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1149 Words
They looked at Matt, and he pulled a line out of Leon’s book. “I hear no evil and see no evil, therefore, that evil isn’t real.” Seeing that wasn’t enough, he added, “I really could have done without the training to handle inclement weather. Freezing my ass off isn’t fun. Or burning in the lava rift.”
Aster howled at that in agreement. She had hated the fire training even more than the other two because of the conflicting elements.
That launched them into a friendly competition comparing the various training methods that their managers had subjected them to.
It eventually became clear that Matt, Liz, and Aster had had it much worse.
Dena and Eric rarely had their actual manager there with them for more than a few months out of the year, with most interaction coming from their liaison relaying the information.
They only won in the time department, as they had spent nearly a century with their management team, versus the decade that Matt, Liz, and Aster had.
Eventually, they ended their dinner, and at Dena’s insistence, moved to a rented training room.
She wanted to see how much Matt had progressed in the past years, and he was more than happy to show them their investment in him had been a good one.
In a near mirror of their first fight, Matt stood across from Dena with his longsword brandished in a mirror stance to her twin daggers.
As they sized each other up, he said, “I remember you saying that you liked staffs more. You might want to use that if you want a chance to beat me.”
She just smirked, but Matt shook his head, cutting her off. “I’m not joking. If you think being only two Tiers higher than me is enough with a weapon you don’t specialize in, you’re going to lose. Quickly.”
Dena narrowed her eyes, but the smirk dropped off her face.
Seeing that she was now taking things seriously, Matt set his stance and readied his weapon.
The second she started to move, he flooded [Mage’s Retreat] with 250 MPS to more than double his physical strength. He had spent long years improving the efficiency of the skill, and he lunged with his blade extended for a perfect attack at her center of mass.
The speed of his attack caught Dena off guard, and he watched her eyes widen as she tried to sidestep the blow, but he was already moving through the attack. He turned his thrust into an upward s***h that she only narrowly blocked.
Even then, his full essence allocation into his physical core was more than enough to push her back a few steps when doubled by his skills.
When he added [Mage’s Retreat] to the equation, he was able to fight up two Tiers with no difficulty. He was stronger than most peak Tier 11s, but weaker than a typical Tier 12, as his boost put him right between the normal dividing line. But that was more than enough to fight someone one at bottom of Tier 12, which was where Dena had limited her cultivation to.
He dealt with larger gaps all the time.
As Matt kept up an unending stream of mundane attacks, he was keeping Dena and her shorter ranged weapons on the defensive, unlike last time.
Finally, when he had pushed her around the training room for a full minute, she laughed and vanished from his attack.
Seeing she was halfway across the room and laughing, Matt lowered his weapon.
Dena cracked her neck and laughed heartily. “I thought you were talking a big game Matt, but hot damn! You can fight up two Tiers without an issue. At least against the battle prowess of a normal cultivator. No bullshit now. I’ll fight you with everything I have but limited to a Tier 11. Let’s add spells and have a real duel. I want to see everything you have. How have you grown? Show me! Can you stand toe to toe with even an almost Ascender?”
With that final command, her daggers vanished, and she was wielding a staff, standing in melee range.
The ends of her staff glowed silver and yellow, giving off a feeling of danger that Matt didn’t ignore. He had spent more than enough time fighting the unknown to trust his instincts, and he activated [Cracked Phantom Armor], maxing out the first layer with 500 MPS.
Being Tier 10, he could generate 1,280 MPS if he was below 12.8 mana, and with his channel skills, he had no issue staying below that.
But that extra mana generation gave him a massive advantage compared to his lower Tiered self.
He had mana to burn.
And he burned it.
Sending mana into [Mana Charge], he let his excess mana generation fill his weapon with a truly absurd amount of mana. As the skill was inside of his spirit properly, instead of in his weapon, he had been able to modify the skill.
Instead of holding only 1,000 mana, it could now hold close to 7,000 mana, and the actual damage was far more effective for each unit of mana than it had been before.
As he slammed his glowing blade into Dena’s staff, he didn’t release the power, as it had only reached 1,000 mana.
She tried to strike out with the yellow edge of her staff, but Matt was already moving, and swayed out of the way.
They both held their ground and exchanged blows, until Matt noticed the way she engaged him in their flurry of attacks changed. Openings in her forms and hesitations in her advancements vanished as if they were water tossed into a forge. Despite her cultivation strength being reduced, the fight was far closer.
That actually put Matt at a small disadvantage, but it was nothing that technique couldn’t close the gap on.
The trainers that Luna had found for him hadn’t been wasted.
As he kicked the middle of her staff to block an attack, Matt smiled and decided to cut fully loose.
He was going to be restricted in his fights for the rest of the tournament, as both himself and as Quill. Quill was limited to being a mage, while his true persona would be limiting his attacks to a normal Pather’s level.
Still, he was wary of the change in Dena’s fighting. Where he had been handily winning, he was now being pushed to his full strength. She had been holding back far more than he expected, but that only made the fight all the more desirable.
He wanted to see just how far he could push his sponsor, giving her everything he had.
With [Mana Charge] fully filled, he sent his extra regeneration into [Mana s***h] and launched a full 1000 mana crescent of power at Dena.
- Writer
