Walk on water

On earth, Noah got off his bed and took out his phone. He found the nearest pool and had it rented out for the next three hours.

He then changed and drove to it.

At the pool, he changed into his swimming trunks and jumped into the water. He felt the cool water around him.

In the Eternal Battlefield, he was sleeping with his back against the cave wall outside the territory of the Serpent, he had spent all of his time fighting the Serpent. He was going to make use of the almost forty hours of wake time to the fullest to defeat it.

He didn't have a way to seal the water pool. Even if he did there was no way he could create one strong enough that the Serpent wouldn't be able to break so the only thing he could do was fight it head-on.

This was why he was here, one of the biggest limiting factors to him was that he could only use half of the area inside the room. While the Serpent moved freely between both the land area and the water pool.

Swimming in the water was no different than asking to die so he tried fighting from above. The Serpent was able to freely mould the water from the pool to its will, its attacks were even faster now.

He tried both ways he had to stay above the ground, Mana Screen and Levitation Staff. The Levitation Staff worked horribly, the time needed to raise his foot and put it down slowed him down while the Serpent only got faster.

This was also why he was staying away from using the Levitation Staff during the battle on land. When running his motion was continuous and so he was able to get his foot on the ground faster. That slight edge in speed was how he was keeping up with the Serpent.

He was able to get it with Mana Screen. But forming it in the perfect position for him to land took too much brainpower. As he was constantly teleporting, he had to keep on forming Mana Screens so he had to move away some of the attention he put into attacking and focus more on his movement.

That's when he thought of bringing what he could do on land onto the water using Qi. If he was able to control his Qi well enough he would be able to move above the water like it was solid ground.

Splash! Noah pulled himself up from the swimming pool after doing a few laps for a warm-up.

He then activated Qi. It was much lighter than the Eternal Battlefield red but it was there. He only had it from on his feet this allowed him to use it longer.

Noah ran forward onto the water, Splash, Splash, Splash, SPLASH, he was able to keep his feet on the water for three steps and then sunk in.

'So it is feasible,' Noah thought as he sank. The Basic Breathing Technique only mentioned it briefly as something you could do with Qi. He finally tested it.

He then swam to the other side got out. Having no explanation on how it worked he would have to figure it himself through trial and error. He then tried again.

He tried over and over again. Spending time in between swimming to understand water and its flow, with the help of partially awakened Spatial Sense he had a better understanding of how the water moved around him.

Finally, he stopped and rested. He looked at his watch and saw that it was time to leave.

He got up left, he decided he would come back after school to continue. He was able to get a feel of it now, he just had to think of a way to improve.

...

Bang! Bang!

Noah Flash Stepped away as an attack landed where he stood.

It had been a few days since he started training in the swimming pool. As he trained on earth, in the Eternal Battlefield he spent his time fighting the Ancient Water Serpent from the time he woke up till the time he slept.

He made steady progress in his training. Even training in the Eternal Battlefield during breaks between fights. He was able to run across the pool of water. He was now trying to walk across it.

These past few days, he had used all types of strategies to kill it but failed each time. The Serpent itself was like some type of bottomless pit of skills. It was able to make anything related to water into a spell. It was even able to use ice spells from time to time.

From what he had learned, the invisible attack he couldn't sense, the Serpent was only using it once a day. Knowing it could come anytime Noah stayed alert, he was still hit by the attack whenever it came. He just made sure it didn't get close to his head and chest.

'Can it only be used once a day, or is it hiding something...' Noah thought, after fighting it for so long Noah knew the last thing he needed to do was underestimate the Serpent. So he kept his mind open for possibilities.

As he retreated, bubbles started coming out from the ground and floating up. Bubble Minefield!

A skill he hadn't seen before, Noah navigated through, dodging them, he shot with his gun. Boom!

They exploded, seeing how many there were he soon wouldn't be able to move, he pulled the True Wood Staff off his back, Leaf Storm!

Leaves flew in all directions, hitting bubbles, causing them to pop. Noah stayed a distance away from the explosions.

He then pointed his gun at the Serpent. Bullet Rain! A magic circle formed above and Cursed Mana Bullets shot down from the sky onto it. With no limit to the ammo other than his mana, he shot hundreds of bullets.

The attack was so quick the Ancient Water Serpent couldn't dodge. It entered the water and healed, hissing as it came out.

Noah dodged the numerous water arrows as he felt his Communication Crystal ring. He took it out and answered it, flipping backwards as a spear of water exploded where he stood.

"Noah, how is it going?" Alice asked. She sat on the outer side of the carriage.

"Well, what about you?" Noah said as he dodged another attack.

"In the morning, We finally hired people to help maintain the Guild Residence! As for dungeon running, it isn't going well. It's almost impossible to find more than one B Class dungeon now. There are so many more guilds that have reached the level. We now started doing C Class dungeons again."

"Oh... have you guys thought of expanding? If you become strong enough you could set up camps around dungeons and claim them as yours, you know what the bigger guilds are doing."

"Leon wants to keep the Guild small with a few people and I agree. It's difficult to trust people at the moment so recruiting too many people together is dangerous. So we won't expand."

"I see," Noah's body twisted as he dodged attacks and Flash Stepped. Bullets shot out and concentrated into the Snake eye, seeing them coming it closed them Noah disappeared and erased his aura.

The Ancient Water Serpent couldn't find him. Noah quickly moved as Alice's voice rang in his head.

"...We ran into a rare B Class monster, GoldLight Fox! Guess what, Maria was able to successfully contract it as well! She wanted to contract a flying monster which she could ride around but after we ran into the fox she changed plans. She's gotten much stronger now, with the new equipment and learning combat under Kira..."

The Serpent used its skill, Heat Sense! Noah appeared behind the Ancient Water Serpent and slashed downwards with his Yin Yang Renforced Sword.

The Serpent splashed into water as Noah passed straight through it with his attack. He hit the ground and disappeared, he appeared a distance away and did a 180 turn as he ran and shot back.

"...Sol's pretty good as well, after she got the new bow she has been doing amazing in dungeons. Leo and Theo still have issues working with the rest of the team but they've improved. At this point, we can already do almost all B Class dungeons..."

"...We're entering another dungeon bye! *muah*"

"Bye *muah*."

The call turned off and Noah just ended it and put the communication Crystal floating next to him with Mana away.

The fight continued, only when he was mentally exhausted did he teleport out of its territory.

...

Noah sat on the ground outside the cave looking up at the night sky.

"It's been six days since I started fighting the Ancient Water Serpent..." He had been fighting the Serpent for six whole days without stop. During these days he had learned a lot about his skills and how to fight.

"Only strong opponents can push you to improve." The battle experience he had gotten these days was something he would never be able to get anywhere else. He wondered how his battle with other S Class monsters would have gone.

A cloud passed revealing the full moon.

"I've already acclimatised to its battle pace and I've understood its fighting style..." His body and senses had completely adjusted to the speed of the Ancient Water Serpent, he could now instinctively react to it. Even if it was faster than him, he moved in a way that it was never able to catch up.

He basically knew everything about it now. In a way, he had formed a kinship with it over a similar goal- to kill the annoying pest in their ways.

Noah laid back, "...I'll end it tomorrow."

He closed his eyes then fell asleep.