84 Pursui

"Ow! What the fuck was that!? How can you be so fast suddenly?" Brenia complained as she regained some of her breath.

She looked at him with a very frustrated expression.

"I told you to be careful." He answered with a bit of worry in his voice. "Are you fine? Did I punch too hard?"

"No of course I'm not fine! What did you do to improve so much so quick?"

So she was physically fine but she felt angry?

She wasn't usually a sore looser but this was just too much.

Thinking of the spar, or rather, her unfair instant defeat, he realized he was very disappointed. The spars he had with her were always very entertaining, he really loved them. This one wasn't fun at all, she was simply too slow for the current him and their strength didn't match either.

Before, he had a slight edge in raw strength but she made up for it in agility and speed. Against Nessa, she did the opposite, lacking a bit of speed but making up for it in strength. Now, the difference between them was just ridiculous.

He already regretted their old spars. He was just as displeased as she was.

"I drank one of those." He chose to answer her question by showing her the bottle of elixir.

"Gimme that."

She didn't ask any more questions than that and snatched the bottle from his hand. If it was good enough for him to drink without worry and get such an improvement, she saw no reason to not drink it. She didn't bother to ask him if he was willing to give her some either.

Emp did nothing to stop her as she uncorked the thing and drank its contents whole in an instant. Witnessing her crushing defeat, he had already made up his mind, he would give one to both her and Nessa.

"Wow, it tastes disgusting. How long will this work for, I don't want to drink this all the time."

"It's permanent."

Brenia raised an eyebrow and Aglaya, getting over her own shock, asked him what was in the bottle.

"A black tulip of the crystal spring elixir."

None of them knew what it was so none reacted except for Penny who was so surprised her chair flew back as she jumped to her feet and stamped on the table.

"There's no way you let her drink such a thing just like that! That would be insane!".

Since none of the others understood the situation, she had to teach them all about the tulip and how the elder circle of mage in Thronewoods only made about one every ten years.

Brenia paled looking at the bottle she had just emptied.

"How much did that thing cost you?" Asked Mable curious and nervous to hear just how much money Brenia just drank as if it was nothing.

"I already had the flower so I only paid for the processing fee. It still cost me a whole crystal plate for the batch."

This was close to three hundred gold coins the bottle. Without the flower, he heard it would have been closer to two thousand the bottle.

The others all stood there dumbstruck at this ridiculous price figure. At this moment, if Brenia could have spit it all back out into the bottle, she probably would have. Seeing their dismayed faces, he gave them a light chuckle to reassure them.

"Don't worry, I still have more. I already intended to give one to Brenia so its really fine. I have one for you too Nessa."

Seeing him get another bottle of it out of his bag, Penny couldn't help but scream in indignation.

"No way! How many did you even have? How rich can you possibly be?"

"The answer to both of those things is; more than you think."

While Brenia was still in shock about what she just drank, Nessa stared at the bottle with intensity. It was obvious she craved it. Still, she refused the gift.

"There is no way I can accept such a precious gift."

Opposite to Emp, she knew when to refuse a gift and when to accept one. She couldn't possibly accept receiving such a rare gift form her classmate.

"Honestly, it's fine. I still have more and there is no use in drinking this more than once so I do need to give them away."

"It's still too much, why would you gift this to me, why not someone of your household?"

Emp told her his whole thought process about it.

"I don't know how your ancestor did it but I think reaching the second stage of that sword dance is just impossible for an ordinary human. Even if you trained your whole life, you would never reach the speed you need to sustain it. In my opinion, this is the reason why no one managed to learn it after him. I think that this would be enough to let you reach it."

She wanted to reinstate her objection but he stopped her with his hand.

"What happened with Gytha made me wonder if this really was a good idea to give you this. I had not realized before that my friends could maybe become opponents, even if against their will or unknowingly.

I felt it would be much safer for me if in the end, you never managed to get to that second stage. The truth however is that I would much rather believe that you would never turn against us. I'd like for you to win.

You will owe me nothing, I don't want anything in return. If you insist on on giving something back then just make sure to take my or Mable's side if we get in trouble alright? Take it and let me see the next stage of the dance with my own eyes."

