78.2 Ambush

I nervously chuckled. Of course, he was alluding to the time he almost arrested us back in the capital outskirt. "That was one time, Grigori. And we've been training ever since. We can handle ourselves well enough."

"And yet you still haven't even mastered your flames yet," my mentor teasingly chided. "Come to think of it, you and Lise have yet to spar for the past two weeks before this journey!"

I winced. I could easily admit that we were shirking our training schedules for a while now. We were simply too busy with our projects to spend time beating each other up. And it didn't help that we were both physically and mentally exhausted each day just with the prototyping and building process of this APC that adding a sparring session to our day just wasn't appealing. That, and I was just feeling lazy this past month. I had a good grasp of my fire by now that I didn't feel like choking after just ten seconds of keeping a fire lit. It was good enough.