"Come on, is that all you got……I know you can do better than that!" I lightly taunted, as I continued deflecting Fuo's ice arrows with my blades.

  She was firing a relentless barrage at me, and while it was preventing me from getting closer, I wasn't having too much trouble deflecting them. My eyes could follow them, and while each arrow packed quite a bit of speed and momentum, I was using forty percent Karma to boost my strength so that they didn't overwhelm me.

  If this keeps up, she'll eventually run out of Mana.

  She suddenly stopped the barrage and formed an extra thick arrow in her bow. I shot forward as she fired it……huh, it's not as fast as her usual arrows. I began to swing my short-sword to deflect it away, when it suddenly split into four thinner arrows. Crap!

  I quickly halted and flicked my wrists across, spinning my blades in front of me, partially deflecting the four arrows. One whizzed past the top of my left shoulder, one grazed me just above my left elbow, one grazed my right side, and the last one flew past my right ear. Whew, that was close.

  "Tsk, I almost had you……," She sighed, slumping onto one knee, appearing to be out of Mana.

  "Nice try," I remarked, as she suddenly stood up and fired another short barrage of arrows at me, which I deflected without too much trouble.

  I may be closer in distance, but the speed behind her arrows was dropping……still, that was clever. She faked being out of Mana to try and get in a sneak attack, it's too bad she didn't fool me……

  "That might have worked……if you had been a more convincing actor……it was kinda obvious that you were going for a fakeout," I informed her, as she was really out of Mana this time.

  I flung a handful of poison needles at her to teleport her out of the barrier, as she clicked her tongue with a frown.

  I transferred the Karma back into the Mana Orb and put away my blades as I stretched my arms up. Ekai then handed the scroll to an irritated-looking Fuo, who activated the barrier after he got in place.

  I gotta say, I had really looked forward to fighting him for a long time.

  "I would like to face you in the form you took during the semi-final of the recently concluded Brawl of Glory," Requested Ekai, asking me to use Vampire Mode.

  After the tournament, the headmaster had curiously grilled me about that transformation for like half an hour, explaining it had been pretty annoying……

  Using Vampire Mode now, huh……should I do it……?

  "Sure, why not……so long as you use that flaming tornado of yours at full power," I responded with a grin.

  He nodded affirmatively, as flames began sprouting and spinning around his feet, rapidly rising and expanding.

  Alright, here goes……

  I activated Vampire Mode as the height of his tornado reached the ceiling of the barrier……I see, he's using the barrier to his advantage by giving his tornado more height than he usually does, in order to close up the opening at the top.

  My wings and tail sprouted out as the tornado began expanding outwards, the flames slowly filling the barrier as red streaks appeared in my hair and my pupils turned red while the whites of my eyes turned black. It was getting pretty hot in here, but in this form, I could barely feel it.

  I channeled Mana into my right hand and fingers, red streaks of lightning violently sparking from it as the rapidly spinning and expanding flames grew closer and closer to me, and as they reached me……I strained my muscles and swung my hand across it with all my might, with as much strength and speed as I could muster.

  In an instant, I had completely blown the tornado away from me, the barrier exploded as I did, the heat causing the air to expand more than the barrier could handle……a look of immense surprise and disbelief was on Ekai's face. Fuo quickly reactivated the barrier while sprinkling herself with tiny specks of ice from her fingers to cool herself off.

  Ekai was covered in what looked almost like steam burns……I see, when I swiped my hand across, I didn't just extinguish the flames, but I also sent all the incredibly hot air right back at him……with the tornado taken apart, he was no longer in the eye of it, and was exposed to all that intense heat in the instant that I swung my arm.

  Oops, no time to analyze, I've only got about five seconds left. I extended my index and middle fingers in a finger-gun motion and pointed it at him while charging up lightning in them.

  "Bang," I said in a calm and confident tone as I discharged it, firing a rapid ball of lightning at him.

  He began to try and evade, but it was too fast for him to dodge, the barrier teleporting him out before it could blast through him. The sphere of lightning crackled forward rapidly and blasted a hole through the barrier, as I returned to my normal state. The hole had a radius of about half a meter.

  I think I'll call that Lightning Bullet……though it'd probably be too weak in my normal state, but it should still pack a punch if I used eighty percent or more Karma. I walked over to Ekai, who was wincing at the pain from all his burns.

  "Sorry, my bad……I can heal you if you want, it's more effective that a healing Spell Scroll," I offered.

  "No need to apologize, unforseen injuries are to be expected in a fight. You can heal others? I do not quite understand, but I shall gladly accept that offer."

  "I should warn you……this might hurt a bit," I remarked, entering Soul-Eater Mode and biting into his shoulder.

  I felt him shudder in pain as I began sharing my Healing Factor, taking care of his burns within a handful of seconds.

  "Woah, I didn't know you could do that," Fuo expressed in surprise.

  "It was rather painful as you said, but you were correct, it was more effective that a healing spell," Remarked Ekai, moving his arms around.

  We decided to take a short break after that, all that heat had made us sweat pretty heavily, and as a result, we had used up more stamina than expected at this point.

  "By the way, out of curiosity……I see you guys together pretty often, are you together?" I inquired, immediately getting my answer as Fuo scrunched up her face with disgust while Ekai shook his head.

  "No, you are mistaken……we are cousins, our mothers are sisters," Explained Ekai, before adding, "And even if we were not……she is only interested in girls."

  "Yeah, what he said."

  "Huh, didn't know that. Had no idea you two were related," I remarked in surprise.

  Fuo looked at me with slight surprise.

  "Most people give me a strange look when they find out I'm not interested in boys……I appreciate you not getting all inquisitive about it."

