Chapter 22: An Exciting Battle

"What are these?! Are these supposed to be pills? They look like something I would feed my dog!" From within the Pill Hall, an irate voice screamed out in anger and frustration.

The owner of this voice was the obsidian-ranked alchemy grandmaster, Master Flameil. Before him stood an embarrassed-looking student with their head hung low.

"You know how important good Body Purification pills are, don't you?! They're one of the most popular low-level pills in the Pill Hall, and people have an expectation of quality when they're made. Sure, you made a bunch of them, but they aren't worth anything. You think making a lot of low-grade pills that don't even have a quality of 10% will be acceptable? Don't you know that for these kinds of pills, the efficacy decreases each time someone consumes one? You could feed all fifty of these pills to one person, and it still wouldn't match up to the effects of a single high-grade pill, not to mention it would immunize them against the effects of this pill, making it useless for them to eat even a high-grade pill afterwards. Giving this to our customers would actively hurt their future prospects, now get these out of my sight!"

The student, his face flushed red with embarrassment, quickly grabbed the pills and fled the room. Flameil was silent for a moment, then sighed, pulling a paper out of his pocket. On it was a list of the names of students who had accepted alchemy requests. He skimmed down the line of names before settling on the header 'Body Purification Pill.'

The section contained a total of three names, and Flameil decisively crossed out the second name on the list, before settling on the first name. "It's been over a week, and this guy still hasn't given me anything. If you accept a request, you should actually follow through and finish it, not just abandon it without even letting me know," he muttered to himself, his face sour. "With yesterday's unexpected rush, we are almost completely out of Body Purification Pills. Not having one of our main pills in stock is completely unacceptable, but it seems like there is only one person who might be able to provide more in the short term," he mused, his eyes drifting down to the last person on the list.

"Unfortunately, I've never heard of this person, and he accepted this request less than two days ago. Honestly, I'd rather he take another day or two to make some actually good pills rather than rushing it and making a bunch of trash. Even then, though, we might completely run out of Body Purification pills before they're actually delivered, and if they aren't any good, then who knows when we'll get more. Don't tell me I'm going to have to rope one of the higher-rank alchemists to make some for me… it'll be a real pain to convince them to 'lower themselves' to make such low-level pills, but I don't know if I have a choice."

Flameil's thoughts were interrupted by a soft knocking on his door. "Come in," he said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. The door quickly opened, and in walked a young man.

Flameil scrutinized this newcomer's appearance, gauging that he was about 20 or 21 years old, but he was completely unfamiliar to him. Flameil was certain on this point, since there was no way he would forget such piercing purple eyes.

"Greetings, my name is Nadran Drasnor," the young man replied. "I am here to turn in my results for the Body Refinement pill request."

Flameil tried to contain his disappointment, and responded stiffly, "Well, let's see what you have for me."

Nadran slightly cocked his head at Flameil's strange tone, but quickly nodded before setting a number of glass bottles onto the desk in front of Flameil.

Flameil's eyes instantly brightened as he saw the well-formed pills that were contained within the bottles. [Compared to that other guy, these pills look leagues better in appearance alone. I wonder how their effects are…] Flameil pondered thoughtfully, opening one of the bottles and pulling out a random pill before inspecting it closely.

Suddenly, he froze as though struck by a bolt of lightning. [This is… a high-grade pill with a quality of 71%! This is way better than I was expecting… and this one was randomly selected. Are they all this good? He made all of these in less than 2 days?]

Flameil swiftly examined over a dozen different pills across all of the different bottles, and the worst ones were mid-grade with a quality of around 60%, while the best ones were approaching 75% quality. A smile involuntarily formed on his face as he confirmed that the first pill was indeed not an outlier.

"Well done," Flameil praised. "These will do nicely. Once the total worth of these pills has been assessed, an equivalent amount of contribution points will be automatically transferred to your identification card."

Nadran nodded in acknowledgement before leaving the pill hall.

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After delivering the pills, Nadran headed in the direction of the arena. This is not because he wanted to fight someone, but rather because there was free training equipment nearby. You could go there to train, and perhaps watch an arena match or two while you're there if one catches your interest.

