Chapter 61 1 Year Later

Tower, the 3rd Floor, Zephystrand City, training yard in the Citadel.

It was a nice and sunny day, with an average temperature, which made it not too high, or not too low, just exactly in the middle. Not hot but not cold, though with the way the wind blew, it seemed like it would be getting colder and colder.

Usually, not even the Floors of the Tower were spared from the yearly seasons. However, contrary to the Worlds across the Cosmos where the cycle was natural, in the Tower, it was artificially created and administrated by the Tower System.

Of course, if one was Floor Ruler, they could use the Tower System to set their preferred weather for their Floor. That was why some Floors had permanently only one type of weather which didn't change like forever already.

As always during this time of day, the entire training yard of the Zephystrand's Citadel was closed off, while it was occupied by two people who were sparring against each other. A woman, wearing an armored body suit of black and red, with long silverish-platinum hair wielding dual jade swords as she hacked at her opponent.

The man had long red hair reaching his waist as it shined in the sun's rays. At the same time, his golden eyes twinkled slightly, signifying that the man was holding an enormous amount of Mana in his body. His Mana reserves were superior to anything seen before.

Of course, they were Samiel and Yvraine training with each other practically every day. This was Yvraine's idea, not his. Still, he didn't really dare to refuse her, especially after seeing her stern expression every time she was pestering him about not being barricaded in his chambers like some hikikomori.

Not like, Yvraine was aware of the word itself and its meaning, but it really suited Samiel. If it was left to him, he would spend an entire year cooped in his room, studying the Void Magic, various Grimoires, and Magic Tomes he obtained and creating better Undead, as he still didn't use his Soul Force Crystals.

If he needed anything, he could just say something to maids that were always before his room, standing and ready to carry out his orders. Thus, he didn't really need to leave the room for any foreseeable future.

Though he admitted that his daily spars with Yv were fun, and at least he was constantly in a fight, which greatly enhanced his combat experiences as they were severely lacking. Of course, he spared from time to time, with Sarun Daragan, as the High Elf, becoming something like a friend, if he could name it like that.

As Yvraine hacked her twin swords at him, Samiel just dodged effortlessly as he used Winter Ruler to create Ice Trident, which he grasped in his hands, and counterattacked Yvraine, forcing her to go on the defensive.

During the year, he started learning how to handle polearms, especially the Trident. Now that he got a fragment of Trishula, he predicted that one day in the future, he would reconstruct the entire weapon, meaning he would need to learn how to wield a trident.

Samiel knew that Yvraine had one great flaw when she was fighting, and that was predictability. While her combat style was deadly and powerful for someone of her Tier and even above, if she encountered a Master, they could effortlessly predict all her moves.

Once someone learned the pattern, which wasn't as well hidden as Yvraine thought it to be, they would be able to counter her with little to no effort in the end. Such as Samiel learned the pattern of her combat style, not exactly due to him being more experienced, but because he was very observant and spent a lot of time by fighting with her; thus, he was able to notice it easily.

"You are once again doing it."

Samiel stated as he hit her with his Ice Trident on the blunt side of her back, causing Yvraine to fall onto the ground; she coughed a bit of blood from the impact. Even though he wasn't using a lot of power, it was still enough to injure her.

Not that Yvraine cared; actually, it was her own request for him to stop holding back his whole strength because he often feared he would injure her too severely, as that had happened a few times already during their spars.

Suddenly, several tens of fireballs materialized around Yvraine in a split second and, at the same time, shot towards Samiel with tremendous speed. He instantly noticed that these were not ordinary "fireballs" as they counted Lightning and Light elements too on top of that.

And this was exactly the moment when she could turn the table into luring people into her trap. Elementia Magicae proved to be really worthwhile for Yvraine because she learned plenty of special Elemental Spells and not only that.

She learned a special technique called Elemental Fusion, which could only be learned by Grimoire imprinting it to someone's very own soul. As the name suggested, the Elemental Fusion technique allowed the caster to infuse other Elements into the Elemental Spell.

Of course, Elemental Compatibility was the easiest thing to do, but when the technique was mastered to its limits, it could not even infuse incompatible elements with each other, achieving a new whole level of destructiveness.

Samiel swiftly reacted, jumping backward as he stuck the Ice Trident onto the ground, creating a thick Ice Wall in a matter of second through the Winter Ruler, as it blocked all incoming Fireballs with their added elements.

