Vorok got up and looked at me in disbelief. He clenched his fists and angry-cried while glaring at me. Talk about macho. Man, that kid sure would need therapy because of his crazy dad.

The crowd around us erupted in cheers. My parents rushed to me, hugged me fiercely and then father picked me up, hoisting me high in the air.

“Luka! Luka! Luka!”

“Little God!”

I grinned and waved at the crowd. That had been a lot more fun than I expected. Vorok was a damn good wrestler, and if I hadn't had Mana Augmentation, he would have made a pretzel out of me.

But I did have magic. And magic was awesome.

“CHEATING!” A loud voice boomed over the cheering, silencing the crowd.

Of course…

Marek pushed through the crowd, his face twisted with anger. He pointed at me with a thick finger.

“He cheated! That was magic! I saw it!”

The people in the crowd looked confused and started whispering.

Father lowered me to the ground and turned towards Marek. “Don't start.”

“Don't start?” Marek roared. “Your boy can't wrestle! He has no Skill! He blasted my son out of the ring with some sorcerer's trick!”

“Winning is winning,” father said.

“Not like that!”

I looked at Marek and raised an eyebrow.

“Really?”

He turned to loom over me menacingly and crossed his arms. “Wrestling is about strength and technique! Not throwing people around with tricks.”

Tsk. Who tries to scare a two year old? Besides, I wasn’t intimidated at all after throwing him on his ass with a Water Jet. I hadn’t intended to reveal Marek’s plot, but it was just too ridiculous to dare call me a cheater.

I mean, of course I was, and I wasn’t going to apologize for it. But hello? Pot, meet kettle.

“Then why did you give Vorok those tonics?” I asked.

Marek flinched which made me smile like a Cheshire cat.

“Yeees?”

“What tonics?” he growled.

“The ones that made his muscles all weird. I can see mana, you know. You've stuffed him so full of potions he must be pissing green.”

A few people laughed.

“You little liar!”

“Am I?” I asked innocently. “Then you won't mind if Elder Piraka takes a look.”

All eyes turned towards the Elder. Piraka had been watching the exchange with a troubled expression. Now he looked at Marek who shook his head.

“Elder Piraka?” my father asked.

Piraka sighed. 

“Marek,” he said quietly. “Enough.”

Marek's face darkened. “Stay out of this.”

“I cannot.”

“I said stay out of it!”

The old man straightened. “You are making a spectacle of yourself. And worse, you are accusing a child of breaking the rules when you know very well what you have done.”

Marek looked like someone had slapped him. “You dare?”

Elder Piraka only shook his head ruefully. Then the crowd erupted.

“What has he done?”

“What are they talking about?”

“Did Vorok take tonics?”

“I thought his skin looked weird.”

“Those are forbidden!”

Marek turned towards Piraka with a look of pure hatred. “We had an agreement.”

Piraka closed his eyes and turned to the crowd.

“Before the festival, Marek came to me and demanded growth tonics for his son. The first time I agreed. He is a gifted child, and improving his growth would benefit the village. This was months ago. He paid in quotas. There was no problem.”

Around the same time I displayed magic to Marek the first time? Whew, what a totally crazy coincidence…

“But after the Silverback was slain, he insisted I give his son more. A lot more, for rapid growth. This was of course dangerous for the child, so I refused.”

“That's not what happened!” Marek shouted.

Piraka ignored him.

“He threatened to withhold his contributions to the village and use his standing among the Fishers to have me removed as Elder. Eventually I gave in.”

People started shouting. I looked at my father. His mouth was hanging open. Mother, on the other hand, looked absolutely delighted. We shared a grin. I liked where this was going. 

Piraka raised his staff for silence. “I prepared the tonics myself. I knew what they were intended for. That is my shame, and I will answer for it. But so must Marek.”

Marek stood very still. I had never seen him look so small, which was impressive, considering the man was built like an outhouse.

“You had no right,” Marek whispered.

“No right?” Piraka asked. “You threatened the welfare of our village because you could not bear the thought of your son losing a children's competition!”

The crowd erupted again.

“Shame!”

“Against a toddler!”

“To risk his own son!”

I wish I had popcorn. That must have shown on my face, because Marek cast me a baleful glare.

“You think you're clever, boy?”

“Pretty clever,” I admitted.

“You've made a mockery of our traditions! My son has trained hard and you make mockery of him! No! He should have won! He is the best!”