Nadran soon reached the arena. In a sense, it would be more accurate to call it the arenas, since there were a number of different platforms of different sizes scattered about, with a huge central one that had stadium-style seating around it. The one Nadran had fought Selek on was one of the smallest ones on the outskirts of the area. Larger arenas would require the challenger to pay a fee in order to use it. After all, the number of arenas was not infinite, and the number of challenges that occurred was not small. Additionally, all arenas could use a referee, and the referee would need to be compensated for their work. In general, the larger the arena, the more qualified the referee would be, so as to ensure that both parties abided by the rules decided upon and the winner could be determined in a close match. This fee could be waived, however. This could happen if you got the express permission of the arena master, or simply if your status was high enough within the academy.

Nadran walked up to a training dummy made of a type of soft stone. This type of dummy had a self-repair formation within it, which caused it to repair itself every time it was damaged, making it appear good as new.

Formations are a unique type of sigil. Once inscribed, they do not use the internal energy of the caster. Instead, they draw in the natural energy of their surroundings to produce various effects. These sigils, however, take much longer to create, and usually can't compare in power to what the caster could do with an offensive sigil.

A purple sigil formed in the air, which formed a set of translucent purple claws that coated Nadran's hands. He entered a fighting stance, then swiped his hand across the dummy's torso. A thin set of parallel lines were carved into the stone body, but they disappeared before even a second had passed.

Nadran stretched to loosen his muscles as he opened and closed his hand, contemplating. [These claws put a lot of pressure on my fingers. I'll need to be careful when striking hard objects that are able to resist the force of my strike. Hmm, I should keep my fingers partially curved when striking to maximize the strength I can apply without hurting myself. I should also try to use jabs when trying to pierce thicker armor, since I can safely apply more force that way.]

Nadran then proceeded to practice sets of different simple attack moves such as slashes, jabs, and punches. Between each set, he would stop to contemplate his movements, assessing the strain applied to his body as well as the effectiveness of the attack. He was not too familiar with such a unique weapon, and while he had used his claws a couple times since he got them two days ago, there were still a lot of things for him to consider. Nadran's approach to combat was very methodical, and he could fight at his best when he was aware of the full set of moves available to him.

As he trained, Nadran suddenly heard a voice speak up from behind him. "It looks like you have some interesting technique there."

Nadran paused his actions and turned to see a girl standing before him. She looked to be around 20 years of age, her long black hair flowing behind her due to the slight wind. She looked very calm, almost expressionless, but Nadran saw a shimmer in her eyes that seemed to indicate she wasn't completely without emotion. Her clothes consisted of a simple, yet elegant silver robe. At first glance she looked almost delicate, but Nadran could tell she was not weak from her posture and faintly visible muscle tone. Nadran got the feeling that she was assessing him, just as he was inspecting her. [I wonder what her perception of me is,] Nadran thought idly as a brief silence filled the air. [What could her goal be in approaching me like this? I swear, if she is just showing up to make trouble like that last guy that fought me…]

Before the silence could drag out for too long, Nadran shrugged and said, "Well, it's a pretty unique weapon. Using something like a sword or spear technique with these claws would not work out too well. I've mostly just been figuring out how I could make effective use of their upsides."

"Interesting," she responded, a faint smile touching her lips. "It seems like you already have a better approach to melee combat than most of the students here. You know, it's often easiest to improve your skills by sparring against a skilled opponent. I am interested in having a small sparring match with you, if you're up for it." Her tone was extremely calm and emotionless, but it didn't quite seem like apathy. It almost sounded like… boredom?

Nadran instantly became on guard, and cautiously replied, "…And why would you want to spar against me?"

"Hm, how should I put this. I feel that out of everyone at the arena, you could give me the most exciting match."

Nadran raised his eyebrows at the word 'exciting' being uttered in such a monotone voice. "Well, as long as we don't go overboard and get injured, I suppose it couldn't hurt," Nadran responded after a brief deliberation. Her dull tone notwithstanding, this girl's words about the effectiveness of training through sparring seemed reasonable. [Maybe I can practice my responses to an intelligent opponent. At the very least, I feel like she is a competent fighter. Even if she has some ulterior motives, I think I can just back out before something bad happens. Besides, I don't really feel like she wants to hurt me, though it's kind of hard to tell with that expressionless face.]

