Chapter 19 - True Power

“I I won’t accept this!” he screeched, and promptly ran off through the crowd, elbowing his way through. Several of the spectators laughed as he ran. Dale and Feng shook their heads, amused.

Feng didn’t really care about his promise to crawl, it was just a temporary amusement to him. After all, with over 150,000 students on campus, he felt it unlikely they would meet again.

Dale walked up to the massive crystal, mentally preparing himself to land a blow. “Alright Feng, I’ll give it a shot now.” He look at the huge rock for a bit. The spot where Feng had punched didn’t have any marks, but he could still feel the residue of heat, warming the air slightly. Standing next to the rock, the crystal was much larger up close. He could see mysterious symbols faintly moving inside.

Dale closed his eyes for a moment, and concentrated on his Aura. He slowly focused his entire willpower to infuse Aura into his energy. Ever since Dale had begun his practice, he had noticed that, for some reason, any of the techniques he used that involved Aura or Time seemed to easily advance, and were much more powerful then the training books implied. However, when he went to be tested, the innate crystals showed that he didn’t have a bloodline. It was very confusing, he mentally shrugged.

Dale fused his Aura and will, creating an enormous amount of energy. Some of the energy quietly dissipated, about 1/3rd of it, but the rest formed a small ball of power. Dale concentrated this ball of energy, infusing it into his fist. He opened his eyes, glancing at the massive crystal. Slowly, without any sense of hurry, he moved his arm into a perfect punch. As his arm moved, he slowly move the energy resting in his arm, into the momentum and strength of his moving fist.

The crowd had been watching Dale, waiting for him to show some amazing power like Feng had. However, all they say was a boy close his eyes, as if he was nervous or scared, and then slowly bring out a fist to tap the crystal.

“Moron! You’re supposed to punch it, not give it a hug!

“Kiddo, what are you doing?”

“Pathetic.”

“Even I can hit it harder then that.”

The crowd started ridiculing him, as he maintained his slow punch. Dale ignored them, focusing on punching a perfect blow. He didn’t need speed, as long as the angle, power, and momentum were perfect.

The Aura infused in his fist grew more and more powerful, as his mounting will began to expand, and his concentrating grew. As Dale’s fist slowly moved, you could say he was at the peak of focus right now. His concentration was the highest it had ever been, focusing on infusing his Aura, and strengthening his blow to the utmost. Suddenly, as his heavy blow nearly crashed into the crystal, Dale felt a huge pool of power inside of him. It was pure Aura, and it felt like a massive ocean of power compared to his current strength. Dale was astonished, but instantly remembered the time he had driven off the Dragon, so many years ago.

This was that exact same power. Dale maintained his concentration, and attempted to add just a little bit of power from this huge pool into his fist. A small river of power joined his blow, and suddenly, with a bit of fright, Dale felt like he was being overwhelmed. He quickly stemmed the flow coming into him. If he let the enormous power flow freely, it would completely ravage and destroy his energy veins, he thought, sweating nervously.

However, at that exact moment, his fist, moving methodically through the air, came into contact with the Field Strength Testing Crystal.

“BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!” the impact create a massive sound wave, and blasted several of the onlookers of their feet. The ground formed massive cracks, as waves of force blasted out in every direction, shaking the very foundation of the building. All the students in the hall turned and stared, gaping.

“Is a Gold Core expert here?!” one of them exclaimed, moving forward to see who punched the crystal.

“What a massive impact!” another said.

“Who could possibly be this strong?! Is it one of the top 100 rankers, practicing?”

“But why would they test their strength? Isn’t it pointless to measure by pure power at the higher levels.”

The crowd members that had fallen slowly stood up, dusting themselves off.

Dale stood before the huge crystal, looking at his fist in astonishment. The ground beneath him was covered in huge cracks, the residue of his powerful blow breaking the very earth.

Suddenly, a light flashed out from the Field Strength Test Crystal, flashing through different colors and layers. The measuring crystal to the side started to rattle off numbers.

“2000..3000..4000...5000…6000..8000..12000…12450?!?!” the students stared at Dale like he was a monster. And well, he was. To be able to hit a 12,450lb blow at the age of 10 was ridiculous in the extreme. It was a known fact that between layers, experts where roughly 3 times as powerful. However, this was based on experience and technique, not on pure power. A peak Coal expert should be able to impact around 2000lbs of force. A peak Copper expert, around 4000. Iron would be 6000, Steel at 8000, Silver at 10000, and Gold at roughly 12000. At the higher levels, the difference in strength is not too large, the key difference is the amount of energy they can handle in their veins, and the powers they have trained.

However, for Dale, a 10 year old, to a hit a blow that some peak Gold experts coudln't should have been impossible. Indeed, even now for Dale, it was impossible to use this technique in battle. The reason he managed to land his punch with such force was because of the absolute concentration he maintained. Thanks to that concentration, he was able to perfectly gauge his fist, and release everything according to perfect. In an actual battle, this would not be the case. The other reason is because he moved slowly. Because of his slow speed, his concentration while punching reached a new peak, and he was able to tap into the massive Aura lurking in his body.

Dale was very confused as to why he had such an Aura in his body at all. According to the testing crystals, he did not have a Lords Bloodline, and only Aura Lords should have something like that.

However, Dale was wrong. He didn’t have just one Lords Bloodline, he actually had two Lords Bloodlines. Ever since his battle with the Azure Ice Dragon, Dales prowess in Time and Aura had rapidly shot up, giving him a huge advantage over other practicioners. Though Dale hadn't noticed yet, he was slowly gaining complete power over these 2 elements, a characteristic that only Divine Lords had.

When an Innate Strength crystal went to test him, it testing his innate strength as well as picked up on both of his Bloodlines. However, both Bloodlines flashed against each other, both trying to show up on the crystals record. The crystal had no set way to show this, and thus, both Bloodlines cancelled each other out, and resulted in neither one showing up.

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