Stormflow.

Rai was testing how long he could maintain Stormflow at its lowest output level. He figured that, while at the Academy, he wouldn’t need to use it at a higher level like he used on the headmaster.

Rai used a method of meditation that Jin taught him, but he adapted it to include consistent mana output in some way or another to strengthen his mana channels.

He’d have preferred to use the underground sparring arena for something more practical, but Sin wasn’t awake yet to spar with him. Rai’d actually thought about waking her up to spar, but there was something about that decision that made him not want to take it, so he didn't. That was possibly the wisest decision Rai would ever make, and he wouldn't even know it.

It’d been a few days since the entrance exams for Aether Academy.

For Rai, it wasn’t all that difficult getting used to living with his childhood friend, but it seemed like Sin would take a bit more time to get used to it. The past few days were quiet. All they’d really done was catch up, talk about what they planned to do at the Academy, and rest in the penthouse. Sin asked a little more about the testing done by the headmaster, but Rai didn't elaborate much on it.

Rai thought about all of this as Stormflow was being maintained. By his count, he’d kept it running for nearly ten minutes now. Even though it was the lowest output he could manage, it was still powerful, and the fact that Rai could maintain it like this with only a fifth of his mana available to him was impressive in its own right.

Ding.

Rai heard the lift door open, so he withdrew Stormflow. He turned to see Sindyl walked out of it wearing what looked like a light sparring outfit.

“Lilly told me that you wanted to spar. Why on Zenith are you up this early in the morning?” Sin asked.

It seemed like she’d just woken up.

Rai still had enough mana to fight, even though he was doing that exercise earlier.

“Farmer’s habits; are you ready?” Rai said as he began his stretches.

Sin followed suit, starting her own stretches.

“How do you wanna do this? All out? Personal weapons? Magic?”

Rai continued stretching, making lightly pained sounds when he pushed a bit too far, “I’m fine with all of the above... except fighting all out. If we fought all out then you wouldn’t know what hit you.”

Sin laughed, but she knew Rai well enough to know that he wasn’t kidding. “Alright... then limit yourself. I don’t care if I win or lose, I just want to gain more fighting experience.”

“Jin would say that’s a good mentality, and I would agree. I fought him for nearly eight years, and I was only just able to make him move a single step.”

Sin stared blankly at him for a second.

“... That’s crazy. I knew he was a monster, but if a monster like you can’t beat him then...”

“He’s just way too strong, I swear.”

Sin softly nodded in agreement, then manifested two beautifully crafted daggers from her spatial rune. They had clean red blades, and were clearly elven by design. The hilts were sleek, black with ruby inlays. Each dagger had three gem slots which were filled unique gems. In total there were six differently coloured gems.

Sin spun her daggers with added flair, which Rai enjoyed seeing.

“Dad introduced me to one of the only Elven smiths in Zenith. She made these daggers for me. I was surprised to find out that there were smiths that weren’t dwarves, but it turned out that the creator of these daggers is one of the few smiths who isn’t a dwarf.” She said.

“They’re beautiful! You’ve got gems embedded as well.”

“Yeah... at first I didn’t really like the idea of embedding gems into my weapons. But it’s much more useful to have them than to not, since you can’t cast spells through your weapon otherwise.”

“You can’t?”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Yeah, duh. That’s why embeds are even a thing, doofus.”

Rai didn’t quite know why Sin thought that, but if she truly believed what she said then she’d be quite surprised at this next part.

Lightning filled the air next to Rai’s right arm, and out of it came Ghost. Rai plucked the blade from the air where it was suspended by the lightning.

Sin let out a low whistle, taking a page from her dad’s book. “You’re still as flashy as ever...”

She looked at the pure black blade, which had a faux guard in the form of the outer corners of the diamond shape at the top of its hilt jutting out. Sin noticed a second diamond hole at the bottom of the hilt, with the hilt wrappings looking like a mess. When she looked at the blade, however, she thought it was so well crafted that it couldn’t possibly have been made by hand.

“Wait... where are your gems? It’s such a beautiful blade but there’s no gems embedded in it. Your magical aptitude is better than mine, so surely you should have magical gems in your sword, right?”

Sin was confused. Other than the lack of embeds the sword looked like a perfect sword.

“This blade’s name is Ghost. You’ll see why there are no gems when we fight.”

