54 Exhaustion

"Ha!" using his full strength, the older man was able to block Leo's technique only using his body. "That was barely passable!"

"I am not done yet!" shouted Leo as he prepared to launch a follow up attack. What was strange, was that Leo closed his eyes as his body came to a halt. Within a breath of time, a small veil of wind surrounded Leo's body as it swirled around him. This did not lift him off the ground but seemed as if it added to his defensive capabilities.

"So young, but he is able to execute so many techniques back to back?" the older man had an earth elemental affinity and he focused heavily on his defense. However, he never had the ability to learn any earth element techniques due to his village lacking so much.

Learning which element, a warrior had a connection to, was an easy and widely known technique. For the warrior, they just had to close their eyes and concentrate. Depending on how close they were with an element determined which one they would feel the most from. Some warriors were lucky and since the beginning were able to sense more than a single element.

Although it was easier for a warrior to become more in tune with their elements, it was very difficult to put their power to any use unless they had proper teaching and training. Even within the city, only books could be purchased to help a warrior's path to using their element in their attacks.

"How was he able to grasp so many different techniques at such a young age?" the older man thought as he tried to keep his calm. The older man felt that Leo's last attack was rather low in power and so he felt no danger to his life.

To this older man, Leo was like an uncut ruby. One day he would be able to command forces beyond his imagination, but he still had a long road ahead of him until that time. Leo was so young but filled with an extremely high level of potential that even this older man couldn't grasp.

While he was lost in his thoughts, Leo finally finished his preparations and unleashed small blades of wind towards his opponent. He was unwilling to lose the upper hand he currently had, still being on the offensive.

Unfortunately for Leo, his attack, just like the last one was easily disregarded by his opponent. Not knowing what to do, Leo closed his eyes once again as his veil covered in wind faded away. Leo started to feel sweat pouring down his head and onto his face.

Though he now had many more techniques to use, it did not change the fact that they were all still at the first level according to the screen earlier. This did not discourage Leo from testing them out in a real fight, and even gave him a better understanding on how much longer he would need to train some of his techniques up before they were effective in battle against opponents like the one, he was facing now.

Withdrawing a small potion, Leo quickly recovered his full strength as his opponent did not make any sudden moves. Instead, the older man remained within his defensive stance. If Leo was able to unleash so many elemental type attacks, his opponent was able to tell that what he felt was maybe just a warm up.

"Thank you very much for being my test subject for some of my newer techniques. May we actually begin the real spar now?" Leo respectfully called out to the older man. Although he was being nice about it, Leo felt that the older man might become angry hearing him.

Instead, the older man just casually nodded his head. This was the first time he was able to freely move in years, why would he care if a short warm up before a spar took place?

Withdrawing his sword, Leo finally began to make his move, except, he chose not to use any elemental techniques to increase his speed. This spar slowly turned itself into a training session for Leo and he wanted to see how far his swordsmanship had come. Since his opponent was experienced but hadn't shown any elemental attacks of his own, Leo wanted to keep it that way.

"You are still many years away from being able to match up against me without using your full power!" the older man called out as Leo dashed towards him at his full speed. Without using his wind element to increase his speed, Leo was like an average warrior in terms of speed.

Swinging his sword, Leo tried to attack his opponent's shoulders, however, the older man simply shrugged the attack off by parrying Leo's sword with the top of his battle axe. After the parry, Leo used the force to turn his body and to let out a stabbing motion. The older man quickly repositioned himself to block the blade with his own weapon.

Just like that, over fifty exchanges happened over the course of only several minutes. Leo used what he was learning in real time against his opponent to improve his own abilities and strategy. By the one hundredth exchange, Leo started to feel that he was improving.

"Not bad kid, you have passed my test, but if you can learn from me, we might as well continue sparring!" the man said as a brightness in his eyes were unable to be hidden from Leo. Before the raid, this older man was unable to become a teacher to train younger warriors within the village. However, he always wanted to become one.

Just like this, the older man and Leo sparred for several hours before finally finishing up. It was still bright out, but both felt as if they were fighting an endless swarm of enemies as they both suddenly fell backwards to rest their bodies.

"I must hand it to you kid, you are one hell of a monster." Showing a sincere grin on his face, the older man after several minutes stood back up as he made his way to sit beside Leo. "If you can last this long in a spar, we will be more than ready tomorrow to rescue some of my comrades."

"I should be telling you the same thing. Even without using any elemental techniques, you still exhausted me to such an extent." Replied Leo as both individuals made their way into the waterfall to relax their muscles as they began to strategize for the next morning.

During the rest of the day, Leo started to learn more about the village from the older man as they drank some wine and ate their meals. Leo was certain that this man next to him had no relation to the woman he met earlier, but they were definitely from the same place.