To Azura it felt like it had taken forever for Saturday to come around. He finally had time to really get down to training. He had been training pretty hard even on class days, especially since he finally decided to stop taking classes he didn’t need, and man had that been a hard choice for him to make. Prioritizing was a lot more difficult when you did have the option to do all of it, but he knew that sometimes his own research would serve him better than a class for something he doesn’t have any intention of using. Not to mention the rigorous physical training he had been putting his body through. Along with meditating on the nature of lightning.
But it turned out his friends had come up with a training idea for their saturdays. They refused to tell him what it was, but he was fairly sure he already knew. Worse was he was going to have to deal with it without his copies. He had each of them dealing with more important things than helping him keep his head above water in his spar with his friends. Plus the training would be more effective without the copies to help… even if it was going to hurt.
So he briskly made his way towards the training field in the armory. Since his copies had finished the circle over the course of the week he could rearrange the space pretty much at will, his friends would have a bit less control of it, because they would have to connect to it a little differently, but he’d teach that to to them after he was unable to handle the sparring anymore. Either way he didn’t plan to make use of it for the spar. He’d save that for when he was actually handling the omni directional assault. Once he could actually deal with it then he could start worrying about countering it.
“You got here quicker than expected. I should have known you of all people wouldn’t try and stall.” He chuckled at Elismera’s comment. If the big trouble was anything other than a fight with his father he probably would have. He didn’t enjoy getting beat up any more than anyone else, but when needs must. There was no way he was going to be stuck as his fathers idea of a perfect noble for the rest of his life.
“The more training I can get the better. Besides, once I can’t move very well anymore, I've got some interesting books to study while I recover.” between physical training and studying he didn’t have a lot of free time, but he did give himself several breaks throughout the day to actually relax and have some fun. The training had to be sustainable if he was going to keep it up for 4 years after all.
“Well we’ll just see if we can’t hurry you to your reading then.” As if Elismera’s response was the signal Azura was quickly assaulted by a wall of fire, the ground beneath his feet erupting into spikes, and Elsimera pulling out her new blade to slash at him. The gleaming white wood nearly removed his head as he lept away from the sudden spikes. Using the enchantment on his boots he was able to condense enough vapor to use as a foothold to get over the wall of flame he assumed came from Lily. His relief was short lived though as a rain of knives came at him from what felt like all directions.
He spun in the air and created a sphere of violently moving winds to knock aside the seemingly endless knives. It seemed Katy had found much more practical uses for her physical illusions. He had no time to breathe in relief as he had to put his shield between himself and Luna’s spear. The force behind the blow shot him back towards the ground and Elsimera who was already ready to strike again. Thinking fast he manifested his wings to alter his course.
He didn’t even get to land before He was assaulted by a pillar of flame rising up from below. He formed his scales across his body and tanked the blaze head on. To say he was impressed when Lily shifted the inferno into ice in an instant was an understatement, but he quickly pushed the feeling aside as he released a burst of mana to shatter the ice. The shockwave thankfully knocked Elismera and Luna back. Not that it gave him any time to breathe as hundreds of burning knives shot at him from who knows where. Great they were doing combo spells now, this one no doubt Roran and Katy.
Normally he would have made a rock dome to protect him, but he couldn’t afford to sacrifice his mobility, so instead he used his blink spell to reappear closer to Luna and Elismera. He had hoped to take Luna out with a surprise attack, but his yggdrasil blade met Elismeras just before it could reach his shy friend. He then had to jump back as Luna thrust her spear at him. Honestly he thought he was doing pretty well all things considered. He hadn’t been hit yet, but in exchange he had yet to hit any of them either.
“The wings are fine, but drop the scales.” Elismera spoke calmly as she rushed him to engage him in a high speed melee where both of them were forced to dodge the myriad of other attacks from the rest of the group. Needless to say he’d rather not drop his scales, but he understood her reasoning. He wasn’t going to be able to tank a hit from his father scales or no scales, so relying on them to negate the injuries he would accumulate would only take away the pain as a motivator. Reluctantly he dropped his scales just in time to slightly mistime a dodge and get a thin cut from Elismera’s blade.
He blinked again to avoid the The ice spike that was set to pierce him through. He debated going after his friends that were attacking at range, but even if he took them out it would defeat the whole point of the training in the first place. He supposed for the training to be most effective he would have to consider Elismera his only enemy with everyone else just being attacks she was using.
