“Are you just going to stand there or what?”

Instead of responding to Andric verbally, Zoe thumped the butt of her spear into the sand several times. Lifting it back up, she gripped it with one hand this time and began to inch closer. Instead of stepping back, Andric began to circle to the side. Zoe circled as well. She briefly considered trying to go the other way and cut him off, but that would position her dominant, spear-carrying hand on the wrong side.

As they circled, Zoe tried to get closer and closer, until eventually she was in the center of the chamber after several revolutions. This is going nowhere. Narrowing her eyes, Zoe lunged. Striking out with her spear, she tried to close the gap, but Andric seemed to sense her intent and stepped back just far enough to get just out of range.

Zoe retreated, and they went back to circling. “If I was using my knives you’d be dead by now,” he said.

“But you aren’t.” Zoe licked her lips in concentration. Don’t let him get to you. As soon as she finished the thought, Zoe lunged again. But this time, she didn’t just strike with her spear — she used {Kinetic Strike} as well.

Sure, it might do a lot of damage, but she could just heal him anyway.

Unfortunately, while the ability made the spear strike far, far faster than she could have done with her own muscles, or even with the help of {Kinetic Enhancement}, Andric simply grabbed the spear.

Zoe was so shocked by it that she failed to react when he pulled hard, causing her to stumble forward and face plant onto the ground yet again. Unfortunately, she had seen a spray of red when she was falling.

Groaning as she rose to her elbows, she saw that the palm of Andric’s right hand had been shredded raw, and his pinky looked horribly mangled. “Fucking hell,” he cursed as he clutched it, “that did way more damage than I thought.”

Zoe wasn’t surprised by the amount of damage, but then again, Andric likely hadn’t expected her to use the ability. Or if he had, he wasn’t familiar with how much force it could exert.

Sighing, Zoe activated {Heal Wound}.

And then Andric dashed forward and kicked her back down.

Spitting blood, Zoe coughed and rolled over. “What the fuck was — ow!”

She was cut off as a wooden knife arced through the air and bounced off her forehead. Rubbing her head, she sat up and glared. “Well now I’m not going to heal you if you do that. The fuck was that for?”

“You did two things wrong,” Andric hissed. At first Zoe thought he was angry — but then she realized he was just speaking through the obvious pain. “Aside from your terrible initial technique.”

“First, instead of just letting me disarm you, you put yourself in a worse position and still got disarmed because you resisted when you shouldn’t.” Be paused, and Zoe finally reactivated {Heal Wound}. “But that’s not too bad. It’s a common beginner mistake, and even with experience it can be deceptively easy to misjudge something like that.”

As his finger straightened out and his skin stitched back together, the alchemist breather a sigh in relief. “Thank you. But no, you second mistake is the more important one. You asked why I kicked you.”

Zoe nodded.

“Because the spar wasn’t over. You were down, sure, but at the moment I was stunned and a bit incapacitated. You would have had time to get back up and finish me off.”

Zoe started to roll her eyes, but then she forced herself to nod. Andric was right. Honestly, she couldn’t say that his injury was what made her stop. She stopped and tried to heal him because she thought she had already lost.

“Right, got it.”

Andric shook out his now-healed hand. “How are you on mana?”

Checking, Zoe saw that she still had just over two hundred. “I have plenty.”

Andric nodded sharply once. “Good. Now let’s try that again.”

Grinning, Zoe leveraged her spear and struck out with another {Kinetic Strike}. Andric wasn’t caught unaware, though, and he didn’t make the mistake of trying to grab it this time. He just dashed backwards.

Zoe blinked. He dashed backwards. Licking her lips, she forced herself to concentrate on the present. She couldn’t get distracted by cool abilities. She would keep them in mind, of course, but with a mindset of winning.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Zoe made several more {Kinetic Strikes}, each time putting more and more into {Kinetic Enhancement} as well to try to leap forward.

On the fifth time, she almost got him, and she was rewarded by the system.

{You have learned Kinetic Dash!}’

It came as a surprise and Zoe was quite pleased, but she didn’t let it distract her. Instead of focusing on the new ability, she just kept doing what she had been doing so far. Nevertheless, as she lashed out, it felt like the ability really wanted to activate. Zoe forced it away from her mind.

She got close to hitting Andric several more times, but never did she even manage to actually graze him. Frustrated, she went back on the defensive, hoping to perhaps lure him in. It didn’t work. They stood at a standstill for several minutes.

Growing annoyed, Zoe renewed her offensive.

“Watch your footwork,” Andric said as he twisted under a strike. Zoe rolled her eyes at that last maneuver. Now he’s just showing off. “You’re overextending yourself and making far too many unnecessary movements. Try to be more efficient and controlled.”

“Got it.”

“Not until you try it.”