  Was it really that big a deal? Well, it is another world, so things worked differently to my old world.

  "It just doesn't interest me, that's all……the fact that you're cousins is a cool fact, but something like your sexuality really doesn't affect or matter to me in the slightest," I shrugged with disinterest, before standing up, "Alright, then……let's keep going!"

  We decided to fight while putting handicaps on our strengths so that we could work on our weak areas. Fuo wasn't very good at close range combat, so I suggested……

  "Hey, since you can make arrows out of ice……can't you make swords, spears and other weapons too? You should get some basic training with a close range weapon, that way you have a way to defend yourself if for some reason you're up against an opponent who knows how to force a fight into the close range. You could even make ice claws or needles."

  "Hm……that's not a bad idea. Admittedly, I am quite vulnerable if an opponent gets too close and I currently don't have any close range options. I suppose I should thank you for the suggestion," She replied in a disgruntled tone.

  Wow, she got into a bad mood the instant she thanked me.

  "……you don't seem too pleased, you, uh……don't have to thank me if you don't want to, it's not big deal."

  "No, it isn't that……it's just a little frustrating that one of the people I want to get stronger than just helped me get stronger."

  "You're way too obsessed with being strong, especially after Goldway," I sighed.

  "I'm just ambitious……I'm well aware that there's a limit to how much I can improve, but if I aim unreasonably high, maybe I'll at least reach greater heights than I might have if I had been more pessimistic."

  "Oh, I get what you're trying to say……let's see, how does that saying go……something like 'shoot for the stars, and you might at least make it to the moon'," I replied, recalling that old saying from my previous life.

  "Aren't you also aiming to be the strongest?" She asked curiously.

  "Who, me? No……not really, I definitely want to be strong, but I don't care all that much about whether or not I'm the 'strongest'," I shrugged.

  "Then how come you entered the Brawl of Glory in just your first year."

  "Oh……right, that. Well……"

  I briefly explained how I met Misen and what that led to.

  "I am surprised that he was able to provoke you into accepting," Remarked Ekai after I finished explaining.

  "Yeah, well……it was kind of a heat of the moment thing, and that guy just grinded my gears right from the get go. And at the time, I was still pretty green when it came to magic, so he was way stronger than me……looking back, I think that kinda pissed me off too, someone looking down on me that was too strong for me to do anything about at the time……I guess I could have bided my time and waited till I was much stronger, but I was impatient and annoyed, and wanted to relieve that feeling as soon as possible. Looking back, it was probably pretty stupid to fall for his provocation……," I trailed off with an irritated sigh as I recalled that unpleasant first encounter with that zebra-haired bastard.

  "So you don't care about being the strongest, but you don't like it when someone's stronger than you……that's pretty contradictory," Responded Fuo, making a good point.

  "Fair enough……but honestly, the idea of being the strongest in the world or whatever, it doesn't really excite me or anything. Sure, if I'm fighting someone stronger than me, I'd wish that I was stronger than them, but that's more like……a survival instinct."

  "You punched Neo Lapunder, the number one Adventurer……and you appeared to be full of anticipation to fight the two of us today as well," Ekai chimed in curiously.

  "Oh, well……regarding Lapunder, that punch was circumstantial, I didn't really have a choice. As for today……I guess I wanted to know if I could beat you two……well, mainly Ekai……no offense, but I kinda figured that I could probably beat you, Fuo."

  "……bastard."

  Huh, but maybe they had a point……maybe becoming the strongest really was what I was after? The two of them decided to start sparring, and I began mulling it over as I activated the barrier. After thinking it over, I came to a conclusion.

  There main reasons I didn't want to run into someone stronger than me were that……I don't ever want to be captured and tortured again, and I want to be able to protect Persia and anyone else important to me……that might prove impossible if someone stronger than me came after them. What if Kalbowdi Payse had been stronger than me, would Persia and I have died that day……?

  "You look rather deep in thought……I would not worry, after fighting you I can confidently say that there are unlikely to be many people that are stronger than you. No one has ever blown away my tornado with a swipe of their hand……actually, if I am not mistaken, no one has ever blown it away like that……Misen got the closest, he was able to partially cancel out a section of it using his Lightning Crystal spear, but he lost that weapon in Goldway."

  "Well, that form only lasts for less than twenty seconds, and I have no idea how strong those of The Valaque Empire are, not to mention the Vampires……I somehow doubt that the power I got from a Vampire is stronger than an actual freaking Vampire. You know what……I'll set it all aside for now, I came here to spar not to have an existential crisis……let's keep going!"……

  A couple of hours later, we headed back to the Rustlands after we reached out limits. We fought each other multiple times, with different handicaps each time to work on our weaknesses. I found out that I couldn't deal with Ekai's flaming tornado with less than eighty percent Karma, and Fuo was tough to beat with just Lightning Boost, though I didn't lose to her even once during our sparring matches, much to her chagrin. Anyway, after going a bunch of rounds against them, my day of sparring with fire and ice came to end.

  We went our separate ways after we got in past the gate, I made my way home, satisfied by the training and the amount of time in the day that I killed. Huh, come to think of it……this might have been the first time I voluntarily spent time with only people who weren't from Group D……I don't think I'd mind doing that every now and then……I had never had the chance to socialize with anyone close to my age in my old life, but things were so different in this world.

  And on the training front, it was pretty effective to change things up and train with different people every so often. As for how I spent the rest of my day……I lazed around while getting high, before eventually going to sleep. Peaceful days like this are nice every now and then……

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  Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to vote, and feel free to leave a comment, I appreciate any and all feedback and criticism! Also, check out my Instagram account @aimdaqs for posts relating to this book.