Servil's eyes were filled with shock as my dagger quickly approached his face. He leaned back and I used that to kick him in the chest, throwing both daggers at two new clones of Evergreen.

She has quite unusual magic...

Servil flew right in between two other volunteers, interrupting the spar. Ivory had tried to grab my leg in the meantime but I kicked her elbow, spun around, grabbed her shoulder and pushed her down, crushing the ground beneath her. Still in the air I kicked Evergreen to the ground with a swift kick to the stomach just seconds before I landed.

'Don't use the Power of Wrath, you idiot!' Ira screamed inside my head.

'No ones gonna notice," I said, calming down my anger. 'And besides, it makes me really fucking angry when someone just pushes me around like that, and then there is this fucking wind!'

I looked up to the sky, the voices still coming at me together with the wind, never quite stopping. It annoyed me, I hated it.

As I calmed down I looked at the three I had been sparring with. I picked up my daggers and looked down at them.

"We done?" I asked.

"Yes," our instructor said loudly.

She snapped once and a few guards that had been watching in awe came to carry away the ones I had been sparring against.

"You'll spar with me now," Laura said.

I raised one eyebrow.

"Is that even fair?" I asked, not actually caring.

"Yes, I can't let you beat up all the other volunteers like this," she said with narrowed eyes. "You're clearly talented and all that, I just want to know how talented you are."

"Fine then," I responded.

"So, do you want me to use sorcery or not?" she asked, both hands on her hips and the spirit on her shoulder looking at me cautiously.

I chuckled.

"Sure, why not," I said as I threw both my daggers into the closest training dummy.

They both got stuck in the hay.

"Not using your weapons?" she asked.

"They would break," I answered as I activated my wood elven magic mark.

Laura smiled and said: "[Integration]!"

The spirit on her shoulder crawled onto her back and began emitting a greyish light which quickly engulfed Laura completely. When the light died down laura's skin had turned grey and looked like it was partially made up out of scales. Her forearms were thicker and she had black claws on both her hands and feet. Her eyes were pitch black, her hair long and connected to her spine, reaching all the way to the end of the long grey tail she now had.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Disgusting...

"You ready?" she asked, her voice sounding like hers but also not like hers at the same time.

I nodded as I activated my go-to techniques: [Predator's Strength], [Predator's Agility] and [Predator's Insticnts].

None of the other volunteers was sparring at this point, they just watched us. I stretched my neck and cracked my knuckles as Laura burst forward, charging right at me. She was fast, but to me, she looked like she was going at normal speed. I stepped to the side and kicked her right in the face. My leg hurt like hell afterwards but she lost all her momentum and plopped to the ground a few metres away from me.

I looked at her, laying on the ground, slowly getting up. There was no cheering, just complete silence from both the other volunteers and the remaining guards.

"You're better than I thought," Laura said loudly with her now strangely uncanny voice.

I sighed and prepared for her obvious set-up. While she was talking I could see the air around her change as mana rushed towards her. Before she even began charging at me I stepped to the side and ran towards the training dummy where my two daggers were. I reached it at the moment she burst forth. She hadn't been able to change her direction fast enough so she was slightly off course and ran past me. I grabbed one of my daggers, pulled it out of the dummy, cut open both my hands, put the dagger back and jumped up, a bit of blood trailing down after me.

With blood leaking out of the two cuts I rubbed my hands all over my arms, face, neck and tongue. The taste was strange but I felt my mana skyrocketing. [Blood High] had activated right away.

Right now I was as powerful as I could be without the Power of Wrath. I didn't have much time to think since Laura had also jumped up, her fist quickly approaching me. Quickly steering to the side I managed to dodge the blow, grab her large forearm and throw her right into the ground where a small crater was created by the impact.

I landed next to her as gracefully as possible but didn't have much time to actually gather my thoughts since I felt my legs getting sweept away by a tail attack from Laura. I fell to the ground and just seconds later I saw her fist approaching my head out of the corner of my eye. At that moment all I could do was roll to the side, twist my body so I could turn and wrap my legs around her forarm. When I had done that I grabbed her head, let go of her arm and swung myself up, swinging down a moment later to plant one of my feet right in her face. She stumbled backwards and fell to the ground.

"Really expected more," I whispered under my breath.

Mana burst forth from Laura who had already gotten up again.

"What was that?" she asked loudly, her voice sounding enhanced.

Before I could say anything in response her fist was already right in front of my face. Her fist didn't even hit me but I still passed out from the wind hitting against my face. By the time I regained consciousness I had one knee on the ground and my head was hammering.

Now I had two choices, either give up or use the Power of Wrath... and one of those two options was clearly not an option.

"I give up," I said, a little out of breath.

Laura stared at me for a few seconds until the greyish light once again englufed her and she reappeared in her human form, the little spirit crawling back onto her shoulder.

'It's sad that my host lost against one of my own creations,' Ira said.

'Oh shut it,' I responded.

"You're certainly very talented mister Altair, and using your blood like that definitely earns you bonus points. Although I would like you to refrain from doing that in the future," Laura said.

"I'll keep that in mind," I responded as I walked over to the training dummy to grab my daggers.

"And what's with you fools? Keep sparring!" Laura said loudly.

I sighed as I sat down, once again leaning against the training dummy.

So I'll have to surpass her first huh? That will be interesting.

'You might have beaten her if you had used thorn magic or warp magic,' Ira suggested.

'I doubt it, she was definitely holding back...'