Repeat Performance

I talked with Elder Greggory late and ate dinner with him. Still, after a conversation with him, I had hope that I would get the people that I needed in order to bring my promises forward. Soon I would have to reach out to other tribal leaders using my Elders as a point of contact. The goat-kin dog-kin and many other tribes were my focus as they mingled with the Bunny-kin often and were in our sphere of influence. They were almost slave tribes with the exception that they had A rankers to defend their sovereignty.

The tribes without A rankers and only B rankers had to bow to those with A rankers. It was the law of the jungle in this nation and one which I would be overturning with this army once it had A rankers who were loyal to a nation instead of a tribe. This was what would take the longest time and was important around the eighteen hundreds in my past life's history. It was the concept of a national identity that was missing from the Beast-kin nation as each tribe defended itself and its territory.

Still, I was filled with hope as the day turned, and I went to a clearing outside the city with my Lich Tyler. She was grinning as she looked at me, and we walked into the clearing which Queen Mira told us she would protect for us. I didn't want any spells to hurt the surrounding area. I didn't need to cause irreparable damage to areas around the city, even if it was underdeveloped. That was something else for me to think about but not now as Tyler readied herself.

She was in a loose black dress now with a smile on her face as the wind blew around us. Queen Mira wasn't the only one here, as my mother had come to watch. It was a small audience, but it was a powerful one that could help in an emergency. Additionally, my opponent was invincible, although it would take time for her to return if I completely destroyed her body. I wouldn't want to do that, but it was also the reason that I wanted to duel her over Florine or my mother.

The wind blew in my hair, and I remembered back onto the ship what I had done to myself. There was power in converting my body. A lot of power, and it was mana intensive. That was the biggest problem was how mana intensive it was, and only through practice and further understanding of this reality-altering ability could I learn.

There were other things I also wanted to try that I didn't think of before. I needed to stop relying on generalized mana manipulation. Although I didn't understand much about rifts, I knew I was underutilizing them for those brief moments. I essentially turned myself into a rift. I even used some of my abilities in other things but didn't think of transferring them to others.

It was a shame, and I had to change my mindset. I had many things to be doing and two new divisions of a military that never existed in this nation. But I still had to make time to further my power and understanding. To develop a fighting method of my own and spar with it. I would have to kill with it, and I would need to kill many with it in the war to come.

All of this was for my children.

I changed my current mindset, took a deep breath, and looked at Tyler, "Don't hold back," I said to her. "Do your best and worst to me. We have a war coming, and I don't want to be among the first casualties."

"Of Course, Chelsea," Tyler replied. She brought up her staff, and those rotten orbs started to float around her. I heard my mother say something in the distance which I couldn't hear. It didn't matter either, as I had to concentrate on what was before me.

In reply, as she started to prepare for combat, I started to move mana through my body and meld with it. My blood became fueled, as did my hair, and it started to rise as I concentrated on everything. I started to feel lighter, and my muscles started to move according to my thoughts. I started to bounce lightly on my heels and shot forward, opening a rift in front of me to close the distance. A rift opened not far from Tyler, but she reacted quickly and instantly sent a rotting ball my way.

I wasn't about to beat her in reflexes this quickly, and that rotting ball of mana was in my face in less than a second as I opened another rift.

I leaped to the side, dodging my own rift but opening a passage to fire the rotting mana back at her. My mind paused when the rotting ball of life mana didn't go through the rift, though. Instead, the rift started to rot the mana it was using, closing the rift, and I stopped and increased the distance between us in sheer surprise, giving up my initial attack.

"You didn't think that I wouldn't come up with something to fight such a simple application of Void wizardry, Chelsea?" Tyler said, "I was thinking of the applications and came up with a countermeasure for just that. I will not be the only one, Chelsea," Tyler continued, "Once someone sees this application for themselves, they will come up with ways to counter it." She grinned with a huge sharp smile, "This is mine," Tyler said, and the orbs rotated quickly around her before she started to send them at me.

I moved quickly, going back into the familiar running that I had to do last time and jumping through rifts as Tyler put me on the back foot. When I rifted close to her, she instantly sent more orbs forcing me to dodge. Then I realized something and began to laugh as I stopped and created rifts in a reality where the orbs hit and began to rot the rifts. It was so simple I didn't even think of it at first, and Tyler tilted her head.

"I am thinking too much again," I said simply as the rifts rotted away. The opening-up reality for me didn't cost as much as it did for prolonged use of running. I may not be able to open a rift near my Lich. But I could use them to block several rotting orbs instead of running from them. Her ability to rot the rifts instead of having the orbs potentially send them back to her made my cuts in reality shields. "I realize that I am still not thinking like a battle mage; instead, I think like a researcher. I think towards a certain application and do not take time to think of the other consequences other than what I have reached." I shook my head and realized yet again how easily I tunnel vision.

I took a deep breath, and the Lich across from me smiled as I could tell she had already noticed this problem. Tyler was now smiling and looked at me, "Since it has come to you finally understanding this, I will stop taking it so easy on you, Chelsea!" Tyler exclaimed, and with a smile, more orbs showed up, and she started to use her staff to send them at me.

