Sparring and a magician's thinking
I had started sparring with Harold ever since he began teaching Tom, Henry and I how to fight and through that I learned one very important thing. That Harold is strong, very strong, so strong in fact that even though I had learned how to use magic, could use dragon words and order and could even use spirits, I had no doubt in my mind that the chances of me winning out right are zero and even the chances of me hurting him are close to none.
“Come on Alfred, scared of making the first move?”
Not caring for his provocation I started my offensive.
1st circle magic [magic missile], holy bolt
Casting [magic missile] with my left hand and holy bolt with my right, I watched as Harold causally swatted away the deep blue projectile and grabbed the pale sliver one and crushed it with his bare hands. Giving me taunting smile he started walking towards me.
Seeing the first phase of my phase of my plan going well, I started the second phase. Waiting for him to reach a particular spot on the field I kept allying pressure (or at least trying to) on him by pelting him with nonstop holy bolts all of which were either dodged with minimum effort with razor thin margins or were simply swatted away by his hands.
About a second later when he had reached the particular spot that I was hoping for, I started phase 3 of my plan.
“Open eyes” 1st circle magic [light]
Forcing Harold to keep his eyes open, I casted light on a particular spot and covered my eyes. The spot on which I casted light was just before Harold and it released an incredibly bright flash of light. The spot I casted [light] on was one where I had casted a spell before the beginning of the spar in preparation of the duel.
[Sustain] one of the 1st circle spells that I had learned in the past month, the spell causes a magic circle to form in which if a spell is casted causes it to maintain the spell, though you do have to charge the magic circle with your magic power for it to happen.
By hiding the magic circle with Lynn’s power and making it so that instead of slowly releasing magic power to keep the spell going, all the power is released at once, I was able to produce a spell that could release an incredible flash of light.
“Shit!” hearing plan work, at least to a small extent I moved onto the part 2 of phase 3.
1st circle magic [dig], holy bolt
Opening up a large pit underneath Harold I used my right hand to cast holy bolt at the same time “ḀḎṑṈḮ(POWER)” I used 2 casts of dragon words to increase its power.
The holy bolt that is usually about 6cm in diameter, instantly turned into a large 25 cm pale silver sphere that shot towards Harold who at this point had jumped into the air to avoid falling into the pit that appeared below him.
The moment the pale silver sphere was about to collide with him. He gave a slight smile (which looked quite stupid considering that his eyes were closed shut with a large amount of tears around them) as he did what can be only be described as a double jump, dodging the sphere with incredible ease.
Showing a panicked expression I summoned Muninn who started pelting him with black smoky feathers, alongside me who was constantly shooting holy bolts and [magic missiles]. Though to no avail as that idiot dodged every single one of the projectiles, using a triple jump, quadruple jump, and whatnot. All the while doing dramatic poses to irritate me.
The moment he landed he stared running at me all the while dodging everything I was throwing at him with minimal movements. Quickly reaching the place I where I was, I looked at him as a smirk appeared on my face. Phase 4 was complete.
“Gotcha”
1st circle magic [Ignition]
[Ignite] and [ignition] are 2 different spells, while [ignite] produces a small flame akin to a lighter, [ignition] produces a puff of fire. By adding pre-emptively adding 20 [sustain] spells at the place I was standing at I made him move towards the trap I had set.
‘Lynn’
Teleporting to the furthest corner of the arena, I heard a large BOOM as large amount of smoke appeared from the place I was standing at. As the smoke cleared you could see Harold standing by a crater 2m in diameter covered in blue glow with some of his cloths singed and an embarrassed look on his face.
Turning his head to the side and looking at me I could see him curse underneath his breath as he began running at me much faster than before. Having used up almost all my magic power I could only cast 1 more spell.
‘Just enough for plan B’ thinking that as I saw Harold cover the distance between us extremely fast I casted the final spell of this spar.
1st circle magic [spark]
By forcibly putting all the power of the spell in to one electric arc instead of multiple, I was able to increase the range of the spell from touch range to a couple of feet. Though at the cost of effectiveness after all the power of [spark] comes from the many shocks the target experiences and a single slightly more powerful shock would hardly do any real damage.
But I was not after the damage from [shock], what I was after was the electric arc.
“ЊфЯӓѕḮ(lightning)” using the remaining 3 casts of dragon words I transformed the lightning current into an electric dragon reminiscent of Asian dragons and that launched towards Harold.
