• Chapter one

    Tasks
    Thirteen-year-old Leon Jones lived in a village that was run by a master. The master in the village that Leon lived in was called Master Marib Tivoc and he was the solid rock behind the village’s success. Unlike the masters from the other villages, Master Tivoc takes pride in the people and does everything he can to make the village a safe place to live in. Ever since he was appointed as master sixty years ago, he brought girls and boys from the age of twelve to train them in fighting and would send them on tasks. These tasks usually involved helping other villages with their problems/ But, being a kind man, he let them have a choice. Once they had trained with him for a year, he would ask them if they want to stay and fight for the village or go back to a normal life. First, he would ask those that had no extraordinary abilities to leave and then, those that he thought were good enough would be asked whether they wanted to stay or not. Master Tivoc would not hold a grudge against anyone that declined the offer of staying.
    Leon would be asked this questioning two weeks and he wasn’t sure what his answer was going to be. He enjoyed the tasks he did - as long as they didn’t involve too much pain. He had never been in life-threatening situations before … except for that time, almost a year ago …
    Leon was in the middle of a task. It was tough, but he was almost done and he had a great chance in succeeding. He had to leave the village and travel through many other villages to find a man called Zeus Carter, who gave him the difficult job of banishing these snake-like creatures called Realtors. The Realtors threatened the lives of every inhabitant of the village.
    He had been gone for a week already. He needed to do one more thing: banish the Realtors. He travelled to the village’s palace. Not many villages have palaces; it was mainly the masters who thought a lot about themselves that would make glittering palaces with thousands of servants at their command and several members of Guards to protect him.
    The master who lived here was called Master James Norma.
    Leon searched the castle and, by obeying many clues and skilfully dodging many tricks, he found a stone. This stone belonged to Zeus Carter. Zeus was an important servant of Norma’s. The stone had an odd power that not even Leon understood.
    It was a blue sapphire, disguised as a necklace. Leon was told that it changed colour every so often but it never changed while it was in his possession. Leon took the stone to the centre of the village where the Realtors were most plentiful. Without knowing what he was doing he clutched the chain, the stone dangling from it. He held it out in front of him.
    The stone began to rise into the sky and light shone on it. The light reflected off it and hit the Realtors. Smoke began to swarm around each of them. They let out an odd whine, a high-pitched screech and they vanished. Whether they were dead or nor, Leon did not know, but as the stone returned to his hands; he didn’t care. His task was done, and he could now go home knowing that innocent lives were now saved at his hands.
    Master Norma congratulated and thanked Leon before he set out on his journey home which took three more days in the blistering sun.