He said nothing about why he didn't give it to someone of his own family because he didn't know how to answer that without saying too much or saying something that would make him seem strange.

The reactions to his explanations varied widely but everyone spoke at the same time making it difficult for him to understand anyone.

Penny disagreed with his viewpoint and told him he would be better off keeping the elixir for his family.

Brenia didn't know how to react to the fact she had just drunk such a thing so casually and instead asked why he said his "or" Mable's side rather than his "and" Mable's side.

Mable just told Nessa to take it since it was such a good gift. Then she heard What Brenia asked and turned beet red. Emp had asked her since then about what she meant by that kiss and why keep it secret but she had just pushed the issue for later so he had no clue what she was currently thinking.

Aglaya on the other hand, found his words to be very clever.

"He doesn't know the full name of Mable so he can't commit to anything and she doesn't know his full name either however, he included her anyway in his request to show that he did hope for her to be a long time ally. On the opposite, he does know the name of Nessa as well as her ambition and from the information decided that the chances of her ever getting in conflict with him were minimal. I highly suggest you to take that elixir Nessa. Not only is it a sign of friendship but a clear commitment towards a long term alliance. Yes you will be bound to help in the future if you accept this gift now but not only will it greatly help you on your path, it's just Emp we're talking about. What could he possibly do to make you regret siding with us?"

Aglaya saw much more than what he meant here but it was true anyway. He wished to remain in good terms with Nessa in the future, granted of course that he saw her again after he left the school. He also wanted Mable to stay close but he couldn't take decisions for her and it didn't seem like she would clarify her thoughts about him anytime soon.

"You're telling me to accept but it's only because he asked for me to help Mable in the future if she got in trouble. Your opinion on what I should do is driven by your own interest."

"The advantage it gives you is way more obvious than ours. Not accepting that elixir, you're only hurting yourself."

Nessa pursed her lips as she thought about it and finally decided to drink the bottle she was given.

She made a disgusted face tasting the liquid and like everyone that took the elixir, her skin turned red for a moment.

"I don't feel any different." She stated.

"Me neither." Brenia added.

"It's normal, it will take a few days to fully take effect, the changes will gradually take place until you are fully improved by it."

"I see... I understand why you would want to give one to Nessa since she'll be a duchess and that's a useful friend to have but why would you give one to me as well?"

"Why not?" Emp asked with his eyebrows scrunched up. "It would be really boring if I lost my favorite sparing partner just like that. Aren't you my friend as well? Get stronger and fight me again, I want a good match."

Brenia had a good laugh at his words and grinned back at him. She knew he was honest about this.

"Sure, for a good fight I'm more than willing!"

She punched his shoulder to show her approval but aside from the clank of his armor, he felt nothing through it.

"I always have fun with you, well except today. I think you broke the thumb of my left hand." She added afterwards.

They laughed it off despite the fact that Brenia would have to go see a healer later and they moved on to the next spar, the one between him and Penny.

She had seen many insane things since she got here but wanted to go through to the end with it anyway. The teacher wouldn't be able to say she didn't put efforts in her observation and trial.

"If I can't hurt you with my spells, how do we decide who won?"

"We could just go to the first one to hit or since Heinrich intended this to be an eye opener for you, we could go at it as if this was a real fight. Since you can't hurt me, you win if you can either escape or force me to surrender by locking me down. I would win by catching you or getting a hit on you but don't worry, I would not hit you as strong as I hit Brenia."

"Boo, that's favoritism!"

Both him and Penny ignored Brenia, she just received a ridiculously rare elixir, talk about favoritism.

"You should go for the second one, it sounds way more interesting." Mable said from the side.

Penny rolled her shoulders to gather her spirits and agreed to it. She unsheathed one of her wands, a grey wooden branch adorned with feathers and readied herself for the fight. It was clear in her posture that she wasn't used to this sort of things and a lot of the confidence she had earlier in the day had vanished seeing how Emp had so thoroughly defeated Brenia.

Aglaya raised her arm in the air and after a short wait, gave the signal to start by swinging it down.

Emp instantly stepped right in front of her and reached out to grab her arm.

