1.3.08 - [Hidden Title]

Two Wind Blades were flying straight at me. I could see the slight distortion in the air after Fallic telegraphed the spell by swinging his hand. I kicked some sand and loosely packed earth underneath my boots as I dodged to the left, recalling Miss. Sennika's remark about me favoring my right.

I needed to be mindful with where I dodged considering there was limited space in the sparring pit. Considering that the arena was not very big and the few additional levels I got for Electrolocation had expanded its range slightly, it did not take long for the Wind Blades to enter the radius of my spell.

There was no charge carried by the Wind Blades themselves, but they carved a crescent-shaped void through the static field of my Electrolocation. I could sense the blades exiting the other side of my perception bubble, indicating that Fallic's range was definitely more than the bandit's.

FWIP — FWIP

I heard the sound of the Wind Blades striking the stone walls behind me. Ok, I definitely can't stay out of range then, especially not in this arena. I focused on evading as I was buying time to decipher Sennika's weird emphasis on being able to "last 5 minutes". This felt like one of those lines you can say in a guild assessment but not say to your partner.

Fallic continued to fire Wind Blades at me which I easily avoided. Perhaps one way I could last 5 minutes was if he exhausted his own core.

"Stop jumping around like a monkey! Stand still and fight like a man!"

I could hear the frustration in his voice. I was honestly surprised he recognized me at all, considering my new mask. Though I was probably the only Bronze adventurer strutting around town with a mask on.

I took the opportunity of that opening to fire a Lightning Bolt at Fallic, but aiming more at his feet rather than at him. I paid close attention to Sennika when I did that, which paid off as I noticed that she almost wanted to say something initially but held off when she saw the spell had only hit the ground.

"Hah! You can't even aim" Fallic sneered and started firing Wind Blades at me again. He started to vary the patterns of his attack, some sweeping low towards my feet while some were released at diagonal angles.

I just kept dodging while I processed Sennika's reaction. She had avoided the words like 'defeat' or 'fight'.

I had kept my Lightning Steps dormant for this as I wanted to be in full control of how I dodged. Since I was only facing one opponent, I did not need to be afraid of a surprise attack from my back. Though I still had to pay attention to my surroundings and different angles as Fallic started to mix in the curved Wind Blades I saw him use against the bandits.

It seemed that the curved blades were not without their drawbacks, as the crescents were much smaller when they entered my perception range, some of the mana probably bleeding off as they took a longer path toward their targets.

At this point, it was also a lot easier to anticipate the attacks as Fallic had a tell which he did not seem to realize — he held his breath right before he released an attack. Fallic was probably also analyzing me as he was able to better anticipate my movements, seemingly able to launch multiple blades in a row to try and box me into a corner of the arena.

My mind had not dropped Sennika's phrasing all this while. Maybe she wanted to test my endurance? No, there were better ways she could do that. I crossed out that theory as soon as I thought of it. One thing was for certain based on her reaction, I could not knock Fallic out even though I wanted to wipe that stupid smile off his face.

Suddenly, he went back to his first attack pattern, flinging his Wind Blades straight at me. Those were the fastest and I was about to dodge to the side when two more blades entered my perception from left and right. Fallic had apparently fired off two curved blades earlier and timed it such that they'd arrive at the same time as the spell coming from the front.

Caught off guard, I decided to use Lightning Infusion to jump upwards instead to dodge the incoming blades.

"You fell for it!" Fallic cried out and fired a single Wind Blade at me while I was in the air, unable to dodge without any footing beneath me. There was a look of triumph on his face as he thought he had me and that I would fail my assessment. His face fell when he saw what I did next.

CRAK

A bolt of lightning flew from my hand, aiming for the Wind Blade. My Lightning Bolt clashed with his spell, and the resulting collision dissipated his spell entirely while a weakened bolt of lightning flew towards Fallic. A blast of air still flew past me, ruffling my hair and nearly blowing the mask off my face. Fallic had to duck the bolt of lightning flying towards him, which gave me time to reposition myself after I landed.

Ok new rule, no more jumping mid fight. That was too close.

The assessment continued, with Fallic continuing to throw Wind Blades with different angles and combinations. I started weaving in Lightning Bolts mixed in with my evasion to keep the pace more manageable. A few times I would fire a bolt of lightning close to Fallic just to get him to dodge and interrupt his spell casting.

I could see he was starting to get winded, as he eventually stopped to catch his breath. I felt like we had been going at this for more than 10 minutes but it was obviously less than that, since Sennika had only said to last 5 minutes.

"You got no balls to fight back? Or is your aim just that bad?" Fallic fired off another round of taunts. I could tell he was trying to buy time as I saw some distortion forming in both his hands.

I was about to respond when he fired both spells from his hands. I could not quite tell what the spell was with my eyes but the moment it entered the range of my Electrolocation, I could tell it was two walls of much smaller Wind Blades flying towards me. It seemed that in his desperation to one up me, he had adjusted the spell form mid fight to corner me.

