“Did you work out how to use fate?” he asked Eloise as that was the only explanation for her empty pool.
“Briana helped. It was easy. She explains things better than you do.”
This was when he would have expected the girl he thought of as his little sister to chime in with some boasting about her superiority, but Bri remained completely silent. She had even shifted beds, so that Eloise was in front of her.
Tom tried not to let the annoyance show on his face, because if he did so, he was sure it was going to just make it worse. Briana should have known better, but the reincarnator revelation had obviously shaken her up more than a little.
“That’s great. Can we talk about our battle plan?” He entered the room and sat down on what he guessed was now his bed. If Kang wanted it, then he would let him have it, but something told him Kang wouldn’t care.
“I’m going to do most of the fighting, with Kang supporting me.”
“You! No, that’s a joke.” Briana exclaimed, and then went red and shut up.
Tom sighed. “Yes, me. I’m the best fighter.”
Briana poked Eloise and whispered something into her ear.
Eloise nodded and stared defiantly at Tom. “Briana’s got a point. Why would you be doing the combat? You’re bad at fighting. I’ve seen you in the dodge pits and on the obstacle courses. You’re the worst one here. If anything, it should be us protecting you.”
He snapped his fingers. Lightning crackled from them to slam into the ceiling. There was a small explosion, and chunks of plastered rained down on them.
The crack the discharge generated caused everyone to flinch, and the look Eloise gave him was no longer quite as dismissive.
“I’m a reincarnator.” He reminded them. “There’s a reason we have the reputation that we do.”
After a moment’s hesitation while she pretended to watch the dust settle, Eloise rallied. “It’s a nice spell.” She licked her lips. “But it doesn’t change anything. Bri’s water razors are deadlier. She has better magic and is faster and stronger.”
“She’s none of those things.” Tom told her reasonably, and then stopped himself from arguing further. It was clear that nothing he could say was going to convince them otherwise. “Words don’t mean anything. Let me show you instead. Let’s spar.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Kang objected immediately.
“I’m not going to hurt them. Adam?” he asked, taking charge. “Is there some place we can go? Preferably a fully padded open space.”
The best training room for your purposes is the one closest to the trial proper on the other side of the room.
“See.” Tom pointed at the message. “We can spar safely. For today, no weapons.”
“Tom, I don’t think we should do this.”
“It’ll be fine. I can heal anyone who gets injured, and I’ll be careful.”
“They’re six.”
“Exactly. Words aren’t going to cut it. They need to see that we’re better, and a demonstration won’t do it.” He nodded at the football sized hole he had blasted into the ceiling. “They need to experience the gap between us directly.”
He led them to the indicated room. It was a good size, about half of a tennis court, but the walls and floor were soft to the touch. It had the type of advanced material that felt firmer under foot than it was when you fell. It was perfect for what he wanted, and it gave him hope of the depth of training facilities they might get in the future. “I think it’s fairest if it’s both of you are against me. You can use magic. I won’t.”
The girls stared at him in shock. Briana stepped behind Eloise and peered out around her friend’s shoulder.
Tom kept his expression neutral. “Come on, just hit me. I’m not going to retaliate.”
“We don’t need this. We’ve both watched you fight before.”
“No, you haven’t. It’s easy. Try to hit me, and you’ll discover what I’m talking about.”
“Maybe a demonstration between us.” Kang offered after a moment from behind him.
“I think them attacking would be…” Tom cursed and cut off the sentence as Danger Sense went off, warning about a threat coming from the rear. Instantly, he threw himself into a forward roll. When he came out of it, the other boy had followed his motion and was right in his face. A series of quick jabs that gave him no time to think – only to react.
After a dicey first couple of seconds, they fell into a rhythm.
Tom’s mind raced as he tried to figure out how he could beat the boy who was bigger, stronger, and equally well trained in hand-to-hand combat. Surviving, he realised after a moment, was not in question, especially if he cheated with Touch Heal to stop the bruises caused by partially blocked strikes and general fatigue from building up and slowing him. Danger Sense was a continual buzz in his ears with regular warnings of incoming threat that helped him stay ahead of the other boy.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Within the battle trance, he listened to his skill. The feints Kang was mixing into his strikes between one moment and another became pointless.
Tom swayed to the music of the combat. Kang was still landing the occasional blow, not even knowing what was coming could fully prevent that. His opponent was just as skilled, with slightly better attributes and extra reach. There was no way to deny him fully.
Given the discrepancy in size, being forced to tank some blows was unavoidable, but he made sure that those that slipped through were those with no true power behind them. Quick Step was a massive advantage that allowed the other boy to shift position and strike from unexpected angles. But, like the cheat it was, his own skill countered the attempts near perfectly. When he knew what was coming a second in advance, he could be shifting his balance proactively to avoid what would otherwise have been a perfect trap for someone relying purely on technical skills.
Then, to nerf the surprises caused by Kang’s mobility even further, he used Psychic Tracking to make sure he would always know exactly where his opponent’s centre of mass was. Although it was a tiny advantage, he was so desperate that he was willing to accept whatever was available.
