"I'm coming!"

Stilla energetically kicked her feet off the ground and sprinted towards Benito. Every metre she traversed, her speed appeared to gradually increase in conjunction with her eruption of extensive strength, soaring steadily to reach that ninety per cent muscle power!

Benito gave a hearty smile to the approaching girl. Just how energetic can she be? Hoisting a silver rod that reached to his shoulders, he chanted: "Let thee, shine of light foster thy's possession."

The crystalline white gem glowed, progressively becoming more saturated in yellow intensity. It swelled and swelled transforming the simple gem into an attractive golden gem. Amazingly, the outward form did not allow the shining brightness to blind the onlooking admirers, retaining all of its brilliance within the inside of the gem. However, the many sparkling facets continued to gleam their reflections with pride.

This rod was a high-grade training artefact of the Orphanage. Its purpose was to train blessed users in the insertion of their mana into artefacts that have this requirement and test the limits of controlling the device while casting abilities. Once a user pours mana, their mana is sucked at a constant rate dependent on the user's choosing, providing energy for the rod. However, if the connection is cut off or there is a disturbance in rate, the power drops down drastically until nill, not accepting any more flow of blessed mana.

For many of the Vanquishers, Benito's choice of weapon was not in one's right mind. But, when they saw his performance in the first battle, they understood it was underestimation and cluelessness on their part. After all he is . . .

"ORA!"

Stilla, straightforwardly, prepared her arms to release a barrage of powerful palm strikes!

Benito eyes flashed in the presence of the oncoming assault and . . .

"WHAT!"

"Huh?!"

"Wow!"

Actions of Benito rendered the faces of the crowd to utter gasps of astonishment. There was no dodging or distancing away maneuver enacted from Benito. Nor did the young boy attempt to cast an ability from his artefact.

Benito welcomed the fearsome blows of the body consolidator with his own physical martial techniques. Skillfully, as if he was using a stave, Benito guarded, blocking each palm strike carefully as he was driven back by force. When Stilla diverged her attack pattern to deliver sharp relentless kicks, Benito took that change as an opening, knowing that Stilla's kicks were inferior to her arm strikes, to parry them and retaliate back with jabs of his sharp pointed rod. No longer was Benito driven back. Instead, the fighters were at a period of immutable stalemate, unmoving in ground.

Utilising a magical rod in this manner was unorthodox and was something that Dalis would doubtlessly do. It wasn't that such an act was unseen but shedding the fact that Benito had other safer alternatives, it was bemusing.

Stilla too was bemused. Not due to his choice to combat with his rod, but rather, her shortcoming to have no upper hand against Benito.

Agitated by her strengthened attacks not powering through, she rolled in the palms of her hand. Benito's eyebrows constricted and focused for the inevitable.

"ORA!" "ORA!" "ORA!" "ORA!"

All aboard! Trains of everlasting, dribbling, brawny pummels were mercilessly ticketed to Benito! Although not all railways were ridden with its vehicle, many of the trains managed to reach their destinations honking their airhorns and smashing their full weight onto Benito. Benito felt his healthy body crumble into fragility as the cold steel of her brass knuckles and train-like punches sent acute pain to course through various parts of his body.

Unable to balance himself and drag this out for much longer, Benito at warp speed leapt back and unleashed one of the abilities capable of being performed from his artefact.

"Shackles Thrive the Light!"

All of a sudden, four shining yellow beams of light emerged out of nowhere and launched themselves directly to Stilla. They penetrated space and seemed to move at the speed of light! Stilla felt her heart sank and quickly swayed herself to the side to escape the entering threat.

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*CRASH*

Standing up from her crouch, she let out a sigh of relief. She had managed to dodge by a hair's breadth. Inspecting her previous position, she found that those four beams of light were actually golden shackles! They remained dead-straight lodged onto the surface of the ground like arrows. Having missed their target, the golden chains lost their alluring lustres, fading away into nothingness.

Stilla was on the verge of confronting Benito again, but her eyes reflexively went dark for a moment. She tried to open them though only to find herself close them one more time at the sheer blinding illumination. Using her left arm like a visor to shade herself from the piercing glare, she tilted her head up and peaked to the skies.

