The walk to the duelling field wasn’t long but with the suspense building Ajax felt it took forever. Ajax wasn’t sure how the royal family had kept an entire style to themselves, especially when it took a combination of skills big enough that only one in five people who were taught could actually gain it.
When they arrived at the small arena they were allowed to enter without a single word in explanation, not only that but Ajax also noticed that they were not alone, two people wearing the sigil of the royal family were waiting for them, one of them led the group to the stands as the other led the two combatants to the field and prepared to referee the match.
“The format favors Xavier doesn’t it?” Ajax asked.
It wasn’t the surround or unconsciousness that favored Xavier so much as it was the lack of killing attacks that Ajax assumed would favor Xavier.
“It doesn’t.” Arianwyn shook her head. “The Leafblade scion is a physical fighter, or at least as much of a physical fighter as we elves tend to go.”
While it was only in humans that being born with magic was the rarity instead of being born without it like the other humanoid races both the dwarves and the beastkin had people that chose to focus on physical combat and invested most if not all of their stats in that domain. Elves were unique in that even their heavy physical based fighters spent at least 20%-30% of their stats in mental stats.
With both fighters being hybrid fighters the format wouldn’t favor either of them. Thankfully the arena was set on hard ground instead of a sand pit, Leafblade would have had an advantage with his wind by using the sand as a way to obscure Xavier's vision otherwise.
As they stood across from each other both fighters took out a sword. While Xavier held a longsword with a two handed grip Ajax knew he was proficient in wielding the weapon in a one handed grip with either of his hands.
Leafblade on the other hand held a rapier with his right hand, his left hand was empty but Ajax noticed multiple small knives sheathed all around his body where they could easily be reached. One thing that Ajax very much took note of was that the rapier lacked the large handguard he had seen back on Earth in a museum and instead sported a regular cross guard. Ajax saw this very much as a downgrade not only because of the exposed hand and less pleasing aesthetics but also because the handguard could be shaped into an enchantment. Ajax would wait until he saw Leafblade in action before passing judgment just in case his fighting style would clash with a more elaborate handguard.
Once the duel began Ajax was surprised to see Leafblade back away with a defensive posture while Xavier charged forward. That surprise was instantly replaced by understanding as Leafblade finished his first spell and Ajax could now feel a physical boost that had the same efficiency as his own [Mana Syphon] surrounding the elf.
Using his first spell for a boost however left Leafblade wide open for Xavier who wasted no time swinging while also releasing a bolt of lightning from his one hand.
“There are empowerment spells that continue without being channeled?” Ajax asked very much surprised since he hadn’t been given the option to learn any of them.
“There are very few.” the prince said as he watched Leafblade neutralize the lightning bolt by throwing one of his knives in its path. “Of the ones we are aware of, the elves have at least two different ones among their nobles, the beastkin have one used by certain feline nobles and the dwarves also have one that focuses much more on increasing strength and durability. So far no human has a non channeled spell to physically boost themselves.”
Ajax didn’t need to look at the rest of Leafblade’s entourage to know they were smiling at them with a gloating expression as the heard Ajax’s remark. That look of superiority made Ajax want to follow up the question with ‘but why is it so much worse than my skill’ but he knew better than to give away so much information about [Mana Syphon]. And there was no way that [Mana Syphon] wasn’t far superior to whatever spell Leafblade was using, they may have had the same efficiency when it came to mana spent for boost but Ajax could use any mana near him, including that of enemies, while Leafblade was forced to provide his own only.
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As the fight progressed Xavier was being driven back more and more. Both of them were using quick short spells to try and unbalance each other but while Xavier’s spells were a bit stronger and he seemed to be the more skilled swordsman it wasn’t enough to make up for the increase in power and speed the elf had.
“Is the difference in their effective stats too big now for the technique to work?” Ajax asked with a little worry as Xavier took a cut on his right arm, one that was thankfully shallow.