A straight battle between similarly gifted creatures where one had a movement technique and the other didn’t should have been an automatic win. Danger Sense more than evened the playing field, though, especially when Kang dipped further into his bag of tricks to cover himself in shadows. He became harder to track, but, of course, his precognition skill didn’t care.
Over two minutes had passed, and both their chests were heaving, but, thanks to Touch Heal, Tom was doing noticeably better.
Kang had given up on subtlety, and was aiming blows for the centre of his mass and trying to overwhelm him with sheer physical superiority.
Time to end this, Tom thought. So far, he hadn’t done anything offensive. He waited until a full-bodied strike was launched at his shoulder; then he acted. He twisted and hooked the arm as the fist went past, and then, with a flick of his hips he bent and judo-threw him.
The other boy was briefly airborne before going over Tom’s hip and then with the help of gravity he drove Kang down to crash hard onto his back. The only thing that stopped him from taking serious injury was the soft cushioned floor.
Tom stood there, panting, and he engaged a free cast of Touch Heal to remove the slight bruises that covered him. Ten mana was a massive amount of overkill.
“What the hell type of skill was that?” Kang gasped from the floor. “It’s like you were seeing the future. You’ve got something new since we last talked, haven’t you?”
“No, that was still Danger Sense,” Tom told him. “At least for now, though it feels like it’s close to evolving to an upgraded version.”
Kang stood up, a broad grin on his face. “That was damn impressive. I knew you were holding back in the pits, but that was… wow. That’s some skill.”
“It’s still the basic Danger Sense, but I suspect I’ve crossed level sixteen to get a good threshold benefit. It definitely felt like it was telling me more stuff.”
Tom turned to look at the two girls. Their eyes were wide, and they had retreated right to the door like they were ready to run out. “Do you want to fight? I’ll just dodge.”
They absolutely did not want to, and Briana even hid fully behind Eloise.
Her reaction tempted him to be childish and roll his eyes, but he resisted. “As I’ve said, I was pretending to be bad, but I’m a reincarnator. I can fight, and I’m going to be the primary fighter, and you all need to learn how to listen to orders.”
“Tom’s good.” Kang agreed. “Now we have to start practicing. Let’s have everyone explain and demonstrate what they can do. It’s important we all understand each other’s strengths.” As he was speaking, he grabbed a wooden practice axe. “You’ve already seen me use a lot of my abilities, such as Quick Step.” He blurred to the side. “And Shadow Defence.” The entire space around him was covered with shadows that made him difficult to see. “It muddles the senses and Shadow Attacks, which does the same” As he spoke, he swept his axe down from his shoulder, and there was a mirror image of it on a slightly different trajectory than the actual axe head. The fake attack caught the eye and made one ignore the real threat of the actual physical axe. “And the final skill I have is Crushing Axe.” His weapon glowed with a soft red light as he swung it. “It increases the effective weight and strength of the blow, but does nothing to enhance cutting. Where there is thick armour that needs a hammer to get through it, this is my solution.”
“Is that it?” Tom asked.
The boy shrugged. “Two critical skills and two spells. I’m happy with my progress. The new things I’m working on are Cutting Edge. I doubt I’ll earn it here, but I’ll try. I’m also currently developing both a shadow missile spell and another one to enhance my axe illusion to do actual damage. Those two I should get over the next couple of months.”
“Good,” Tom said. “I have spear abilities that will let me go through magic shields and armour, and electricity which you’ve seen.” A thick bolt of lightning shot off to strike the distant training dummy and blew it to bits. They stared at it in surprise as it reformed, and words appeared above it.
I’ve made the new one, tougher.
“I also have healing spells,” Tom continued, “They can fix up almost any damage. Finally, my effective mana is somewhere between five and ten times what you have.”
“How?” Kang asked immediately, but it was for the girls’ benefit, as Tom had already told him.
“I have thirty extra mana from a skill and a trait that means that the first ten mana of any spell is free. One of the heroes of humanity gave me that.”
“The heroes?” Eloise said in amazement.
“Yes, Tom was a member of their team, but died.”
Briana flinched.
“Let’s not talk about that,” Tom interrupted.
“No, we’ll stick to here and now,” Kang agreed. “That trait is a good one. Not that great when you’re powerful, but impressive for the current time. Whoever got it for you did great in sourcing it. Now, Eloise what can you do?”
“Only a little.” She told them. But rather than talking, she ran and did her step technique and utilised three in a row to touch the roof and then two more to land safely. The chaining of five consecutively was very impressive. Then she moved until she was four metres away from the combat dummy. “I’m not very good at this,” she warned them.
She focused her face, scrunching it up, and then thrust her hand out. There was a bang and the dummy rocked backward slightly. She collapsed to her knees and massaged her forehead, which told both of them that it was a spell, and presumably a new one, because she had given herself mana exhaustion when casting it. With its limited damage and its long cast time, it would be useless in a fight.
“That’s really impressive.” Kang said brightly. “We’ll keep practicing while we’re here. And we all know what Briana has available, so there’s no point to making her demonstrate it.” She audibly sighed in relief as he said that. “We should now strategize how to become stronger. Most of the benefits we can get in a month will come from improving coordination and a focus on basics. Girls, your job is to stay alive while we kill the enemies. Now, let’s get going.”