[First Fight]

Claude's eyes shrunk as he hurriedly crouched down reflexively and rolled to the side. As he did so, a silhouette shot right past him.

With his body taut with tension, Claude got up from the ground and stared at his assailant.

A slim, elongated body adorned with beautiful purple scales, a bright azure light glowing at the top of its head and was nearly his size.

"A snake...?"

It was a snake, or so it seemed, with a sleek body adorned with vivid purple scales and a crown of bright azure light glowing atop its head.

Despite its snake-like appearance, its striking colours shocked Claude, reinforcing the reality that he was far from his old world.

The snake-like creature hissed at Claude, a flicker of humane annoyance flashing through its cold, reptilian eyes.

Backing away slowly, Claude made sure to eye the snake-like creature carefully as he thought about what he should do next.

'I can't turn my back and run away... I have little to no clue about its speed. I need to either scare it off... or kill it?'

His eyes brightened at his final thought.

'Yes! Why simply run away or scare it off with what I've just learned?'

Carefully, Claude began to manipulate his mental energy, causing it to surge out and tether the water vapour in the air.

Water vapour in the air soon began to condense, forming a small, dense orb of water at his fingertips. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he launched the orb at the snake-like creature.

Nevertheless, the creature deftly sidestepped it with a mocking flick of its tail, as it evaded.

Claude's immature brows wrinkled at the snake's movements, it was simply too fast for him to hit.

With determination, his hands steadied as he drew on his mental energy once more, pulling water from the air once again.

This time, he aimed not directly at the creature but slightly ahead of its anticipated path.

The orb flew towards it with great speed and Claude's hands couldn't help but clench in both worry and anticipation.

Nevertheless, the snake's inhumane reaction time allowed it to spring away from its location before it promptly launched itself at Claude.

Claude's heart hammered against his chest, fear mingling with his frustration.

Time seemed to slow down for him as he could see the creature flying towards him with its mouth wide open. 

Its fangs were exposed to the air, no doubt filled with venom.

Claude bit down on his lower lip so hard that the taste of blood filled his mouth, struggling to steady his nerves.

Drawing from his past experiences, he understood that he had to remain calm in situations like this.

Ducking and rolling to the side, Claude narrowly dodged the serpentine creatures' lunge.

Getting up from the ground, he dashed away to grow the distance between him and the snake as thoughts swirled in his head.

'Think Claude! Think!'

Soon realisation struck him.

'The orbs were simply too slow... too predictable.' 

Understanding that the creature was simply too fast to hit with an ordinary orb, he adjusted his strategy.

He soon turned around and formed another orb of water, however, this time, he didn't make one orb of water but instead tried to make many small orbs of water.

Whilst he was trying to fire another spell at the snake, the creature had recovered from its fruitless attack.

Slithering towards Claude at a blinding speed, the snake's mouth stretched wide open as it bared its fangs again.

Ignoring the impending attack of the snake, Claude focused everything he had on the spell he was casting.

However, the orb before him soon began to rapidly pulse and violently shake, and Claude realised he was in a familiar situation.

Jumping backwards, he watched as the orb of water imploded; flinging the snake backwards due to its proximity to the spell whilst only causing him to stumble slightly.

Unharmed but with a persistent ringing in his ears, Claude's mind raced—this was his chance.

He swallowed his annoyance at the ringing in his ears, focusing intently on exploiting the creature's temporary weakness.

Another orb of water began to condense before him, as he tried to go sift through the relevant knowledge he had been taught by Raymond.

Seconds felt like an eternity as his mind raced, he had to find a way to successfully fragment the orb of water.

'That's it—surface tension! How could I forget?' Claude realized as everything soon began to click together in his mind.

His initial attempts to split the water orb into smaller droplets failed primarily because he didn't consider how surface tension works.

Surface tension was like a thin, invisible skin on the surface of water that holds it all together.

Without adjusting for that, when he tried to split the orb, it just kept snapping back together- eventually imploding.

He needed to weaken this 'skin' at specific spots to successfully divide the orb into smaller parts

With this new understanding, Claude soon adjusted his approach.

He imagined his mental energy like a fine-pointed tool, etching small lines across the orb's surface where he wanted the splits to occur, carefully managing the balance between cohesive forces and surface tension.

Claude felt overjoyed as he saw the orb tremble and begin to form fissures along the lines he envisioned.

Soon the original orb of water split into numerous perfect, glistening droplets suspended in the air before him.

Glancing at the creature that was now on the verge of regaining his senses, Claude launched the droplets of water at it without hesitation.

The numerous droplets whizzed towards the snake which had just snapped out of the dizziness induced by the failed spell from before.

Now alert, the creature tensed for another easy dodge but was caught off guard when the barrage of miniature water orbs pelted its scaled body.

Dozens of tiny, bloody punctures marred the creature's body, sending it tumbling to the ground with a thud; scarlet, red blood flowed from the snake's wounds as it flooded the grass around it.

the sharp, metallic scent of blood filled the air.

Its eyes flickered with a mixture of shock and rage as it thrashed around on the forest floor.

As the creature writhed, Claude felt a twinge of empathy mixed with a sense of shock at how he was able to cause so much harm to another living creature.

'It's kill or be killed,' he forcefully reminded himself, pushing back against his guilt as he understood he had to get used to this soon.

Cautiously, he could only hope and wait for it to succumb to its injuries. He had already used the spell four times. 

Any more and he would be left in a dangerous situation, especially considering he didn't know what else he would be facing in this foreign world.

As the creature stilled, Claude cautiously picked up a nearby stick and prodded the unmoving form.

He heaved a massive sigh of relief as he confirmed it had died.

Whilst he stood there indulging in the comfort of the forest silence as he caught his breath from his prior tense fighting.

A realisation soon struck him as he stood there.

'I almost died there...?'

The thought along with the sight of the bloody carcass on the forest floor elicited a growing sense of nausea within him. 

If it wasn't for the realisation of the nature of surface tension, he wasn't certain that a simple water orb would be able to kill the snake even if it hit the creature.

Sure it may have caused internal trauma, but from what Claude could remember about the stories of snakes in the village; they can sometimes even survive decapitation.

Something with that much vitality being his foe in this scenario didn't exactly bolster his confidence much in the normal version of the spell.

However...

"At least it worked out..." Said Claude as a relieved smile crept onto his face.

"Who goes there!?"

A sudden shout distracted Claude from his thoughts as he turned around, his pupils contracting as he saw the source of the shout.

It was a person.

No more specifically a group of people emerging from the depths of the mist as they approached him.

However, a certain detail unnerved Claude.

'They speak the common tongue of Arta...?'