Elismera was of course still completely out of his league. He knew he didn’t stand a chance against her at any range, and that was 1v1. With his friends helping her out it was even more one sided. So how was he supposed to close that gap? He needed some way to pierce her defenses, and he needed to be able to set it up while jumping around like a powered up jackrabbit.
He was focusing mostly on retreat while he thought, but there was just too much going on. The flurry of spells from all directions made it nearly impossible for him to come out unscathed. Naturally he didn’t, by the time he had come up with a semi-plausible plan of attack he was sporting severe burns, and several cuts courtesy of Katy’s illusions, and Elismeras blade.
Unfortunately he wasn’t even especially confident in his plan, but he wasn’t exactly flush with options. As such next time a large wave of fire came his way he met it with a large mass of water. The outpouring of steam would greatly reduce visibility. Especially given he was using magic to make it harder to get rid of. With that done he closed his eyes and focused his magical senses. Elsimera and Luna would know exactly where he was, just like he did them, but the decrease in accuracy from the farther combatants gave him some breathing room. The strategy wouldn’t work the same with his father, but with his copies he could probably make a version of it that would.
As expected, Elismera and Luna started picking up the pace to make up for the decrease in pressure from range. He switched his yggdrasil blade to his left and used his gauntlet blade in his right to try and keep up with the onslaught. He wasn’t well versed on fighting with a weapon in each hand, but he had been trained to do so, so he wasn’t bad by any means. Unfortunately he wasn’t good enough to focus on both of them, and all the vines Elismera was sending to impale him now. To make matters worse, Siara had probably helped the ranged group recover most of their used mana, because a sphere of fire that couldn’t have been smaller than 15 ft across was coming down on them from above.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
That was Lily for you. If she couldn’t see her target she’d just waste the whole area. Elismera covered herself and Luna in a thick layer of vines. He debated on how he should escape such a devastating attack in the few seconds he had before impact. This was going to be a long 4 years.
***
Luna had jumped back to avoid Lily’s giant fireball, but was shocked to find Azura was no longer in her sensory range mere moments before the fireball impacted. The shockwave was immense, and the heat was more than enough to clear out the steam. She used her clairvoyance to look for their vanished leader, only to not find him anywhere near them. “Where did he go?” For the first time in a while Luna had no answer to that question. Elismera didn’t seem pleased with her shrug. “Since when can he teleport far enough to exit your sensory range while his sight is obstructed?”
She didn’t know he could do that either. She wondered if that was a recent development, or if a reason to use it just never came up. “So, what do we do now?” Escape wasn’t a win for Azura, and they all knew Azura didn’t just quit. He was planning something, and she got the feeling it was going to be pretty devastating.
Elismera sighed. “I suppose we wait for him to make his move. Not much else we can do with him mia like this.” She didn’t love having to take such a passive course of action, but there was no point doing much else if they had no idea what kind of crazy stunt Azura was no doubt cooking up.
“How long do you think he’s going to be gone for?” Cynthia's question entered her mind. They had been using the link to coordinate with each other in order to make it more challenging for Azura, but really it had mostly served as a way for them not to accidentally hurt each other. They had practice working together, but not on a scale like this.
“I don’t know, I just know that the longer he’s gone the more worried we should be.” None of them would be stupid enough to let their guard down, Azura was well known for the crazy stuff he did, and she had a feeling whatever this was it wouldn’t be any different. At least if nothing else whatever stunt he pulled would be entertaining. At least for everyone he doesn’t target..
“I doubt he’ll be gone for long. This is training not an actual fight. My guess is he only even did this as a proof of concept. If it works he’ll keep the strategy in mind for his father, but I doubt he’ll use it again.” Elismera made a good point. Azura wouldn’t lose out on training just because he found a better way to do something. Training was about improving after all, what was the point in finishing training by cheating yourself?
Sure enough Elismera’s prediction came true less than a minute later. Azura appeared a mere 10 ft away from Elismera. What they didn’t expect was that his bow was out with a mass of magic energy so dense that their friends fighting from long range could probably feel it notched in it. “Oh shi-” Elismera quickly summoned as many vines as she could in the split second before Azura fired.
