Making their way to a restaurant, Noah and James talked a bit, “How was your stay in Vonol?”, James Said. “Uneventful”. Noah stated while shrugging.

Noticing Noah’s cold face as they walked on the streets, James couldn’t help but ask. “Dude, what’s up with your face”, he asked with an eyebrow raised.

Not understanding what James meant, Noah opened his mouth to talk, “Is there something wrong?”, he said touching his face.

Noticing Noah’s confusion, James held back his laughter before saying, “Oh yes there is something wrong with your face”,

At that point, Noah’s steps came to a halt, many things ran through his mind, until he understood what was going on, “Oh, you mean my expression”, he replied.

Raising an eyebrow at how fast Noah understood, James nodded. Seeing his response, Noah sighed before replying, “Well stuff happened while you were gone and let’s say, I was forced to result to this”, Noah explained with a light shrug.

This got James curious but he decided to leave the matter, after all they had gotten to their destination.

Entering the restaurant, and ordering food. Noah watched with pure disgust, as James wolfed down multiple plates, without the slightest curtsey.

After he was done, James relaxed, then noticed Noah’s look. “What?, I haven’t eaten for a whole month, what did you expect?”, He said rolling his eyes.

Clearing his throat, Noah gave a helpless smile, the man was right.

He waited a few minutes to let James digest his series of meals, before starting the conversation that had been on his mind for a whole month.

“So what next?”, Noah said. At those words, James sighed, “You couldn’t even let me rest for a bit longer”, he replied snorting.

Shrugging his shoulders, Noah replied, “We only have a bit over three weeks before the games start”, he said.

Sighing at the fact that Noah was right, he opened his mouth to talk, “Well we can start the preparations, though I am sure you are ready, so give me two days to get used to my new strength”, James explained.

Nodding his head, Noah opened his mouth to talk, “Do you want me to be your sparring partner?”, Noah offered with a smile.

Thinking about it, James replied, “Why not”.

*

*

*

Inside a random clearing in the forest, if one looked, they would notice two young men, but the detail that made this scene special, was the fact that, one of them was dodging projectiles of condensed water with relative ease, while the other, which was the attacker was moving around trying to get his spells to hit the other person.

Of course these young men were both Noah and James.

Noah had brought up a challenge and James agreed to it, the challenge was that if James managed to land a hit on Noah with his spells, he would win. James had thought it would be easy, but now he wasn’t so sure.

Noah was moving at speeds even his tier 2 eyes couldn’t catch, and not a single spell had managed to hit Noah once, in the over thirty minutes they had been at it!!!.

“Is this all, I think I can take a nap between your attacks”, Noah taunted, while dodging around ten bullets made of condensed water, they hit some trees and the result was those trees being fell.

Truth be told, if not for his passive slow motion perception skill, Noah knew he would have a bit of trouble dodging James spells, not because they were too fast, no because of their numbers.

According to James the spell ‘Water bullets’, were easy to cast and had incredibly low Mana consumption, and each cast created five water bullets.

Casting ‘Water bullets”, three time In one second, James knew he had beaten his fastest cast time multiple times. Ignoring Noah’s taunt, James decided to change approach.

Rasing his hands up, James cast a spell, ‘Rain of droplets’, he muttered.

And immediately, a blue magic circle expanded a few meters above them, then immediately hundreds of bullets made of condensed water rained down at high speeds. After he cast the spell James face turned pale, he seemed to have used a lot of Mana on that spell.

Watching the magic circle, and the rain of bullets in slow motion, Noah cursed under his breath, he seemed to have forced James to take extra action.

Seeing their many numbers, Noah was forced to use his weapon.

Retrieving his brown staff from his inventory, Noah crouched slightly.

Raising his staff above him, he executed ‘Wave’, breathing in and out, in a rythmic pattern, Mana flowed out of Noah’s body and wrapped around the staff, which he then spinned thrice, and on the forth instead of a spin he waved the staff to his left side.

Immediately that happened, there seemed to be a slight ripple in space, when suddenly the incoming rain of water bullets seemed to come to a halt, just for a second, when their fall resumed, their direction slanted to Noah’s left side, completely missing him.

Heaving a light sigh at the timely execution, Noah glanced at James, and saw that almost puke blood from surprise, “How did you do that?, isn’t that against the rules”, James said his eye wide open from the scene.

“There weren’t any rules that I couldn’t use my weapon, if I was connered”, Noah replied with a mocking smile, while spinning his staff lightly.

At those words James wanted to kill something, but couldn’t, he felt like he had been wronged, but Noah was right. There had been no rule that he couldn’t use his weapon.

“Though, what martial arts do you use, I’ve never seen anything like that, and that wasn’t a spell”, James asked, while he sat down to rest.

“It’s a secret”, Noah said placing one of his fingers on his lips.

Raising an eyebrow at his gesture, James didn’t push the matter. “So what should we do next?”, Noah asked, quickly changing the topic.

Understanding what Noah was doing, James played along, “I don’t know. Now that you’ve showed off, and left me drained of Mana, how about when I’m done we go for a little hunting, you know for better bonding”. James replied, sitting crossed legged to cultivate, and refill his Mana pool.

Smiling at his offer, Noah opened his mouth to talk, “Yeah ok. Nature calleth me, I’ll be back”, He said, turning to a seemingly random direction, and started walking.

Though it wasn’t actually a random direction. Through out their spar, Noah had left his mental waves unfolded, he was still wary of the noble families attacks, and his mental waves had picked something up.

Walking for a few seconds, Noah eyes sharpened, as his figure disappeared, flashing in front of his target, Noah’s right hand shot forward, to grab the person’s head.

“Please don’t hurt me”, the voice of a young man rang out.

Noah couldn’t help but be taken aback from those words.

Wearing his cold expression, Noah opened his mouth to talk, “What were you doing following us?”, he said, Lightning flickering around his figure, to make sure the person knew he wasn’t joking around.

Seeing Noah’s cold face, and the flickering sparks, the young man began to shake, but he still replied, “I was only following you, because my sister said she liked you, I just wanted to see what you were like”. The young man, who looked younger than Noah replied. 𝒃𝒆𝒐𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝙘𝙤𝒎

At those words, Noah’s mind spun, ‘Nani’ he said inwardly, ‘his sister?, there were so many girls that tried to walk up to him after the first girl did.

“I don’t believe you, give me a better reason, or you’ll be visiting god”, Noah said as more Lightning flickered around him.

“Please I’m telling you the truth”, the guy said, as he started to sob.

At that sight, Noah was at loss of what to do. “What is your name?’, he eventually said.

“I’m Duke, sir”, the young man said.

“Duke do you want to get killed?”, Noah asked threateningly.

“No, no, sir”, Duke replied immediately.

“Then don’t go trailing people, they might get the wrong idea”, Noah said letting go of him, and straightening his position in a intimidating way.

[Duke]

[Tier: 1]

[Level: 22]

[Chances of death: 0%]

Confirming his name, Noah opened his mouth to talk, “I’ll count three, if I still see you…”, Noah said letting the young man complete it himself.

“One…

two…

three”, Noah counted, he heard some rustles among the bushes and trees, then opened his eyes. The guy was gone, to confirm it, Noah expanded his mental waves, seeing that he found nothing, Noah heaved a light sigh, before turning and walking back to James position.

“That was long, did anything happen?”, James said immediately he sensed Noah.

“Oh nothing happened, are you ready?”, Noah replied.

Getting up from the ground, James dusted himself and replied, “Yup, let’s go hunting.”