Difference in Combat Experience

Knock, knock, knock.

"Coming!"

Hearing the nocking, Lucas made to sure to respond loudly, this was done to prevent Alfred from coming into his dorm without permission, like he did two years ago.

However, just as Lucas was about to leave his bedroom, he stopped right in his tracks after accidently taking a look at himself in the mirror.

His body looked completely different from two years ago, his hair and beard were no longer overgrown, his deep blue eyes no longer had dark circles under them, and his body was longer overweight like before.

Theoretically, because he was stuck in an endless loop, Lucas's body shouldn't change at all, however, because his physical body was a representation of the Soul, after training for two years, his body ended up like this.

This, however, wasn't the reason Lucas stopped.

After all, he had already seen his new looks in the mirror multiple times.

The reason he stopped was...because he was smiling.

Right now, moments before he was about to fight against Alfred and Aubrey...he was smiling.

Why was he smiling?

Unknowingly, Lucas's personality had changed a lot over the past two years.

Was it for the better, or for the worse?

Knock. knock, knock.

However, Lucas's train of thought was broken by the second round of knocking on the door.

Knowing that now was not the time for self-reflection, Lucas looked away from the mirror, proceeding to walk towards the door of his dorm.

[Time Stop]

Right before opening his door, Lucas activated his [Time Stop], planning on ambushing the duo before they could react.

The moment [Time Stop] got activated, Lucas started channeling his [Flash Steps], all the while forming his Rapier made out of Light Attribute Aura.

Pushing open the door, Lucas lunged straight at Aubrey with his Rapier.

That's right, after much deliberation, Lucas had determined that if he wanted to win against these two, he would first need to take down Aubrey, otherwise, who knew what kind of tricks this 6th Class Aura user would pull.

Unfortunately, Lucas wasn't capable of attacking living beings while his [Time Stop] is active, he had already confirmed this during his two years of training.

He had tried many different methods, but without exception, all attacks simply passed through their bodies, as if they were in an entirely different plane of existence from Lucas.

The only ones who seemed immune to this were beings of the 7th Class or higher, Lucas, however, had no way of ascertaining why this was the case.

As such, once Rapier was centimeters away from Aubrey's heart, Lucas deactivated [Time Stop] letting time flow again.

With [Time Stop] deactivated, the duo immediately noticed Lucas who was charging at them.

That being said, no matter how quick Aubrey's reactions were, in a situation where he had his guard down, it became impossible to dodge the Rapier in front of him.

Of course, he had no need to dodge in the first place.

Before Lucas's Rapier could pierce through Aubrey, it first collided with his natural Aura Coating, something which all Aura users had after becoming a 2nd Class Aura user.

With his Speed Attribute Aura, coupled with [Flash Steps], Lucas's speed was nothing to scoff at, it took him just a single second to break through Aubrey's Aura Coating.

But this one second is all that a 6th Class Aura user needed to gather his bearings.

Lucas's rapier pierced through the heart of Aubrey, Lucas, however, wasn't in the mood to celebrate.

As immediately after his Rapier pierced through its target, the 'Aubrey' in front of him disintegrated, as if he never existed in the first place.

At this point, Lucas noticed Four identical Aubrey's slowly encircling him, blocking off any escape paths he might have had before that.

Thinking quickly, Lucas once again activated [Time Stop] in order to prevent the four Aubrey's from coming closer, also letting him catch his breath and plan his next move.

'Is that his Innate Skill?'

Quickly exiting the encirclement using [Flash Steps], Lucas arrived behind one of the clones.

As he was doing that, his Innate Skill-[Memory Film], went through all the information he gathered from the Library regarding other Innate Skills.

And, as expected, he quickly found the information he was looking for.

The name of the Innate Skill in question was [Duplicate].

[Duplicate] allowed for the user to create up to four identical clones of themselves, letting them fight alongside the original body.

In life and death situations, the user was capable of switching places with one of his clones, avoiding what would otherwise be certain death.

The weakness of this Innate Ability lays in the fact that all four clones needed to be controlled simultaneously, as they weren't capable of moving by themselves.

Additionally, once killed, it takes a long time for the Clone to reform.

Aubrey activated [Duplicate] the moment he saw Lucas suddenly appearing out of thin air, he then proceeded to immediately switch places with one of his clones, avoiding Lucas's Rapier.

After gathering all the information he needed in a matter of seconds, Lucas proceeded to attack Aubrey just like he did previously.

Since he could make clones of himself, all Lucas needed to do was kill his clones, then he could finish off the main body.

Thinking like this, Lucas deactivated [Time Stop], his Rapier centimeters away from Aubrey's heart, just like his previous attack.

Unfortunately, due to his lack of experience, Lucas failed to remember one very important fact.

The reason his surprise attack worked on Aubrey, a 6th Class Aura user, was because of multiple factors coming together.

