*Iah*

Keanu stood at the corner of a once empty room as I covered the floor in stones and dirt.

"You're good at this," he said in his small voice.

"You will soon be too," I said, grinning. I threw him a pebble and rose to my full height. "Close your eyes and focus on that stone like this..." I closed my eyes. "Concentrate on the stone, and chant Terra."

The tiny stone in my hand glowed light yellow as it grew and grew until it was the size of a one ton boulder. Gently, I put down my rock and glanced over at my student. Keanu's pebble was still just a pebble.

The young heir closed his eyes again and chanted 'Terra'. Nothing happened. He repeated the process over and over until the pebble was finally double its old size. He smiled and dropped the pebble. He faltered unto the floor.

"Keanu!" I yelled, running over to him. I picked him up into my arms and pressed the back of my left hand against his head. He was burning up, he had over exerted himself.

I didn't think he was transmitting any prana unto the stone at all. In reality he had been adding little by little during his un-manifested spells.

"I'm fine," he said, jumping out of my arms. He glanced at the ground. His red eyes searched the floor around us carefully. He picked up pebbles the size of the one he had dropped.

"You're looking for your pebble?" I said, kneeling down to help him.

He nodded. "It's my first earth spell." He said with a smile.

I picked up a stone similar to the one he dropped. "Is this it?"

He grabbed the stone. "Seems like it."

I couldn't help but laugh. "They all look the same, so how can you tell."

Keanu closed his eyes and chanted "Terra." The stone grew twice as large as before. It had traces of his magic left in it. He didn't seem tired despite having casted another spell.

Did this eight year-old boy call upon the energy left behind in the stone previously? Or was he perhaps piling up his Prana into the stone? Piling up one's energy into an object is a very earth mage thing to do. Did he do it on purpose though? Or was it an accident?

"Hey Keanu," I said, staring at the smiling kid. "When did you cast your first earth spell? Your mother mentioned how you and your siblings just started using your new elements, so how did you know, or awakened your earth magic?"

"I didn't," he said, raising his eyes from his stone. "This is my first spell. Mother told me I could learn earth magic as she taught me how to use fire magic. Not sure how she figured that out from that alone. Also, I saw an earth user on TV, he was awesome. He was all blam! Throwing rocks everywhere! Though this guy was an angel."

"An angel?"

He nodded. "It was an old recording from around the time when I was but an infant. Of course, I didn't see it until I was Koal and Nekua's age. He was awesome! He wielded a shield!"

"A shield...?"

Why does that seem familiar? But more importantly, Lady Yeung saw ability to use earth when he was using fire magic? How did his earth magic materialize while using fire? "Can you cast a fire spell you are well versed in?"

He closed his eyes and raised a hand in the air. "Mr. Wudi, move out of the way."

I didn't know why a child, especially one like Keanu would tell me to move away from their spell. Regardless, I moved away in order to give him space to cast his spell.

"Here goes. Flame Dragon!" A blinding red light filled the room. A raging, yellow flame burned in the air. One could feel the oxygen in the room quickly deplete as the flames roared with power. The walls shimmered brightly as the wood became covered in a sort of metallic coating. Meanwhile, an alarm blared overhead. Keanu grinned at his work as he collapsed to the ground, weary from all the magic he had casted. Yet, he managed to raise his right index finger.

"Look, teacher, magma."

I glanced at what he pointed at. The kid wasn't hallucinating, there really was magma dripping from half melted rocks with a large hole in the center.

Does this kid not see his talent?

"You're amazing Keanu." I picked up the boy and carried him back to his room.

His earth spells... they give me an idea...

The screen door in front of me slide open. It was Lady Yeung.

"What happened to him?" Lady Yeung asked as she ran over to her son and took him off of my hands.

"I find it hard to believe but he pushed himself into a state of fatigue."

She stared at her son the same way I had. "Little Keanu did? That's odd. He usually doesn't go all out with his magic."

"Is that so?" I glanced back at the shimmering walls. "Just look at that."

Lady Yeung glanced around at the silver glow covering the wooden surface of the walls.

"That's Radiant Wood, isn't it? It only becomes like this when exposed to intense heat. I have no fire powers at all."

"That's right... so little Keanu could produce such intense heat. Incredible..."

I put my hands on my hips. "Hey, how did you figure he had the potential for earth magic?"

Lady Yeung smiled softly at her first born. "His first fire spells came out explosively like the magma of a volcano that hadn't erupted for years. I figured that if his fire magic came out like that then there must be something else beyond fire. The only element I could think of that can cause such an effect was earth. That's when I started to theorize that he had earth prana over his fire prana"

"So Keanu was born with the ability to use Earth...interesting. Are the other three the same way?"

