Alice ended up having lunch with the trio.

Violet was not a chatterbox but because Ethan and Alice hardly spoke, she dominated conversations. Stephan was the next in line for always responding to Violet either by teasing her or giving proper responses. Alice only replied whenever she was asked something. Ethan was... largely ignored. Violet only paid attention to him when he says something proactively. 

Should you talk to him a little then? BaoBao felt a little sorry for him.

What for? Such is the fate of the second male lead. Alice told BaoBao.

BaoBao kept quiet. He truly did not have a reason to give.

Besides, he's happy enough being near the female lead. Just leave him be. Alice decided to be kinder to BaoBao who was only being sympathetic.

With Alice's reassurance, BaoBao felt enlightened and thought to himself. Is this what it means to think from their perspective? 

Night came and they met in the battle hall.

Stephan bounded towards Alice ahead of the other two with anticipation in his eyes. "I'll spar with you first." He decided to grab Alice before the other two would keep her from him.

Alice nodded and followed Stephan to separate from the other two. Behind them, Ethan felt a twinge in his heart and a negative feeling in him. He frowned as he touched his chest where his heart was. What's going on with me these days?

Violet noticed his actions so she cocked her head and asked Ethan, "You okay?" 

Ethan reluctantly pulled his gaze away from Alice to look at Violet's big clear eyes. It used to bring him joy to simply gaze into them but now, he felt like that joy in the past was simply an illusion. In fact, now he could still feel a sense of joy trying to spread within him but it was nothing with his current feelings in turmoil.

"I'm fine." Ethan replied in a soft voice then looked back at Alice who just leapt towards Stephan.

Violet scratched her head in confusion. Why isn't he sparring now then? I don't remember Ethan as someone who dawdles.

Alice learnt from the previous world and her last exchange with Stephan that it was advantageous to catch the other person off-guard. She would gain a momentum and advantage then.

When Stephan turned around to face her, he saw that she instantly leapt towards him. Her speed was incredible. She didn't neglect her physical skills. However, he defended against her ice sword easily.

Alice was not discouraged and continued to execute a flurry of attacks. Her sword molded into water and wrapped around his body before freezing into a large fist restricting his movements. She was about to punch his face when he broke out of the ice by exploding it with his lightning ability and jumped away from her flying fist. She quickly followed after him to continue her close-range fighting.

Stephan was kept on the defensive. When Stephan thought that he was attacking against water, it changed to ice. Her ice would sometimes dissipate into nothing but he would feel like he was in thick humid weather making him feel like his body was very heavy and weary. Yet he could not hack at it like he could do to a water jail ball. She also covered the floor in ice but he created ice spikes under his shoes so that he would not slip. She was indeed a tricky opponent to fight. 

He was not in any mortal danger but he could not overpower her as easily as he had done so previously. He tried several times to trap her in darkness whenever he pulled away from her but she would create an ice barrier and charge fearlessly forward to break out of it. She never gave him a break from the close-range fighting. He would have long lost if he was one of those that neglected their physical training. At this moment, he thanked his lucky stars because he only put in the minimal training to maintain his physical form.

As his mind was occupied with defending and countering, it took awhile for him to realise her weakness. Humph, she neglects long range casting.

Stephan activated his ice ability behind her. This would be his first offensive attack against her. Ice shards flew towards her back and got dangerously close to her body.

Just as Stephan thought his attack would land successfully, a dense water wall formed at a hair's breath away from Alice's back. The shards got trapped in it and began floating around. Stephan was surprised. When did her power become this strong? He was sure that his shards would have been able to pierce through her defenses. His momentary surprise gave Alice an opening and she executed a powerful kick to his side.

Fortunately for Stephan, he soon got his answer which also saved him from her kick. Alice was in the midst of her kick when she got carried away by a water bed then dropped by Ethan's side. Alice and Stephan were momentarily stunned. They looked at Ethan in confusion. 

Only Violet was not surprised. The other two had not noticed that Ethan was staring intensely at their fight instead of sparring with her. Violet had tried to ask him if he wanted to spar but he seemed to not hear her. He was transfixed onto Alice's match which made Violet feel a little upset. Ethan has never ignored her before. She joined him in watching their match and soon forgot about her dissatisfaction. Their match was indeed interesting to watch. Alice was much more creative with her ice in her match with Stephan than she was with them. 

However, the two were so absorbed in their match that they did not notice they had spectators. This made Ethan feel very disturbed so he took the chance to intervene when Stephan sneaked a vicious attack.

After a few moments of silence and being stared at, Ethan finally explained his actions. "Stephan's too strong and ruthless to spar with Alice. I'll spar with her instead."

