Chapter 105 - Chapter 107

Name:A New Path Author:Vallori
A good distance away from the tiny water tribe village, Dragon and Connor stood facing each other. It was time for their spar to start and they both wore expressions that spoke of how excited they were.

Connor was excited to face someone on his level of power, and Dragon was excited to see a water bending master. They had different reasons to be excited, but they were both gonna take this seriously out of respect for each others strength.

"Are you ready Grand Master Dragon?" Connor said with his hands hanging lazily down his side. On looks alone, he looked like a novice that had just learned how to form a ball of water. But his aura spoke about his high master in the water element.

"Yes! Ready anytime." Dragon said with his hands hidden inside his sleeve.

Connor nodded and time for just a second seemed to slow down. The two mighty auras grew outwards and they were approaching each other slowly. Dragon's wind-based elemental aura and Connor's water-based aura. They were almost upon each other.

A bender usually identified each other by their aura. And the higher your mastery was, the more intense your natural aura became. Connor was a Grand Master, so the area around him was always much colder and that was all because of his aura.

Most Grand Masters had to supress their auras because they lived with other people. Otherwise their aura alone could make it difficult for normal people and novice benders to exist around them.

Air benders were naturally talented in hiding their presence. And a Grand Master like Dragon was could most likely walk into the most secure palace in the earth kingdom without being spotted. Only a Grand Master would have the chance to notice him, and even then, that Grand Master would have to focus on detecting him. This was how powerful air bending was if mastered to a high enough degree.

Finally, the auras collided and an invisible pressure appeared and cracked open the ground around them. This served as the start of the battle. Connor ran his hand along the ground and seven small but sharp spikes of water were sent towards Dragon.

Dragon saw the attack coming and utilized the agility and flexibility among air benders to move through the spikes. He leaned side to side and continuously dodged the spikes. And as the last one passed by, Conner waved his finger and three tiny water needles grew from the passing spike.

He felt the danger behind him so Dragon turned around and did a leg sweep behind him. He successfully knocked the needles away. And he immediately dashed towards Connor.

'Close combat will work best against a water bender that has Connor's level of mastery.' Dragon approached at high speed.

Connor kicked the ground in front of him and a snow wave grew and stopped Dragon in his approach. Dragon did a roundhouse kick and released an air blast that blew the wave apart. But Connor was gone from sight.

'Below!' Just in time Dragon jumped up and avoided two hands grabbing onto his legs. He did a downwards leg sweep and blew a hole in the ground. The seawater was exposed and another hole appeared behind Dragon.

Connor jumped out of the hole with his whole body surrounded by an armour made from water. He created an ice spear from water and launched it at Dragon.

Dragon let the spear approach and as it did, he covered his fist in wind and destroyed it with a quick palm strike. He disappeared from the spot using air dash and appeared behind Connor in the air.

He delivered another palm strike and it successfully hit him on the back. Connor was launched towards the ground and crashed through the hard icy surface.

'Let's see what other tricks he has.' Dragon observed the ice surface carefully.

Suddenly the ice started to break below Dragon. The cracks spread across the surface, and the spot below Dragon exploded and forcing him to jump up.

Connor appeared from the explosion, riding a water tornado. He had water covering his entire body and he held an ice sword in one hand and an axe in the other. He swung his sword and ice needles were launched towards Dragon.

"you're gonna have to do better than needles." Dragon spun around in place, and a great storm appeared and swatted the needles away. And a proper tornado started to form under him and it carried him away.

"Let's do this for real now," Connor said and raised his weapons in the air. He waved his hands and sent blasts of water from his water tornado towards Dragon.

Dragon used his wind to counter the water, and the two elements clashed in mid-air and destroyed the area around them. The two respective benders on their own tornados kept sending blasts of wind and water at each other. Massive outbursts of wind and auratic pressure appeared and completely destroyed the landscape.

Any normal person close to this would not be able to stand up ort walk around. Dragon's elemental aura created a fierce storm for miles around him, and each clash between the two Grand Masters was like multiple explosions occurring.

Connor's elemental aura caused huge waves and that coupled with the storm Dragon cooked up, any boat on this sea, no matter the size would immediately be destroyed. This was a battle that only a Grand Master could survive in.

"Let us finish this now, so that our fight do not reach your home village." Dragon raised his hands up into the air slowly. This caused the massive storm around them to condense and start to form four tornados around Connor.

Dragon spread apart his arms and slammed his hands together. And as his hands moved so did the tornados.

They moved in to collide with Connor. The man saw no escape from these massive tornados, so he quickly raised his hands and his water tornado grew in size extensively and covered him. The tornado made from water started to expand outwards and clash with the incoming tornados.

The five natural catastrophy class attacks collided, and a massive storm broke out from the point of contact. Connor that covered himself with his own tornado lost control for a second and got flung aside. He crashed hard on the ground and coughed up some blood.

The giant storm that broke out from their clash started dissipating and the sea started to calm down. Dragon cancelled his tornado and he flew down towards Connor. He landed beside Connor and sat down by his side.

"I had n-no idea there could be this giant of a difference between Grand Masters."

Connor sat up while groaning in pain. He laughed at himself for thinking that he stood on the same stage as Dragon. Clearly, there were worlds apart between them.

"All I can say is this. Grand Master is not the end, Connor. There is no end to this road we walk on. I can feel it, the next step in my air bending. I don't know what lies beyond, but I know it's not the end. So who knows if bending even has a limit to it. Maybe we humans are the ones that create the limitations."

Connor looked at Dragon with a questionable gaze, but he couldn't ignore what Dragon said. Somewhere inside of him, he felt it too.

"hm, I think I know what you mean. The more attune I become with my element and the more I advance in my water bending, I feel more and more resistance. It's getting harder and harder to improve myself."

"How about we go back and eat something. This was a good spar session. I thoroughly enjoyed it." Dragon helped Connor stand up and smiled.

"Sure, I can get behind that." Connor simply moved his hand and the snow underneath them both hardened and it started to move like a sledge.

'Guess he passed my test with flying colours. I need to contact that old man and tell him about this. But that's after I get something to eat.' Connor told himself while glancing at Dragon with pride and respect in his eyes.

--------------------------------------

End