Both Harold and Benedict remained silent at the question, neither of them knew the answer but both of them were afraid of the same thing. “No, it just takes a bit for it to get going.” The prince said as he watched the fight with a small smile that was starting to grow.
Seeing the smile Ajax focused back on the fight and looked for what he missed. In the next thirty seconds Xavier took two more cuts that were not all that shallow but Ajax finally figured out what to look for.
Slowly but surely it looked more and more like Xavier wasn’t simply reacting to Leafblade, in fact Xavier was starting to take control of the entire fight. He was slower, and he was weaker but with every exchange Xavier started to gain ground and force Leafblade back. It wasn’t through power or speed but rather the location of where the contact happened.
As he noticed that his blade wasn’t finding its mark any longer, Leafblade tried to rely more on his magic but it had been clear from the start that Xavier’s magic stats were higher than Leafblade and that his spells perfectly neutralized Leafblade’s.
Then it happened, Ajax could see the exact moment that seemed like everything fell into place.The fight turned from one where it looked like Xavier was going to slowly push Leafblade into one mistake after another into a slow but inevitable victory to one of total dominance.
Xavier hadn’t gotten any faster or any stronger but Leafblade’s form when their swords crossed went from less than ideal to outright atrocious. More than that however Xavier started to step in with confidence and perfect timing as he scored two more deep cuts one on Leafblade thigh and the other on his ribs pushing straight through the defensive enchantments.
Everything came to a head for Ajax when he saw Xavier duck under a swing in order to retaliate with a cut across the stomach. The move initially seemed bad to Ajax as it left Xavier exposed to the knife in Leafblade’s other hand but he simply twisted out of the way, though this did leave his back exposed to the elf. When Xavier had managed to perfectly deflect Leafblade’s follow up strike while swinging his sword behind him Ajax had a theory of what was happening.
As he turned to look at the prince Ajax’s words died in his throat as he saw the previous smirk be replaced by a look of surprise and the prince leaned forward as if trying to get close to the fight so he could see it better.
Ajax decided to wait a moment as he tried to fully digest his realization as he watched Xavier finish the fight in the next few moments putting the edge of his blade to Leafblade’s throat as the latter was forced to surrender.
Once the match was called and the group was left waiting for Xavier to join them in the stands Ajax approached the prince, a look more pointed look was all it took for the prince to activate a privacy bubble before Ajax’s started laying out his thought process. “He’s predicting him!”
The prince said nothing as Ajax pushed forward. “That’s why it doesn’t work with too big of a difference in stats, if the speed and strength is too far apart being able to predict the next move won’t help since you can’t keep up, too big a difference in mental stats and the opponent will be relying on magic more and they will be able to think and process everything quickly enough that they can change their next move after you started reacting to the prediction. But how can he be so good at it?!”
The last question came out as more of an accusation as Ajax was slightly angry at how Xavier hadn’t even tried to use the style against him even once.
“Xavier was worse than most who had learnt this fighting style.” the prince answered.
“Worse!!” Ajax was shocked to hear that what he had seen was the inferior version.
“I said ‘was worse’.” the prince corrected. “While I won’t explain how everything works I can tell you that pulling it off relies on a number of different skills that all come together to create a battle style skill. Up until now Xavier had gained a version of all the types of skill needed for the style but he hadn’t gained the style skill. I think that changed during this very duel.”
That answer was enough to snuff out the small amount of anger Ajax had felt as it all started making more sense to him. Thinking back to how the predictive fighting style was when Xavier first started pushing back he could see how it wouldn’t have helped the prince even a little versus Ajax, hell it wouldn’t have been useful against Anna or Lexi either as they relied more on big spells. WIth that out of the way however Ajax chose to focus on the two other things the prince had said.
First was that the style was based on multiple types of skills but different versions of those types could be used, meaning there wasn’t one set skill that was needed. The other thing he mentioned was that Xavier had just formed his style. Seeing how big the difference was from one moment to the next as Ajax himself had taken note of when Ajax’s approach gained a boost he couldn’t help but wonder just what rarity was the style that Xavier had gotten.