Seven rotating discs of light were just barely spotted in the air, trembling with outbursts of yellow light energy. Despite the discs being levitated only about fifty meters above the ground, from Stilla's point of view, it was as though the sun had birthed seven newborn suns to radiate down from the vast skies.

"Brilliant Shining Hovering Discs!" many people aligned with the Church fervently cried out. Unlike the rest of the stunned audience, they were able to adjust their eyesight to the powerful illumination of the seven suns.

"If I remember correctly, that was an ability exclusive to all staff and rod artefacts of remarkable calibre! How can a training rod have this ability? So what if it's a high-grade training artefact? That's nothing compared to the Vanquish blessed equipment!" a Zetral practitioner shouted.

"You are not wrong about it being exclusive. But what he is holding is one of Caleyar Orphanage's finesse training artefacts: The Rod of Endurance!" a Vanquisher retorted.

Some of the puzzled people within that crowd had a light bulb turn on above their heads. Yet, even that seemed to be not enough to settle their unhinged minds.

"Rod of Endurance? Are you all telling me that kid was able to channel his mana from beginning to now, while fighting a body consolidator in martial physical contact and successfully cast his two abilities one after the other in quick succession? One of which is a very powerful ability that requires an abundance of mana to activate? And there was no fluctuation in the rate of his insertion of mana??!!!"

"That's not all. There are SEVEN discs! That was coming from a child! He may be a foster child. But he truly is the Commerce Apostle's son!"

(I definitely have to keep my eyes wide open in place of Apostle Farden.) A Vanquisher, who was tasked to handle Apostle Farden's main role of jotting notes, stared solemnly at the battle.

Up to date, the highest recorded amount of discs brought forth from this ability is thirty discs. This came from a fallen expert who was a very powerful blessed practitioner. It may appear that Benito was insignificant in comparison to this fallen expert, but that woman was in her sixties. Benito Carter was still young being sixteen years old and had an unforeseen future ahead of him. It was very possible for him to reach that level of expertise or perhaps surpass her!

"Stilla. I hope you are ready for this!"

"Don't worry about me! Just come at me with all you can!"

"Okay, but careful! These discs are very strong. I advise you to try and not touch them." After letting Stilla have a moment to recover and adjust to the conditions, Benito demeanour returned to battle mode, and he ordered the seven dazzling discs to initiate their onslaught.

*Tremble* *Tremble* *Tremble*

Stilla felt the foreboding vibrations of the turbulent air alone compress her as the discs started to rapidly rotate in preparation to converge onto their opponent.

(I just need to dodge them like before.) Stilla resolved herself and firmly bent her knees in preparation to swerve.

Ripping through the air like large metal shurikens, the discs of light whooshed and attacked Stilla.

Stilla saw three discs arrive a few meters away from her. Their positioning was immaculate, closing in to form three points of a triangle. She wanted to leap to the side to escape, but there were four incoming discs awaiting for her. If she did this, it would be very difficult to avoid the other four, and she would be sandwiched. Bracing herself, she took the risk and pushed off her legs into the triangular ring of light.

"KYAAA!"

Stilla screamed in agony as her left arm, and right leg was harshly scraped by the discs of light. Descending to the floor, Stilla carefully rolled herself and tucked her head in to reduce the impact.

Letting the groan get stuck in her throat, she steadily rose herself up only to promptly halt in mid-motion. Stinging awful pain was felt from where she had been wounded. In spite of the leather knee pad and metal arm guard protecting her body, trails of trickling blood were leaked downwards. What remained were the few remnant remainders of her shredded shielding.

"STILLA!" the Orphanage children yelled.

Stilla was not given a moment to catch her breath. Before she knew it, there were brilliant shining discs hovering ten meters above her head. Not in a triangle formation: a square formation. She was trapped. There was no way she could escape this time.

***

The sober Dalis felt his eardrums ring in annoyance as the sound of an impatient tapping continued to reverberate in his ears.

Dalis could understand his feelings but, considering it was Melvin, it irritated him. He really wanted to stealthily swing his leg and stub his fidgety toe.

"Insect, that Commerce . . .Apostle's son"

"Yes?"

There was no response.

Instead, the response Dalis received was amplified impatient tapping.

(If you have something to inquire about then spit it out!) He was already in a dull mood from Stilla and Sienna's early loss. Did he really have to be so egotistical?