"What ruthless?" Stephan defended himself.

"She did not notice the shards behind her at all. Would you have stopped?"

"At the most she would be injured, she won't die." Injuries were normal in sparring matches. Stephan could not understand why Ethan would be concerned about it. He has completely forgotten at this moment that in his sparring matches with Violet, he was the same and would never hurt Violet.

Alice was secretly surprised. BaoBao, is that true?

Yup. I didn't want to distract you. This time you were handling simultaneous attacks.

True. That's good. I need to be careful of such attacks myself. Otherwise, even if I defended my back due to your warning, I won't be prepared for the frontal attack. Alice agreed with his deduction. It made BaoBao happy.

"You just proved my point. Anyway, her abilities require flexibility in thinking and application. She also shares the same water ability as me. I'm the most suited to spar with her."

At this moment, Violet realised that she got pulled in too. "Hey, what about me?"

Violet's reaction made Ethan realise what he had said so he softened up a little. "You're fine too." But he continued to establish his point. "I'm just saying that my style of fighting and ability seem to match hers the most." Violet could not find anything to refute that, so she reluctantly agreed with his evaluation.

"Hey, I still want to experience sparring with such an interesting ability. Don't get in my way." Stephan was starting to feel a little grumpy.

Ethan frowned and was about to retort when Violet suggested, "How about we let her decide?" Violet felt a bit exasperated. Ethan was behaving weirdly obstinate again.

Everyone looked at Alice.

"I'm fine with anything. Ethan has a point but it would be good for me to experience such crisis-like situations. I could gain something from it."

"Perfect. Let's continue our match then." Stephan happily said.

Ethan held onto Alice's wrist to prevent her from going to him. "I'll spar with her first. She's on this side already anyway." Then he pulled her to leave Violet with Stephan.

"What's up with him tonight?" Stephan whispered his question to Violet upon reaching her.

"I don't know. This is also my first time seeing him this way." Violet frowned. For the first time in her life, she felt like she could not understand Ethan.

Alice, is it just me or is the second male lead behaving a little weird?

No matter how weird he is being, I'm pretty sure it boils back down to Violet. He seems very obedient to her in this world. Alice could tell that BaoBao was unconvinced, so she decided to satisfy his curiosity. She really indulged BaoBao because he has taken good care of her too.

"Why are you so earnest in helping me?" Alice asked Ethan.

Ethan was slightly surprised that she initiated a conversation with him. "Violet would be happy to see you attain your goal." And I will be happy to see you happy. Although he could not understand his feelings now, he knew that he would be happy if she was. Yet, he chose not to verbalise it because he was afraid that it would scare her and chase her away. Since he could not understand his own feelings, won't she be even more confused and scared if she finds out about his random and sometimes intense feelings he has for her? He did not want to lose this connection with her so he decided that it was better to keep mum about it first.

Ethan sighed inwardly. This means that before he could do anything, he had to understand his feelings. So he decided to settle this issue once and for all after they retired for the night. Unfortunately, he did not know that BaoBao and Alice had arrived at a completely different conclusion. They just pegged him as Violet's loyal dog in this world.

When Alice sparred with Ethan, she soon realised that he was different from the previous night. Last night, Alice felt that he was slightly distracted and attributed it to him keeping his attention on Violet. However, she now felt like she was sparring with Zhang Yong in the previous world. Every move he made had an intention behind it and he instructed her along the way. He balanced between giving her a sense of danger and making sure that she would not be injured. It was completely different from sparring with Stephan who was only in it for his amusement. It was also different from Violet who was careful with her and could only serve as a practice partner to apply what was already learnt.

Alice felt like she was learning a lot from this one match than the previous matches she had before. She decided that if Ethan asks again, she would not mind prioritizing sparring with him before applying what she learnt into her matches with Violet and Stephan.

After an hour of sparring, Violet and Stephan stood by the side watching the two still going at each other. "Isn't it time to rotate?" Stephan asked with his eyebrow raised.

"It is. Doesn't look like they noticed." Violet was lightly panting from her sparring match with Stephan as she replied.

"It doesn't even look like they want to stop." Stephan commented. After contemplating for a while, he looked at Violet who kept her attention on the pair. He did not like her completely ignoring him and wanted her attention on him instead. So he grabbed her chin and turned her head to face him. "Ignore them, let's continue our match too."

Violet blushed at how close he was to her and swiped his hand away. "What are you up to again?" But she walked back to the area where they were sparring at to show her agreement.

Stephan grinned and chased after her.