Using the window of opportunity, Yvraine appeared near him, slashing at him with his swords, forcing Samiel to let go of the Ice Trind, conjuring an Ice Dagger in his left hand, deflecting Yvraines's strikes.

Unfortunately, not completely, as one of the swords strikes and hits him nearly, leaving a bleeding scar on his cheek.

Samiel licked the blood from the wound as he revealed an excited grin; while the wound had already started healing itself, with his healing factor, it would be done within seconds. With his healing factor, even if he had severed limbs, they could heal within a few hours.

The moment Yvraine started learning the magic contained in the Elementia Magicae, her combat prowess skyrocketed to new heights. Unfortunately for her, just as she was progressing, Samiel was too, and now that he started properly devoting time to the Void Magic, he was even stronger than before.

Now he was confident of beating Estrid in her dragon form for 100%, which vastly increased from the previous 50%.

The Ice Wall he was so proud of crumbled within a few seconds as Samiel was forced to create a distance between the two of them while conjuring Ice Weapons and shooting them at the incoming Fireballs, creating countless explosions across the entire training yard.

Usually, Samiel didn't use his Undead during the spars in fear of them getting destroyed, but now he decided to go back off his words and summoned several tens of them, all of which were peak Steel-Tier, and some of them were on the Bronze-Tier, as they surrounded Yvraine.

At the same time, before she could do anything, he used Winter Ruler to start freezing her legs and arms with the aim of lowering her mobility. At the same time, he aimed all remaining Ice Weaponry that he conjured through the WInter Ruler at her.

"So, this counts as my win once more?"

He said with a provocative smirk while Yvraine released just an annoyed huff at the entire situation. In truth, most of their spars end in his victory. Sometimes it was due to him overwhelming Yvraine, or sometimes it was due to him playing dirty.

Something she was hardly learning to use, mainly because she still adhered to some forms of honorable combat, which was pretty stupid in his opinion. Fortunately, he was working on beating out these "bad habits" out of her.

Samiel considered things like having honor in combat as something beyond stupid because that only led to death.

"Next time, I will be prepared."

She begrudgingly accepted her defeat as he summoned back his Undead and dispersed all of the Ice Weapons, and cast a few spells to remove the Void Taint from Yvraine because he used a few Void Magic Spells during their spar.

"Bring us something to drink and eat! And make it extra good!"

Shouted irritated Yvraine to several maids and butles that were in the training yard aside from two of them. While nobody would be present during each spar, Yvraine was hell-bent on having some servants around here and there in case she wanted something.

Especially, she developed a habit of having some snacks after their spars, and Samiel never said no to good food after a good fight. And as all of them started running here and there in a hurry and with a good amount of fear from Yvraine, Samiel sat down and motioned her to sit opposite him.

Their table underneath the small wooden shelter was already prepared for them to rest.

"So, how are my chances?"

Asked Yvraine, with a dejected voice a bit, wondering if she would be able to beat Estrid as the date of their duel was approaching already. One year passed like water, really fast when a person was constantly doing something.

And now, she was under a lot of stress if she would be able to defeat her self-proclaimed rival. It wasn't even known if they were rivals, but they hated each other for sure; that one was clear.

"In her humanoid form, your chances are between 76% to 89%, depending on the combat style she would opt for and how fast you can disable her. In her dragon form, your chances are below 35%."

Samiel analyzed the situation from the available data from him. During this one year, he even fought with Estrid several times, so he had some grasp on her capabilities, and he had to admit that she was strong.

Not only was she a Level wise higher than Yvraine because apparently the dragon girl had already reached Level 25 and would be soon reaching the Bronze-Tier, but she was also naturally gifted in combat. Yes, she was muscle head, and didn't think a lot, and destroyed a lot of things... that was the story for another time, though.

But during the combat, it was like her entire personality underwent a nirvana, and a whole new person was there. She was calculating, her senses were top-notch, and she could fight on a subconscious level. Not to mention her ability to adapt herself to the combat style of her enemy just after a few minutes of the fight.

"And if you take into account your Curses?"

A vicious smile appeared on her face because Samiel taught her a good amount of simple curses of the Necromancy Arts that she could cast. While not so effective as him, it would still do good for a fight.

"Humanoid form, 82% to 91% and dragon form around 45% to 53%."

He answered while Yvraine grinned with anticipation, as these numbers were good. She didn't really know how Samiel was doing it, and neither did he know it, but he almost always tells the approximate probability of how the fight would end in exact percentage.