"Nekua is. The other two seem to have transformed their fire magic into lightning and wind, especially Solean."

"Hmm, well they are right next to fire on the prana wheel."

"It is possible that Keanu's prana mutated over time, but it's odd for the prana of a child to change."

I lowered my arms. "I find it odd that your clan has the ability to use multiple kinds of magic in addition to fire considering the historical reliance on fire magic only."

Yeung settled Keanu into his bed and tucked him in. "I can't say much about our clan's traditions. I am not well versed in the Huo clan's traditions. Unlike Kadriya I was not born into one of the noble branches of the Huo. My mother actually raised me outside of the clan. She died of an illness when I was ten and thus I was left in the care of non-mages who were not Huo."

"Pardon my rudeness, but what about your father?" I asked, tilting my head at her.

She hugged her son. "My father didn't know I existed until a few days before his death."

"At the hands of Kadriya's brother?" I asked.

"No, he died protecting me from a strange creature. His death...it inspired me to learn the magic in the books he gave me. Also, father was not a member of this clan. Remember that clan I mentioned earlier?"

I tried not to sound too surprised. "You mean you're a member of the clan that murdered the Sui?"

"That's right. Like I said before, there were fourteen members that killed the Sui. The fourteenth did not vanish like the rest until awhile later." She stood up and puts a hand on my shoulder. "Please don't tell my husband or anyone else about this, especially my kids. I don't want my children to grow up knowing that two of their relatives participated in genocide."

"I won't," I whisper. "Now about your clan's traditions, how come you don't know them despite being married to Kadriya?"

She smiled. "My husband is as secretive as I am."

"Who is secretive?" Standing by the door was a man wearing a golden ruby encrusted crown. He had the red hair of Koal and the blue eyes of Nekua. There was something about him which reminded me of Akito's golden eyed form as well as my own uncle. It was an aura of power, a kingly aura. It was something I could only hope to give off at some point.

"I was talking to Iah about our clan's traditions and how I know so little about them," Lady Yeung responded. "He seems to know a lot about us."

Kadriya shifted his radiant red eyes toward me. "Is that so? How do you know so much about our clan Mr. Wudi?"

That was a question I had wondered for a while, but about my mother.

"My mother told me," I responded. "She knows a lot about the fire clan. She taught my little brother Akatsuki a lot of the traditional stuff."

"Your mother is the former Empress of your nation isn't she? Your clan's heads seem to know a lot more about the Huo then the vast majority of us do. Looking back at it the fact that you do makes a lot of sense. You see, we Huo have a legend that speaks of a tribeswoman who married with a Wudi prince with immense power. This couple's descendants are said to have inherited the clan's crown and still hold power to this day. You are a Huo, aren't you?"

"What?" Lady Yeung said, covering her mouth.

"Is that story really true?" I said, scratching the back of my head. "Then am I a Huo?"

"It may be," Kadriya said. "It's difficult to tell as the legend goes far back. In all likelihood, your Huo blood is barely there anymore. This legend goes back thousands of years, so technically you aren't a Huo. I will say this, the ones who show off their Huo blood the best are the birds. In the last Mahoulympics I participated in there was a boy with flames that reminded me of my own when I was his age" He grabbed the two red haired kids hiding behind the door. "Speaking of which, I caught these two snooping around the house."

"Akatsuki, Zhuhong!" I yelled, stomping toward the door. "What were you doing? You're guests here!"

"We got bored of watching the kids use other elements so we decided to leave and explore the house for some fire spells," Vermillion said, lowering her head. "Sorry. You must be very mad... calling me Zhuhong."

I crossed my arms and took in a deep breath. "You should have waited and asked to be shown some spells after we finished training the Huo. You two could learn a lot from those kids."

"Really?" Vermillion said, giving me a skeptical look. "That girl who hit my brother ended up using fire instead of lightning a moment ago. It makes me wonder how much they know, especially since they are younger than me. Akatsuki is also more talented than those kids his age."

"So you wish to learn strong fire spells, is that correct?" Kadriya asked, rubbing his chin. His eyes danced around and a half smile covered his face. "Will you two be patient enough for Keanu to awaken?"

"Sure," Akatsuki said, nodding.

"What are you planning?" I said, narrowing my eyes.

Kadriya's half smile became a full smile. "Yeung can you call the kids back here? In the meantime I'll prepare the largest training room we have."

Yeung nodded with as much excitement as her husband. She left me alone with Keanu, Kadriya, and the vermilion birds.

**Solar Note: What do you think of the history of the Huo and Wudi? Any thoughts about Keanu's power? What do you except Kadriya is plotting?**