Stormflow.

Rai was testing how long he could maintain Stormflow at its lowest output level. He figured that, while at the Academy, he wouldn’t need to use it at a higher level like he used on the headmaster.

It was a method of meditation that Jin taught him, but he adapted it to include consistent mana output in some way or another to strengthen his mana channels.

He’d have preferred to use the underground sparring arena for something more practical, but Sin wasn’t awake to spar with him. He actually thought about waking her up to spar, but there was something about that decision that made him not want to take it, so he didn't. That was possibly the wisest decision he'd ever made, and he wouldn't even know it.

It’d been a few days since the entrance exams for Aether Academy. For Rai, it wasn’t all that difficult getting used to living with his childhood friend, but it seemed like Sin would take a bit more time to get used to it. The past few days were quiet. All they’d really done was catch up, talk about what they planned to do at the Academy, and rest in the penthouse. Sin asked a little more about the testing done by the headmaster, but Rai didn't elaborate much on it.

Rai thought about all of this as Stormflow was being maintained. By his count, he’d kept it running for nearly ten minutes now. Even though it was the lowest output he could manage, it was still powerful, and the fact that he could maintain it like this with only a fifth of his mana available to him was impressive in its own right.

Rai heard the lift door open, so he withdrew Stormflow. He turned to see Sindyl walked out of it wearing what looked like a light sparring outfit.

“Lilly told me that you wanted to spar. Why on Zenith are you up this early in the morning.” She spoke with a somewhat groggy voice. Seems like she just woke up.

He still had enough mana to fight. “Farmer’s habits; are you ready?” Rai began his stretches.

Sindyl followed suit, starting her own stretches. “How do you wanna do this? All out? Personal weapons? Magic?”

Rai continued stretching, making lightly pained sounds when he pushed a bit too far, “I’m fine with all of the above. But if we fought all out, you wouldn’t know what hit you.”

Sin laughed, but knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t kidding. “I see, then limit yourself. I don’t care if I win or lose, I just want to gain more fighting experience.”

Rai nodded, finishing his stretches, “Jin would say that’s a good mentality, and I would agree. I fought him for nearly eight years, and I was only just able to make him move a single step.”

Sin stared blankly at him, finishing her own stretches, “... That’s crazy. I knew he was a monster, but if a monster like you can’t beat him then...”

Rai shrugged, “He’s too strong.”

Sin softly nodded in agreement, then manifested two beautifully crafted daggers from her spatial rune. They had clean red blades, and were clearly elven by design. The hilts were sleek, black with ruby inlays. Each dagger had three gem slots which were filled unique gems. In total there were six differently coloured gems.

Sin spun her daggers with added flair, which Rai enjoyed seeing, “Dad introduced me to one of the only Elven smiths. She made these daggers for me. I was surprised to find out that there were smiths that weren’t dwarves, but it turned out that the creator of these daggers is one of the few smiths who isn’t a dwarf.”

Rai stared at them in awe, “They’re beautiful, you’ve got gems embedded as well.”

“Yeah, at first I didn’t really like the idea of embedding gems into my weapons. But it’s much more useful to have them than to not, since you can’t cast spells through your weapon otherwise.”

Rai looked at her with a confused expression, “You can’t?”

Sin looked back as if it was obvious and Rai was being a dimwit, “Yeah, duh. That’s why embeds are even a thing, doofus.”

Rai didn’t quite know why Sin thought that, but if she truly believed what she said then she’d be quite surprised at this next part.

Lightning filled the air next to Rai’s right arm, and out of it came Ghost. Rai plucked the blade from the air where it was suspended by the lightning.

Sindyl looked at the pure black blade, which had a faux guard in the form of the outer corners of the diamond shape at the top of its hilt jutting out. She noticed a second diamond hole at the bottom of the hilt, with the hilt wrappings looking like a mess. When she looked at the blade, however, she thought it was so well crafted that it couldn’t have been made by hand.

She spoke through her stupor, “Where are your gems? It’s such a beautiful blade but there’s no gems embedded in it. Your magical aptitude is better than mine, so surely you should have magical gems in your sword.” She was confused, the sword looked like a perfect sword otherwise.