"Away!" She yelled in panic as she lived in person what it was like to be charged by someone like Emp.

A powerful gust of wind stormed around them and slammed into Emp without disturbing him in the slightest. It did however raise a lot of dust and obscured his vision for a second by slipping into the eye slits of his armor. When he managed to see again, she wasn't in front of him anymore. Only a grey stick and withered feathers remained

"Melt!"

He felt the ground under his feet give way and he started to sink into it. The dirt and sand had been turned into a very liquid type of mud. He turned the upper half of his torso around and saw her discard a second wand. Before even confirming whether he was stuck or not, she started chanting another spell and rummaged in her shirt pockets to gather a few trinkets.

Emp sunk down to his knee without being able to do anything about it. It reminded him of the mud traps he had seen when he first left Chinui's cabin. He wondered how far the liquid dirt extended away from him and if he could perhaps get away by gripping solid ground. First though, since she wasn't that far off, he should disrupt her spell by attacking her right away. Not running off in the distance was a mistake.

He Lifted the hammer up in the air and her eyes showed panic as she realized what he was about to do. She had seen him attack from incredible distances like everyone else before but she had momentarily forgotten because that ability was so illogical.

She quickly made many steps backwards but kept chanting, refusing to stop her magic. He swung the hammer towards her as weakly as he possibly could because he didn't want to hurt her.

The weapon was too slow compared to her retreating steps and only clipped the front of her shirt. There was a "crack" sound as he hit something in one of the pockets and a massive cloud of thick black smoke burst from it, obscuring her from the view of everyone.

Emp groaned at the miss and tried to reach the border of the liquid dirt instead. It wasn't out of his augmented reach but too far to use it to prop him up, he needed another plan.

The smoke was still everywhere so he had no idea of what she was doing. The only thing he knew was that her spell wasn't done yet since he still heard her conjuring her magic.

With his reach, he grabbed an ordinary rock out of the pool and used it to cast solidify on the ground absorbing him, cancelling the other spell. That simple spell had so many more uses than what he believed it would ever have.

The ground around him grew solid once again and using his incredible strength, he forcefully extracted his legs from the ground. It made a lot of cracking noises and the yard broke apart around him as his leg previously buried up to his thighs dragged dirt and stone with it to move back up.

Using his hands and the removed leg, he was able to do the same with the second one in no time at all.

Just as he was standing back up on solid ground, he heard the loud boom of thunder and saw many lights run through the black smoke like lightning bursting from the sky.

Since he was right in the middle of the black cloud, he couldn't really tell what was going on but he heard the shocked gasps of the other girls sat at the table. Then, there was a second, louder boom and his world turned white. The smoke burst apart and lightning ran all over the ground to cover his armor. It was like every single bit of dust in the black smoke had turned into another bolt of lightning. He heard it crackle all over him but felt nothing at all.

The only inconvenience was that it blinded him and everything sounded eerily quiet for a short time.

Now that the cloud disappeared, once the light stopped blinding him, he saw a blurry Penny floating a feet in the air with a web of electricity linking her feet to the ground.

Her eyes were wide in surprise, she was shocked to see that not only did he escape her pool of liquid dirt but he was perfectly fine after that. The moment he moved a muscle towards her however, her instincts took over and she fled towards the far end of the field. Her speed was now incredible, way faster than Jin even. Maybe with that speed she would be able to use the second stage of the sword dance. Had he jumped to the conclusion it was impossible too quickly or would it be too hard to keep that spell up as well as the dance?

Floating above ground, she rushed away without moving her feet, only leaning forward further to accelerate.

She had given up on stopping him now huh? Emp was an expert in long distance run though. He started running after her with all the speed he could muster and found himself right behind her almost immediately. His earring and vision were also already returned to normal so that was good.

The lightning emanating from her licked the front of his armor once again and sensing him, she turned her head behind her to look.

"Fast!" She gasped.

Her movement wasn't the only thing that had accelerated with her it seemed because before Emp was done thinking her reaction was comical, she had already pointed a new wand his way.

"Boom!"

