“Didn’t take you to be the axe and shield kind of girl.” when Caroline picked up a single handed axe with a relatively small edge and a round shield from the academy’s practice weapon armory, Tonya said.

“Yeah, well among the few dozens I’ve actually tried, these feel right.” Caroline chuckled and twirled the single handed axe and tried waving the axe - these weapons seemed to be mainly made of a special kind of wood, and the edges of the axe and the shield were made of some sort of dull and soft metal: “Feels too light - but I think I can get used to it.”

“They don’t have a giant pen or good spears. But they did have a lance that’s okay.” Jason played with a lance he got from the armory for a while and jabbed at the air in front of him: “Quite balanced - not as thick as my pen-spear. But usable.”

“Do you wanna spar? I think they still have room available for sparring.” Kaitlin took a look at the sign in sheet near the entrance of the weapon armory: “They have some dummies for you to try - or if you want to spar with each other we can go to the training grounds.”

“Let’s go to the training ground.” Caroline tilted her head and smiled: “You’re sure you wanna come with us, Tonya? Kaitlin? ”

“Oh, yeah, sure, I want to see how you’ll be beating Hendricks and Jensen.” Tonya chuckled and grabbed Kaitlin by the arm: “Come on, Kaitlin, this would be fun.”

“Yeah… sounds exciting.” though seemed to be a bit uncomfortable, Kaitlin still nodded in agreement: “I do have to warn you though - I won’t know what I’ll be looking at.”

“That’s not a problem.” Jason went onto a piece of round marble on the ground with the three girls: “Mica, bring us to the public training ground.”

As the round marble hovered through low air and taking all four of them towards the Academy’s public training ground, Jason noticed that there seemed to be more students wandering around the campus at this time than a few days before. These are students walking and chatting in groups with excitement in their voices. What was more, these students all seemed to be carrying some kind of small magical fireworks.

“What’s the occasion?” Jason asked pointing at some groups of students: “Some kind of festival? Celebration?”

“Oh that. Yes, it’s a yearly activity, students challenge themselves in using the basic fireworks in the store and trying to make a combo firework, and make them as creative and shiny as possible. It’s actually just five days from now. So I guess you guys can still participate.”

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“Sounds fun - but first things first.” Caroline saw that Jason was intrigued, so she patted on Jason’s shoulder.

“Yeah, well if we’re not too humiliated from the duel.” Jason shook his head with a wry smile.

“Oh, don’t be like that.” Kaitlin said: “You’ll do fine!”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, I don’t know how good of combat wizards Jensen and Hendrikcs are, but their grades are mid tier in the Martin House at best.” Tonya scoffed: “From what I heard, their parents have close relationships with Ms. Clarkson, that’s why they’re getting training from her. I doubt Ms. Clarkson saw much in them.”

“Yeah, well, we’re here because our master - I mean teacher knows Ms. Josephine Wong.” Jason scratched his nose: “I don’t know what she saw in us either.”

“Hey!” Caroline slapped Jason’s arm: “Speak for yourself! I single handedly smashed and burned some fucking cultists threatening my family, I’m a badass!”

“Okay, okay.” Jason laughed out loud: “That’s pretty badass, I agree.”

“But I did not save a couple of my moron friends from being killed by a haunted hospital. So give yourself some credit.” Caroline nudged Jason with her axe.

“Alright, alright.” Jason smiled and pointed forward: “We’re here.”

It’s already evening, but there were still some lights on floating platforms shining down the training ground to provide ample lighting so that anyone who would like to use it late in the day were still able to.

“Here.” Caroline picked an area that looked like a square dirt platform, the upper surface of which was already quite uneven, possibly due to the wear and tear from other students’ training activities.

In some of the areas nearby, there were other students still using the training ground as well - some were practicing close quarter combat techniques also using rented weapons from the academy armory, and some were practicing their aim by shooting magic bolts at floating targets in the sky.

“Hewh, this is probably my third time here. ” Kaitlin chuckled kinda nervously.

“Huh? Why?” Caroline stretched as she walked on the dirt platform, while Kaitlin and Tonya still remained on the round marble.

“Yeah, I don’t like combat arts - I kinda feel weird even getting close to the usage of combat arts.” Kaitlin said: “But it’s okay, I can watch you guys from afar.”

“I’ll stay here with Kaitlin, don’t worry, we can still see you from here.” Tonya said.

“Okay, let’s just be quick?” Jason went to the opposite side of Caroline.

“No problem, you go first.” Caroline raised her axe before her shield and readied her battle pose.

Jason retracted his lance, then unleashed a swift jab at Caroline. Caroline instantly raised her shield to block the jab, then turned to the side and swung her axe at Jason.

Jason twirled his lance and parried the axe away with the backend of his lance and swung the tip of his lance from the side aiming at Caroline’s shoulder. Caroline was able to swing her shield up and parry this strike as well.

As two of them became more and more familiar with their rented weapons, their sparring actions became faster and faster, and their attacks were infused with more and more Xuanli: silver shadows of swords, tips of spears, and spinning blades were shot out by Jason, and Caroline started unleashing fireballs, fiery energy slashes and even clones of herself with fire energy. Their sparring not only impressed Kaitlin and Tonya, but it also attracted some other students in the training ground.