Nadran shook his head to clear his wandering thoughts before following her to one of the platforms. It was notably larger than the one he had last fought on, being about 75 feet across, but this one currently did not have any spectators surrounding it, save a small group of people that was a distance away, looking in their direction curiously while talking amongst themselves.

"Hey, isn't that Rethara? It looks like she's found someone else to spar against. Poor guy."

"Rethara? Who's that?" someone asked curiously.

"You haven't heard of her yet? She's become rather famous recently. As of about 5 days ago, she was so low-profile that almost nobody even knew who she was. Then suddenly, she started challenging people to duels while only being at the mid-slate stage herself. The thing is, she absolutely demolished every opponent she went against. Once she started crushing marble stage opponents without even giving them a chance to fight back, people stopped accepting her challenges."

"Do you think she did this for the fame and publicity? Maybe she is making waves in order to get noticed by the masters of the academy so that they might take her as a personal disciple."

"That's certainly possible. Hm, I wonder what level her opponent's at. He should have at least some level of strength, or there would be no point in her challenging him. However, I've never seen him before. Do you guys know who he is?"

His friends shook their heads in response, prompting him to shrug in helplessness. "Well, whatever. Let's watch this match. Maybe we can get some insight into her technique."

Nadran managed to catch most of their conversation as he walked up onto the platform. [Hm, this sounds like it could be a tough opponent. But that could be just what I need to improve my combat ability.]

As he was considering his opponent, Rethara turned away the referee that approached. "There's no need to make this an official match, this will just be a bit of friendly sparring," she stated calmly.

Then, she turned toward Nadran, saying "Prepare your weapons, then let us begin."

Nadran quickly recited the wyvern claws sigil, causing his hands to once more be encased in translucent purple energy. As he prepared, Rethara drew a slim rapier from her waist, then stood quietly, waiting for Nadran's approach. Nadran decided to oblige her, and the fight began.

Nadran began with a swift strike to her front, wanting to test her response. To his surprise, she turned her rapier to the side and blocked his attack directly. Nadran felt as though rather than striking a rapier, he was hitting a heavy iron block, and he stumbled back, off balance.

Nadran didn't get a chance to recover, however, as Rethara immediately swung her rapier in an overhead attack toward him. Nadran hurriedly dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the strike, which struck the ground with such force that the rapier sank almost an inch into the stone of the arena.

[What kind of rapier style is this??? She's clearly using pure strength in her attacks, rather than the agility and skill that a rapier lends itself to.] Nadran contemplated his opponent's strange weapon choice, but did not back off from the battle, choosing to move forward once again. He made a rapid series of attacks, but she calmly blocked every one directly, not once even moving her feet.

As he avoided another powerful rapier swing, Nadran started feeling a swirling excitement forming within him. This woman was clearly a very skilled fighter, and he could practically feel his blood boiling as he faced such a powerful foe. He attempted a feint, trying to throw her off balance, but she didn't even flinch. Instead, she swung her rapier down, clashing directly with his claws.

Nadran was flung backward by the heavy blow, rolling across the ground before quickly springing back to his feet. Not wanting to give her an opportunity to capitalize, he rushed back in. [I need to take advantage of when she swings to counterattack.]

Rethara swung her rapier with a heaviness that belied its size, forming a horizontal arc through the air. Nadran leaned back at the last moment, narrowly dodging the attack, then lunged forward with an attack before Rethara's swing had finished.

To Nadran's shock, his opponent seemed to have predicted his move, and had already moved her rapier back in front of her, canceling her swing early. Nadran's attack was easily blocked, his claws struck backward with significant force.

As he was pushed back, Nadran instinctively shifted the force of her counter to his right side, using his left foot as a pivot in combination with the strike's force to spin around. This spin, amplified by the force of the attack he received, transformed into a spinning kick that struck Rethara in the stomach, pushing her back several feet.

Rethara paused in place for several seconds, looking first surprised, then contemplative, before finally a large smile crossed her face. "It looks like you are even more interesting than I expected," she commented, clear traces of excitement tinging her voice. "Well then, I guess it's time for the real fun to begin."

Rethara carelessly tossed her rapier to the side before stroking a silvery ring on her finger. She then made a grabbing motion, and a huge greatsword appeared in her hands. Effortlessly lifting the greatsword up with a single arm and pointing it at Nadran, her smile broadened even more. "Let's see just how exciting this battle can become."