"Finding your enemy's weakness is the best way to defeat them", Jeremy heard a strange metallic voice when he incarnated in the forest clearing.

"Overcome your own weaknesses to become undefeatable", this speaker sounding like a water elemental if their gurgles made real words.

"Thinking yourself unbeatable is a weakness" thinking maybe it was all just a dream for a second before checking his gold balance and snapping his eyes to two even stranger creatures than he remembered leaving.

"Did you polymorph to a sword?" He blurted out before remembering the talking sword from the list of things the dragon looted from the ship.

"Alas no", came the strange answer, "it would be awesome though", it continued in its clanging voice, "maybe I should learn to polymorph so I can become a shield or a backpac", thinking for a second, "no one would expect the scabbard to attack them", slashing in Jeremy's direction, "that is a good idea".

"It's a terrible idea", the blue humanoid made a disgusted face, "you will lose your balance and be stuck with a random sword"

"Ha butt jokes from you?", stabbing toward the blue thing, "so many arms and you srill can't find your own ass"

Seeing a monster blush for the first time in his life was not what Jeremy expected to find when he logged back in, "where are Allen and Kyatha?"

"Who?" the stab was a little too close for comfort in Jeremy's eyes though there were still almost ten meters between them the motion moved the sword at single action speed for over a third of the distance between them.

 "The dragon and the angry woman" was exactly how Jeremy would desceibe the duo.

"I thought she was just distraught", an undercut toward the blue creature, "how do you know their names?" Came in a jab.

"From my contract with Allen and he told me to wait for Kyatha and not let her kill the fox boy" the soft sound of waters in a creek was almost hypnotic.

"Do you know where they went" looking at the two the meaning of this last exchange dawned on Jeremy "make me a contract" came the garbled words.

Two twirls and a slash in the blink of an eye brought the sword up to his know "you could never defeat me" it said "though the sentiment is nice"

"What is your definition of defeat?" Sounding braver than he fealt and wandering how he could win if no one was actually wielding the sword, after all even if he could destroy it, he would gain nothing except burnt out resources and probably more than a few cuts, but he got the system notice for requesting a duel and knew the sword couldn't ignore it.

"Psss" dragging its blade on the ground cutting a line, "if I have no more stamina and all my action timers are in countdown you win", then it rose higer than RedFox21's head and floated in a striking hawk pose, "but what do I get if I beat you?"

Surprised by the question Jeremy had to stop and think, "what I have in my left pocket".

"Bah I know this game" seeing it shift to bear swipe position was annerving, "so you forfeit the challenge?"

Jeremy had to think this through, he only had one more chance to offer an equal prize or the chance would be lost for at least twenty four hours and beyond that he didn't even know if the dragon and angry woman would be anywhere near him or give him another chance.

"Balance the challenge" the words streaming from the blue being, "when you win", turning to the sword, "make the fox your weapon"

Shifting to a low pose Jeremy didn't know the sword turned a few times before chiming "agreed"

[System: Notice RedFox21 your challenge has been accepted your duel with Lahav starts in <03:00> minutes]

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Dismissing the notification so it won't pop up every thirty seconds Jeremy took a few steps away from the sword, "double cast"

"Silly boy you already lost and the duel didn't even start yet", the blue thing taunted him but jeremy ignored it to continue his preparations

"Mage armor, long stride" putting on the long lasting defense spells as soon as he was a safe distance away.

The sword stayed in the unfamiliar low stance but moved its handle a tiny fraction upwards.

"Haste, flash step" jeremy cast the spells just as the timer hit zeroes, reappearing ten meters to the right of his original position and sending "magic missile, magic missile" at his previous location.

Surprised that the spell fail and realising his mistake almost too late to evade the uppercut slash from his left, haste saved him as he used another full action to disengage but the sword pursued with a stab that nicked his chest.

