In Awakened Combat class the next day, Aodhán found himself within a dueling ring, his uncommon-ranked hammer clutched tightly in his hands.
It was a repeat of last week’s exercise, and this time professor Alaric had repeated the instructions so many times that Aodhán was certain he would bleed if professor warned him to go easy one more time. Even now, as he waited for his opponent, professor Alaric watched him carefully, hovering around the ring like a hawk, and from how tense his shoulders seemed, Aodhán knew professor Alaric was ready to step into the ring at a moment's notice.
Fortunately, that wouldn’t be necessary, because after spending the entirety of his afternoon with Eldrith and Helzarvauth in the library yesterday, Aodhán had finally gotten and perfected the mental technique that Elrond Griffin had written about. It was called empathic link manipulation, and it basically allowed Aodhán to treat his psychic link with Varéc as a physical muscle.
It had taken a lot of visualization and help from Helzarvauth, but Aodhán had finally gotten the technique. It wasn’t a perfect fit as the technique was primarily tailored towards helping empaths, but it would work just fine for now until he got something better. With the empathic link technique, Aodhán clenched his mental link with Varéc tightly and grimaced when the stream of emotions coming from the familiar was suddenly cut off.
A few wisps of emotions still bled into his own, but it was more of a trickle compared to the torrent of foreign emotions he usually had to deal with. With the Empathic link in place, Aodhán felt more in control of his emotions than he had been in months, except for his time in the sink, of course. As much as Aodhán cherished the control, though, he detested the silence and distance the technique put between him and Varéc.
The scary thing was that he hadn’t even noticed how muddy and turbulent his emotions had gotten since he exited the sink until he successfully closed off the psychic link yesterday. He had kept it shut all morning, trying to get used to the silence, and although it wasn’t as bad as it had been in the sink, it still felt terrible.
Everything felt slightly muted. Colors and sounds felt lacking, and even his core sense felt slightly weaker than usual. However, his mind was calm, and that was all that mattered.
His opponent stepped into the ring, and with a small sigh, Aodhán turned his attention to her. Scarlett Urdania stood a few paces away from him, twirling a pair of short swords effectively. Her expression, though, was a mask of displeasure, and with a small smile, Aodhán said to her. “Don’t worry. I’ll go easy on you.”
Scarlett scowled at him. “And why would I want you to do that?”
Aodhán sighed. “Scarlett, I know your skills aren’t really tailored towards direct combat. You told me so yourself.”
Scarlett’s brows creased as she tried to remember when exactly she had said such a thing, and when she did, she broke into laughter, her confusion giving way to sheer amusement.
“What’s so funny?” Aodhán asked in confusion.
“Everything.” Scarlett replied in-between hiccups and wiped tears from her eyes. "Oh, Mochi,” she said when she finally regained herself. “I can’t believe you believed me. I was obviously lying.”
Aodhán frowned, and Scarlett continued. “If there is one thing Calodan's hate more than showing off their skills, it’s talking about them. However, despite my best efforts—she gave professor Alaric the side eye and continued—I can’t avoid the former forever, it seems. What I can avoid is the latter, and if you’d given my words even a single minute of thought, you’d have realized that it was stupid to believe me.”
Aodhán was already feeling very stupid, and perhaps Scarlett thought it was funny, but Aodhán had genuinely believed her without scrutinizing her words too deeply.
Scarlett’s affinity for enhancement was a peculiar concept that, unlike others, couldn’t exactly be created or manipulated. This meant her innate skills were vastly different from the norm and would go in a different direction compared to what he had originally assumed.
He didn’t have to think too long before coming up with a more appropriate innate skill set. Considering her affinity, her innate skills were most likely to be [Enhance—Self] and [Enhance—External]. He wasn’t 100 percent sure, but it definitely makes more sense than {Enhancement Creation} and {Enhancement Manipulation}.
It made sense now why she hadn’t expected him to believe her, but Aodhán had trusted her. This was a lesson though, one Aodhán intended to start taking seriously. Sometimes, people lie, and at this stage, he couldn’t afford to trust people blindly.
If he was right about Scarlett’s innate skills, though, then he was vastly unprepared for this fight, and her threat level was much higher than he had initially estimated. High enough to present a challenge.
Scarlett grinned and shook her head. “I may not like showcasing my skills, but I definitely do savor the moments when people realize that they’d severely underestimated me. But don’t worry, Mochi, I’ll go easy on you.”
Professor Alaric glared at the both of them and said, “Remember, only innate skills and your auras are allowed. Anything other than that is not allowed.” When they both nodded, he grunted something inaudible, and with a final warning glare in Aodhán’s direction, he called out. “Begin!”
Aodhán dodged to the side immediately, electricity crackling in his wake, and thank the ascendants he did because if he’d been even a microsecond late, he would have been impaled by an epic-ranked short sword engulfed in flames so hot they burned the very air.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” He shouted as he observed the space he had been barely a second ago go up in flames. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen Scarlett enhance an item, but he hadn’t known that she could enhance a weapon to the next rank! Without hesitation, he raised her threat level again, barely dodging another flaming sword as it sliced toward his legs.
He rushed forward, his hammer poised to attack, and the moment he got within striking distance, he swung the hammer with all his strength and stumbled. The hammer passed a hairbreadth away from Scarlett’s face as she dodged the attack with a sudden bout of enhanced reflexes.
Before Aodhán could regain his balance, Scarlett lunged, driving a punch towards his stomach. Aodhán twisted painfully even as he activated {Storm Creation} and covered himself with a thick layer of storm clouds. Unfortunately, his hasty defense was nothing before Scarlett’s might. Her fist tore through the clouds without resistance, and Aodhán let out a sharp gasp of air as he was violently thrown backwards.