Following her onomatopoeia, air gathered at the tip of the wand and turned into a ball of fire the same size has herself. The moment it was formed, it flew towards him and since they were both so close to each-other, Emp didn't have any time to dodge and got hit instantly.

The conflagration was violent and managed to stop his pursuit. In that single moment it was blowing up onto his armor, he was unable to move forward because of its pressure. It's heat however, only managed to make him feel warm instead of cool thanks to the runes on his armor.

Her attack wasn't over with only this though, the flames hadn't completely dissipated yet that the ground on either side of him surged upward into two huge walls.

She had started chanting a new spell and her finger danced with lightning as she threw powder in the air and drew circles in them. She widened her arms and Emp understood what was about to happen, this was an earth spell, one he had read about in his earth magic book.

He swung his hammer left in reaction just as she strongly clapped her two hands together. The two walls of dirt and stone rushed towards him to imitate her hands but, with a dull boom and an ominous crack, the left one was turned into rubble when he smashed the hammer into it with all his strength.

The wall on his right, with nothing to collide with, pushed at his back and had him slide far away from the girl as she resumed her escape.

This was kinda fun. Emp thought. He wondered what she would do next. However, he was unable to smile at all. He had been hit by every single one of her attacks until the start. If it had been a real mage with powerful magic, he would have been dead four times over by now.

He smashed his elbow into the wall pushing him to break it apart and went through it. He saw Penny in the distance and ran after her again. This time however, she was so nervous about seeing half her spell instantly getting dismissed that she had kept an eye on him. She saw he was after her again long before he reached her.

Just as fast as before, she reached for her pockets and got a spearhead made of steel and a fist sized piece of gold. There was so much cold sweat on her forehead flowing down that Emp wondered how she could still keep her eyes open. The answer however didn't matter to either because they both continued what they were doing.

Emp sped towards her and she slid backwards at an incredible speed while still casting her spell. Her mouth moved so fast because of her magically enhanced speed that Emp couldn't understand a word of it but it seemed really complex for a novice. It took her a while before he saw any signs of magic at all.

Fifty meters between them, she raised both of her hands towards the sky, lightning coursing on her flapping clothes.

Forty meters between them, she pointed the spearhead his way after having it draw a wide and slow arc from over her head down towards him. A long beam of golden light took form between the gold piece and the spearhead.

Thirty meters, the light condensed and seemed to solidify itself into a shining spear fit for a giant. Her arm holding the gold piece, arced towards her back, stretching the spear further and further.

Fifteen meters, the spear was now fine and sharp, glowing like the sun reflected on polished steel. Another similar beam started forming over her head.

Five meters, she seemed desperate to end her spell fast because he was getting very close. Behind her, the stone wall of the school building got closer to them at a frightening speed.

She knew she was going towards it a full speed, yes?

She decided to release the golden spear and it pierced the air towards him. If he didn't dodge it, it would probably only slow him down but if she hadn't noticed the wall, she would ram into it with enough speed to turn herself into grounded meat.

He threw the hammer at it and twisted his upper body in his course towards her. The hammer clashed with it provoking a sound similar to a whistling teapot and a high pitched shriek, the two object flew back in different direction and both crashed into the dirt. The ground burst open and bits of it flew ten meters in the air. Emp barely escaped getting hit by the spear and sped even further up.

The wall was ridiculously close now, he was convinced she couldn't see it. She was way to busy dealing with him. There was no way he was letting her hurt herself in that ridiculous spar!

Both of them were panicked at this point for very different reasons. Penny was on edge trying to figure out a way to slow him down as her second spear was being formed while he was desperate to reach her before she was turned into a pancake by her own speed.

He pushed himself to his very limits and jumped forward, extending his hand to her, she was definitely close enough. He reached through space and caught the arm pointing the spearhead towards him. She yelped in surprise and the rays of light condensing into a spear dispersed aggressively around them, blasting holes all over the ground.

The wall was just behind her now!

He paid no attention to the dangerous light and quickly dragged her to him as he spun on himself to expose his back first. She was tugged all the way to him and her lighting spell collapsed too. Both the gold piece and the spear head fell from her hands and were left in the dust behind their furious run.