I shrugged. “Your son is good at wrestling.”

Vorok looked up.

He had been standing beside his father, rubbing his chest and looking miserable. Now he stared at me with wide eyes.

“Really?” he asked carefully, as if expecting another trick.

“Yeah. You almost threw me. That was pretty impressive.”

He blinked.

“But you cheated,” he muttered.

I just laughed and turned back to Marek.

“It’s really embarrassing what a hypocrite you are, Marek. You should have just stayed silent and sucked it up. Then Vorok would have just lost. He would probably have won in the next Moon Festival. But then you created this farce to make a fool of yourself. Accusing a toddler of cheating? You started cheating before you even knew what I would do in this competition!”

The crowd liked that.

“He is right!”

“Marek has been cheating with the tonics for weeks!”

“He was planning to cheat all along!”

“SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!”

“Shut up!” Marek roared over the crowd. “You don’t know a damn thing!”

I turned my attention to Vorok. The boy looked pretty unhappy. I could understand that. He'd trained hard, and now everyone was laughing at his father.

“Hey,” I said.

He glared at me.

“Your wrestling was good. You should keep practicing.”

“Shut up.”

“You’ll probably win the next competition in five years,” I said. “And you’ll be the village’s best Fisher. Just.. don’t listen to your father that much. He is kind of a dumbass. Be friendly to people instead.”

“Shut up,” Vorok said again.

“Fine.”

He looked at his father, then at me.

“I didn't want to drink that stuff,” he muttered.

Marek stiffened.

“Vorok—”

“It tasted horrible!” the boy burst out. The crowd turned to look at him. “And it made me sick! But you said I had to win!”

Konako walked towards the boy and knelt before him.

“Come with me, Vorok. My wife has a high Medicine Skill. She should take a look at you. Those tonics were too strong for someone your age.”

Vorok looked at his father.

“Don’t you take him anywhere!” Marek growled. “He is my son.”

But everyone just shook their heads as they watched Konako lead his Vorok away.

The Elder turned to Marek. “You will answer for this when we return to the village.”

Marek stared at him. “You would judge me? After everything I've done for our village? I had the most quotas before that little runt started running his potion scheme to boost his father’s standing.”

Elder Piraka could only blink in utter disbelief.

I wasn’t having this anymore.

“My what now?” I asked sharply. “Oh the infusion of potions that made the whole village richer? That scheme? The one I did pretty much for free? That scheme?”

Marek glared at me and it looked like he wanted to say something. I just gave him a look. 

“Yeah?”

A flurry of emotions passed on the large man’s face. Then he gave me one last staredown. I just looked back. Then Marek looked away and pushed through the crowd and stormed off without another word.

“Yeah, I thought so,” I muttered under my breath.

I watched him go, then looked at father. “Well. That was something.”

Father shook his head in disbelief. Then he laughed loud and openly.

“Son. I’m sorry, but you winning was the second best thing that happened today!”

I chuckled. “Happy to help, dad.”

He laughed and picked me up to place on his shoulders. The proctor finally took us back on track. We were such a bunch of rowdy villagers.

“Luka, son of Jonaka!” he announced and pointed at me. “Winner of the wrestling competition!”

The crowd cheered. I waved at them.

“And winner of all three competitions in his age group!”

“Little God! Little God!”

I received a carved wooden trophy depicting a fish impaled by a spear. It was pretty cool, and I gave it to my father who looked at it like it was made of gold. I caught sight of Danek standing in the crowd. He had a ridiculous grin on his face. I waved at him and he waved back. Hell, he looked even happier than I was. I was looking forward to seeing what he would do with his winnings.

Father hoisted me onto his shoulders and carried me around as the crowd cheered.

I had won every competition in my age group, and Marek had just made a complete fool of himself. I sighed happily. In that moment I understood something. This wasn’t the last time I would see Marek and Vorok. Oh, those two would personally never catch up to me.

But the world was full of bullies like them. And as long as I kept advancing, they would underestimate me and try to push me down. I would absolutely not let them.

This had been such an excellent day and we weren't even done yet. I looked towards the lagoon, where the older boys were preparing for the melee gauntlet.

Some of them already had Classes. They were older, stronger, and probably had some cool Class Abilities.

I was eager to see them in action. Seeing Classed people fight would be interesting.

But most of all, I wanted to show everyone some new magic, I had been itching to test out.