The blades were so small that they would barely leave a scratch on normal armor, and probably only leave some light scratches on the skin of a Yellow cored mage. Normally I would say he was foolish for even wasting his mana like that in a fight, but neither of us knew exactly what the failure condition of the assessment was.

While my Lightning Bolt was strong and focused, it lacked the area of effect that spells of some other elements had. As the wall of blades approached, I decided to confront it head on. I rushed towards it and fired two Lightning Bolts to blow a hole through the middle of the spell and leaped through it, rolling as I touched the ground.

I got ready to dodge another barrage of spells as I saw Wind Blades forming in Fallic's palms.

"Stop!" Sennika suddenly called out, pulling both our attentions away from each other.

I waited with bated breath for the next words. Was it time yet? Or did one of the spells nick me? Maybe there was some other condition I was not aware of. A few scenarios ran through my head, trying to work out if I had failed the assessment.

"You pass" Sennika said. "Congratulations"

I blew out a sigh of relief, falling to my butt as I sat on the ground. It was honestly difficult to last that long without fighting back.

"What?! How did he pass? He didn't even land a single hit on me. Most of his spells missed without even me needing to dodge" Fallic protested.

He was really getting on my nerves at this point. How did me passing even affect him?

"Thank you Adventurer Fallic. As mentioned, you'll be paid for your services. Consider the mission completed. You may collect your payment upstairs later" Sennika just said.

"But—"

"We'll let you know if we have any questions" Sennika just cut him off.

Fallic went quiet. He seemed to think for a few seconds before he stormed past Sennika and went up stairs, his face twisted into a sour expression the entire time. I took a while to catch my breath before I followed Sennika upstairs as well, brushing off the sand and soil from my gear before leaving the arena.

Sennika POV

"You'll have to leave your adventurer plaque with me for one day. You can still continue to accept Bronze ranked missions in the meantime until I return your tag" Sennika explained to Damian, though she knew his real name was Asher.

"It's alright, I'll wait till I get my plaque back. I need to see the woodcarver for my order anyway" Damian / Asher said as he left the guild hall. Sennika just gave him a weird look as he left. She gathered her notes and went upstairs to see the guild master.

KNOCK — KNOCK

"Come in" Sennika heard Daresh call. This time, Daresh was looking out the window holding a cup of tea, instead of being buried by a mountain of paper work.

"Finally done with it I see" Sennika gestured to the empty desk. She took a seat without being prompted this time and placed her notes along with Asher's adventurer plaque on the table.

"Bloody Dragons.... That's the time of month I never enjoyed even after almost a decade running this place. So... how did our boy do?" Daresh sat on the table and pushed the tea pot to Sennika before he picked up the notes.

"Well, he really showed restraint didn't he? Especially with the mouth that Fallic lad has." Daresh said in surprise.

"Yes, but I had a feeling he understood the hidden meaning behind the assessment. He seemed to be testing my reaction by intentionally landing spells near Fallic without actually hitting him. I'm not sure if he would have shown the same restraint if I told him he could go all out" Sennika said with some concern.

"Ah but that's what actually matters. We don't want a coward without fangs. The fact that he was sharp enough to pick it up and showed restraint meant that he could be reasoned with, not someone who is led by his emotions. You forget that most 9 year olds don't even listen to half the things an adult says" Daresh returned the notes to the desk.

"You can go ahead to process his promotion. We still need to keep an eye on him but it should be fine for him to take on some Steel ranked missions. Even if he's fast for his age, it'll be a while before he reaches Green to take the Silver rank test."

"Noted Guild Master." Sennika collected her notes and Asher's plaque from the desk before heading out the door.

Sennika saw the excited Asher the next morning, the first person to enter the guild hall besides the permanent staff. She could only smile at his enthusiasm.

"Good morning A— Adventurer Damian" Sennika caught herself before she slipped. "Here's your ranked up plaque". She had used the enchanted equipment in the guild to implant the enchanted piece of steel into the plaque last night.

"Wow. Like I guessed, the guild uses the corresponding metal to denote the different ranks" Asher quickly hung the tag around his neck.

"Don't lose that, it gets more expensive to replace the higher your rank is" Sennika added. "Congrats on becoming a man of Steel now. Hehe" she chuckled at her own joke.

Asher seemed to be taken aback by that remark, not quite sure what to say. "Relax, it's just a joke. We have one for every rank. Knuckles of Silver, fists of Gold you know?"

"Ah, so it's a coincidence. Anyway thanks. I'll go check out the mission board now"

Sennika had a puzzled look on her face as she watched Asher walk off, wondering what coincidence Asher was talking about.

Title: 1.3.08 - Man Of Steel

Clash between Ash and Fallic

A/N: We'll be going back to our regular update schedule after today which is Tuesday - Friday (4X a week, 4AM +8 GMT)