Chapter 10: Examination Battle

The moment Jay lowered his hand, signaling the start of the battle, Soren literally dashed towards Rohan with his training sword in hand trying to get the initiative on him, but the moment Soren swung his sword downwards, Rohan unsheathed his sword and blocked Soren's first attack.

"Calm down kid, getting a bit hasty, aren't we?" Rohan said jokingly, but that attack showed him that if there was an opportunity for Soren to attack, he would take it immidiately, but that could easily cause him to fall for feints and traps, but he should be able to grow with experience.

After that block, Rohan then pushed Soren away with his sword, giving him a bit of room between the two of them.

After that failed first strike, Soren was thinking about the way to appraoch this fight. He learned that a direct head-on attack wouldn't work him and that he had mix up things to catch him off-guard. Also, since this one was a two on one, he could easily make his attacks a bit more complicated. So his next plan was...

After that push, Soren gave Lavenza a look and a nod before Lavenza nodded back at him. In that moment Soren charged again towards Rohan and started throwing attacks with the training sword, trying to throw some pressure on him with a barrage of attacks. Rohan himself blocked Soren's attacks without a problem, but he was wondering if he lost his cool after that first attack and started flailing his sword like an idiot. For a bit, Soren was throwing random attacks, but his plan wasn't to try and overwelm him with force. In a moment, after Soren threw another diagonal strike, he instantly sidesteped to the side by using his tail on the ground to push him to the side, while Lavenza conjured at the same time a water ball and water shot spell and shot them at the same time.

The water shot reached Rohan instantly, but he managed to block the shot with his sword in the last second and was preparing to dodge the water ball, but he didn't expect Soren's next action. After the water shot was blocked, Soren used this training sword to tilt Rohan's metal sword to his side and grabbed it with his bare hands, causing his hands to bleed by the sharp edges of the sword. That action caught Rohan completely off-guard and in an instant, he managed to get his sword off of Soren's hands, but it was too late to dodge or block the water ball that coming so he was forced to take the blast of the spell. That spell felt like a powerful punch to Rohan, but thanks to the black leather armor, some damage was mitigated. But the next moment was what truly managed to catch Rohan off-guard. Soren, with both his bleeding hands, held the hilt of the traing sword and then smacked Rohan's right shoulder with all of his power. That attack, caused Rohan's entire right arm to feel numb and sluggish, but he still pushed away Soren with a heavy punch on his stomach with his left hand that caused Soren to throw up blood.

Both sides threw some decent attacks, Soren with a two-man combo, managing to paralyze Rohan's right hand and Rohan who threw some heavy attacks on Soren that caused him some internal damage.

At this moment, Rohan smiled all of a sudden and started laughing before he said:

"Hahahahaha... You are not bad Soren. You definitely got quite the tricks up your sleeve. But now, it's my turn to be on the offensive."

"You better give me your best attack." Soren answered back with a smiling face.

"Kyuuhuu~!" Lavenza also seemed pretty excited.

"Then let's dance!" The moment Rohan said that, he got himself ready and charged at Soren with a speed, quite higher than Soren's first charge. With his sword on his left hand, he started to slash downwards, but just about Soren was putting a horizontal guard, he changed the attack to a horizontal one with an "L" like motion. This attack caught Soren off-guard, but in that moment, Lavenza instantly threw a water shot spell on the tip of Soren's training sword, which caused to tilt quite a bit diagonally and that allowed Soren to block Rohan's attack.

Rohan was again suprised by that course of action. 'The sea serpent managed to save Soren, just in the nick of time with a perfectly executed spell. Not bad. That sea serpent will prove to be troublesome, it has to be knocked out and fast.', was Rohan's thought.

After Rohan made his next plan, he charged again towards Soren with another downward strike. Soren then prepared himself this time to block only at the last moment, lest he wanted to eat feign. The attack didn't seem to change at all and Soren decided to go with a horizontal guard. Both the swords clashed, but in the next moment Rohan pushes Soren to the side with his sword, using all the physical power he could bring on his left hand. Soren was litterally thrown to the side as if it was nothing and Rohan continued his charge towards Lavenza who was defenceless. The moment Soren was thrown aside, his mind felt like it had gone blind for a moment, like it was thrown out of his body. Lavenza tried to throw a quick water shot to try and stop Rohan's charge, but he blocked it with a slight tilt of the sword. The moment Soren saw that shot fail, time for him seemed to slow down considerably, he saw that he had an opportunity, one and only opportunity to turn this battle around and he took it. He litterally did a backflip before he started swimming towards Lavenza, as fast as he could.

