Johan faced Markus, feeling a bit nervous as he twisted his grip on his spear slightly. For a couple of seconds, he and Markus simply observed each other as they tended to do before a spar, Markus was making sure he wasn't going to hurt the kid by looking over his body- checking his condition as he did so-, while Johan was searching for an opening on Markus' form, of course, like always there were none. After a few moments of just staring at Markus, Johan just decided to go for it. He knew he wasn't going to win, but he wanted to do his best so that he wouldn't get completely stomped, and standing there and just looking at Markus wouldn't get him there anytime soon.

Johan started with a feint, and pulled back immediately after. He then pushed the bottom of his spear off of the ground and sent some dirt flying up towards the eyes of Markus, and then swung his weapon back around as a second feint, stopping it as it straightened beside his forearm, then he quickly pulled back and stabbed towards Markus' shoulder.

Markus wasn't shocked by the first feint, nor the dirt. He did, however, react a bit to the second feint, but stopped short of commiting to a block, which let him swing the flat of his weapon against Johans spear. Johan saw this, and grew a bit annoyed at it, after all, this was what he'd been trying to learn for a while now.

Johan watched as his weapon got pushed towards the underside of Markus' arm, and missed instead. He actually almost lost his grip due to the force being completely redirected, but managed to retain it through sheer luck.

Johan quickly pivoted his spear, pulling it around, and almost leaving himself open to another attack by Markus, but twisting himself just in time to manage to actually parry Markus, the middle aged mans sword sliding down the shaft of the polearm before the Markus managed to retract it. Usually a parry would be a good way to put someone off kilter slightly, but Markus was a master of manipulating his weapon, thus leaving no opening. Though Johan knew that was likely due to just how much time he had put into mastering his weapon, it was still somewhat of a bother for him to see Markus almost effortlessly do these things.

Markus nodded at bit at the parry, obviously pleased that Johan now had a tactile sensation to link it to, then he and Johan continued their duel. Markus wasn't necessarily treating it like the usual spars, since he, as a teacher, wanted Johan to be able to achieve the goal he had set himself in his quest for weapon mastery.

Johan used a diagonal slash with his spear aiming to push Markus back just a bit and utilize his main strength of distance. Unfortunately Markus just simply crouched and side stepped, which was something that no amateur could do, away from the slash and rushed forwards again.

This time instead of Johan pulling his weapon back to him, he pulled it wide and aimed for Markus' legs, swinging his spear hard, almost like a baseball bat, a very different attack compared to what he had learned from Markus.

Technically this wasn't something he should do, but he was told to treat the daily spar like his life was at stake. He almost hit Markus with this, but Markus jumped back as he swung once he realized what Johan was doing. Johan then brought his weapon back to him, making sure he also squared his footing whilst doing so.

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Markus was a bit shocked, but he couldn't deny that it had worked in Johans favor. Compared to a moment ago, Johan was now in a great position. He now was in a stable form that would allow him to defend properly, as opposed to before when he was in a forwards positioning that would allow him to be knocked over without much effort.

Markus smiled a bit. Johan was not great with techniques, but he was pretty alright at improvised fighting tactics, and he could think well on the fly. Markus decided to now go on the offensive and so he sped up a bit, taking the initiative.

Johan was now on the defensive, blocking strikes with both sides of his weapon, treating it less as a spear on more of a staff, he had learned a few techniques for staffs since spears are often similar as they were usually just pointed on one end. Finally he managed to get a moment and was able to attack, though it was parried, however, this was useful as he actually managed to move the next attack immediately after with a swipe to the broad side of the blade of Markus' weapon, as it was already in a position to do so from where it was after the parry, redirecting the force to the side, making it miss him.

Of course Markus immediately removed his weapon from the spot it was in, but Johan had indeed moved his opponents weapon. He achieved this a few more times as well before he was pushed over the edge and was defeated by Markus who was slowly speeding up his attacks until he overwhelmed Johan.

"Good, after that first time I bet it became much easier for you to do it again. That's usually the way with most things." Markus helped up the now sweaty teen.

"Yeah. Hah. Man that was a good spar, did the first parry on accident, but it helped me do it again. I also now know that immediately after a parry is a good time to try and move the opponents weapon now." Johan said as he got up while still out of breath.

"That's true, it's because the opponent usually strikes immediately after a parry, as it is somewhat hard to defend oneself from an attack if your weapon isn't in a defensive position. The easiest time to do that is usually when the opponent is attacking with an attack straight on. Try not to do so with a diagonal attack since they move two ways instead of one. you want to create momentum going towards either side of an attack, diagonal attacks don't have a side without some amount of momentum in them." Markus explained.

"Mm, I see. So downward swings and sideways swings are best for that then. Would you push sideways attacks up? Or down?" Johan asked.

"Good that you understand. As with any attacks, it's ideal to have no blade or tip near you, so up above you would be ideal, but if it is a low swing, downwards would work just as well. If you get lucky your opponents weapon will get stuck into the ground too." Markus nodded.

"I see. Good to know. I'll definitely need to practice those movements several more times, but I'm sure I'll get good at them over time." Johan smiled.

"That's the goal kid!" Markus laughed. "Alright then, go train you two." He waved them both off to the training grounds where the siblings the worked on their respective forms for a few hours, getting things corrected and pointed out over and over before the day was done.

During this section of his day, Johan had the ball of mana next to him for the majority of it, the purpose being to get used to moving with mana being used at the same time, a skill that was very useful for a battle mage according to Nath. A battle mage needed to be able to cast spells while in a melee as it could help those around them, or just be useful in combat to throw someone off. Even normally worthless spells were very useful if the enemy had no idea if it was useless.