Chapter 102: True art of Phoenixian arcanism

The hall that they were standing on was clearly built in a way to sustain all the possible attacks that were either dodged or pushed away. Otherwise, there would be no point in calling the entire building a training hall in the first place!

Standing a fewteen steps apart from each other, the two young people taxed their respective opponents with their focused eyes. 

"Are you really sure about that? I don't want to flaunt my abilities or talent, but I wouldn't want to hurt you even more than that."

Still hesitant about the entire idea, Fen decided to ask this question again. After all, even if there was a world of difference between their arcanist skills, it didn't matter how powerful an ant would be when faced with a human. Even though the young man had no doubt that the small girl in front of him had some skill and power to her name - otherwise she wouldn't be appointed as his senior - her request for Fen to use his entire power against her still put the young man on edge!

"You don't need to worry about it. Once one of our auras will start to fade, a special construct located below the entire building will seal any form of arcana, saving the losing side from receiving the potentially lethal hit. Are you ready?"

Cutting short all Fen's attempt at stopping this spar from happening, the girl looked at the young man with a relaxed expression on her face. 

"If you say so…"

Right now, all they were doing was basically wasting the time. The time, that Fen could use to learn the very basics that this academy could teach him about the true nature of his power! That's why, instead of insisting on stopping the fight, Fen decided to just trust the girl's words.

"Okay then. Go at me when you will be ready. I don't mind if you need to take a moment to prepare."

Assuming a strange position, this small girl graced Fen with yet another of cute smiles of hers. With both of her hands outstretched forward as if she was leaning on something, the fact that she managed to keep her position without actually losing the balance and falling to the ground was already puzzling. Just this alone indicated that she had some aces in her sleeve, awaiting for Fen's rash attack.

'Here goes nothing…'

Taking a moment to let his flames erupt all over him, Fen quickly formed them into the whip that he learned how to use just a few days ago. Even though this strange arcanist weapon of his was nowhere near being a skill that he mastered, given how little he knew about the capabilities of this senior of his, Fen preferred to open the fight with long-distance attacks instead of naively closing the gap between them in hopes of using his drive to overwhelm the girl with speedy attacks.

"Here I go!"

With Fen's fires condensing down to the optimal intensity, his whip shoot forward, right towards the body of the girl! Since she didn't want him to hold back at all, then the young man had no other choice but to turn pretty serious!

Snap.

In a single flash of action, the empty air that Fen's alleged senior was resting her hand against exploded in fires, instantly condensing the appearing ball of flames into the shape of a simple sword. With an effortless move of her wrist, the girl changed the position of the blade from pointing a the ground to facing upwards, cutting the tendril of Fen's whip that was about to reach her arm!

At first, nothing seemed to happen. Given how both the girl's sword and Fen's whip were both created out of flames, neither one could burn or evaporate. But in the very next moment, the part of the whip that was on the side closer to the girl's body suddenly suffocated like a used fuse, with the other part of his weapon suddenly bursting in strange flames that travelled all the way up towards Fen's hand!

'Fuck…'

Letting go of the control of his own flames, the young man had to dodge away from what used to be his weapon just a moment ago. 

Cracaboom!

Once there was no more fuel to power this unexpected counterattack of the girl, the flame that consumed Fen's weapon suddenly had nowhere to go, instantly losing all the semblance of intent within it and releasing all the power it consumed in a single, instantaneous explosion!

"First, the flames!"

Not wasting the time that the explosion she caused gave her, the girl jumped forward while dragging her huge sword behind her tiny body using her own momentum to raise it over her head as she jumped, only to slash it down on Fen!

'Fuck!'

Generating a small explosion of flames beneath his feet, Fen allowed its shockwave to carry him away from the route of his senior's attack, barely escaping maybe not the death, but surely some heavy injuries!

"Just like in life, if you don't have intent, then all you have left is an unsightly mess! If you want to control flames, you need to learn how to infuse them with intent!"

Suddenly stopping in her tracks, the girl said those words as she slammed the tip of her fiery weapon into the ground. 

"Flames!"

Shouting this word with a passion, Fen's senior rested her left hand on the uppermost part of the fiery blade. As if her touch alone was enough to cause the phenomena, a cone of dense flames erupted from the side of her blade, aiming right at Fen's current position!

'What the heck!'

To say that the young man was surprised, would be a gross understatement. Every single action of the girl was perfectly graceful, proving that it was not some kind of trick, but a result of his senior honing her skills for an extended period of times. There was no spare movements in her actions, nor any sign of hesitation. Every single time her muscles forced her body to change its position in any way or form, this damned girl conserved as much energy as she could, still looking out for any potential Fen attempts at retaliation!

At the same time, the young man's mind was in a dire state. Overwhelmed by the continuous attacks, he couldn't find a way to approach the girl in any way that wouldn't put him on the harm's way. Attacking her from the distance already proved to be disastrous, while close quarters would mean getting into the range of that scary sword of hers. Unless he could find a perfect angle that she wouldn't expect an attack from, then even without a single clash, this entire fight would be all over already!

'Wait, unexpected angle?'

With a thought appearing in his mind, Fen moved a few steps back, avoiding the constantly spreading sphere of flames that constantly oozed out from the girl's sword, right at the height where she kept her hand.

"Your flames are just a building block that your intent has to shape. While dangerous for non-arcanist like any different type of fire, when facing against a proper enemy, they are all but useless."

Suddenly, the speed at which the girl's flames were produced skyrocketed. In one second, the entire hall filled with the blazing inferno. But to the young man's surprise, her flames didn't seem to have any influence over him, not even capable of burning down the fine hair on his arms!

"Unless you fill them with the intent I mentioned!"

This girl had to either have some kind of sixth sense or be an expert in the hiding, capable of not only seeing through the air filled with flames but also reading Fen's expressions like an open book. 

Most likely noticing how surprised he was with the complete lack of prowess behind the flames that she created, the girl only raised the corners of her lips in a smuggish smile and moved her hand down the blade of her sword a bit. 

It all happened in a single moment. Maybe if Fen was ready to push his entire self to the limits to enter his overdrive state, he could've done anything to counteract this move, but given how little time he had to react, the young man could only stand in place and watch as this insane cloud of raging flames suddenly condensed into a forest of deadly spikes that surrounded him and made it impossible for him to even twitch. 

"And lastly, we have the catalyst!"

Finally moving from the spot that she has chosen, Fen's senior jumped forward. In one instant, she managed to gain enough momentum to travel nearly in a straight line, keeping her legs cramped upwards to prevent them from hindering her move, albeit making sure that she could break her flight at any given moment.

Right as she reached the vicinity of Fen, the girl turned her sword around, no longer dragging it behind her but once again slashing it from over her head right at the young man's head!

Swish!

Stopping the blade of her weapon right above the skin of Fen's forehead, the girl panted heavily from the burden of stalling her fully-fledged and committed attack. With the perspiration filling her glabella, this little girl's appearance changed from the cute kid that Fen saw her as just a few moments ago, to a cold-blooded warrior that she was right now!

"Which is your way to condense the intent you use a lot into a stable form that you will be able to invoke at any given moment. You could say, the catalyst is the true form of the Phoenixian fire!"