The moment Rohan was about to throw the blow on Lavenza, Soren appeared in the nick of time and blocked the attack with his sword and body. At that moment as well, Soren's eyes were shining with a green light for a slight moment and his sword also had a green light cover for that instant of touching swords, before both Soren and Lavenza were knocked away by the strike and falling on the ground.

Both Soren and Lavenza had taken quite the heavy blow and their bodies were hurting, Soren's mouth had blood coming out of his mouth and Lavenza had scratches from her collision on the ground. Just as Rohan was about to raise his sword and throw one more attack, he put his sword back in its sheath and pulled up Soren and Lavenza from the ground with both of his hands. At that moment Jay said:

"With this, the candidate's test for joining the Adventurer's guild, is over. The assessment for the candidate Soren is: Excellent! The young man himself showed great creativity and strategy, despite the lack of skills, also the level of coordination between the candidate and his partner were on the level of life-long friends that know each others' strengths and weaknesses. Even when mistakes happened, both of you had each others back to make sure to minimise as much damage as possible. Although you still lack some basics in combat, you still have a lot of power. The Adventurer's Guild is eager to work with you, candidate or should i say, adventurer Soren!" When Jay finished his speech, he seemed to have a happy expression on his face.

The moment Soren heard that speech, his expression changed from a painful one, into a painful and happy one. He still felt intense pain thanks to that last attack, but he felt happy since he passed the exam and now is a fully fledged adventurer.

"Honestly Soren, I didn't expect you to throw all those crazy attacks. Like the double shot and sword grabbing combo, that water shot save and I really didn't expect you to know Sword Aura at the end. That really sold me on having you join our guild." Rohan say happily.

"Swor- Ouch! Sword Aura? What is that?" Soren asked.

The moment Jay and Rohan heard that, were suprised that he asked about what Sword Aura since to use Sword Aura, you need to have knowledge of it as well as the aptitude for it. But that question made it clear that Soren didn't know this ability existed.

"That green glow on your sword, when you guarded my final strike. Didn't you notice that?" Rohan asked suprised.

Soren did notice the green light and already had an inklinght of what that might be.

"It may have been my Guardian passive ability." Soren said.

"Impossible, if it was Guardian, a shield icon would appear on your hands and nothing of the sort showed up. After all, I never intended to throw a lethal attack, at most it would cripple her but nothing else. That glow was all you kid." Rohan explained.

"Wait, hold it. You mean that wasn't Guardian?" Soren asked with a suprise look on his face.

"Of course it wasn't Guardian, check your status if you don't believe me." Rohan said.

At that moment Soren checked his status and what appeared in front of him, completely shocked him.

Name: Soren

Race: Merman (Leviathan)

LV: 9

HP: 73 (210)

MP: 64 (76)

STR: 33

VIT: 35

AGL: 41

INT: 38

WIS: 34

RFL: 27

LCK: 28

Skills (Active): Merman transforantions (Human, Merfork, Beast), Sword Aura (Incomplete) (!)

Skills (Passive): Swimming (+1 AGL), Universal Translation, Blessing of the Seas (Major), Guardian

Titles: Life-Bound Companions(Lavenza), Undead Hunter Apprentice

Then Soren decided to check both Guardian and Sword Aura

[Guardian: Should a companion of yours take a lethal attack, you will always jump in front of the attack, protecting them while taking only 50% of the damage recieved.]

[Sword Aura (Incomplete): The ability to coat your blade with mana and cut through all the defences in the world. Although this ability was forcefully awakened in the heat of combat, causing to have an incomplete form that can't be activated upon the user's will, this is still the ultimate ability for sword users.20MP/Sec]

"Wow, just wow." Soren said with an open mouth and a shocjed expression on his face.