“You have a named blade?! There’s only like a small handful of them in the world though, so how the shit do you have one?!” Why does this farmboy keep surprising me so often... I should be used to it by now.

“Mum gave it to me.”

“I don’t know how she got her hands on a named blade, but I do know that without embeds you’re gonna have a tough time!”

“Haha! We’ll see about that.”

Sin got into fighting position. The time for words was over.

Rai responded in kind.

Sin wanted to open the fight with a ranged attack to try and create an opening. The red gem on one of her daggers glowed, and she vertically sliced the air towards Rai. An arc of flames flickered in the air as it flew towards Rai. It singed the air surrounding it, indicating just how powerful the spell within the gem was.

Ghost suddenly had deep blue cracks in its blade, and the diamond holes in the hilt were filled by planes of glowing blue. Rai sliced the air in a similar vertical fashion, letting loose an arc of water which flew towards the arc of fire.

They collided, letting off steam. Ghost returned to its base state.

Sin was dumbfounded. It has no gems, so he shouldn’t be able to cast spells through it. So, why the fuck!... She crossed her arms and stared at Rai.

“Rai. Please explain, I’m too confused to figure it out.”

Rai let out a laugh that echoed throughout the sparring chamber.

“Okay okay. Ghost is basically that, a ghost. I can freely channel any type of mana into it to cast spells as I like. It works well because I can see mana much more clearly than other people, or at least that’s what my aunt said.”

Sin couldn’t quite wrap her head around it. Her experience of weapons was completely different. To her, it was absurd to think that you could use magic through a weapon without a gem.

“... I suppose that’s part of the beauty of a named weapon then.”

She decided to try something different. Since they didn’t change the sparring grounds settings to simulate a dirt field, and just left it as it was, Sin knew that Rai couldn’t conjure any earth barriers. The green gem on her dagger glowed brightly. Sin ran in a circle around Rai. She sliced the air towards him as she ran.

Rai deflected the blades of wind that flew at him while figuring out what to do. Then, an idea popped into his head.

Flow State.

The world around him slowed to a crawl. He could see the blades of wind shimmering in the air as they edged towards him. While in this state, he couldn’t move as fast as he could think, but he could still use the time bought by the technique to calculate the best course of action. It also cost far less mana than stormflow, which made it more efficient for this kind of purpose.

Rai couldn’t create earth barriers to defend against the wind blades, but he could create a flame barrier that consumed the air from the wind blades.

Rai released Flow State and did exactly that. He formed a flame barrier around him with his free hand. Ghost glowed a dark orange.

Sin couldn’t see through it, but within the barrier of flames Rai was preparing to shoot arcs of fire towards her.

Great, the wind blades are useless now, and I can’t even see him properly. Oh... that cheeky fucker!

Arcs of fire like the one she shot off earlier flew towards her from within the flame barrier. A blue gem on one of her daggers started glowing, and a sphere of fiercely flowing water formed around her, creating a bubble. The flames collided with the water and fizzled into steam.

She wasn’t as fast as Rai, so Sin couldn’t shoot off arcs of water just as he did before. This was the second best option.

Rai heard the flames fizzling, and decided to change tactic and go on the offensive. He told himself he wouldn’t use Stormflow to attack, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use Stormflow to get into position.

In an instant, Rai was next to Sin, Ghost was slicing up from the ground towards her. As she narrowly dodged the strike, Sin heard thunder echoing throughout the room.

Sin dodged backwards and decided to use her trump card.

Mirror magic.

Her tutors told her to avoid using this technique unless it was absolutely necessary, but Sin needed to know just how good the technique was in a fight. More than that, she wanted to know if it would be effective against Rai.

Rai zoomed across the ground towards her.

That’s when she released it.

Rai stopped when he saw multiple Sins spawn in different locations. They continuously rotated around and swapped positions with each other. A storm of Sins surrounded him.

“What the fuck is this now?!” Rai exclaimed.

One by one, the Sins came rushing at him with their daggers. When he sliced through them, and they shattered like glass which dissipated in the air. Ah... it’s a cloning technique! A distraction... But what do I do about that?

He wasn’t exactly sure what to do in this situation and spared a moment to try think of a tactic.

In that moment of hesitation, Rai felt cold steel pressing against his abdomen, and a sweaty hand gripping his side. The clones all shattered at once, and he heard Sin panting behind him.

“After eight years... I finally win!” Sin declared victory through ragged breaths.