The Duel

The walk back to the training field was mostly silent. Loran seemed to be his normal, calm self, but his hands were tensing and clenching constantly, unable to remain still for a second. Zed had questions about the magic system, but he felt it would be more interesting if he went into the fight mostly blind, his eyes glancing at his friend every so often as they walked.

Alexx, Soze, Yin, and Yang followed behind them. They tried making conversation but there was a strange tension coming from the two in front of them. It wasn't as though the two talked a lot, but the complete silence that they maintained while seeming hyper-aware of the other's presence was unsettling. Only Alexx was not completely put off by the feeling; because he recognized it.

It was the tension that he often felt during his ranked matches, during the countdown right before the fight started. Both fighters were ready to beat each other into submission, or even literally tear into each other depending on the game, and were only waiting for the moment they were allowed to.

But Alexx had only ever felt it for a few seconds. The tension between Loran and Zed started the moment they locked eyes back in The Pit. Alexx was certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if it weren't for Zed being unarmed they would have started fighting the instant they finished speaking to each other. The only thing he wasn't sure of is who would have started it.

Everyone knew that Loran got along with Zed more easily than others, but the four of them were beginning to understand why.

Once they entered the field, Zed walked off to a small shed a short distance from the gate while Loran found a clearer spot in the field and told some of the nearby players to make way for the match.

In the past, players would spar with their normal weapons or with simple sticks, but when a few crafters wanted some more EXP they started making practice weapons. These weapons were completely made of wood with dull edges, but they were surprisingly durable. Even as their quality improved the damage remained low as if the system understood that these weren't meant to hurt anyone.

The weapon Zed grabbed was a normal spear, somewhat large but notably smaller than his War Spear, which had been custom-made for him.

As Zed turned around, Loran was already facing him and there was no one else standing in the nearly one hundred-foot stretch of dirt between them.

Neither of them was willing to wait another second.

Zed dashed forward as Loran raised his hand, forming three balls of light in front of him before sending the inch-wide projectiles flying. The spells flew fast, but they still seemed slow to Zed who had already experienced the top speed of the Iron Ant Soldier.

The first projectile was dodged easily, striking the dirt behind him and Zed heard a sound like a small explosion behind him. The second was similarly evaded, but Zed noticed that it curved towards him as it passed.

'Homing or can he just control it?' Zed wondered as he heard it strike the ground.

As he dodged the last projectile, giving it a wider gap to account for any greater deviation, the spell suddenly flared with light.

'An explosion?!' he thought, recalling the sound made by the previous attacks. Zed raised his arm to brace himself but was confused as no impact came.

Blinking the shadows out of his eyes, he returned his attention to Loran.

He had covered nearly half the distance between them in the few seconds since the fight started. However, Zed barely noticed this, as when his eyes came into focus, he saw a ball of mana easily the size of a bowling ball, hurtling toward his torso.

Zed was unable to evade or guard, taking the spell directly to the chest. The impact felt strange; it was extremely painful despite being somewhat soft. As the spell hit him it lost its shape, popping like a bubble and forcing him back. The leftover mana evaporated like water turning to steam in the air.

Landing on his knees, Zed glanced at his new HUD and felt his eyes widen from what he saw.

{HP}: 95.8/125

{SP}: 360/375

'Over a fifth of my HP with one spell? Damn.'

Overall it wasn't anything crazy when compared to Mountain Goats and Iron Ants capable of killing with a single attack, but considering Loran had only started learning magic a few hours ago it was an intimidating amount of damage, especially considering the fact that Zed still hadn't even gotten within striking range.

'The dangers of fighting a caster,' he reminded himself.

There were plenty of archers among the players, a few even became willing to spar with Zed like Yin, but fighting against them had made him forget that casters were much worse. Although both had the range advantage, archers could only use simplistic attacks unless the game gave them special Skills or abilities.

Casters were inherently more variable, the fight had only just started and Loran had already shown off multi-casting, homing attacks, and a blinding spell.

