"Haaaa!"

Josh lunged at me from a crouching position. The fingers on his left hand were bent like claws, while the ones on his right were balled into a fist he raised high. It wasn't quite a haymaker, but close enough where it was still clearly telegraphed. I took half a step back and used the butt of my training spear to strike at the leg he put forward, but before I could hit it, he abruptly pivoted onto his other feet and lashed out with his left hand.

My danger sense… well, it didn't exactly scream at me per se, but it firmly warned me of an incoming attack, so I twisted my upper body to the side, allowing Josh's sudden air bullet to sail past me. I avoided that by a safe margin, but my reaction time still felt sluggish, so I slightly adjusted the mana flow of my equipment. Josh wasn't standing still though, as after a couple of side steps, he rushed at me again while keeping his head low. The moment I readied my weapon, he changed direction so sharply it would've given a fighter jet pilot whiplash, and since my danger sense was telling me something was coming, I jumped back at once, just in time to avoid a shoulder-slam by my suddenly accelerating opponent.

"That's the princess's footwork, isn't it?" I noted absentmindedly as I leveled my spear and lightly poked at the exposed side of my friend, forcing him to retreat. Hm? That stab was a little more forceful than I intended, wasn't it? Let's tune down the multipliers by about a third of a notch. Strength was good, but control was more important.

Anyhow, the guy wasn't fazed for long, and he crossed his arms in front of his chest. I momentarily wondered what he was planning, but then he flexed his fingers and spread his arms, expelling half a dozen small air bullets, and they… oh! They curved! Josh had homing missiles now! That's pretty neat. I knew that all that training with Snowy would pay off sooner or later.

My approval aside, I used the opportunity to fine-tune the reflex boosters by accurately deflecting three of the projectiles with my spear. I originally planned to do all of them, but there was still a limit to how fast I could swing my weapon, so I had to dodge the rest. Josh didn't stay still though, and by the time I was ready to focus on him again, I found him about three meters high in the air. I didn't see any ethereal wings on him, so I figured he didn't switch to Celestial just yet, meaning he probably jumped. My deduction was proven true a moment later, when he let out another air blast, but this time towards his back, using it to propel himself towards me.

That… was kind of over the top, wasn't it? In any case, he was coming at me fast, yet my danger sense was only giving me mild forewarnings, and it was easy to understand why. I mean, this would've been a nice shock-tactic if not for him diving towards me with a fist raised for a punch. Jump-kicking was already a contentious move, but jump-punching was even sillier, and if this was a real fight, all I would've had to do was plant my spear and let him impale himself on it. In fact, I technically could've done it now, as I was pretty sure the new wards on his Magiformer would soak up most of the impact, but it would've been still pretty cruel. As such, I took a quick step to the left and extended my spear horizontally instead.

Josh tried to change direction with another air blast, but he was too late, and his legs hit the shaft of the spear, causing him to tumble and crash to the ground. Since I was holding the weapon with only one hand at the moment, the impact nearly tore it out of my hand, and my fingers were feeling numb afterwards. Note to self: incorporate some kind of force-dissipation array into the gauntlet.

But back to the sparring match: Josh rolled on the ground to recover after the fall, but now it was my time to be on the offensive, so I grabbed the spear with my other hand and dashed forwards. My aim was the moment he stopped rolling, and I planned to deliver a strike at his solar plexus. However, just before I was about to make contact, my hands received another shock, like I hit a stone wall. I blinked in surprise and found Josh grinning at me, both his hands firmly clamped onto my spear just under the blunted blade. His Abyssal form was pretty strong, but it wasn't that strong, so I figured he must've popped a Draconic pill at some point. The guy was getting pretty good at switching up his tactics like that.

So, at this point, I had a couple of options. I could try to get the spear out of his grasp by twisting, but I doubted it would work. I could also abandon my weapon and rush in, turning the match into a hand-to-hand scuffle, but I had a feeling I'd be at a disadvantage there. I was currently only wearing the gauntlets and boots of my armor, with an experimental harness on top of my clothes that completed the mana circulation cycle. On the surface, it looked a little flimsy, as it wasn't much more than a series of small, angular metal plates connected by straps, and since it was designed to be easy to access and modify on the fly during experiments, it could only bring out a fraction of the potential in my already partial Knight gear. In a contest of pure strength, I would probably lose to Josh, and if it came to grappling, he had a serious advantage. As such, I opted for a third option.