"Thunderous retreat, healing word" the wound hurt a lot more than it fealt and he saw his hitpoints dropped by a fifth from just that tiny hit.

Looking at the sword tumble from his other spell and getting stuck in a tree let him hope he found the thing's weakness, seeing it slice the tree in half as it turned back around bashed his hopes to the ground, today was not a good day for Jeremy.

"Slow, true strike" needing to buy more time and use his long stride to better results Jeremy watched as the blade seemed like it was moving through water, dividing a fight to actions usually only worked for wizards who needed to find ways around action timers and unable to divide or double their actions to smaller sections and forcing the same division on less magic oriented types usually gave a mage such an unfair advantage that some spells were banned from interclass duels.

The sword stopped three meters before him in a very suspicious way, "chill touch, bane", limiting himself to low level spells for the first rounds to coserve mana until he knew the enemie's weaknesses was sound strategy if he kept piling on the debuffs and bolstering his defenses it should let him survive long enough to exploit these weaknesses when he found them.

The sword dipped its tip and rushed with a stab feint to his leg ending in a slow motion slash to his arm that was hypnotizing to watch as a red line painted on his skin even after he started turning to evade the stab, feeling his whole arm go numb with cold through his disengaging roll, keeping in mind he had to allways save an action to perry or evade every attack.

"Healing word, bane", his hitpoints didn't rise back, if he couldn't heal the battle was counted in only a few rounds, which was his worst type of combat, in a battle of attrition he could add more and more curses until the enemy could barely function but a fast pace combat will force him to use higher level spells before he was ready.

Casting spells with a dagger needed more practice than he was able to commit but he had to have some means to fend the attacks off as the combatants closed the engagement distance after every round, the sword came from a falcon dive to a crane hop and only his familiarity with the battle stances of fencers like his dad saved his life when he pushed back the short twisting jab, flaring his defense with 'disarm' his dagger stabbed down at the last second and instead of just moving apart the other blade was thrown to the ground.

"Lightning bolt, misty step", grounded as it was the blade channeled the electricity to the ground as wisps of acrid smoke rose all around it, taking a chance he cast "cure wounds" as the blade rose back to the air surrounded by cracking electrical charges, it stopped fifteen meters away and shot a lightning bolt at Jeremy, "jump" made it so the bolt hit him in the air and with nowhere to go he only recieved the initial attack damage without the discharge.

Considering the previous attacks it surprised him the damage wasnso low until he realised it was his own spell shot back at him, luckily it seemed only magical attacks were returned or he would be also slowed and weakend, forcing him again to choose an undesired strategy if he couldn't use the high level damaging spells it needed to be weakend so lesser spell attaks were more effective.

So far the sword snatched the initiative from his every attack so he decided to let it make the next move leaving him with his haste and double cast against its slow and bane, not disappointing it took another unfamiliar stance and attacked in a horizontal motion that could cut Jeremy in half, "thunderous retreat", he vanished just before the illusion hit where he stood, seeing the other blade still floating at the initial spot fealt like an icy finger was crawling down his spine, turning in place it made the same move "misty step" unable to take the chance but not wanting to burn mana on a useless attack.

Feeling sluggish was an indication haste had worn off and he needed to focus until he could cast it again, with only a single action in the next few rounds it was all he could to survive.

'Evade' turned him aside in the last instance to avoid the downward slash, the hairsplitting maneuver got the needed result of seeing the over comitted blade sink deep into the rock Jeremy positioned himself on, "web, thunderous retreat" bought him the extra round he needed for "haste, fireball", guessing the area of effect spells couldnt be absorbed like the targeted ones.

Adding the fuel from the magical web was a secret he thought he stumbled upon on his own until he read a book describing all the different effects aiding fireball become the signature spell of every combat mage in history, melting the rock the blade was buried in was only one of the phenomenae described, "ray of frost" completed his plan to entomb the blade.

The result left much to be desired when what could only be described as a giant stone club pulled itself up from the ground.