*Note: The events that are going to happen now is in the MC’s previous life, in a different world from the described one in the prologue. This is before he becomes the Candidate.*

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“Your majesty. Your majesty…Your breakfast is waiting for you downstairs in the dining hall.”

Who was it, that was ruining my precious sleep? My drowsy eyes slowly opened to see the royal butler standing by my bedside. How was it that the only day I slept late due to the paperwork, I had to be abruptly woken up!

“I’ll be there in 10 minutes.” I sighed, closing my eyes again.

As enticing as being a king sounds, it’s hugely overrated. In this world where magic and beasts exist, only the powerful deserve respect. From young I had worked my ass off to get to this position – King of my kingdom.

Only the strongest was given the title of King and tournament and duels were held every year to decide the next ruler. At the young age of 24 I had obtained everything, but there was one thing I never had. A family.

After I had finished that delicious meal, I decided to go visit the academy again, where the young were honed into trained hunters and adventurers. To be honest, it does sound a bit weird to be looking at young students but I was only there for that beautiful teacher – General Sanders. Beauty of a woman, how she wasn’t married yet was beyond me but I know she’s the one for me. I could feel it in my bones.

“King Lance, how nice it is to see you again.” General Sanders spoke in a sexy tone. I blushed.

“It’s nice to see you too, should we get on with it?” I returned, looking away diverting my eyes.

“Sure!”

She walked in front of me swaying her hips from side to side like a model directing me to the arena, where the students were having combat classes.

“Your highness, would you like some tea or anything else?” General Sanders turned around, and a cup of tea was in her hands. It was like magic. Haha, see what I done there.

“Yeah, sure, I don’t mind if it’s been made by you.” I smiled and accepted the cup of tea. We kept on walking but it did cut me, to be quite strange that she’d ask so late. Maybe I was overthinking it. I took a couple sips and incinerated the cup with my wind ability.

**

As I walked into the arena I could hear gasps and whispers.

“It’s the King, why is he here?” I heard a student whisper, “Might he be teaching us today?”

“Isn’t he that king, that everyone’s talking about, who gave half of our land away to the druids, that useless king.” another student whispered. That stung a bit, but I just ignored the whispers and sat down on the VIP bench with General Sanders.

The arena was circular like a Colosseum and was surrounded by benches, almost awaiting for gladiators to fight. Duels and demonstrations were often demonstrated to students by veteran hunters and generals, but today it was my turn.

“OK students, Settle down. Today we have a very important guest who’ll be gifting all of us with a one in a lifetime demonstration, no king has ever taken interest in our academy, so today is a very special day.” the headmaster spoke. “Now if you will all applaud for our king!”

As he finished, a burst of deafening claps began and ended when I reached the platform.

“Good Morning everyone, I’m here today, to provide you with an important skill, which will help you gravely as you all mature and grow as hunters; I will be demonstrating an advanced skill called Intent energy circulation.” I began amplifying my voice using my magic energy.

“This technique is the foundation to all other advanced magic spells. It works so a hunter is easily able to control his or her magic energy at will. Usually, young hunters and students your age tend to only activate their magic energy right before a spell or an attack. However, this can take a lot of time and your opponent could already finish you off by then. This technique is done by redirecting magic energy from your heart throughout your body, and releasing killing intent with it. An end result should look like this.” I released 20% of my magic energy throughout my body and decided to add a spice of killing intent to shake up those few who doubted my power.

The atmosphere vibrated with my energy and the students and teachers alike froze, as if they just saw a beast. Now my presence was being recognised. I felt satisfied. Their eyes peered at me, in fear and awe; some students started to choke and gasp for air, that’s when I relaxed my energy.

The headmaster still startled, snapped out of his trance and got up and started clapping. Again the arena burst into claps. The headmaster took over and decided to demonstrate more moves, but I was already leaving.

I noticed something though, there was something odd. Something I couldn’t explain. After I had exercised only 20% of my power, a strange fatigue took over my body like a virus. My body felt so drained as if I had just battled a demon lord. What was happening? Could it have been something I consumed? I had reached my carriage already by this point. My mind still in thought. Then it happened.