Using my Phantom Limb, I made a couple of adjustments to the physical enhancement arrays, staying just barely on this side of the redline, and after inhaling sharply, I firmly set my feet and swung my spear upwards with all I had. My friend, completely taken aback by this development, continued to hold onto my weapon with all his might. The shaft strained and bent a little, but at last, inertia gave up, and before he even understood what happened, Josh's feet left the ground. My muscles screamed as I raised the guy dangling at the end of my weapon over my head, and then with the same momentum, I smashed him into the ground on my other side. Josh hit the floor headfirst, and after a long beat and an indignant "Ow!", he finally let go.

"What the hell, man!" he complained, sprawled out on the ground. "That hurt!"

"You said you wanted to have a serious duel, didn't you? You have to be prepared for things like this," I answered with just a hint of a smirk, then circled my neck and added, "I'd offer a hand to help you up, but I think I pulled a tendon in my shoulder."

"Serves you right. Who even does something like that?" Josh moaned but rose to his feet anyway. In the meantime, the onlookers concluded that the sparring match was over, and Elly jumped into the ring.

"Are you hurt?"

"My right shoulder is a little sore, but I'll live."

"That was really cool, but you shouldn't hurt yourself for something like this."

While she might have scolded me, her eyes were practically sparkling with excitement, and after taking the spear from me and passing it onto one of the nameless squires serving as support crew, she began to carefully massage my aching shoulders.

"I was the one who hit his head, so why are you the only one who—?" Josh attempted to complain, but was cut short when his childhood friend rushed over to his side.

"Hey, are you all right? Do you feel dizzy? How many fingers am I showing?"

"Uuuh… Three?"

The Celestial girl let out a relieved sigh.

"Good. That means you probably don't have a concussion. Let me cast a healing aria, just to be sure."

"I feel fine but… um… thanks, Angie."

Awww. Look at that! That's pretty cute, isn't it? Elly also seemed to agree, as she let out a soft giggle. In the meantime, Judy also came over in the company of Fred. Our research division head was wearing proper lab attire for a change, and had a black clipboard in one hand and a bulky briefcase in the other.

"Kihihi! So? How's the External Mana Injection Kit working for you?"

"I'd prefer if you'd stop giving fancy names to every single one of our prototypes, but for your interest, it's stable enough. There are a few small kinks to work out, but I should be able to incorporate the array into the finished Uniformers."

Our resident mad scientist let out another chuckle and rubbed his palms together, at least as much as he could with both of them being occupied, but for the moment I focused on my assistant instead, who seemed to be completely immersed in typing on her phone. At last, she glanced up, and declared, "Chief, I think I'll have to update the power rankings again."

"I still find your fascination with power levels odd, but more importantly, does it mean I'm finally going down the ranks?"

"If anything, you should be going up!" Elly spiritedly commented on the side without stopping her massage. It was a little clumsy, but still unexpectedly pleasant, so I couldn't complain.

"Joshua is certainly going up. As for you…" My dear assistant paused and repeatedly blinked. I was just about to ask what she was doing, but then she muttered a deadpan, "My winking app crashed again."

"Let's just pretend it didn't. What were you planning to do?"

"I wanted to do a peace sign with it and say, 'It's a surprise!'."

"Would've been cute, if a little annoying, considering the subject matter. Keep practicing."

Judy nodded with a soft hum, and Fred used the opportunity to draw our attention by clearing his throat and tapping on the clipboard in his hand.

"Everybody finished sparring, so should we move on to today's agenda?"

"Do you mean the brackets?" an excited Angie cut in, closely followed by a still grumpy Josh.

"No. I told you I'm not getting involved with that in any way whatsoever," I told her on no uncertain terms, and she immediately deflated.

"Then what?" came the next question from the guy behind her, and instead of an answer, I gestured for him to follow after me. We headed towards the rest of our group. They were currently sitting on a blanket nearby, like they were having a picnic, baskets of food and all. Snowy and Ammy were a given, but even Rinne, Ichiko, Galatea, and all the knights were sitting around. Oh, and speaking of the Knights…

"Come on! Pretty please?"

