it is because he believes that. If Maryline was his age, then he would have no chance but he has already been training hard for two years. In the month since Maryline awakened, it was obvious that she would catch up to him quickly. Instead of crumbling and falling in defeat or being petty with jealousy, he used this pressure to better himself and become a better version of himself and a good training partner for our Laire's Maryline. Or maybe he just doesn't want his pride to take another beating. Either way he won't give up. Even if Maryline beats him in the future, with his personality he won't go down with a fight. Look at Maryline, she has lost so much but she always comes back the next day. These Finches are quite odd don't you think? hahhahaha!" Solomon the blacksmith laughed as he saw the intense battle finally end.

It was Elijah's win again. Even though he was still spouting his mindless words of wisdom, Malcolm could see the sweat on his back. He held nothing back. Maryline starting yapping about how she would continue to train her special technique given to her by her master, Zen every single day.

When Malcolm saw how high their spirits were, he could not help but fill his heart up with motivation and confidence again.

"Yeah I can still make this work!" Malcolm yelled this out with all his might. This startled the siblings who had not noticed their presence even when Malcolm was crying like a baby. Malcolm had already gotten his gears going when he realized that he did not know where to go from here, or who to ask for guidance.

"Still don't know what to do old friend?" Solomon asked, Malcolm laughed embarrassed.

"Well i just don't know what I did wrong..."

" I know!" a voice yelled. 'Who said that?' Malcolm thought. He turned his head only to see Don standing behind him. 'What? How long has he been here? Did he see me crying?!' Malcolm face turned bewildered and embarrassed at the thought of this 12-year-old hearing him.

"What are you doing here, Don?" Malcolm asked as he straightened his back and tried to look composed. Solomon shake his head at his friends change in composure. He then patted his friend's shoulder.

" I bought us a Finch" Malcolm's eyes widened as he stared as his friend.

"Are you kidding me?" Malcolm asked. Solomon just laughed.

"Nope, I don't know how Alfred and Betty the sweetest, kindest couple got these odd balls but they sure have their Talents. While Maryline and Elijah tend to be the ones people focus on due to their fiery personalities and power to go with it, I think the oddest one of them is standing right here." Don whistled as he heard this as if he was not the one that Solomon called odd.

"With those 2 as older siblings, he somehow acted the most mature out the 3. If you did not look close enough you might think he is like his parents but that would also be untrue. sure he is kind and sweet but he is also quite mischievous when he wants to be and is quite honestly a genius at generating and producing ideas. To be honest without his help, my work load just dealing with his older sibling would have killed me by now." Don could not help but smile at the complements, it was very rare for people other than his family to praise him like Solomon did.

Malcolm was stunned when he heard Solomon's praise. He rarely praises someone to such an extent so he quickly was ready to hug this 12-year old's thighs and hope to dig some ideas out of him.

"So uhh Don, I tell about the history of my plan in making an arena. So it started one lonely night i-"

"That's fine I already know what's going on and I have already made the most optimal plan to get your desired result."

"Wait I haven't finish m-"

"So here is what I think you should change. Your idea for the arena is nice but the placement is a little awkward. If people saw my siblings fight, I don't think they will have the will power to sow their might. Instead of this I think it will be better to put it between the cross roads of the 3 villages so that they can all participate. If you want more income from this business, it would be good to arrange for areas of seating and have entertainment for the kids. also." Malcolm was dumbstruck. his 2 am idea at the Inn had been fleshed out and completely realized by a 12-year-old. At this point Malcolm did not know whether to laugh or cry.

"Finally the poster that you made...well lets just say it did not have the spark needed to get people to come to the arena'

"You don't have to be nice about it, I don't think my pride can fall any lower."

" Then I will be real with you. It looked like you allowed Solomon's 2-year-old daughter to do some arts and craft on it for 5 seconds. Afterwards you drew a stick man with a happy face, wrote arena on the poster and called it a day."

"..." Of course Malcolm would not tell Don that he spent 5 grueling days working on it and felt proud to the point of sticking it to his walk afterwards.

"Don't worry I already tore all those uhh "poster" down and made new ones." Don then showed Malcolm his work of art. the posters contrast of red and blue made it catch your eyes. in the middle was an image of a person landing the final punch to his opponent. On the top of the poster the word "Tri Village Arena opens soon" was written in bold letters. Malcolm sucked his breath as he saw the master piece. For Don to use his artistic capabilities for a drunken idea like his almost made him want to cry.

"How long did this take you to make?"

"Oh I made this yesterday. What do you think?"

"..." Malcolm could now understand why Solomon thought that Don was the Oddest. He might not be strong or have an aggressive behavior or its more like he does not need it.