“So, I wasn’t keeping track at the time,” I said, once I had reached the bridge and General Karl, “and I only got a rough idea at the viewing...how long did it take me to restore the Fire Sanctuary, once I’d landed?”

“It was around 20 hours, as I remember it,” said Karl, “so we have quite a while to wait this time too, I’d think.”

"Bet you she doesn't take as long as me, though. She's been very...driven to achieve lately."

Karl responded with a thoughtful grunt.

After that, I went back to the virtual space to rejoin Mewi. All of us, not just Mewi and myself, did whatever we could to distract ourselves while waiting for Anna, waiting for the notification from the Tower that she had succeeded. We made a token effort at gaming for this, but quickly abandoned it—after all, Anna had become part of the "gaming club" within the team and her absence was conspicuous. So, we threw ourselves into training instead, Mewi focusing on exercises and scenarios to train his Tactician profession as well as the simulations for his own Sanctuary, while I pored over the spellbook for Explosive Fireball, which in spite of still having a quite low Intuition cost, was orders of magnitude more difficult to learn than the previous two Unlimited Spells I'd successfully unlocked.

In fact, I was able to keep at it for a lot longer than I’d usually done in normal training, since I was using it to distract myself. I was so deeply into it, in fact, that when the notification finally did appear, it startled me so much that I almost brushed it off before I remembered it was what we were waiting for.

[The Light Sanctuary has been restored. 8 Sanctuaries remain.]

I contacted Karl. “We’re already en route to a safe Dimensional Gate location, right?”

“Affirmative. Less than an hour away.”

However, it turned out that this was only to get Anna back to the Golden Chain. Celebrations were planned, but they would be with the armada as repairs and maintenance were conducted, not at the Pantheon.

That maintenance period would last a week, during which time as well, twenty thousand of the armada's ships would break from it to engage in humanitarian missions. The other original Liberation Fleets were also slated to arrive in that time frame, as well as a fleet supporting the outside hire who would be taking on the Earth Sanctuary soon. This left the armada's overall strength at 35,000, which would still be plenty to avoid more than minimal loss of life on the next Sanctuary raid.

Both I and the Earth magic user I'd yet to meet were amenable to throwing down soon after they arrived, for different reasons. With the time and place decided, it was high time I started researching this person.

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Their name was Tralle, a scion of a Federation loyalist family, the Praxis family. They had been relatively small-time before the Fall, but had greatly expanded their holdings and their operations both since. Tralle's talent and power had a direct hand in their recent success—there were stories of him personally strong-arming failing concerns into selling themselves to them.

And he loved, loved, LOVED to fight. He'd indulged in enough public contests that his capabilities were some of the more well known in the Area. The best source of this information was the records of the most recent Constant Competition. He'd started the marathon tournament in Class 9, and raised it to about the lower middle of 10—and participants in the Constant Competition had their stats adjusted by the Tower to make fights fair, meaning he was among the most skilled combatants in the Area, at least when it came to those who actually entered such things.

Clearly, not someone to be underestimated. I felt a pang of regret that I'd arrived at the Tower too late to enter that myself—I didn't go around picking fights willy nilly, and people going out of their way to pick fights with ME was annoying, but I still loved a good tournament—though the feeling quickly passed.

As for his actual capabilities, he had an array of Earth spells to cover numerous offensive and defensive situations. That much was to be expected, but instead of a mage's stave, rod, or another such typical weapon, he wielded a double-bladed hand ax that was heavily enchanted to boost both his Magic Power and his physical strength.

Like most Earth mages, his 1v1 tactics heavily relied on either immobilizing or disrupting the opponent's footing. I'd need a countermeasure, or several. I'd trained in difficult terrain situations of course, but situations where one needed to be able to keep one's footing in an earthquake weren't common even in the Tower—at least, outside of facing Earth mages. I'd been a little stubborn for quite some time when it came to learning to fight other challengers, something I'd known I needed to correct since facing the wolf-man and Vex, but I'd been putting it off.

I had to admit, the guy would be a worthwhile challenge. The closest I’d faced to someone like his style had been Dieter, and they’d had a Knight class with some Earth-adjacent energy abilities. Tralle would threaten me in similar ways, but much more comprehensively. When I really looked at it, the case could be made that this would be a worthwhile training experience.

Well, if I’m going to try to lighten up, this might make for a start.

The negotiations and discussion concerning time and place had at some point brought up a meet-and-greet to take place the day before the exhibition match. I had agreed to the condition, on the grounds that seeing Tralle in person for the first time right as we would fight really would be awkward for a “friendly” match.

It took the form of a small reception banquet at which my teammates, the general in charge of Tralle’s fleet, a few others designated his “handlers,” and a handful of opportunistic Federation officials would also be present. I was grateful that the whole team was there, and we arrived together, because when he headed over to accomplish the “greet” part of the meet-and-greet, and I finally saw him up close and personal for the first time...

I immediately knew that I was not going to be able to lighten up.

“Lheticus!” Tralle roared, “we meet at last! How about you come over and drink with me?!”