Rai looked at Ghost in his hands, “This blade’s name is Ghost. You’ll see why there are no gems when we fight.”

Sin audibly gasped, “You have a named blade?! There’s only like six of them in the world though, so how the shit do you have one?!” Why does this boy keep surprising me so often...

Rai smiled at the blade, “Mum gave it to me.” 

Sin smiled back, then got into fighting position, the time for words was over.

Rai responded in kind.

Sin opened the fight with a ranged attack to try and create an opening. The red gem on one of her daggers glowed, and she vertically sliced the air towards Rai. An arc of flames flickered in the air as it flew towards Rai. It singed the air surrounding it, indicating just how powerful the spell within the gem was.

Ghost suddenly had deep blue cracks in its blade, and the diamond holes in the hilt were filled by planes of glowing blue. Rai sliced the air in a similar vertical fashion, letting loose an arc of water which flew towards the arc of fire.

They collided, letting off steam. Ghost returned to its base state.

Sin was dumbfounded. It has no gems, so he can’t cast spells through it. So, why the fuck... She crossed her arms and stared at Rai, “Rai. Please explain, I’m too confused to figure it out.”

Rai let out a laugh that echoed in the sparring chamber. “Okay okay. Ghost is a blank sword. I can freely channel any type of mana into it to cast spells as I like. It works well because I can see mana much more clearly than other people, or at least that’s what my aunt said.”

Sin couldn’t quite wrap her head around it. Her experience of weapons was completely different. To her, it was absurd to think that you could use magic through a weapon without a gem. “I suppose that’s part of the beauty of a named weapon.”

She decided to try something different. Since they didn’t change the sparring grounds settings to simulate a dirt field, and just left it as it was, she knew that Rai couldn’t conjure any earth barriers. The green gem on her dagger glowed brightly. Sin ran in a circle around Rai. She sliced the air towards him as she ran.

Rai deflected the blades of wind that flew at him while figuring out what to do. Then, an idea popped into his head.

Flow State.

The world around him slowed to a crawl. He could see the blades of wind shimmering in the air as they edged towards him. While in this state, he couldn’t move as fast as he could think, but he could calculate the best course of action. It cost far less mana than stormflow, but bought him the same amount of time.

He couldn’t create earth barriers to defend against the wind blades, but he could create a flame barrier that consumed the air from the wind blades.

Rai released Flow State and did exactly that. He formed a flame barrier around him with his free hand. Ghost glowed a dark orange. Sin couldn’t see, but within the barrier of flames Rai was preparing to shoot arcs of fire towards her.

Great, the wind blades are useless now, and I can’t even see him properly. Arcs of fire like the one she shot off earlier were now flying towards her from within the flame barrier. A blue gem on one of her daggers started glowing, and a sphere of fiercely flowing water formed around her, creating a bubble. The flames collided with the water and fizzled into steam.

She wasn’t as fast as Rai, so she couldn’t shoot off arcs of water just as he did before. This was the second best option.

Rai heard the flames fizzling, and decided to change tactic and go on the offensive. He told himself he wouldn’t use Stormflow to attack, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use Stormflow to get into position.

In an instant, Rai was next to Sin, Ghost was slicing up from the ground towards her. As she narrowly dodged the strike, she heard thunder echoing throughout the room.

Sin dodged back and decided to use her trump card. Mirror magic. Her tutors told her to avoid using this technique unless it was absolutely necessary, but she needed to know just how good the technique was in a fight. More than that, she wanted to know if it would be effective against Rai.

Rai was zooming across the ground towards her. He stopped when he saw multiple Sins spawn in different locations. They continuously rotated around and swapped positions with each other. A storm of Sins surrounded him, “What the fuck is this now.” One by one, the Sins came rushing at him with their daggers. When he sliced through them, and they shattered like glass which dissipated in the air, he figured out that it was a cloning technique made to throw him off.

He wasn’t exactly sure what to do in this situation and spared a moment to try think of a tactic. In that moment of hesitation, he felt cold steel pressing against his abdomen, and a sweaty hand gripping his side. The clones all shattered at once, and he heard Sindyl panting behind him.

“Finally... I win.” She declared victory through ragged breaths.