To my surprise, I found Penny pestering Snowy, and the latter seemed like she was completely bamboozled by the attention.

"But… I don't know how to do it."

"Me neither, but we have the internet! I'm sure we can figure it out, so pleeease?"

It was around this time that Snowy noticed I was coming over, and after glancing between me and my other sister a couple of times, she lowered her voice and told said, "Next time, okay?"

"Yes!"

My knightlier sister did a fist pump, but then our eyes met, and her ear-to-ear grin was instantly replaced by a blank look, followed by a loud 'Awawa!'.

"H-H-Hi Leo!" Penny greeted me from the top of her lungs, and even though she was really suspicious, I decided not to call her out on it and instead gestured for everyone to pay attention to me.

"Listen up guys. Josh's new Magiformer seems to be working perfectly. As you could see, the wards now provide about twenty percent more impact negation. I also added a couple of other wards to protect against electric shocks and sudden changes in temperature. More importantly, it now features a secondary mana battery array to draw power from, so it poses much less of a restriction on the user's offensive power."

"Still feels a little stuffy," Josh mumbled on the side, but there was nothing I could do about that, so I ignored his comment.

"It requires more individual customization than the originals, so since his Magiformer takes priority due to the tournament, yours are going to be delayed a little. That said, are you sure you want to use your own gear?" The question was aimed at Ammy, but since we were in something of a cold war at the moment, she only curtly nodded. "Are you one hundred percent sure? I can probably still finish yours if I start working on it now."

"I'll be fine."

It didn't seem like she would change her mind any time soon, so I gave up and focused on the others, but just as I was about to continue, I noticed Angie's raised hand.

"Yes? Is there a problem?"

"Kinda?" She sounded uncertain, but then patted Josh on the back and said, "I mean, since this guy now has an improved Magiformer, wouldn't he have an unfair advantage in the tournament?"

For a moment I had no idea what she was on about, but then the proverbial light-bulb finally lit up over my head and I exhaled a brief sigh.

"You mean the internal tournament." She nodded, so I sighed again, this time harder. "That's none of my business. If you want to, you can battle without the Magiformers for all I care. Just be prepared that if any of you gets injured over something as silly as this, I'm going to shut the whole competition down and the offenders get the scolding of their lives."

"Then… I suppose we should discuss it between ourselves?" Josh mused, and I shrugged along with a 'Duh.'

After that, I tried to move on to the main topic again, but this time I was stopped by Penny's hand raised over her head.

"Yes, sis? What is it?"

"You talked about the Magiformers, but what about our uniforms?"

"… I was just about to get to those," I told her a touch irritably, and she shrunk back.

Meanwhile, I waved for Fred, and he presented the bulky suitcase he was carrying to me. I popped the clasps open and raised the lid, revealing four familiar, more-or-less identical sports watches. I didn't know when Fred had the time to make custom sockets for them, but on second thought, I didn't really care either. The quartet of Knights immediately perked up, and I gestured for them to come over. Needless to say, my excited sister was already by my side before the lid was even open, so I picked out her Uniformer and handed it over.

"This is the best I could do under the circumstances. It has the full ward set and the latest prototype connection array. It should be able to reproduce around thirty percent of your original armor's peak performance, and with your sword, you can push that up to around fifty percent for short bursts. It also comes with an undersuit, but be aware that it will only provide a single-use boost, and it has to be manually replaced after every use. By me. So please only use it when necessary, because I already have way too much to do." She repeatedly nodded, so I concluded with, "There's still a lot of room left for tweaking, but I figured you'd need to get used to it before the tournament, so please do with this for now."

"Can I try it out?"

Instead of any further explanations, I handed the watch over to her, and she immediately put it on. Meanwhile, the other three also came over, so I handed out their equipment as well.

"I focused on Penny's Uniformer, since she's the one who's going to publicly compete, so your devices are two generations behind hers. That said, both the wards and the connector arrays are functional, and they should help you get familiarized with the tech."

"Dae ours an' a' come wi' yin o' they undersuit hings?"

"Yes, and the same applies to yours as well," I answered, and Duncan let out a pleased 'Hah!'.

"Such a curious thing. So small, yet this will forever change our Brotherhood," Roland mused as he inspected his Uniformer from up close, and by the time he put it on, Penny had already turned hers on and let out a disappointed whine.