With no time to make sense of what was happening to her or what he was doing, Emp held onto her to minimize the shock she would feel and rammed into the stone wall with ridiculous speed.

If it had been made of wood or brick, he would have gone through but the base of that stone wall was much too thick. It was made to support many floors and towers.

The shock was so heavy and violent that he didn't register the powerful sound it made and all the air in his lungs escaped him. He found the experience to be painful but not enough to knock him out. He was reminded of how the crystal monster broke the bones of it's hand punching the huge rock. Did he just break a bunch of his own bones as well? It didn't feel like it but at the same time, his whole body felt numb.

He released Penny who fell on her hands and knees in front of him, just as out of breath as he was. As she gathered her breath, she looked back at him and started to piece together what had just happened. As she came to understand that she could have been the one running into the wall at that speed, her face was drained of all its blood.

Emp slid down the wall and coughed hard to try to fix his breath. After a few tries, he finally managed to force some new air into his lungs and felt very relieved that he was able to breathe.

Because of the huge distance they had traveled in their fight, the others were very far away. they saw how the fight ended and decided to run towards them in worry. It would take them a while to reach them though.

Emp took the time to move individual parts of his body to see if something felt wrong. He did hurt everywhere but nothing seemed really damaged.

"You..." Penny said, unable to find any words to add to that.

"You weren't paying attention to what was around you. You could have hurt yourself badly there. You need to be aware of everything, don't just run backwards blindly." Emp scolded her. "My whole back will be bruised now."

"I... Sorry."

She really did seem sorry. He let out a sigh and struggled to remove his helm.

"It's fine, just pay attention while you're in a fight, anything could happen after all."

"Thank you for taking the impact in my stead." She said. "I'm not used to going that fast, I was certain we were very far away still."

Emp decided she looked guilty enough and would probably remember to look out next time. Instead of complaining some more, he decided to tell her what he felt about the rest of their spar.

"That was fun, I was very curious of what spell you would throw at me next."

"Fun? That was so scary. I couldn't stop you or even just escape. Every time I looked you were closer than before and I had a hard time to keep my spell up or even just think of anything in front of that... pressure."

Emp could understand what she meant, it happened a few times to him as well. Under too much fear and stress, you could feel like nothing in your head worked and just moved by reflex alone.

The others finally reached them with Brenia lagging behind. She had taken the long way around to pick up his hammer and carried it back to him holding it by the head.

"Are you alright? What happened?" Nessa asked first.

"We had an accident because of a small lack of awareness but we're both fine." Emp answered.

"That was so fun to look at! There was so much happening, with loud explosions and elements attacking you from everywhere. Did you win in the end?" Mable asked excitedly.

"He did win." Penny nodded, still sat in the dirt. "I was thoroughly defeated. I threw all my best spells at him and it barely slowed him down."

"It doesn't feel like a win though. Aside from when you tried to squash me between the two dirt walls, I never saw any of your attacks coming and got hit by every singe one of them. I dodged the last one but I had to sacrifice my hammer for it. Against a more experienced mage, I would have died many times over."

"I see what you mean." She nodded in agreement "In a real fight, I would have died many times over as well. That first attack with your hammer was too slow for the ridiculous speed you showed me after, you could have hit me easily but you didn't. Then, even after sacrificing many wands and a talisman, the wall would have killed me and even if not, you still caught up to me."

"Heinrich was right, I think we both learned a lot in that small fight."

"Yes, I see now what our teacher wanted me to understand. Fighting for real is very different than just knowing the spells. Things don't always go your way and there is much more to be aware of and understand."

She turned her eyes towards the other girls and apologized to Brenia.

"I'm sorry I said warriors were wasting their time and had no value, I was obviously wrong. Emp is very far from weak, he could shrug off anything I sent at him and broke through stone and dirt as if it was a sheet of parchment. Even with the blessing of lightning, I couldn't escape him. The others as well, from what I saw and from how confident Emp seems to be in your ability to catch up to him, that strength isn't unusual. I vastly underestimated the potential of forged weapons users."

Emp expected Brenia to be gloating from seeing Penny admitting that she was right but she seemed just as downhearted as the novice mage instead. She placed the hammer to the side and after lowering herself to the level of her usual nemesis, she surprisingly apologized as well.