A deafening blast erupted blasting through the arena roof. Shaken out of my thoughts, I turned back and saw the destruction. Immediately, the young students popped up in my head, “The kids!” I shouted.

Shrouding myself in wind energy I dashed for the arena and used my echolocation spell to identify what was happening inside, as I was still too far. I didn’t know what to expect, but this was horrifying.

Over half of the students were dead, some injured and unconscious, some teachers dead and some fighting some sort of beast. Their bodies laid limp on the ground like dolls: some had their bodies folded like an ironed shirt.

When I had finally made it through the entrance and into the hall, my ears rang with cries and screams from the people around me. Then I looked down at the headmaster in the corner, covered in blood. Blood flowed, thick and sluggish, from a slash across his torso, spilling out a pile of mixed up guts. I stepped forward to hear a small squash under my foot. Ewww! I felt nauseous. What the hell was that? It was a pile of what looked like a bundle of spaghetti or rubber hoses drenched in sticky blood.

“Wake up! Somebody help!” I heard an agonising yelp filled with sheer sorrow from behind me. I turned to her and the look on her face said it all. I was so caught up in the moment. I quickly turned but-

THUD! I flew across the air into a cement wall. As soon as my back hit contact with the wall, “Arghhh!” I screamed out. I slid down to the cold floor, feet first but when my feet touched the ground, it was like my body was unable to hold itself up. It felt as if my whole body was cut off from my consciousness.

My legs gave up and I fell into a sitting position on the wall. I clenched my fist and squeezed my eyes shut. Peering down at my leg, I felt like I was going to faint at the sight. Raven black blood oozed out of my arm and that’s when the wave of reality smacked me right in the face. A pearl white stick looking thing poked out of my arm, tainted in blood. Heh, I broke it.

Why wasn’t I healing? I charged up all my strength to quicken up the healing process and the effort it took was ridiculous. What was wrong with me today? Heal any slower and my kingdom will be the only kingdom with no people in it.

The bone receded back into my arm and as soon as I heard a click of it reattaching itself, I pounced up like a jaguar, facing the epic beast playing in front of me. I say playing because it was throwing my people like balls at the wall and watching intently as every bone in their weak body crushed and they bounced off onto the floor like toys.

What was it? What was that thing? I had never seen something that huge!

Then I realised what it must have been.

“Dragon!!!” I shouted in my head. Dragons were magical beasts that were capable of anything. They were like deities in this world and never showed themselves in front of humans. But what was it doing here? The 100 foot beast exhaled pure blue flames at the teachers, who were struggling to fight. I needed to help them. Out of instinct I activated 100% of my magic energy and released all my killing intent.

“Pick on someone your own size!” I roared, as I conjured tornadoes, directing them towards the dragon, but its black scales were too strong. The tornadoes only managed to push the large beast backwards against the walls of the arena momentarily.

“Remaining teachers take anyone that’s alive and evacuate ASAP!” I ordered the teachers, not leaving any room for discussion. The remaining teachers stopped firing their spells at the dragon and left to do their job.

After they had evacuated and the dragon had gotten up from the ground, it shook its head and roared, making the air reverberate in fear; then it got serious, pulling itself into an offensive stance. A grin stretched across my face.

“Shackles, release.” I uttered. Now the dragon had stopped, to see this peculiar being. My hair changed from black to an ice white and my eyes glowed a hue of red, two dark horns propped out of my forehead and my magic energy grew exponentially, adding gravitas to my deadly presence.

My breathing halted for a second before I let out a relieved and satisfied sigh. The side of my lip pulled up into a devilish grin and I cracked my neck on both sides.

The beast knew something had changed and it decided to not underestimate me. I wasn’t a normal human like these other weaklings. I had a special trait. I had human and demon blood coursing through me. I had only decided to use this transformation twice before in times of crisis. Now it was this dragon’s turn. Deity or not. I was going to slay it…