Clara picked up her spear, relaxed her stance and waited for the signal. She wanted to show Arath how much she had improved and that he didn't need to worry about her anymore. For the last month he had taken care of her, provided food and shelter, gave Anga a job and a home and never stopped teaching them about the part of the world that belonged to the free people. This was the reason why she had applied to be a scout, she felt indebted to him and also felt that this young man was closer to her than any of her sisters from the past. She was used to showing a brave face to the younger girls and being obedient towards her captors, she was only discovering what it felt like to be equal to someone. Now was her only option to show that she was equal to him on every ground. When he announced the start of the fight she was not planning on going easy on her enemy, she run towards Arath with full speed and surprised him with a barrage of attacks. Her hands moved so quickly there was no place to move. One thrust after another blocked his every path of escape and pushed him into defence. Length of the spear gave her tremendous advantage she wanted to fully use.

Arath with only gladius in his hands had no chance to attack and it was slowly getting harder to parry the powerful strikes. Left with no choice he reached to his back and pulled out a parrying dagger. It's serrated blade allowed him to easily block normal swords and scimtars so with a help from his ability to predict the incoming strikes, it did it's job against a spear as well. The element of surprise allowed him to turn the tides of battle for a moment and push Clara back. Thanks to his amazing sight every opening was utilised and Arath soon closed the distance between them. Now he could present his abilities to the fullest. A dagger in his left hand, shortsword in the right it was his turn to dominate the battle. He faked slashing from the side, forcing her to stand in an uncomfortable position and try to block a sword with a spear, and followed by stabbing with the dagger. It almost reached it's target but an explosion shook the ground raising a huge amount of dust. It was Clara using her powers in order to escape the precarious situation.

'You won't get me so quickly.' She thought and backed off five meters to catch her breath.

Her initial plan failed but that didn't mean she lost. No, she was nowhere near giving up, she just wiped off the sweat and jumped right back into the whirls of duel. Giving it all she had she maintained the distance and made Arath wish he had taken a shield. The never ending thrusts cut him few times but never managed to do anything that could help her defeat him. The fight was in a stalemate, neither of the two could overcome the other, instead they became more and more fixated on winning. Exhausted and with an ocean of sweat on their foreheads they separated only to jump back to the whirlwind a moment later. The air trembled with fear and the rocks under their feet cracked from the pressure. Mistakes started to appear on both sides and movement seemed to become slower with each heartbeat, Arath, with great difficulty, managed to keep up the tempo and forced himself to use the last remaining strength in order to make as little mistakes as possible. Then a realisation hit him as hard and painfully as when someone finds out that all the riches and fame was but a dream. It wasn't that they moved slower, it was him who perceived it with much greater detail. Many Heroes tried to teach the habitants of the world of the Tower theories from their world, one of those sounded 'time is relative' and now he finally got it. Having understood this, Arath used his parrying dagger and caught the spear between it's serrated breaking it in half, it would normally be extremely hard and require years of practice but with the time around him slowered he didn't find it impossible anymore. Arath perplexed by his strength jumped back and looked around.

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Suddenly all of it was interrupted by a distant clapping, a figure of a young man emerged from the darkness with an expression of awe and excitement on his face.

"Amazing, truly wondrous! I knew you were great but this is just unbelievable. This precision and timing. Wow, just wow." The person said.

Clara the moment she noticed an intruder pointed her spear towards him but failed miserably as half of the weapon was hanging from the rest comically.

"Don't worry it's just me" He assured.

"Me? Me who?" Arath asked preparing for a fight.

"Do you forget people that quickly? It's Ben. Please lower your weapons, I feel kind of endangered." Finally in the light of the light crystal the two recognised the Hero.

"And what exactly are you doing here?" Clara still didn't feel safe.

"It's a long story..." Beniamin without a second thought came closer and started to tell what had happened.

Earlier that day when he had first entered the Tower together with a small group of Council's Guardians they had received a mission. A terryfying creature known as Face Stealer, with a deathcount of almost twenty people, which blocked the way for all adventurers was not to be tolerated, so the council ordered them to get rid of it. Ben when he eaves-dropped a conversation between two vendors, talking about a young couple that escaped grom the abomination's grasps, became curious and decided to dig deeper. The more he found out the more he became sure that it was Arath and Clara so he did his best to find them and talk.

"It was not easy to find you, it took me over two hours to find this Ruby's shop. Then I asked some people, used my ability and voila, here I am." He sounded to be very pleased with himself.

"You are quite good at finding people who don't want to be found, I see. And by the way what is your ability?"

"I know, friends used to call me a professional stalker. My element is earth!"

"Stalker? What is that?" Clara asked.

"Umm, nevermind. The important question is 'can I join your group?!'"