A Duel

Chapter 32: A Duel.

Ash had joined my party, now I need one more member because a party or a team needs at least three members.

Finding the third member isn't that hard; I mean, if I ask everyone in here, at least one of them will join. But that's not what I want.

I want someone who will be a great asset to me in winning over Artemis and Charlene. But finding that particular someone isn't easy as some of them had either joined a party or are invited by some other party.

As we were looking for our third member, I saw Charlene coming from the front.

She is with some group, and they are wearing a team's uniform. When they got close enough, I could see which team they belonged to.

They walked past us so did we. I smiled and mumbled, "Blue Rose, huh?"

"Did you say something, Art?"

"No, nothing."

So, this is not at all going to be easy.

___________________________

In the end, we couldn't find anyone… We had one hour left to find our third member for today. But I decided to stop for today and had some other plan.

"Ash…. Umm… let us stop for today, but I have a request." I asked Ash, who had been with me looking for our third member.

"Yeah, fine."

"We have one more hour left, so why not have a duel?" I suggested him.

"Duel? As in with swords?"

"Yeah; But you will be going with dual swords."

"Yeah…. Sure."

We agreed to our duel. Now we had to look for an empty training room. There's a total of five training rooms in the main building, though I don't know about the other facilities. Also, we have to ask for permission if we are going to use it for personal use.

So, first thing first, we asked for permission; luckily we got the perms to access the training room.

"Any rule or something like that?" Ash asked me.

"Umm… It's just a normal duel, but when I say 'stop,' let's end there. Is that okay?"

"Alright, then, let's do this."

Both of us are using the wooden sword, but he has two of them, of course!

We both took the stance and are ready to start anytime. Taking the initiative, I ran towards him and increased my speed in between; slashing my sword downwards vertically, I attacked him.

Ash blocked it with his sword on the right hand, and he closed in into my left and swung his other sword on me.

I pushed him and clashed his other sword that was about to hit me. I backed myself, and so did he.

Yet again, we both ran towards each other. Our swords clashed, blocked, and kept on dodging each other's attack.

He has a firm body which is why he has a good defense. The way he is swinging his sword without clashing both his sword against each other and the way he is attacking and defending, he has practiced a lot.

All his attacks are precise and on point, and he also has excellent agility. If this fight is about not using magic, I will lose against you, but I would dominate you if it was the other way round.

Ash, this is something you didn't know, including you from my previous life; you are way better at using one sword. But to do that, you need to pass a particular stage. And once you do that, you will be one of the greatest swordsmen.

And the reason I can say this with confidence is that I saw you fighting with a single sword against a Monarch, and that is also when you died. On that battlefield and that time, you were the strongest human and warrior amongst us.

I could never forget that day….

___________________________

We were done with our friendly duel.

"Art, you are pretty good at using a sword," Ash commented.

"You think so?"

"Yeah, even though you are a magic user, you are pretty good."

"To be honest, I don't know why did I learn to use a sword. It's just at some point, I had to use a sword, and I learned to use one. Even now and this time, I am not sure if I seriously want to learn everything about the sword and its technique…."

Ash was willingly listening to me,

"…. But there are people who are genuinely learning to use swords and also use magic with them. They are called 'Magic Knights.' And trust me, they are super strong like just take the example of people like Charlene."

"Charlene? Who is that?" he asked me.

Oh yeah! He doesn't know her. I forgot that.

"Well, she is...…."

I told him about Charlene and who she is. Later then we went back into our dorm rooms. Each room will have two people stay in them, but in my case, because of the odd numbers, I am all alone in my room.

After taking a bath, I had my dinner, and as of now, I am lying on my bed.

I hadn't done my own training in a while, and from now onwards, I also need to work on my electric element. But doing it in the academy's premise might be a tricky thing.

Now about talking about Ash; The reason he doesn't have any magic is not that he doesn't have any mana, but it's just he doesn't have enough mana to do so. Ash doesn't have a mana core yet. He is the same as me, but his situation is quite different.

In his case, it's because he doesn't have enough mana to form a mana core. And mana core is an essential component for mana and also for magic. Without a mana core, it is difficult to initiate any form of magic or any tier.

But I can form his mana core again and help him reach that level.

But before that….. Please, God, help me find our third member ASAP!!!

___________________________

~ The Next Day ~

From today onwards, lectures on magic, mana, etc., and many other things will start. We will have lessons between these hours from 9 am to 2 pm. And after 2 pm till 5 pm, it's kind of break; you can do anything between this hour like training with your party/team or self-training and many things. It all depends on you.

Today our first class is about mana-manipulation, and yeah, Ash isn't in my class, so until 2 pm, I cannot meet up with him, and there's no one with whom I know, "sigh."

Reign Oester, our mana-manipulation instructor, started with its basics so that we all could go through its basics once again.

It was fun, to be honest, and after this was done, we were asked to do it by ourselves right here. Wooden weapons were given to each of us and asked us to pour our mana into it and nothing else.

This is an easy thing but not entirely because when manipulating mana into something exerts external force into that object. Hence, the wooden weapon will break if mana's manipulation is more.

So, we had to manipulate enough mana into it and not more than that. Artemis and Mason, including two more, were already done. Well, of course, me too.

Since I was already done, I decided to take a peek at others' mana using my "Dragon's Eye."

*A wooden weapon break*

"You broke it again, eh?" our instructor said to the student.

She again? It's her 5th attempt, and she had attempted the most among us. Let's take a look at her ma –

After seeing this, I understood why it's her 5th attempt now. She has the greatest amount of mana among the students here.