It was different, though, and the way she sent them was odd. Some were sent to chase me, and some were sent to meet me, while others were fired where I was standing at the time. A moment later, I released not all of them were following me, and I didn't understand why she would do that. The Lich wasn't going to waste mana, and I started to open rifts to clear my path. I opened a rift and entered into it, and some of them followed me through the rift while others rotted the rift a moment later.

I jumped out of the way just at the last second and sent an ice bolt into another just before it hit me, stopping another. My eyes widened, and I realized what Tyler meant I felt goosebumps on my skin. She was utilizing what I had just learned against me and teaching me more. It was now almost instructional not to take what I had just learned as facts and that she was learning and adapting to what I knew.

This was what would happen on the battlefield, and I cherished the experience even as I sweated. In return, I sent two small cuts in reality at her tearing them forward toward her. I began to move as I shot more, and reality started to fray around us as I opened more rifts to act as shields and to move around. Some I tried to send her own mana back at her and others just as shields or testing the waters. Tyler kept me on my toes, and I tried to do some older tactics like creating a Gyser under her feet, only to learn that her own mana was in the way, and every attempt rotted away.

There was some form of Passive defense that she was keeping up that I wasn't able to do on my own, which I wanted to learn now. My mind spun, and finally, I decided to pull out the big things that I had been holding back. I moved to dodge another rotting ball when something changed on Tyler's end too.

"Dodge, Dodge Dodge," Tyler said and grinned, thrusting her staff up in the air, "Not all can be dodged," She said, and suddenly a bigger ball of green light, and I felt danger coming from it. She was gearing up for something, and I knew I wouldn't like it.

Instead of letting her, I started to convert my body into the void, and my mana started to drain instantly. My mana vortex's started to diminish, and I released mana into my body, sending myself forward toward Tyler instantly. My hand reached out like claws as the only part I converted, and a purplish-black hue around my hand was smoking as if it was burning reality itself as fuel. My hand reached out, and Tyler shot backward, trying to dodge, forgetting her ball. That smile on her face sent shivers, but I wasn't about to let her escape, and I used even more, mana to make a world around the two of us even as it rotted with her mana of rifts.

Tyler jumped back into a rotting rift, and I turned around, sending a reality-ripping claw toward her. Her eyes widened as my hand ripped through her once again. A scream erupted from her but above me, that mana ball burst down onto us, and I screamed in return.

Mana moved all around us, and instantly we were separated, with my mother and Mira looking at us. Quickly I meditated and started to heal myself while I heard Tyler chuckling. "Ripped me apart again!" Pain laced that laughter, and a string of curses erupted from the Lich as Mira helped her piece her body back together. Tyler's mana had rained down on me. With both my mother and I working on it, the rotting mana was removed, along with multiple layers of skin.

It wasn't a surgery this time that I had to do on the fly, ripping chunks of my body off of myself. With her help, I quickly stabilized my condition and took a couple of nutrient bombs while I meditated. Over an hour later, I got up with Tyler still patching herself together. It was a mirror battle almost, and I didn't like the outcome. Tyler clearly grew more than me in between, but I also learned that I didn't need to convert my entire body into a type of mana to use this power. I wasn't even sure what else I could do with this power and would have to research more into the applications.

I didn't even get to some of the applications that I wanted to attempt, like sending reality cut's that I used through rifts to attack her. It was a shame, but there would be more spars with my Lich Tyler, and next week, we would go at it again. I could see the pain in her eyes as she pieced her body back together. Pseudo-immortality looked painful as a chunk of her kidney lay on the ground just moments before she brought it back into herself, and I wondered how liches worked yet again.

Tyler seemed to be abnormal among Liches, but I wasn't sure.

Standing over Tyler as she put herself back together, I felt slightly bad. "Sorry," I said, and Tyler glared at me.

"You are right that you need a sparring partner," Tyler snapped with pain in her voice, "You barely made any progress beyond the obvious," Tyler snarled. "The only reason I am in this condition is that you used your trump card, which I am still unsure of what you are doing. I can only guess is that you are converting your body somehow into the essence of the Void, which would take an incredible amount of mana. I cannot understand it myself. Other than that, you have made nothing but obvious advancements that I can guess. In fact, I was guessing you would send some of those void-cutting things you sent at me through a rift to randomize the directions you sent them through. You didn't even do that, though!" Tyler continued to attack me verbally, making my eyes widen. "Although I am hurt, I feel cheated that this is all you produced. I know that you are busy, but many consider you a genius, but I have seen nothing of the sort. Instead, I feel that you are not taking this seriously," Tyler coughed out some blood and sighed, laying back, and her body was slowly melding back together.

A minute passed in silence, and I felt like shit. "Do better," Tyler said, "You are my ticket to being able to live out in the open instead of the shadows. If this is your performance next time, I will be seriously pissed."

I stood and walked away while pain hit my body. I couldn't defend myself against her words, so I walked away to heal myself. My mother chased after me, but I was in my own head and healing myself. I didn't pay attention to the world around me, and I headed back to my office.

I needed strength, and I needed to find a way to cover this obvious obliviousness that I seem to have or tunnel vision. But how?

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