Aubrey having his guard down, his [Time Stop] being active, and the element of surprise all play a role in Lucas managing to kill one of Aubrey's clones.

Now, two of these factors were out of the picture, the consequences of his actions were shown immediately after his [Time Stop] deactivated.

Before his Rapier could stab through the heart of one of the clones, an Aura Slash infused with the Element of Fire came his way.

Not expecting such an attack, Lucas hurriedly stopped his advance, planning on dodging the incoming Aura Slash first.

However, just as Lucas was about to move out of the way, he found that his legs were completely rooted to the ground by Aubrey's shadow, meanwhile his own shadow was rooting Aubrey's clone to the ground as well!

While Lucas was busy fighting against Aubrey, Alfred had prepared the 4th Class spell-[Intertwining Shadow], completely rooting Lucas to the ground.

With no way of dodging the incoming Aura Slash, Lucas was forced to activate his [Time Stop] for the second time this fight.

However...

Activating [Time Stop] only delayed the inevitable, as he was still rooted to the ground by Alfred's [Intertwining Shadow]!

Lucas remembered this spell clearly because of its strict requirements for activation.

In order to use this spell, you needed to have two living people's shadows colliding, only then would you be able to cast [Intertwining Shadow].

Once the spell is successfully cast, the shadow of the first person would root the second person to the ground, and in return, the second person's shadow would root the first person to the ground as well.

There were only two ways to make the spell loose effect. The first is to kill the other person, doing this will release the hold that their shadow has on you.

And the second is to kill the caster of the spell.

Both of these were currently impossible for Lucas. He wasn't capable of killing Aubrey's clone in time, and Alfred was too far away to effectively attack him.

With no way out, Lucas helplessly watched as the sixty seconds time limit on his [Time Stop] ran out. After which, time resumed back to normal, letting Aubrey's Aura Slash cleanly cut him in half.

...

Opening his eyes inside his Thought Space, Lucas couldn't help but sigh.

He had been too confident in his abilities.

Because of his inexperience, he insisted on going through with the plan he originally made, instead of adapting to the situation based on what the opponent did.

Instead of continuing to pursue Aubrey, he should have attacked Alfred, or at the very least prepared a countermeasure to any spell he might cast.

Its not like the spell [Intertwining Shadow] is omnipotent, if he just took a moment to coat his shadow with Aura or Mana, it would prevent Alfred from taking control of it with his spell, unless, of course, he forced his way in with an absurd amount of Mana.

Additionally, throughout the entire fight, he didn't use any of the spells he knew, nor did he use his [Space Piercing Rapier].

However, it doesn't matter.

If he was lacking in combat experience, he would simply fight them until he gained enough of it.

Whether its tens, or hundreds of times, he would eventually be victorious.

Just like that, Lucas waited for the next day to start, all the while reflecting on his previous fight.

...

Knock, knock, knock.

This time around, without even responding, Lucas activated [Time Stop], afterwards, he proceeded to repeat the same actions he did in the previous fight, except this time, he didn't continue to chase after Aubrey's Clones.

Instead, he activated his [Time Stop] again, before setting his sights on Alfred, who was currently preparing some spell.

He had learned the hard way the importance of a magician in a fight against Aura Users.

Just like this, Lucas proceeded to attack Alfred with his Light Attribute Rapier.

But before doing that, he made sure to cast one of his spells, [Quagmire], in hopes of slowing down Aubrey, who would surely try and stop him from killing Alfred.

With his preparations finished, Lucas attacked Alfred the same way he attacked Aubrey just seconds prior.

Unlike Aubrey however, Alfred did not have the reactions of a 6th Class Aura user that gave him inhuman reaction speed.

Additionally, he didn't have any protective spells on him at the moment, as before coming here, he thought he would just be taking care of a useless person who couldn't use Aura and Mana.

Because of this, Lucas thought that he would be able to cleanly kill off Alfred before Aubrey could come and save him in time.

And that's how it would have went...if not for the existence of items engraved with spells in them, in other words, charms.

Just as Lucas's Rapier was about to pierce Alfred's chest, the bracelet he was wearing emitted a bright light, creating a thin barrier between him and Lucas's Rapier.

Although the barrier looked weak, it completely blocked Lucas's Rapier, preventing his attack from hurting Alfred in any way.

After absorbing the full force of Lucas's attack, the barrier disappeared, but it bought enough time for Aubrey to get in between Lucas and Alfred.

Now, one of Aubrey's clones was closely guarding Alfred at all times, making it impossible for Lucas to successfully attack him.

Even then, three Aubrey's was more then enough to overpower Lucas in a fight, especially with a 5th Class Mage supporting them from the back with spells.

Aubrey's three clones then proceeded to cut Lucas into pieces the moment his [Time Stop] came to an end.

This marks Lucas's second attempt at killing Aubrey and Alfred, and certainly not the last.