The release of magical energy from impact was immense. She hadn’t even seen Azura release the shot, but she had certainly felt the wave of force that blew out from the collision. She dug her feet in, and resisted the shockwave as best she could. She managed to resist losing her footing, but she was still pushed back almost 20 ft. Thankfully the shockwave had made her instinctively close her eyes, or she would have been blinded by the immense light the attack had released upon impact.
It took a few seconds for everything to die down, and by the time it did she had found Azura who was panting desperately for air. She was about to charge him to put him back into fight mode without a chance to rest, but she was beaten to it by a blur leaving the smoke from the impact. The blur revealed itself to be Elismera as she slammed the flat of her blade into Azura’s stomach causing him to double over.
Her eyes widened not at the blow to Azura, but at Elismera’s condition. The 3rd year looked awful. She was covered in severe burns, and was bleeding from more places than not. There was a huge gouge in one of her arms that reached all the way to the bone, and there was even some melted skin in a few places on her arm. All in all Elismera looked like a demented zombie monster that had kept its normal color, and that was even without taking into account the murderous look on her burnt face.
After seeing Elismera’s condition no one stepped in as she beat the exhausted Azura senseless. Honestly she wasn’t sure that Cynthia would be able to fully heal Elismera from injuries that severe, they may have to actually explain to the school healers what caused injuries that severe in the schools 2nd strongest student. Azura had given up actually trying to defend himself at this point and simply put his hands in front of his face and manifested his scales. Which Elismera seemed to take as a challenge to hit him harder.
“Sh-should we try and stop her?” Cynthia was sometimes too nice for her own good. Luna was probably the 2nd most gentle minded in their group, but even she would be pretty angry if someone gave her injuries that severe when she was actively helping them get stronger.
“I think she’s more than earned the right to beat on him for a bit. She’ll stop eventually.” Lily’s comment proved true as Elsimera slowed down on her assault on Azura after a few minutes, but by then Azura had already stopped making legible sounds and had been reduced to a groaning heap. She spotted Cynthia slowly making her way over to where they were. Clearly nervous of their still obviously angry senior.
“I’ll let you off with just that this time, but if you ever hit me with an attack like that from out of nowhere again, I will plant a seed in your stomach, and see how you like bursting apart as it grows to full size over the course of several agonizing minutes.” She winced at Elismera’s hopefully idle threat, because Azura was supposed to be working on strategies to injure his father, so for the purpose of the training Elismera was pretty much stuck as the stand-in unless Kaiser agreed to help them out.
A light surrounded Azura, and then faded just as fast as it appeared leaving a completely uninjured Azura standing there. His recently acquired bruises gone as if they’d never been there. She saw Elismera’s eye twitch, and honestly couldn’t blame her. Azura’s new constitution was completely unfair. As long as he had mana and some time to concentrate he could basically heal any wound by just reforming whatever was injured. “Well if you hadn't attacked me right away I could have helped you.” He held out his hand and the ground beneath them glowed. Then almost faster than she could track a golden blur shot into Azura’s hand from the direction of the tree.
He then held out the golden fruit to Elismera who seemed surprised to see it. “What already? It just bore fruit not long ago. How is there already another one?” Elismera took the fruit gratefully and quickly began eating it. Azura had told them about the fruits, but she had never seen one in action, and she had to say watching Elismera’s wounds rapidly start healing was both miraculous, and incredibly disgusting. She had no doubt it hurt Elismera almost as much as receiving the wound had.
“Well I can manipulate the conditions of this place, so I’ve done my best to give the tree ideal conditions to produce fruit. That being said there is an unfortunate consequence of the fruit no longer being able to survive outside of this space for long. A fruit taken out will spoil in roughly 3 seconds. In exchange while in here we have a decent supply of them. Not enough that we can afford to waste them willy nilly, but enough that any severe injuries can be safely healed.” Well that sure was convenient. Any minor injuries could be handled by Cynthia, and the major ones could be handled by the fruits.
“So what I’m hearing is we can go a lot more intense with your training and you’ll be fine right?” She laughed as Azura groaned. The rest of their group that had finally made it to them began smiling maliciously. Except for of course Cynthia who simply smiled awkwardly. “At least we only have time for this on Saturdays right?” She didn’t think Cynthia’s attempt was really gonna cheer him up.