"Aaaw! Why does it still have trousers?"

"Because you've yet to convince me that combat hot pants make any sense whatsoever."

I expected her to keep protesting, but she fell silent when the big guy also activated his Uniformer, followed by a small squee.

"Wow! This looks really great on you!"

"Is… Is that sae?" Duncan muttered in an unexpected display of bashfulness that was soon replaced by apprehension when my sister grabbed hold of his arm.

"Come! Let's try it out!"

Since he had no way to say no in this situation, the big oaf had no choice but to allow himself to get dragged off into the sparring arena. While all that was happening, even Arnwald activated his Uniformer and he clenched and unclenched his gloved fist a couple of times.

"Truth be told, I never expected I would be wearing a military uniform again."

I had a feeling there was a story there, but before I could ask, Roland cut in with a curious expression.

"Say, Leonard? How much of our equipment's power can we draw from this device again?"

"As I mentioned, it's two generations behind Penny's, so about twenty to twenty-five percent. Potentially forty with a compatible weapon equipped."

"So it's compatible with our weapons. Can we also wear our armor on top of it as well?"

"Gauntlets and boots are doable, greaves, cuirasses, and helmets are currently not compatible." I showed off my own hands and feet for emphasis. "Sorry, but that's the best we could do for now. Progress is a little slower than expected."

"You consider this slow?!" Fred suddenly exclaimed by my side, all but dropping the open suitcase in the process.

"Isn't it?"

"Boss, I don't know what kind of crazy expectations you have, but normally getting this far would've taken years! Just getting from the fourth generation prototype to the fifth should've taken months, not a single week!"

"Really?"

"Yes, really!" he stressed, all but fuming. "Thank Sophia none of the others heard that remark, or you would've given them an aneurism!"

"I got it, I got it. Sheesh." I shook my head and turned back to the intrigued Mr. Griffon, and after clearing my throat I declared, "What I meant to say was that this was the best we could do despite the breakneck speed of our development process." I paused for a beat and directed a sideways glance at Fred. "Here. Better?"

"Yes. Much appreciated."

"Great. Now go and familiarize yourself with your Uniformers and their functionalities. If you want to change the design of the uniform or feel uncomfortable moving in them, just call me. Adjusting those things is pretty easy."

"Understood, my liege," Arnwald declared by tapping his fist against his chest, a gesture he recently picked up from the Fauns, and the two of them also headed for the training field, where Penny was already in the progress of handing our aggressively Scottish companion his ass.

Now that this part was done, I was just about to join the others at their ad-hoc picnic, and I could already see a fancy sandwich that pretty much had my name on it, but I was summarily intercepted by my sister rising to her feet.

"Uu… Leo? Can we talk?"

"Sure. Is there a problem?"

"Yes, but…" She glanced around and then whispered, "Can we talk in private?"

That was unexpected, but nobody seemed to mind her request, so I motioned for her to follow after me, and we walked over to the reception area with the teleport closet. I closed the door behind us for good measure and turned to the nervously fidgeting girl.

"I'm listening?"

"It's… It's about Penelope…"

I narrowed my eyes, and after recalling their most recent interaction, I ventured a guess.

"Is this about that thing she asked you about? Before I came over to your group, I mean?"

"H-Huh? Oh, no, not that." I raised a brow to prompt her, and after some hesitation, she began her explanation in a mousy voice, "She wants to install some games on my PC. She said she always wanted to try it, but she never had the money to get into gaming, and she doesn't want to ask you to buy her a computer after you already bought her a phone recently, so she asked me if she could play on mine whenever she comes over."

"I see. And you told her…?"

"That it's something Elly bought me for doing artwork, so I would have to ask her first, but then she told me it's mine and I can do whatever I want, so Penelope kept asking, and so I told her we'll try the next time she visits."

"So that's what she pestered you over, but that's not the problem you want to talk about." She shook her head. "But it's still something that has to do with her." This time, she solemnly nodded, but didn't actually say anything, so I had to urge her on with a slightly impatient, "So?"

Snowy looked away, with a hint of guilt surfacing on her face. It was soon replaced by helplessness, and after what felt like ages, she quietly muttered, "Please don't get mad, but… I think I might've… accidentally seduced her..."