"I'm sorry too. I believed that mages just used overrated fancy tricks and dishonorable tactics but today, I saw you throw everything you had at him, sparing no efforts to win a desperate situation.

I get it now, mages aren't different. Magic is just another weapon, one I don't understand, but in the end, it's the same as a sword or an axe. You must have practiced just as hard as I.

I apologize, I won't look down on magic again, Emp was right from the start. If it had been me against you, I would have lost for sure, you were much faster than I and you two rampaged around the field so much that the whole thing is wrecked, there are holes and rubble everywhere. That was an impressive display. I should have paid more attention in magic class."

With that, she extended her hand to Penny for a shake. The young mage looked at the hand in surprise for a short moment and took it with a smile.

"And I should have paid more attention in combat class. I wouldn't have embarrassed myself by running straight into a wall."

Brenia burst in laughter and helped Penny get back up.

What an unexpected turn of event. They had been at each-other's throat for two years and just like that, they both changed their minds and mended their relationship. In the end, despite harboring opposing opinions, both of them were quite similar. They were both stubborn but hardworking and ambitious in their own field. Their desires to improve surpassed their stubborn nature and after seeing that they had been wrong and that there was indeed another way to go to progress than the one they believed in, they accepted the truth with dignity instead of complaining and persisting in their misguided perception.

Emp was glad this happened, he liked when things were logical and them two finally agreeing that both magic and martial arts were useful was, in his own head, how it should have been from the start.

"I'm glad you're both finally in agreement that both magic and martial art have their uses and should both be studied."

"No." The two denied together to Emp's absolute dismay.

Didn't they just agree to the opposite?

"We agree that both are strong and should not be underestimated yes, but I still don't think you should practice both at once."

"Brenia is right, if you waste your time studying the intricacies of both, in the end, you will be master of neither. Study one and pay attention to what the other can do, that's all that's within our reach."

"Yeah, if I waste time trying to cast spells now, my progress in martial arts will drop and I'll never catch back up to you. I'll watch carefully and listen so that I know what a mage can do but there's no way I'm ever doing the same. It would just break my momentum."

Emp couldn't believe those two! He thought they had both finally seen reason but it wasn't the case at all! They just acknowledged the value of the other side rather than considering it as part of the right path. He didn't know what to tell them.

Was he the one in the wrong then? Was it absurd to think he should practice both rather than one or the other? He didn't think so, he had been asked to do both by the gods themselves, there was no way he was wrong.

"Speaking of broken," Brenia followed. "I picked up your hammer and it doesn't seem to be in good shape."

She gave it back to Emp and he was immediately saddened to see that it was badly damaged. The handle was deeply cracked, he was surprised the head of the hammer hadn't fallen off in the battle. Not only the handle, the giant tooth was also damaged, there was a large charred scar like a trench where it had collided with the spear of light.

He liked that hammer a lot so he was very hurt to see it like that. Maybe he could replace the handle but the tooth would never be as smooth as it one was. Even by replacing the handle, hitting something with it could now result in the tooth splitting by the center which would be extremely bad. When he said earlier that he had sacrificed the hammer to dodge the spell, he hadn't thought that he had "really" sacrificed it.

Seeing his depressed face, Penny apologized again.

"Sorry, it was my pale sunlight spear that damaged it."

"You don't have to apologize for it. In that kind of spar, it's better to not hold back, I can accept it. I needed to get a new one anyway, that one was too light for the current me."

"Your mouth says that but your eyes tell us the opposite." Aglaya pointed out.

Emp gave them a disappointed sigh and tried to express his feelings with words that would make sense.

"It's true that I needed a new one but that hammer had been trough a lot with me. I feel really sad seeing it in such a bad state, I hoped to keep it in good condition to hang it on my wall. I can still place it there but it won't be the same..."

While Emp mourned his hammer with Celtine tapping his shoulder in support, the others gave him some space and talked about Penny's magic affinity a little further off. They were still close enough for him to hear but this way, if he wanted to keep to himself for a bit, he would be able to. Nessa was the one to ask her about it.

