This time Tian Xing used dual wielded swords, he didn't have much time to practice this so he didn't want to use it in a spar in case he humiliated himself. But seeing how Qiu Ye was actually trying to train him, he thought it would be a good opportunity to test the skill out.
His objective this time was to completely stop Qiu Ye from being able to approach him, with two swords he would be able to cover more angles and further suppress Qiu Ye's advance. But then Qiu Ye's fighting style changed from a close ranged almost Taekwondo style to a long ranged boxing style. She made quick jabs and dodged out of his range. Her fists were so fast all he could feel was the wind when they stopped in front of his face. Seems like she was prodding him to estimate his attack range. It was now Tian Xing's turn to go on the attack.
With both his swords swinging, he slowly cornered Qiu Ye as she dodged out of his range. It was starting to become tiring but if he held on he would be able to defeat Qiu Ye. She continued making quick powerful jabs some how snaking through all of the strikes and then dodging away. If this was a real fight, Tian Xing knew she would be able to take him out if she was putting everything she had into it. It wasn't that she wasn't taking him seriously, it was more like she was making the fight just tough enough that Tian Xing wasn't just taking a once sided beating.
Soon, Qiu Ye had her back against the corner of the fighting space. Her path was closed off by the storm of sword strikes coming from every angle. With a final strike, he swing his sword making sure there was no space Qiu Ye could leap through. She would surely get hit now. But suddenly she smiled and reached her hand out. Perfectly predicting where the strike would be to cut her off, she grabbed the sword and broke it in half.
Tian Xing had been tricked, his mind had been too narrow to assume that the reason why she was dodging was because she wasn't able to fight back. But seems like it was to bait him into giving her the change to corner him instead. With one sword gone, Tian Xing flinched and Qiu Ye punched the other sword out of his grasp.
"That was good, you should get a drink. All you need is more practice, you need to build intuition. As you get faster and faster, even I won't be able to predict where the swords would strike. Now your footwork however was quite shabby, your attacks aren't just telegraphed by where you swing from but also how your feet are positioned. Connect everything which links up to the strike into one swift move, once you manage to do that. The only way I can predict your moves is by my own experience."
Tian Xing nodded. The coach who had become interested in their fight laughed.
"Qiu Ye, if you continue doing this I might be out of a job soon."
Hearing the coaches approval, the students swarmed Qiu Ye. Asking for a spar with her to get advice for their own fighting styles. Since what Tian Xing needed now was to think things through, she was alright with taking another student for a spar. It would raise her reputation and also get her on good standing with the students, plus she might also learn a few things.
She random pointed at someone in the crowd.
"Hmm, how about you. Want a spar?"
The girl walked out of the crowd, Qiu Ye realised she was a senior judging by the uniform she wore. She said nothing but nodded and put gloves on her hands. They glowed a dim orange as her energy flowed through them.
"No need to go easy on me, use your ice as much as you can. I'm Qian Hua, second year. Deviant Fire user."
Qiu Ye lightly bowed and stepped back, she could tell Qian Hua was strong. Qiu Ye herself was still relatively new to using lightning but she knew how versatile it was. When both of them were prepared, Qian Hua immediately dashed forward. She was obviously treating Qiu Ye as a proper opponent.
Even though her opponent used lightning, if Qiu Ye used completely pure water she could actually insulate herself from the electricity. Though it would take more effort drawing all the impurities out of her attacks. With a stomp, Qiu Ye lifted a mist of ice into the air. Patches of frost started spreading on Qian Hua, but she clapped her hands together and a blast of heat melted all the ice particles.
It did however stop her slightly so Qiu Ye took advantage of that and threw highly pressurised blades of water at her. Though from the side they looked like large splashes of water, Qian Han could tell just how thin and sharpened they were. Blocking them would be a very bad idea. Using fire as thrust, she twisted around and dodged all the blades of water. Suddenly she dropped out of the air and crashed into the floor.
Qiu Ye cut off the access to air and immediately stopped the fire while also pushing Qian Han down with a powerful push of pressurised water. She hid her use of air with the mist so it just looked like Qian Han's fire got extinguished with water and was pushed down. Qiu Ye sent dozens more blades of water at her and while Qian Han was busy getting up, Qiu Ye built herself a spear made out of ice. The tip was slightly rounded since Qiu Ye wasn't looking to kill anyone but it would still pack a punch.
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Qian Han leapt up but was assaulted by the blades of water. She formed a barrier of fire around her but it was quickly doused. It gave her enough time to dodge the rest of the blades before a long spear of ice appeared before her and drove into her chest. She landed on her back outside the ring, it knocked the breath out of her.
