Ava raises her massive hammer, and it glows with a faint white light; nowhere near as bright as it was when she was trying to kill me.
"Alright, let's spar. I'll be activating the lowest setting for my attacks; otherwise, an hour of fighting will use up more Ether than I can extract from ten stones."
She picks up the last stone from which I had absorbed the majority of its Ether, inspects it, and her expression changes to confusion while extracting the rest of it and throwing it to the floor.
I can tell she wants to ask more questions but instead grips her hammer with both hands and readies herself.
While I'd love to face her at full power, going easy at first is probably better for me too. I can't argue with her logic either; if sparring would cost more Ether than we mine, it wouldn't be worth her time.
"Sure," I reply while raising my hands to fight, taking deep breaths to summon Ether from the depths of my consciousness.
–
Over the next hour, we spar at the bottom of the abandoned mining pit.
I use the same technique to summon waves of translucent white energy over portions of my body to block Ava's incoming strikes.
She's far faster than me, both in reflexes and attack speed.
Every time her hammer swings, I watch an identical machine-like rush of Ether come out of her avatar and pool inside the hammer's base.
Instead of the many layers I needed to block her attacks before, just one small wisp of Ether from my consciousness is enough to combat the attack's Ether force.
However, even though it's enough to block, Ava doesn't hold back and uses her superior speed to hit me all over, landing blows that aren't covered by Ether at all.
For the first half of our spar, I'm thrown around like a rag doll, similar to our real duel before.
No physical damage is dealt. My purple barrier completely blocks all blunt force and even the mana and divine energy force produced from Ava's avatar. The only energy that makes it through to hit my flesh is the Ether itself.
Now, these small hits just make my skin tingle a bit; it's nowhere near as intense of a reaction as the full-powered blows from before.
This constant stream of non-lethal attacks allows me to concentrate on what really matters: my own Ether summoning speed.
Over the last half hour of our spar, I get hit in unguarded areas more often.
Not only am I getting accustomed to Ava's attack patterns, but also the instinctual feeling of summoning my Ether out of thin air becomes much more natural.
I don't have to close my eyes and focus on my breathing for almost a full second each time; I'm able to start summoning wisps of hot white energy at a moment's notice.
By the last few minutes of our session, every three exchanges, equal force blocks echo out as her hammer hits my arms, legs, and even torso, covered in dense areas of white energy.
Each time Ether is used, both in my defensive shields and in Ava's hammer, it dissipates from both of our bodies out into the air.
It's still hard to conceptualize exactly how much Ether is being used each time because it feels like I have an unlimited pool to drain from. However, I do have the knowledge to compare; the total amount used in our spar is less than the ten Ether stones we mined before.
We finish our spar when Ava speaks up and puts her warhammer down by her side.
"That's it. One hour paid. Now let's gather more stones."
I smile, breathing a little heavy, and put down my fists to agree.
"Alright, there are a few left in this pit, but I think we'll have to go back up to the surface to find more... unless you want to start digging way deeper."
Ava chuckles and waves them off. "Tell the others to take the rest of the day off. I'll meet you all back at base camp once I'm finished up here."
"Yes, Ms. Ava!" echoes out of the fog, then their Ether presence disappears from my mind once they're out of range.
Ava moves her gaze toward me and smirks.
"They're all from fifth-class worlds, almost two dozen back at camp. Barely any of them reached level 100 before they ascended with exile agreements already confirmed. Either they work for Ether, or their planets are drained completely dry of resources."
She sighs and looks down at her [0].
"Same for me, kind of... At least I managed a major rank up to get this hobgoblin form... and I did have some freedom in the sky above for a few years."
Then she tightens her grip on her hammer and points it up toward me.
"Anyway, sorry. Not like you should care. It doesn't matter. Let us spar and continue our agreement."
My gaze locks with hers, and I wonder what her words mean.
The mining squad she spoke of earlier was referring to a group of goblins, and apparently, they all ascended from different worlds.
However, the fact that she says some are just level 100 doesn't make much sense. It's unlikely a weak being like that could go through the same process I did to get to the upper realm, and with my knowledge from the Vermillion family, I'm certain a demon's throne would never touch down on a fifth-class world.
It seems goblins and hobgoblins are the same race but different ranked-up forms.
From what I'm seeing, it's clear she's helping them at her own expense.
Even the fact that there are more than just human and demon planets is still a bit mind-blowing to me, but I reply with a nod, wanting to focus on the important task at hand here.
"Admirable. I hope our deal helps you all."
I raise both hands and summon Ether into my fists.
"Let's spar. I want to try going on the offensive this round."
–
I start my next round of sparring, concentrating on holding Ether in my fists while punching, and even pushing wisps of Ether beneath my feet to power my steps, moving faster to keep up with Ava's naturally fast movements.
The consideration of how this would affect my speed and power without the purple barrier and real body's weight limiting me crosses my mind, but every time I consider the implications of opening it up and facing the horrific pressure down here, I forget about it.
With less than three days until the owner of these mines is supposed to come, I'm going to focus all of my efforts on honing the skill that actually may give me a chance of fighting back. Once I'm safe and back with Ember, I'll consider resuming my divine energy acclimation.
–
Meanwhile, in the Citadel high up above the green clouds and desolate black rock mines below, Ember watches over the Volterra District with his feet up on a desk while swiping through data provided to him by Torvak. It shows all of the sales and purchases of the Ogre conglomeration over the last 15,000 years.
Many more holograms cover all of the walls in this room, showing surveillance systems of the shopping center he's been silently monitoring all day.
Not much out of the ordinary has happened, and Ember has grasped a basic understanding of how the Ogre's decline and power struggle in this citadel has gotten to the point it's in now thanks to the sales numbers. However, there are still a few key pieces of information lacking.
The dragon's crimson eyes turn away from the sales data once two figures walk into the bottom floor of the open-air world trading market.
The presence of two first-class demons walking through the front doors makes all of the other guests nearby scatter, not wanting to get involved. Even the Red Ogre sales reps look nervous as the Demons approach and ask to get a large bundle of 5th, 4th, and 3rd Class worlds appraised.