Focusing, Zoe watched the ground as she lunged this time. She realized that she was actually landing a bit awkwardly and it took her too long to recover. As she whirled around to strike him again — he had moved to the side — she looked down again to see if there were any other problems.

Andric tackled her.

Flailing about powerlessly, Zoe felt sick for the few moments in which they were falling, and then she hit the ground hard. The back of her head hurt, and the wind was driven out of her as Andric crushed her. A wooden knife pressed against her throat.

Zoe growled.

Andric smirked. “Good footwork doesn’t mean literally watching your feet, idiot.” Zoe sniffed. “Alright alright, get off me. I wanna keep going.”

Standing up, Andric bent down and offered his hand. Zoe eyed it suspiciously. “This isn’t some kind of trick, right?”

Andric huffed and stood back. “Just trying to be nice, but suit yourself.”

Standing up on her own, Zoe retrieved her spear. Backing up, she tracked her opponent as he began to circle the edge of the chamber. She prepared to lunge with {Kinetic Enhancement} and another {Kinetic Strike} — but at the last moment, she activated {Kinetic Manipulation} as well.

She released the spear.

It flew straight and true — and at a truly tremendous speed, no less. Zoe actually winced as flakes of stone blasted off the rock wall and the wood broke into splinters. Unfortunately — or perhaps fortunately — Andric had completely disappeared.

Something hard and wooden bounced off the back of her head. Grumbling, Zoe turned around. “I thought you weren’t throwing those.”

Andric shrugged. “I wasn’t, but I didn’t say I wouldn’t.” He crossed his arms. “I’ll admit it, that was actually pretty impressive.”

Zoe crossed her arms as well. Yeah no shit, I sure hope it was.

“You forced me to use an ability I really don’t want to use,” he continued, “especially not with the trial coming up. So I guess good job, but I’m also rather annoyed.”

Zoe smirked. Good.

“However, I do want to point out that you lost your weapon. If I had reacted any slower you would be burning up all of your mana to heal me, and if I had dodged but not thrown the knife you could have still kept going bare handed.” He gestured at the wall and broken spear. “But still, I do want to point out that it was a last resort attack. You don’t want to do things like that if you don’t need to.”

Zoe nodded. She was a little annoyed that he had to follow up the praise with admonishment, but she forced it away. She wanted to learn from him, and that meant accepting his advice. Even if he was a bit of a stuck up grouch. Or maybe that last bit is just me projecting.

In any case, Zoe needed a new spear and wanted to test out her new ability.

“Do you want to keep going?”

Andric thought about it for a moment. “Sure, as long as you don’t do that again.”

Zoe nodded, then pointed at what remained of the training spear. “I’ll need another one of those, though.

Andric shook his head. “I’ll go see if we can get one.”

As he left the chamber, Zoe stretched. She thought about activating {Heal Wound} — but she decided she wasn’t hurt too badly and she should conserve her mana. Especially because she was about to test out a new ability.

Steadying herself, Zoe prepared to activate {Kinetic Dash}. She had to admit she felt a little nervous — but it was a good kind of nervous, really. A kind of thrill. Grinning, she leapt forward and activated the ability.

It was kind of like what she had been doing before with {Kinetic Enhancement}, but unlike when she learned that particular skill, it wasn’t just putting what she had been doing already on autopilot.

No, she moved forward far more quickly, and she almost felt like she was defying gravity. It seemed like she was traveling in a perfectly horizontal line.

It didn’t actually carry her very far, only about a meter, and she suspected that it wasn’t nearly as fast as Andric. Nevertheless, she was pretty pleased by it. Even just a meter could end up being extremely useful in a fight.

After dashing several more times, Zoe checked her mana. It seemed that each dash only drained five points, which wasn’t bad at all. She could dash all over the place and recover it fairly quickly.

Before Andric returned, Zoe decided to try one more thing. She jumped as high as she could — and then she dashed upwards.

To her immediate delight, she zipped up even higher. Granted, it was still just a meter, but that was almost like doubling how high she could jump on her own. Or at least, jump without using {Kinetic Enhancement}.

{Kinetic Dash has leveled up! Kinetic Dash is now level 2.}

Zoe pumped her fist. Trying it again, she found that she could go twice as far, and it consumed six points of mana. That’s really fucking good. If the pattern continued, then at level twenty it would carry her a whopping twenty meters. It would also take twenty four mana, but that wasn’t too bad. Perhaps it would take less if she deliberately cut it short?

Before she could test it, Andric returned and tossed her another blunted spear. “Alright, let’s see what you’ve got.”

Smirking, Zoe leveled her spear at him. “Ready for me? I wanna see if I can crack your defense.”

Andric flexed his fingers and then withdrew two of the wooden knives. “Oh I’m not playing defense anymore.” He assumed a crouched runner’s stance.

“It’s my turn now.”