Qiu Ye gave her hand and pulled her up. She whispered
"Your control over fire is very versatile, but right now it's not very refined. Look at the colour of your fire and compare it to a stove you'll know what I mean. Also your use of lightning seems to be strictly internal, why not try and use it externally too? You could have used it to repel my spear."
Suddenly she realised how much she was talking and she caught herself
"Sorry I realise you're my senior but it's just my opinions on what you can improve."
Luckily Qian Han didn't seem to take offence, she simply shook Qiu Ye's hand and exchanged contacts with her. Qian Han seemed to be deep in thought as she walked out of the gym, a man tapped her on the shoulder.
"How was she"
Qian Han bowed before saying
"She was really strong, I doubt even if I used all my gear I could win. She seemed to give me advice as if she herself had experience using fire, might be experience using elemental gear. She'll definitely be useful."
"That's high praise coming from you, looks like we've got an interesting one on hour hands. I'll speak with the principal to see if we could arrange something. Contact the captain, tell her we have a new candidate."
Qian Hua nodded and walked away, the man continued to stand at the doorway, watching the next spar Qiu Ye had. She picked another student, knowing that even seniors were watching she wanted to pick someone stronger. But suddenly the coach stepped in.
"Why don't you spar with me, I've been itching for a good spar."
The coach was a the head of the general fighting sector of the school but he rarely trained anyone more than fixing up their flaws. When people went into specific training they would receive training from a teacher from the department they trained in. The coach however wasn't part of any of those departments and so no one really knew what style he fought in.
He walked over and picked up two training bows, he tossed one to Qiu Ye along with a handful of arrows.
"You train in archery right? Why don't we have a little fun."
Qiu Ye smiled
"Pure archery?"
"You may use whatever you have in your arsenal along with archery."
Qiu Ye nodded and walked back. The coach placed a few piles of arrows around on the floor and walked to the opposite corner. As soon as the both of them were prepared, Qiu Ye rapid fired all the arrows in her hand. She intentionally fired them randomly everywhere so that she could home them into hitting the coach from different directions. The coach still had his bow fully drawn, the arrow head slowly lit up with a blue light. As soon as the arrows got close to him, he shot the arrow at one of the arrows Qiu Ye fired. Even with drill arrow, it was like her arrow was drawn into his and the two collided. As soon as the two arrows touched, the blue energy zipped across all the other arrows and all of them fell. A scatter of arrows fell around the coach.
Qiu Ye had never seen a skill like that before, at first she thought it was some kind of trick using lightning but it didn't leave the familiar static in the air.
"Whoa coach can you teach me that?"
"Depends if you can beat me."
Qiu Ye smiled and drew her bow, she would have to change her fighting tactics now. She once again fired in rapid succession in a sort of tight ring formation then fired an ice arrow through the middle. Winter had named the skill cyclone arrow the first time they experimented with it. A trail of frost drifted behind the arrow and formed smaller ice arrows behind it. The coach once again shot his arrow, it's blue tip sailed through the air to intercept the main ice arrow. But the arrow had too much power, the blue arrow wasn't able to collide with it. Instead with the ice arrow picked the blue arrow up and turned it around at the coach.
The coach seemed surprised but it was like he was somewhat expecting Qiu Ye to be able to break through the skill. The ice arrows had gotten too close so he used the bow itself to deflect all the arrows. Although the ice arrow had gained a lot of speed, the coach was an evolved fighter, most likely with all his class experiences filled out. If he really tried, there was no way a knight class fighter like Qiu Ye could beat him.
Once the blue arrow was swiped away, the arrowhead stopped glowing. Qiu Ye was tempted to use her thunderstorm arrow but people would make the connection between her and Artemis, and she still had plans to use that alias. She stopped infusing arrows with ice and just created arrows from freezing moisture in the air and fired it at the coach. Soon his entire vision was covered in blue as the arrows sailed at him. Even though he deflected them, he was slowly being driven back. The floor started developing a coat of frost where the arrows fell.
Qiu Ye could tell the coach was holding back quite a bit but she continued on firing ice arrow after ice arrow. She occasionally fired a few cyclone arrows but until they were deflected, she couldn't fire anymore. It costed a lot of concentration making sure the arrow picked up enough speed that she didn't need to guide it subtly. The air was getting quite dry and her skin was starting to itch. Qiu Ye could tell that soon there wouldn't be enough moisture to draw from to create the ice arrows continuously. But judging by how much frost was around the coach, Qiu Ye was confident it would be over soon.
With a final arrow, she used drill arrow so that it would snake through the entire storm of arrows covering the coach and pick up speed. It curved around all the way to hit the coach in the back. He managed to reach around and hit the arrow away with the bow, but the strength in the bow in combination with the deterioration of the bow itself caused it to crack and fall to the ground. The coach raised his hands in defeat, obviously happy with Qiu Ye's performance.