He stumbled back to his feet immediately, but in that brief moment, Scarlett had retrieved her swords, and before Aodhán could dodge, she stabbed a liquid coated blade into his legs. Aodhán sucked in a hiss of pain as what seemed to be poison entered into his bloodstream and began wrecking havoc.
The poison rushed through his bloodstream, and Aodhán knew he would be incapacitated if he didn’t act quickly. Without hesitation, he activated his aura and empowered it with all eight willpower strands that he was allowed. The sudden pressure pushed Scarlett to her knees so violently that he heard her knee cap crack. Aodhán barely spared her a glance though, too busy injecting a finger width bolt of green lightning into his veins.
Scarlett managed to gather her willpower and push herself to her feet while he dealt with the poison problem, and before he could react, she punched him again, this time with so much force that his ribs cracked and he was sent flying backwards.
Still channeling green lightning into his veins, Aodhán summoned a thick storm cloud to keep himself from flying out of the ring. The cloud cushioned him, and he fell to the floor, coughing out blood as the poison ran rampant within his bloodstream. For ascendant’s sake, was this lightning working at all?
Scarlett dashed forward, aiming to finish him off while he was down, but Aodhán was unprepared for the match, not weak, and he had gained an adequate assessment of her strength in the past few minutes since the battle began. With a hiss of pain, he waved a hand, and the storm cloud behind him expanded to engulf the entire ring. Lightning arced around, striking incessantly from every angle, and thunder boomed loud enough to deafen anyone below the 15th tier.
Aodhán grinned from within the roiling storm as a howling wind joined the fray. It no longer mattered that Scarlett could enhance her perceptions or her weapons because he had effectively blinded and deafened her. Aodhán poured more energy into the cloud, enhancing it to the point that even he was blinded and deafened. It didn’t matter though, because Aodhán didn’t need his physical senses to see.
The dueling ring shuddered with each boom of thunder, and while Scarlett stumbled around to find her bearing, Aodhán dashed forward, relying on his core sense to guide his movement.
He found her almost immediately, and with a feral shout, he swung his hammer. Scarlett’s eyes widened the moment she noticed him, and although she tried, she couldn’t dodge his attack.
The hammer smashed into her face, and she choked on her own scream as the force of his attack sent her sprawling backwards. Aodhán was on her before she could take her next breath, and a second later, Scarlett choked out. “Miyotshiri Vhager! I surrender, dammit!”
Aodhán stopped mid-swing and painfully gritted out. “I accept your surrender, you little shit!”
He dispersed the roiling storms and stumbled, coughing out more blood as the poison coursed through him unimpeded, despite the lightning still coursing through his veins. One of the healers on standby rushed towards him, and the next moment, Aodhán sighed in relief as the poison was finally obliterated from his body.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” The healer muttered with a frown as she stared at the slowly closing stab wound. “I’m not sure whether to applaud or scold you, kid. That lightning you were channeling slowed down the effect of the poison but also corrupted it somehow, making it even more dangerous. If I hadn’t been on hand, things could have seriously gotten out of hand.”
Aodhán sputtered and looked down at the closing wound. “Thank you, healer. I don’t know much about the lightning, but it has healed me before, or at least I think it has. Why was it different this time?”
The healer shrugged. “Most likely because it was an epic-grade poison applied with an epic-ranked weapon. Your evolved skill couldn’t stop it. However, that doesn’t explain why it was also helping the poison.”
Aodhán sighed. He really needed to understand this skill.
The healer scrutinized him for a moment longer before patting him gently. “Be careful with that skill. In fact, I would advise not using it until you understand it better.”
“Yes, thank you.”
He moved to stand with his friends who gathered around him worriedly, but after explaining all that happened, they calmed down, and Andrew said. “You really need to understand that skill. Perhaps I could set up a meeting with Gwendolyn Blackwood after the class to see if the nature lab is open.”
Aodhán just nodded absently while Aida and Derek climbed up to the ring for their own duel. Despite the healing, he still felt extremely tired. That poison had drained a lot from him, but Aodhán was actually glad for the duel as it had forced him to be more creative with his innate skills, and now he realized that perhaps he had been neglecting his innate skills a little too much. There was a lot he could do with the storm itself, and perhaps rather than focusing on creating constructs, he should focus more on mastering his Innate abilities.
He was still thinking about the different ways he could utilize his innate skills better when Professor Alaric suddenly called out. “Marcellus Edgarin vs. Yurin Lahey.”
Aodhán’s blinked and realized that he had missed the entirety of Aida’s match, although from the scowl on her face, it seemed that Derek had somehow won. Yurin let out a deep breath as he hefted his sword and muttered. “Wish me luck, guys.”
“Good luck.” Aodhán patted his back. “You’ll do great.”
Yurin nodded and stepped into the ring with Marcellus, who was wielding a mirror dagger, one Aodhán identified as a focus item even from afar. The dagger had a curved hilt and only a single rune, but Aodhán couldn’t identify the rune with how fast Marcellus was twirling the dagger.
“I know Yurin’s our friend and all, but I’m betting on Marcellus.” Ayisha whispered, and Daruk frowned, unable to contest her claim. Aodhán hadn’t witnessed Marcellus’s last duel, but from everyone’s expression, it seemed Marcellus might have stepped up his game drastically. Aodhán, on the other hand, just wanted to see Ayisha fight for the, well, not for the first time. Daruk said she’d been awesome in the last duel, but there had been very little detail concerning the battle, so little that it almost felt underwhelming. That alone made Aodhán even more curious as to why she was hiding her abilities so seriously. Did she have ulterior motives?
Resolving to deal with the matter later, Aodhán turned his gaze to the dueling ring just as professor Alaric called out. “Fight!”