VERNER: The Devil Hunter

The Six elements

Rodric stood on a hill and looked over the tea plantation, he watched as a few locals picked leaves and put in the baskets hung on their backs, with straw hats to shield their faces from the sun. Rodric owned a large strip of the plantation, and made a lot of money from here. Being one of the Sentinels in the guardian society, Rodric had the luxury of never being sent on missions or to track devils, that was for scouts and majors, sentinels only watched over their home lands, run the business of their respective clans and only get summoned to fight in other lands if a black grade devil or higher emerges.

"That kid, I don't even know why I agreed to train him", Rodric rubbed his little purple goatee, his long dark purple hair was covered by his straw hat. "I and Daegan have sold him a dream that will never come true, now he's gonna die young, for nothing" Rodric's face turned very sour, he was deep in thought. "Even if I drop the challenge and force him to shut up I can't protect him forever, he'll grow up one day and enter the wild himself", "If only Daegan had just taught him about selling goods instead of sword fighting, he'd probably have been a good business man by now".

Rodric sat on the grass to meditate, watching over the tea harvesters in the valley. "But it's too late now, the boy has chosen his path, there's nothing we can do to stop him, I can only hope he makes it through." "I'm not being cruel, every hunter goes through this test, if he can't survive the mountain demons then he has no chance in the Guardian society, it's all or nothing". Rodric closed his eyes, the mountain winds blew over gently, the area very peaceful and serene, He began to meditate. "Verner I know you're capable of doing great things, I believe in you, I just don't want to watch my student suffer, I just can't."

***

',SLASH!, SLASH!!, SLASH!!!'

Back in the pine strip, Verner and Brogan were battling it out, Brogan summoned all sorts of monster flowers from the ground and Verner was slashing all of them extremely quickly, trying to get closer to Brogan.

"He's extremely fast, I can't believe he's just a normal human. No matter how much you a train, a normal human can't possibly move like this". Verner kept slashing and dodging all the giant vines and flowers leaping from tree to tree. "He's so fast I can't keep up with him, if this continues..."

'SLASH!!!' Verner chopped a massive flower that Brogan had summoned to protect his back, he turned around saw an angry boy about to land a hit on him. "Gotcha now!!!" Verner took a massive slash at Brogan but was very shocked when the sword got stuck in this arm, and that's when he noticed, Brogan's arm had turned into solid rock.

"HAHAHA" Brogan laughed as he slapped Verner away with his rock arm. "This is your Qi element, you're from the Earth clan". Verner got up again, held this sword with both arms, Brogan chuckled "You do know a lot about we devil hunters, impressive." Brogan turned his other arm into solid rock as well.

"There are six elemental fighting styles based on Qi; Wind, Fire, Earth, Water, Thunder and Light. Each elemental style belongs to a particular clan, and each have at one sentinel sorcerer". Verner lowered his sword, interested in Brogans lecture, even though he had heard most of it before. "Qi is the ability of a hunter to use their life force to manipulate basic elements of nature and use them in multiple ways, mostly to amplify our swordfighting techniques. Children born in a respective clan have a five percent chance of being able to use Qi, and when one of us is born, the Guardian society accepts us and begin to train us till we harness our Qi in our own unique way, a tradition that you're trying to defy".

"But I can fight, I'm fast and strong and I'm very good with swords, what else does it take..."

"...This!"

Brogan charged towards him at full speed with his rock hardened fists first. Verner jumped up at the last second to dodge and landed on a tree, he tried to jump off but couldn't, the tree trunk was swallowing his feet, he tried to cut it but a huge fist came out of the tree trunk and punched him in the face, sending him flying many feet away. As he hit the ground, many more vines grew out and tied up his entire body, he couldn't move but he still held on tight to his sword.

"Shit!, Shit!!, Shit!!!" he cried

"You see it now don't you?" Brogan popped out of no where and gave him a gut wrenching punch with his rock fists, which almost blasted him out of the forest. "Elemental fighting styles allow for a wide variety of attacks based on the type of Qi you were born with, many demons have abilities similar to elemental Qi, some have powers a lot stronger infact, combat abilities will only take you so far".

Verner slowly stood up, bleeding from his mouth and holding his stomach with one arm. He gnashed his teeth with anger. "You were faster and more agile than me but I easily dominated you thanks to my Qi abilities, my point is, raw combat abilities will only take you so far" Brogan squeezed one of his biceps and smirked. "Give it up boy, I don't wanna hurt you anymore ".

Verner grabbed his sword and took a strange battle stance, he had one knee bent while his other leg was pushed backwards, his held the sword horizontally with both hands.

"That pose, it can't be..." Brogan looked in utter disbelief.

"Thunder Flash Spear,... RELEASE!!".