Time seemed to slow down as Harold’s face turned from the comically angry one that he was sporting to one that was much more serious; pulling out the wooden sword from his belt he swung the sword in a single smooth motion. Taking the lightning head on, he used the sword as a guide he redirected it as though the dragon was but a small boat on the sea being swayed by its waves and finally, spinning in a circle he redirected the draconic bolt to the side. Gracefully taking up a sword stance as soon he finished this, I could only look at him in awe as the next instant he disappeared from the face of the earth.
*BOOOM* at the same time as Harold disappeared the redirected lightning had continued on its path and had struck a white barrier, producing a large ripple as the barrier quacked in the face of its assault.
By the time my brain had processed the fact that Harold had disappeared from view I felt hard object pressed against my throat.
*gulp*
“I lost” admitting my defeat I looked over at Harold who was the same as before, with there being no damage to him except for some of his clothes being lightly singed. ‘*sigh*, I knew that beating him would be difficult but still I didn’t think I could not do it.’
“What do you think about this old man?” snapping out of my frustrations for a second I looked over at Harold who was looking over at Mr Dolson who looked like he had a headache.
“Fine, fine I give. You won Harold”
Patting me on the back Harold was about to go back into the church when Mr Dolson stopped him. “Now where do you think you’re going?”
“The shower?”
“And whose going to fix the yard” looking over at the place Mr Dolson had pointed out I could see the entirety of the yard in tatters, well the part that was used for the arena anyway. The ground had been gouged out by my holy bolts and [magic missile]s, there was a crater 2m in diameter and the area surrounding the place where my lightning dragon collided with Mr Dolson’s barrier had a large chunk of grass that was completely charred.
“hehehe” (Alfred)
“And what are you laughing at? The same goes for you Alfred.” (Dolson)
‘Shit’
It was not till later that I learned till later that Mr Dolson and Harold had a bet on whether or not I could make Harold go serious on me. With Mr Dolson agreeing to support my decision to become an adventurer if I could.
“Ughh” collapsing onto my bed, I groaned as I felt tired from today’s escapades, fixing the yard had gone well into the night with me and Harold having to fix all of the damage. Thinking back to the fight I realised just how week I was.
“He could’ve ended it whenever he pleased”
“Yeah, that man’s real strong, I could not beat him even in my prime.” responding to my mutterings master chimed in with his comments.
“He’s probably as strong as a b-class adventurer”
“Really?” not believing his words I asked.
“Really, you know that mid-air jump with just that alone he’s as strong as a –class adventurer.” Seeing me not get his point, master gave a sigh and explained.
“That mid-air jump is the hall mark of a senior-level aura user, every senior-level aura user is not necessarily a b rank adventurer, but all b rank aura users are senior-level.” Seeing me understand now he continued “though he is probably stronger than the average b-rank because after all that man is a knights Templar.”
“Wasn’t he just a candidate?”
“He is, but his joining them is practically guaranteed, after all what he is doing here is just his mandated church service.”
Looking at my face master took an exaggerated sigh and continued “the church service is period of 3 years after which a candidate of the knights Templar can officially join. Seriously, why am I explaining this to you don’t you live in a church.”
“Wasn’t interested”
“This bitch” taking a deep breath master mumbled something about ‘this generation or something’.
“Anyway leaving your lack of common sense aside, what did you learn from this fight?”
“All ways have more than 1 backup plan, preferably 5 or 6.”
“That’s the wrong answer.”
“All ways study you’re opponents before engaging them”
“It can be considered a right answer but it’s not the one I’m looking for.”
“Make more preparations before engaging a formidable opponent?”
“That’s a given.”
“So, what is it?”
“Sometimes you have to gamble.”
“What?”
“Not every plan will go smoothly, something will go wrong sooner or later, at that time you need to decide your priorities and take action to give them the best chance of happening.” Putting on a self-depreciating smile he continued.
“You remember the forest incident, at that time our priority was getting as many of us out of there alive that we could. What do think has more value in a strictly analytical sense a 90% chance of getting 3 people out alive and a 40% chance for the last person or a 100% chance for getting 2 people out and leaving the rest 2 with only a 10% chance at survival?”
Listening to the heavy tone of his words I asked him if he ever resented them.
“Resent them for what? What I resent is the fact that I was weak, that I didn’t know more spells, that I didn’t do more preparations. I resent myself for dying, as for them.” giving a genuine smile master continued.
“I am glad they lived”
fin
Thanks for the chapter