"Any rules you would like to add?" he asked.

"I can think of none but one. No deadly blows," I said. "but that should be normal for spars anyways. How do we determine who wins?"

"Receding your aura counts as a surrender. If you are sure you can land a deadly blow, cut it down by half. Other than that, I agree," he said. "Let's get to it."

The moment the last word left his mouth my aura exploded outwards, colliding against his. Moments later, I shot up in the sky as gravity started bending light around my form. Immediately after, I moved from the center of my aura, and observed my opponent.

The mayor had a vortex of ice floating over his head while he himself stood on a pane of ice, slowly floating upwards himself.

I had my aura move downwards rapidly, using qi to bring a few dozen small stones in my hand. I filled the stones with ambient qi and accelerated them right at his head.

The moment the stone hit the mayor's aura, his head swivelled towards my hidden form, and dozens of icicles left his vortex, all homing on my position.

I dropped down at once, watching as his head suddenly burst apart in shards of ice, the decoy destroyed by my projectiles.

I had to find him then. I concentrated for a moment as I flew high up in the air again. So. Frost or ice qi. He could be in the middle of that ice vortex, but ice was perfectly capable of bending light too, meaning he could be invisible himself. Hell, he already showed the capability of doing so with the ice clone earlier.

I couldn't think of a way to fly fast with either, meaning he'd just make himself a big target if he actually tried to contest me in the air.

Carefully, my eyes swept over the area we started the fight at, looking for a spot he might use to hide himself.

I sent a small vortex of gravity, just three times as strong as normal gravity at the cloud of ice. I couldn't be sure he wasn't in there, and it didn't cost me much to try. The cloud compacted upon contact with my qi, but I didn't feel anyone within.

So he was on the ground still.

Careful to keep my intentions hidden I concentrated my aura on the ground, with only a thin membrane matching the mayor's aura remaining at the same thickness as before.

I took a deep breath and my aura exploded outwards only a few centimeters above the ground, cleanly shearing through his aura, and colliding with a clever construct of ice moments later.

I grinned, gotcha. My aura retracted into a smaller sphere, and a flex of my will had chunks of earth suddenly leaving the earth all around me and accelerate towards his hidden form. At the same time, I created a strong source of gravity high above me.

The prison of ice burst into glittering shards of ice and my attack went wide as the mayor dashed out of the way seemingly protected by his ice. I smiled.

Gotcha.

Qi left me as a small hill rose in the air, homing in on the mayor as I looked upwards, using the light bend by my gravity to aim at and around my target.

With my attack shielded from his eyes before it entered his aura, he could only form a protective shield of ice around himself before a small hill of soil came crashing down around him, immediately followed by a singularity, sucking in all loose soil around him, imprisoning him.

Before my next attack hit, his aura receded.

I smiled, doing the same and drawing the qi out of my next attack, using it to draw the soil off him instead, coming down next to him moments later.

The mayor bowed to me respectfully as I returned the gesture.

"Good fight young Triss. You really caught me off guard with that invisibility," he admitted.

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"A good fight indeed," I agreed. "Using ice to bend light really caught me off guard for a moment."

The mayor laughed, before getting serious again.

"Didn't you say you needed to learn how to fight? You did pretty good right now, though I'll have to stop going easy on you from now on," he said.

"Well. Due to the nature of my cultivation I won't really have any success if I try to get up close and personal," I admitted.

"Is that so," he said.

"It is. Anyways, as you know most beings I'll ever face will rely on sight as their main sense, so removing their sight from the table has to be my first move," I explained.

"A wise decision, and one that took me way too long to realize," he said.

"Anyways. My qi attacks can be really powerful, but need some setup, which necessitates pinning my enemies down for a few moments," I said.

"Which you do by flinging hills at them. Is that really the best option you could find?" he asked, doubtful.

"Well, maybe not the best. But it's quite cheap on qi and looks really cool," I said.

"To each their own. Are you up for another round, or do you need some time to recover your qi?" he asked.

"I'm down for another round," I said. "Same rules as before?"

"Same rules as before," he agreed.

We separated, standing on two opposing hilltops a few kilometres to the west, unmarred from our previous battle.

After a small countdown we started again, me bending light to shield me from view while I shot upwards, and a vortex of ice ascending above the mayor.

Where'd he hide this time?

I picked up the top of the hill I stood on by changing the direction of the gravity acting on it again, sending it to crash into the vortex of ice, just to keep him on his toes.

Before the hill arrived, his vortex exploded, filling everything I could see with small shards of ice. I created another gravity mirror high above me, trying to look behind the wall of ice, only to find it filled with shards of ice too.

Damn.

I allowed myself a moment of distraction, to burn the beautiful imagine of a huge, glittering sphere of ice in my mind before refocusing on the fight at hand.

How would I find him in there?

Did I even have to?

Keeping that up would need a constant supply of qi, and quite a lot of it. I'd just have to hold my hand until he tired himself out. I slowly lowered myself to the ground.

As my feet touched the ground they broke through a thin sheet of ice, and I knew I fucked up. I immediately tried to fly upwards, but the form of the mayor left the cloud in front of me, the whole cloud of ice following him as he rushed my rising form, an armor of ice protecting his body.

Damn.

I accelerated backwards and to the side, giving ground. Getting caught in that cloud would mean my loss. Moments later, icicles started flying out of the cloud, filling the air everywhere around me, giving me no room to dodge.

I sent qi in my foot, finding a few shards of ice clinging to my feet still, filled with the mayor's qi. I flushed it out, but the damage was done. He knew where I was, and wouldn't let me slip away that easily.

I threw another hill at him, hoping to slow him down while I left the area, but his sword expanded and simply cut right through my projectile. Icicles continuing to impact my robe as I fell ever backwards, when the mayor suddenly accelerated again, jumped and soared right at me, sword in hand.

Desperately, I tried to evade, but the space around me was still filled ice and he easily corrected his course, homing in on me as the cloud of ice compacted behind him, propelling him forwards ever faster.

I burnt more qi, to move faster, higher but all the ice around me restricted my speed, forcing me to limit myself or lose yet another week of work in a spar.

Could I still win this?

Possibly.

But I knew my limits, and direct combat was not one of them, especially when my opponent could use their qi to create a weapon. Ah damn.

With a sigh, I retracted my aura, conceding my loss.

"Well done. You held up better than I thought," he said.

"Thank you. So, how'd you know I would try to land?" I asked.

"It's common sense to preserve your qi as much as possible while you fight. There's only so much ambient qi you can use, and assuming that cloud took a lot out of me was the right choice," he explained. "So it was a trivial matter to set up a trap to find you."

Godsdamnit.

I could use ambient qi to fuel my techniques! How'd I forget that? I let lose a few choice words, before focusing back on the mayor.

"You know that I'm going to expand to the city in the near future?" I asked.

"I suspected as much. Your ambitions are greater than my small town," he said.

"They have to be. I fucked up my dealing with the angry woman, so it's only a matter of time until they come at me again. So I need to be ready. I need a location so fortified no immortal would dare challenge me in there without an army at their back," I said.

"Good luck with that. You will definitely need some experts from the city for that. As well as a lot of money," he stated. "Be warned that I will keep myself out of your dealings if I can."

"That's fair. Anyways, we should have daily spars until I leave, I could really use the practice, even if you aren't so ignorantly angry as to ignore my qi techniques," I said.

"Speaking from experience?" he asked with sympathy.

"Yes," I said. "Let's get back to town, I need a hot bath and a few hours of meditation."

"Let's." he agreed.