Friendly training.

Eventually I managed to get a hold of myself and rein in my more chaotic emotions.

"Man that was morbid." I seem to have taken Arthur by surprise by my sudden cheery tone as he stares at me baffled.

"Anyways, I really should go. You need your rest, and I need to get back to the dorm before facing detention."

He chuckles lightly at this and mutters something along the lines of 'Only you can go from depressed to cheery that fast.'

Cracking a smile at his not-so-inaccurate analogy I walk to the door.

'Zeke, you can stay here if you want but there is no longer a need for you to stand guard.'

'H-Huh?'

He stutters, disoriented by the indirect onslaught of emotions by our bond.

'I'm saying that its up to you if you want to keep guarding him or if you want to come to my dorm room.'

'O-Oh...yeah I'm coming with you.'

'Alright.'

Stopping at the door I turn around.

This feels awfully nostalgic...

"And Arthur..."

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

I leave immediately but not before noticing a wide smile on his face.

_______________________________________________________________________________

"Sup," I say, opening the door to my dorm room.

"How did you even know I was in here?"

"You've got a long way before you are able to hide yourself from me Nate,"

"Well I wasn't really masking it."

"I would hope not, I could tell you were here before even entering the building." (Idk does Xyrus has different buildings to serve as dormitories?)

"How? There are at least a hundred more in this building."

"And how many of them are dual elemental mages and on the same floor as my room?"

He doesn't reply for a few seconds, "Alright that's fair. But you gotta teach me how to detect the mana attribute of a person. You're don't even have the affinities as me yet you were able to sense me."

Shit!

I can't really tell him its because of my quadra-elemancy.

What's up with me today?

First that slip up with Arthur and now this?

"Y-Yeah I'll teach you that, only if you're able t beat me in a spar though."

"I'll take those odds."

"You're awfully confident." I comment.

"Err..." He scratches the back of his head, "Its-"

"Relax, its alright to be a bit optimistic, just try not to take on someone out of your league."

"So you're saying you're that much stronger than me?" He asks skeptically.

Flashing him a cheeky grin I reply, "That's exactly what I'm saying."

"You little!" He struggles to hold in his frustration.

"Fine, tomorrow. Training room 2. You. Me. Spar." He said through gritted teeth.

Huh? Did I strike a nerve or something?

I know I am insensitive sometimes but nothing I said was that bad was it?

"...Seems like I touched a nerve there. If so I apologize. But if its a fight you want, a fight you shall have." I say, my tone going from slightly guilty to smug.

He waved my apology away, "I'll show you what I'm made of tomorrow. For now, we should really go to sleep. It's become pretty late."

"Agreed."

And then we settled in for the night.

_______________________________________________________________________________

The next day we go down to the training room as soon as we have some free time.

"You ready Nate?"

"You bet I am!" He spoke enthusiastically.

Alright then.

"Lets begin!"

Instantly he sends a fireball my way.

I send a torrent of swirling water, countering it and producing a small amount of steam.

"You know that's not gonna work on me Nate-"

I stopped as I no longer see him ahead of me.

Neither can I pinpoint where he is in this mana enriched room.

Damn it!

Was that minuscule amount of steam really enough for him to hide in?

Almost instinctively I raise my arms, forming an ice shield along the way.

Just in time to block a lightning infused fist.

And by infused I mean lightning flowing out of his hand like water from a tap.

"Wha-How?"

I see a flabbergasted Nate jumping off and staring at me as if I grew a second head.

"Everyone knows water is weak against lightning! How did you block it?!"

"Pure water is a non conductor of electricity."

"What?!"

"It means that pure water does not have any impur-"

"I know that! What I meant it how did you manage to conjure distilled water?"

"With enough control over your core and your mana one can slightly alter their spells. And me being a light yellow core mage means I have lesser impurities in my core as well further helping me in it." I explain

While it did take the brunt of the attack, some did manage to break in.

'Maybe I should've used earth magic.'

I think sourly as I massage my slightly numb arm.

"You can?"

"Yeah, that goes for all attributes, with fire you would be able to concentrate even the weakest of spells to a single point making them far more dangerous. With wind you could create a vacuum around you negating all fire spells and maybe even lightning ones. With earth...well I don't know, I haven't really been practicing my earth magic all that much."

He says nothing but nod before charging at me, sword in hand.

This time I don't mess around and meet him head on, Solaris on hand.

Our swords meet, sparking against each other.

"You hit pretty hard, weren't you a conjurer?" He asks.

"I am, I just didn't let myself be bound by that,"

He grunts in reply.

Forming a fireball in his other hand he flung it at me.

Only to have it dissipate as it me my rock encased fist.

"You got something better than that?"

He doesn't reply, only jumps back.

He looks down at his hand, which is...trembling?

No. He's amassing mana.

Shit!

Only the stronger spells require than much mana.

I was expecting a gout of fire or slashes of wind.

Never in my two lives would I have expected him to mould fire attribute mana into a sword.

If that wasn't enough his flames changed color from orange to a blazing white.

Even from all the way here I could sense the heat.

Now a normal person would be shitting bricks right now, but I'm not exactly normal am I?

Instead of fear I am excited, excited to finally fight someone so talented he could replicate my technique after seeing it once.

It seems there is no more holding back against him.

Time to finally test my ice armor

The temperature of my side of the room rapidly decreases as mist forms all around me.

Ice begins forming on my legs first, covering my foot before moving on to my knees.

Pauldrons appear on my shoulder before extending backwards to form a collar, and forward materializing a breastplate.

Ice clads my forearm and hand forming a clawed gauntlet.

By the time the process stops my entire torso is covered in a translucent blue armor, most of my legs have a frosting of thinner ice on them so that it does not hinder my movements and my arms have gauntlets extending to cover most of my forearm and parts of my upper arm.

Meanwhile Solaris too has changed.

Its grooves emit a bluish white light while the rest of the sword starts cracking, a white interior is revealed as the cracks increase in number and the upper layer of the sword crumbles down.

What the-?

Interesting.

Ah whatever I'll check it out after the fight is over.

Swinging my, now white, sword to my side I cover the entirety of the ground in frost as some even reaches the walls.

I smirk.

Time to see what is stronger, your flames or my Ice.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Authors Note

Alright I know, I know, extra update yay!

Yeah no.

I'm updating today since I won't tomorrow.

I'll be back on Saturday though so no worries there.

Or maybe not, I might need time to make the fight between them as good as I can make it.

I know you guys are itching for some action, and while Nathan isn't exactly Arthur he's still strong as hell.

Notice how I never mentioned his core level?

I plan to make him stronger than the average student.

Well then, enjoy the chapter.

See you on the next episode of dragon ba-I mean Tbate- A force to be reckoned with.