Ranok stood before me as the poster-boy of an athletic warrior. He was shirtless and muscular, and he wore black pants, with a red sash that fluttered in the wind. On his shoulder rested a massive sword that had a handle that was longer than my body. Yet, he seemed to wield it as if it was a weightless toy.

He looked down on me, for which I couldn’t really blame him for, considering my height. But there was no joy in him. No excitement for the coming fight. Only contempt.

I just smiled at him. I would show him my joy. I was hoping for a proper brawl!

The fight started just like any of Ranok’s fights. Slowly. He released that magical cloud of his and we just stood there. I was casting a pretty elaborate barrier spell on myself with two layers. I had been improving my barrier in that way, creating an extra safeguard. Additionally, one of the barriers could be used for Barrier Pulse if needed.

The magical cloud of corrosion didn’t penetrate the barrier, but unlike last time it did start damaging it. That was new. I reinforced both of my barriers and trapped some of the corrosive cloud between the shields. Then I guess I just kind of spaced out as I looked at it. The mana had taken on an ugly, spiky pattern. It drifted idly in clusters, bouncing off each other. I felt Magical Trance starting to take as I studied the magic and tinkered with my barrier spell formula to find a configuration that would not be damaged by Ranok’s magic.

“They’re just standing there!” Someone yelled in the background of my mind, but I was way too focused on getting the spell right.

Finally I got it! Nice. I now understood the structural relationship between—

A massive greatsword came at me in a sideways cleave with monstrous power. I had to admit, it caught me completely off guard. An instinctive Barrier Pulse that drained half of my cultivation mana reserves instantly saved me. The sword bounced back and was almost wrested from Ranok’s hands.

“Pay attention or I’ll crush you,” he said. “This is no game.”

“I was paying attention,” I said in a low voice. “Rude of you to interrupt me.”

“So you figured my magic out, huh,” Ranok said and attacked with a fierce combo of two regular swings and then clearly a stronger swing that came from an uncanny angle— a Class Ability.

Two of them my recast barrier held, but the third one I dodged out of the way, using Kinetic Push on myself.

“Big deal,” Ranok growled. “The Corrosion Cloud is the side dish. It is my strength that you should fear.”

I had to take the defensive for now. My fights in the jungle and against my friends had taught me that I needed space to fight at my best. However, Ranok was intent on taking all of that space away.

I landed badly and skidded in the sand. Ranok was already coming after me. Instead of lifting his sword for another big swing, he thrust it straight at my chest. I pushed the blade sideways and scrambled away, but he followed with his shoulder and slammed into my barrier. The impact sent me stumbling. Damn, he was good at this. Even when his sword missed, he kept finding ways to interrupt me.

So I spent the first half of the duel dodging, absorbing blows with my barrier and redirecting his attacks with kinetic magic. Kinetic Push in its basic form proved especially useful against one of his Class Abilities, which was this overhead swing that literally cracked the stone under the sand of the arena.

The first time he used it, I pushed myself sideways and barely escaped. Stone fragments struck the outside of my barrier. The second time, I recognized the way he planted his feet and pushed against the side of his blade instead. It only moved a little, but that was enough. His sword struck the ground beside me, and I got a precious moment to draw in mana while he pulled it free.

I tried using a quickly constructed Kinetic Push on him at other times, but he had a Resistance much higher than Veena, which meant I couldn’t just push him around. It required real structured Spellcrafting to move him.

The difference was so stark, that I had to use my Mana Sight to look at him. His belt buckle shone brightly in my vision. That was what emitted the corrosion cloud. Oh, how I would have loved to study it, but now was not the time.

There was another artifact. A heavy amulet under his shirt. I hadn’t seen that on him before.

I cast another Kinetic Push at him, and saw the amulet pulse and send a wave of something that broke through my spell’s structure.

Some kind of anti-magic artifact! No wonder, my spells were so ineffective, when I could ragdoll Veena as I pleased. This thing was probably an even more advanced artifact than her amulet. House Belator had clearly done their homework.

I was practically drooling at the prospect of studying an anti-magic artifact, as weak as this one was. But I had to focus.

Ranok was pushing me hard and he kept me moving, so that I couldn’t prepare proper attack spells. Fortunately my barrier held against most of his non class ability strikes, but each one bore down on me so heavily that it really sapped my cultivation, and I needed to constantly use Mana Absorption to top it off and keep my barrier steady.

He started changing his attacks when he noticed me redirecting them. His attacks became more varied, and I wondered if this was a Class Ability giving him more speed and strength or what. But now he was really pressuring me. The attack-angles became more varied and when I activated my Mana Sense, I saw that he was now also releasing more of the corrosive energy from the cloud.

Then something unexpected happened. The corrosive cloud slipped through my barrier. Ranok had somehow changed the structure of his magic! In the middle of a fight, no less. Oh, I liked this guy.

I could have blasted off the cloud with kinetic energy from my cultivation immediately. And I did. But… I just couldn’t help myself.

I let some of it linger, until the strange magic brushed against my skin.

I immediately understood why Ranok’s previous opponents had fallen. The moment the corrosive mana touched me, I felt a shortness of breath, blurriness of vision and tremendous pain and weakness in my muscles. And I had only allowed a controlled amount to touch me.

In a feat of magical strength, I spent all of my current cultivation to fire a fusillade of five Water Bullets at Ranok, followed by a structured Kinetic Push. Two of the projectiles connected, which hobbled him. That allowed the Kinetic Push to throw him off his feet and made the crowd cheer.