"You used a lot of different magics, we saw a bunch of opposed styles from our seat. There was lightning, light, wind, water, earth and fire too, what is your affinity in the end?"

"I have none." Penny admitted. "When the teacher tested me, none of the powders rose."

"What?"

The others couldn't be more surprised. They expected her to have a lot.

"Having no affinities isn't a problem, affinities do not equal talent, they just tell you what will be easier. Even though there was no easier path for me, I think this is great. This way, I get to try out all of them.

Some mages focus so much on their affinity that they forget the other types of magu even exist. I will get to master all of them at once, I'll have the advantages of all and the weaknesses of none. The powders says the path will be harder but it is meaningless in front of my efforts."

"I don't know if it's efforts or talent but some of those were really impressive. The one were you floated above ground was amazing." Mable told her. "Would you be able to fly over the school with it?"

"No, actually flying is way harder, this one just makes me float somehow."

"The last one was great too, it was so bright we could see it clearly from all the way over there. It was super strong too, you even broke Emp's hammer with it."

"Yes, the pale sunlight spear is the best offensive spell I know, but it still wasn't strong enough. Emp was way too strong it's ridiculous, I didn't expect my spell to be pushed aside by the hammer, I thought it would blast the hammer away and continue towards him but instead, it got stuck on it and was deviated just enough for him to easily step out of the way."

"I wonder how strong Emp truly is now."

"Let's ask him then! I'm curious too." Mable told them before calling out to him. "Hey Emp, just by curiosity, just how strong are you now? Could you strike the ground with that other hammer of yours? The big black one, just to see what it looks like when you go all out."

Emp looked up from his damaged hammer and placed it in his bag before answering. He was still sad but, it was only a hammer after all. He could forget about it for now to answer Mable.

"I can but it will tire me out, I won't be able to spar again today if I do."

After a quick consultation, the others agreed they wanted to see. Anyway, no one could match him in a true spar now.

Emp took a few more steps of distance with them before he prepared himself to get the overburdening hammer out of the bag. He used it every day to strengthen himself with it but almost never made any strikes with it because the strain on himself was too much. His arms hurt for a long time after he did just from the shock of the impact. Striking the ground was very stupid after all, his bones felt like cracking every time and all his skin felt like it was being stung by bees.

He took a deep breath and reached into his bag for it. Using both of his hands, he painstakingly lifted it up high in the air. He quickly felt all his strength disappearing and his whole body started to burn despite the cooling effect of his armor. By the time the hammer was up high, his face was drenched in sweat. The others could only watch with bated breath seeing him struggle to raise it.

Then, when it finally was as high as he could possibly lift it, He reversed his strength and pushed it down with all his might.

"Haaar!!"

It made a wide swing in the air and its flat surface punched into the dirt floor. There was a boom louder than any they had heard in the previous duel and the ground shook under their feet. The black weapon dug deeply in the earth and the whole area around it felt like it rose in answer, fracturing dry soil and rocks under its weight and displacing everything around it to let the frightening tool through. Pieces of dirt flew high up in the air and splattered all over his armor like pellets shot from a sling.

When the sound of the impact finally stopped rolling around them, Mable started clapping in wonder.

The others had mixed feelings. They would not have been that surprised to see a knight or a death seeker exhibit this kind of strength but, Emp was just a student like them. His full strength could shatter the earth under him and he was only this old.

How ridiculous would it become in the future?

The only thought currently floating into Aglaya's head was: How did that teacher survive a full powered hit in the chest from him? What sort of magic had he been protected by?

They spent the rest of the afternoon talking about training and magic. Everyone left late in the evening and Emp brought Mable all the way to her room like usual.

"When my clothes will be ready, I'll need to go out in town again, will you go with me this time too?" She asked him.

This seemed like the perfect occasion to attempt to have another talk with Love. He really wanted to talk to her after all. By escorting Mable in town, he would have a good opportunity to stop by.

"Sure, but while we're there, I'd like to stop at the temple of Love, I have something to do there."

"Wow, that's funny, that's were I wanted to go too! That's great then, we'll go together!"

Why did Mable want to go to that temple?