He was absolutely drunk off his ass. I hadn’t thought that was even possible for someone with physical stats even close to mine. I had barely formed the word “how” on my lips when he proudly burst out, “am I drunk? Special trait! Makes me immune to all poison effects by making them intoxicate me instead. As a side effect, alcohol affects me like a normal person.

Confidentially,” and here he sidled up waaaay too close to me, “I got another one, ‘Drunken Master’. Makes it so I’m actually more effective at fighting than when I’m sober. I’ll sober up by tomorrow, though. ‘S gonna be a friendly match b’tween people on the same side, after all. An’ it’s not good to be too dependent on something like that, so I gotta keep improving.

I know ya don’t like all those silly fanboys wantin’ to fight ya but the truth is, you’re one of the few people who can actually help me improve. There aren’t even that many ways to put my life in danger short of leaving the Area for me now, let alone chances to improve with friendly training!”

So he’s got a few brain cells the booze hasn’t killed, after all. Quirky as hell, but I guess there’s a reason that didn’t stop the Federation from having him take on a Sanctuary. "I don't drink," I said, "but you have my thanks for being so forthcoming with me. I look forward to the event tomorrow."

Tralle grumbled something about the rumors of me being a hardass being true, but when he turned and went back to what was clearly his table, he did so peaceably enough.

By the next day, a temporary fighting area had finished being set up. I half expected places for spectators, but with the amount of power we were likely to be throwing around, even if Tralle had groupies or whatever in attendance, it wouldn’t have been safe for them. However, there were still a few observers—the rest of Team Justice, for one, as well as a few ranking Federation officers who had introduced themselves at the reception as Tralle’s “handlers.” There were also some nimble, durable camera drones that would record the bout, but it had been agreed that the footage would only be kept by the two of us for analysis, for the time being, though if later we both agreed on an entity to grant broadcasting rights to, we could negotiate that later.

For my loadout in this duel, I decided to start with my halberd equipped right away. Tralle was a formidable enough opponent that I couldn’t afford to assume that he wouldn’t be able to close distance and smack me around the old fashioned way with his axe, so I needed to be able to parry such strikes at least in theory. I’d progressed pretty decently with my technique with it since the 5th Floor, even if I hadn’t especially focused on doing so with my training. Still, I doubted I’d mastered it to the same degree Tralle had mastered technique with his battleaxe.

The terms were first to 1/3rd health or surrender, no items, and no equipment restrictions. This meant my combat suit’s injectors had to be emptied before the fight, but I could wear it.

In spite of myself, and in spite of my distaste for Tralle’s personality, I was starting to get excited. This would be a new experience, a real test of my abilities, and one with the pressure off. Tralle was definitely going to take more pleasure in this than I was, and even in our combat styles I was much more businesslike than him, but on some level, I had to recognize that I wasn’t as different from my “battle maniac” fans as I publicly showed.

After all, all in all I’d much rather be here about to face a tough duel than back in my old home, on my own world, with my body still poorly equipped for any fighting that took place outside of a video game, waiting for a chance to get a life. And as I stared Tralle down in the space cleared for the battle, waiting for the countdown, I could tell by his own expression that he could see that in mine.

The moment the countdown finished, Tralle charged at me while simultaneously trying to nail me with a restricting spell. I evaded and backpedaled, casting a Lesser Incendiary Mine right into Tralle's path as I did so. He was startled and damaged, but the stun effect failed to trigger. However, the attack still created a small opening for me to get into a good casting rhythm of my usual attacks, giving me control of the duel's tempo. I maintained the advantage for a few seconds—then Tralle suddenly vanished.

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My first instinct was that it was a teleport somehow, but he was an Earth mage, not a Space mage. On top of that, after a moment it registered in my brain that as he disappeared, his body had subtly shifted downward...

I leaped up at the exact instant Tralle began bursting out of the ground beneath my feet. So, he has a few hidden cards after all. I hadn't seen a spell like the one he'd just used in any of his battle data.

In midair, I positioned my halberd in preparation for what, from the battle data, I was sure was coming next. And sure enough, before I had even reached the apex of my leap, there was a noise like a buzz saw as one of the blades of Tralle's axe sped right at me. I got my halberd in its way, but it didn't deflect immediately, and no sooner had it finally had than I felt his other axe blade, which apparently he'd launched right after the first, smack me in the back. It hardly stung compared to the Trial of Pain, though.

As I was soon to discover, he hadn't stopped there either. When I landed, I immediately sank in the ground to my knees. Clever. Without some method of midair propulsion, I could escape the earth in short bursts and avoid Tralle's most devastating spells, but when I did, I was at the mercy of the laws of physics. Tralle had anticipated exactly where I'd land and cast another spell to soften the ground, effectively immobilizing me without an explicit effect.

However, he had not been able to rush at that spot at the same time, since he had to take just a moment to let his axe blades boomerang back to him properly. Result: A Flame Javelin to his face, followed by a few Explosive Fireballs. I'd wanted to use Lesser Incendiary Mine again, but it was still on cooldown. At least I'd gotten close to extricating myself by the time he bore down on me with his axe.

As I'd expected, his technique in melee combat was superior to mine, but he clearly hadn't expected how much I'd developed my Strength attribute. At the very least, Tralle didn't have the Solid Foundation doubling effect. He didn't appear to have any Racial Evolutions either. His axe hit home quite a few times before I finally managed to extricate myself, while I hardly managed any counter blows with the halberd, but from his expression of frustration, he clearly wasn't doing nearly as much damage as he'd expected.

A few seconds after that, the cooldown on Lesser Incendiary Mine cleared. Tralle had still kept close enough to threaten me with his axe, which was also close enough to lay the mine point blank on him. I baited him into acting aggressively by letting my guard falter even as I began the casting. For a moment, he looked like he suspected the feint, but a moment later he came in and got another face full of fire.

This time, the stun triggered. "Game over," I said, gaining distance on him and starting the cast for Lesser Rain of Fire, a process that now clocked around three seconds. There was no need to hold back on using Homing Rain of Fire; as I was, I didn't even need Power of Imagination to pull off the maneuver anymore, able to control the numerous fireballs with my high mental power alone.

Tralle groaned as his Health reduced below 1/3rd so quickly that I had to divert the last couple of seconds of the Lesser Rain of Fire attack, for fear I’d come dangerously close to killing him. “Holy crap,” he said, “I heard your damage was devastating even among Fire mages, but that wasn’t even fair!”

He sounded angry, but I could tell by his grin that the complaint was in gest, an observation borne out by his extended hand and his next words to me. “You’re even more amazing than I thought. You were winning handily even before that move. I feel like you’ve shown me a height of power I didn’t even know existed before.”

“You should consider it an honor that Lheticus used that on you,” said Mewi, coming up to us along with the rest of Justice and the other observers, “he hardly ever uses that trick, even on our Floor missions.”

It was true—the last time I’d used it was against the Midas Drake. I never used it in sparring, since the idea was to improve skill and battle-sense, not to destroy the opponent at all cost. Really, Tralle wasn’t even wrong that it was unfair, but I’d gotten a sense that he really wanted me to go more all-out, and by that point in the fight, I was feeling threatened enough that when the clear opportunity to get it off presented itself from the stun, I couldn’t resist.

“It’s true,” I said, “you really had me feeling pressured, even if you didn’t damage me that much in the end. I haven’t fought the likes of you much, for sure.”