I moved closer to the camp’s wall as the two combatants prepared their weapons. There was some distance between us and the nearest buildings, leaving plenty of space for the two to fight.

They stood facing each other, both looking eager. While Salvador wore a confident smirk, Ophelia wore an almost manic grin. Both had wrapped the heads of their weapons in layers of cloth, but I worried that they would still end up hurting each other.

Salvador began circling around his opponent, spear poised to capitalize on any openings.

Ophelia didn’t give him any. She hardly moved from her ready stance as she very slightly adjusted to Salvador’s movements.

With a blindingly fast strike, Salvador took the initiative. Even as his spear was deflected to the side, he was already twisting about for another attack.

The large woman didn’t give him the chance. With no wasted motion, she lashed out with her own weapon and returned to her ready stance.

Salvador was forced to abort his attack to leap to the side. Turning about on his heel, he struck with a dozen strikes faster than I thought was humanly possible.

With almost casual disregard, Ophelia wove through the onslaught. She nudged each strike just far enough that a slight lean to the side was sufficient to evade the attack. Her counter attacks were each so smooth and precise, they made her opponent’s attacks seem like reckless flailing by comparison.

Despite being perfectly executed, Ophelia’s attacks couldn’t quite overcome Salvador’s seemingly inhuman agility. He managed to dance around each of her attacks with time to continue his own assault.

The only evidence of who held the advantage was the look of strained concentration that had replaced Salvador’s usual smirk.

Ophelia’s grin had only grown wider.

Salvador continued to attack from every angle, only to be rebuffed time and again by gentle nudges of Ophelia’s spear. His movements grew more and more acrobatic as he struggled to find an opening in Ophelia’s defenses. After yet another failed barrage, he backed up a few paces.

“Getting tired?” Ophelia taunted.

“Merely testing the waters.” Salvador replied with his usual confidence. “I must say, your technique is impeccable. A pity it is lacking one key element.”

“And what might that be?”

“That would be…” He began before suddenly stabbing his spear downwards and using it as a lever to launch himself high into the air. “The element of surprise.”

The spearman soared over his opponent’s head, just out of reach of her spear. Before she could turn to face his new angle of attack, mana flowed around Salvador’s spear.

The mana forms that took shape were ones I was familiar with. This was the spear accelerating spell that I had used to create the burning strike spell.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

With an unnatural motion, Salvador’s momentum shifted dramatically. He went from flying past Ophelia to falling straight towards her.

The woman’s well honed skills once more proved their worth. With less than a hair’s breadth to spare, she managed to dive out of the way of Salvador’s spear. In the same fluid motion, she got her own spear in place to threaten the descending fighter.

The haphazard parry that followed was significantly less graceful than what I had come to expect from Salvador. He barely managed to deflect the approaching weapon before landing. Before he could regain his footing, Ophelia lashed out rapidly. Only by striking the ground rapidly with his spear was Salvador able to escape the attack.

“Leaping around is a good way to get stabbed.” Ophelia chided him.

“Under most circumstances tha-” He was cut off by another attack that nearly struck him in the head. “Come now. Cutting off a man’s witty banter is hardly sporting.”

“You talk too much.” Was the only retort as the barrage continued.

Salvador was being pushed back harder and harder. Unlike the start of the fight, he was no longer the one unleashing the most attacks.

His look of concentration grew more and more intense until suddenly his confident smirk returned. Mana once again flowed across his spear. This time, it didn’t shape itself into the forms for invisible force.

Instead, it took another familiar form.

With a flick of Salvador’s spear, the rags tied to the end unraveled and ignited. The sudden flurry of burning rags was just enough to make Ophelia flinch for a moment.

That single moment proved to be enough as the head of Salvador’s spear punched through the flaming fabric and stopped a hand’s breadth away from Ophelia’s neck.

“A cheap shot, but fine, you win.” She acknowledged reluctantly. “Now what was that last move you used?”

“That was actually something I can thank our friend Kyo for.” Salvador said as he pulled his spear back with a tired sigh. ”You are certainly one remarkable warrior. Were we of the same tier, I wouldn’t be even close to your equal.”

“Yeah, that’s not about to happen any time soon.” She muttered with a sour face. “Having to serve a bunch of nobles wouldn’t be worth the extra boons.”

“A true enough assessment for most in my experience. Fortunately there are exceptions.”

“If there are, I haven’t met ‘em.” Ophelia said as she waved her hand dismissively.

I didn’t know what they were talking about.The mention of tier and limited boons sounded familiar though. A nagging feeling told me that my codex held an answer. Following the feeling, I willed my system to show me the information I was missing.

Common Sense: Citizenship Tiers

Citizens of the empire are divided into different tiers of social status. Those of higher tiers enjoy greater privileges, including stronger classes and faster boon integration.

The tiers are lesser commoner, greater commoner, lesser noble, and greater noble.

That hardly seemed fair to me. I hoped that the way people were sorted was based on some reasonable metric, but I had no idea what that might have been.

During the brief time I had been distracted, Ophelia and Salvador had mostly finished talking.

Ophelia still looked disgruntled about losing the sparring match. After a moment of consideration, a mischievous smile once more spread across her face.

“You know, now that I think about it, I think we might have room for one more after all.” She remarked sweetly while casting Salvador an almost sinister look. “You did want to join us after all.”

“...Yes… I suppose I did suggest as much.” He replied hesitantly.

“Excellent!” Ophelia exclaimed. “Now I’m sure you wouldn’t mind a little direction to reach your true potential, now would you?”

Even as he agreed, I could easily see that the man knew it was a terrible mistake.

We both soon discovered how true that was.