Zed grinned despite the situation.

'If he's showing off this much, does that mean he already has even more tricks up his sleeves?' Even if he didn't, the fact that Loran had this much variety after just a few hours made Zed certain that his friend was going to get even stronger in the near future. 'I love this fucking game!'

Zed, with few other options, charged forward again as Loran prepared another spell. The caster closed his eyes in concentration as he repeated his first round of attacks, sending three balls of light forward.

Zed tensed as he evaded the first projectile. Loran hadn't seemed so focused the first time he used this spell. 'What's different?'

His question was swiftly answered, as the attack that flew past him stopped in the air, coming back to chase him instead of striking the ground. Zed nearly threw himself sideways as he evaded attacks from ahead and from behind. The third projectile soon joined in and Zed's charge came to a standstill as he focused on defense.

The spells were slower now that Zed was no longer charging directly into them, but their movements were erratic, unpredictable, and seemed to completely ignore inertia. Worst of all is that [DANGER SENSE] wasn't as effective at detecting the projectiles for some reason. It wasn't useless, but it was too easy to lose track of the spell when it wasn't in his direct line of sight. He tried to knock them out of the air with his spear, but the lights dodged his strikes easily as they continued their assault.

He considered just tanking the damage and charging Loran down, but quickly dismissed the idea. This was a sparring match, meant to be fun and a test of skill. Perhaps if they were actually trying to kill each other then Zed would try to win at all costs, but not right now.

'Besides, we always stop at half HP, so I can't really afford to take any more damage.'

Taking the risk of looking away from the spell attacking him, Zed glanced up to see that Loran's eyes were still screwed tightly shut as he concentrated on maintaining the magic. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face from the exertion.

'Is controlling it that difficult?'

Zed used [ANALYSE] to confirm that the spell wasn't draining Loran of more MP, so it truly was requiring a tremendous effort to maintain.

Rolling across the ground to evade another attack, Zed picked up a palm-sized stone and threw it at Loran's head.

Loran, sensing the attack with [DANGER SENSE] quickly dropped the spell attacking Zed to defend himself, a foot-wide glowing disk appearing above his hand that he raised like a shield.

The disk shattered as the stone struck it, barely slowing the projectile as it hit Loran just above his right eye. Stepping back in slight shock, Loran raised his hand to his injured head, pulling it away covered in blood.

With Loran distracted, Zed raced to close the distance between them. By the time Loran noticed, his opponent was only fifteen feet away.

Eyes widening in panic, Loran summoned fifteen tiny lights that flew out at Zed like buckshot from a shotgun.

Zed dodged as best he could and they didn't home in on him but was still struck by a few of the tiny darts as there were simply too many with too little time to dodge. Before he could try to approach again, Loran recast the spell, forcing Zed to retreat as another volley of darts flew at him.

Still, Zed tried to press in. With [ANALYSE] he knew that this spell was more costly than the others had been; as long as he could keep pressuring Loran like this he would run out of mana in seconds. Loran tried to move back but was stumbling significantly as he focused on Zed.

After a few seconds, Loran let out another volley, but this one only had thirteen darts. Loran was out of mana. Still, Loran hadn't surrendered, so the fight was still on.

Zed charged in, and surprisingly Loran did the same. The drained spellcaster was unarmed but with fists clenched.

'He can still win,' Zed thought instinctively. His HP had been worn down by the Mana Dart volleys, a few good punches would easily take him below half-health. Fortunately, Zed held the range advantage with his spear.

Loran was finally willing to move his body, dodging left, right, and back to avoid Zed's attacks.

Eventually, Loran was able to dive past the spear. Zed raised his fist to counter Loran, but was shocked as he made no attempt to punch him. Instead, a grinning Loran opened his clenched fists, revealing two Mana Darts in each hand that flew forward.

The projectiles struck Zed's body, dealing 4 damage each and bringing him below half-health, ending the fight.