“Did you see that?” someone shouted.
“The little guy is giving us a fight.”
“This is the first time I’ve seen the Belator prodigy challenged!”

In a flash of insight, I fixed the barrier and no longer let the particles pass. This prompted a clear surge of Magical Trance that I let myself slip into. I really needed it.

I drank in the ambient mana, which was difficult, because Ranok’s cloud was drifting everywhere, and I didn’t want to use Mana Absorption on it.

Or did I…?

Ok, no. stop being a crazy obsessed baby, and deal with this guy first!

After throwing Ranok off his feet, I managed to stabilize the fight. I had a strong continuous barrier on, Mana Augmentation to keep me moving and I kept casting kinetic and water magic at him with my Spellcrafting.

I kept targeting my spells at his knee. It had worked great against the Silverback, and until someone taught me a reason not to cripple an opponent’s ability to move, I figured it was a good idea. I hammered his knee and thigh with a few pretty accurate cultivated Water Bullets. That clearly slowed him down, but Ranok kept changing his dominant leg, and kept finding angles to dodge into, and safely attack from. This forced me to either dodge or use a well timed Barrier Pulse to parry him. 

Mostly my strategy consisted of making sure my barrier was up, and making sure I have enough space to cast and attack his right knee and thigh.

Ranok quickly realized this, and started pressuring me hard. He must have had an idea of how spellcasters worked, because it was annoying trying to keep up with Mana Augmentation and keep my structured and cultivated spellcasting going with the tempo he was setting.

He kept charging at me, while I focused on dodging and hobbling. This put us in something of a stalemate. He couldn’t properly connect a strike on me that would pop my barrier, and I didn’t have enough space to wound him with my Water Bullets. I wasn’t sure who was getting tired faster here, but I wanted to try something.

I had wondered whether Purification could do something about his cloud. In my trance, I was finally starting to understand how. I wanted to try it. It was a stupid idea combining Mana Absorption and Mana Manipulation to play with the corrosive cloud. I wanted to drink in a little bit of Ranok’s corrosive cloud. What if…?

I had to try it. I created space after Kinetic Pushing against a sloppy horizontal swing by Ranok. This toppled him, and I let my trance deepen. Everything connected. My cultivation, the meditation, my endless training with mana and magic. Everything converged in this singular moment of insight, and it was beautiful.

I drank in the corrosive cloud. I used my Mana Manipulation to catch it, and understood well why the System had given me an Unique variant. I was manipulating the mana of an active spell. Then I used Mana Absorption and Mana Transmutation to adjust the magical energy of the cloud. This was only possible in the heat of combat because of Purification.

But it worked. I drank the corrosive cloud and it filled my cultivation. I grinned. I knew I had him now. Ranok’s eyes flashed wide. I didn’t know what he had sensed, but he didn’t like it.

“What did you do!?”

It was my time to take the initiative. I started taking him apart. I kept drinking in the cloud he was producing for a while before he turned it off. But at that time it was too late. We had been fairly evenly matched, but the minute I had been gaining from him expending, the tides had turned.

I hadn’t just neutered one of his main weapons. I was using it against him.

I stepped towards him while he was recovering from a swing and fired a Water Bullet into his thigh. He grunted and brought his sword around, but I was ready for it. A small kinetic push against the blade made it miss my barrier entirely. Another Water Bullet struck his side. He backed away to get his sword between us, and I followed. It felt pretty good to be the one deciding where we went.

His swings were getting weaker and sloppier, and my Magical Trance was only deepening. I danced around the arena, and let that rapturous bliss of magic take me.

At this point I could just keep a continuous barrier on, and he was getting too weak to break it. So I started preparing the killshot. A moderate Water Spear. A reasonable one, with the volume of a baby-bath tub.

Ranok noticed the gathering water and tried to constantly strike my casting hand. During his last rallying cry, he charged at me and used a flurry of Class Abilities and chained several wild and ferocious swings.

But having drank in his corrosion cloud with Purification, the battle was now too skewed. He was getting weaker, while I had been energized. There was sloppy desperation in his fighting now, and we both knew this. I started finding more openings and punishing his too wide moves with kinetic spells to unbalance him, and make him waste more energy.

Despite all this Ranok attacked fearlessly and used a Class Ability to slide on the sand and shoulder check me, which he meant to lead into a horizontal swing, once I was hobbled. I used Barrier Pulse to repel him and throw him off his feet. 

I grinned to myself. The parry had been perfect and Ranok’s weapon gave. There was a sharp CLING and the greatsword’s broken blade spun wildly in the air before thudding in the sand in an upright position.

The crowd roared.
“Did you see that?!”
“Just what kind of magic does the boy have?”
“Look he is preparing some kind of water spell.”

Ranok’s jaw went slack and he stumbled a few steps backwards. He looked at the stump of his broken greatsword blankly.

I finished the Water Spear’s dynamic component to give it penetrative power, and put some spin into it as a final flair.

Then I launched it at him.

The explosive force with which my projectile shot from my hand created a shockwave that threw the sand in the arena behind me in an arc. The spear tore through Ranok’s shoulder and threw him off his feet. His greatsword clattered to the ground. The fight was over. I had taken his sword arm. Ranok held his mangled arm and gritted his teeth.He looked at me with a blank expression of horror and fell to his knees. I bowed.

“This was an amazing fight,” I said to him, while he just stared at me. “But ultimately I dismantled you. So you should get stronger and get revenge on me later. Or whatever stuff like that you bad guys do. Either way, we’re done. Next time show me something new.”

He just looked at me and grunted before closing his eyes.