Arc 1: Chapter 6

"Winner! First team!" With that, everyone retreated away from the arena and got treated. The next fight was Friena's team against Eric's team.

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....

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Kyle sat down on a bench with exhaustion. He watched the fighting teams preparing in the arena, but then noticed that someone was approaching him. It was Ninia.

"Hey, congratulations on being the strongest here," said Kyle with a smile while raising up his bottle. Ninia didn't say anything about it.

"How did you know I used ki?" she asked instead.

"That? As I said before, I read about it in a book, about another source of power aside from magic," Kyle replied. "As you know, we can get stronger as long as we train, even without using magic. But there will always be a limit to how much our bodies can be trained. Sure, using magic is helpful, but what if magic can't be used? So I tried to find another source of power, and then I found it. Ki."

"An energy that comes from the inside. Unlike magic which temporarily boosts our physical strength and has to be maintained regularly, ki passively increases our physical strength and breaks the limit."

"However, nowadays, nobody knows much about ki. Even the others couldn't sense it. So how did you do it?" Ninia cut to the chase.

"It is simple," Kyle grinned. "My eyes are good at observing what people do with mana. I can see what they are going to do with their mana and thus be able to prepare beforehand. However, when I fought you, I noticed you didn't use even the slightest amount of mana. That got me thinking, where did you get your strength? Then I remembered about ki and decided to take a gamble on guessing it."

Ninia was silent for a while after hearing it, then she let out a breath and spoke, "So I assume you are not a practitioner of ki?"

"No, despite knowing about it, I don't know how to utilize it." Kyle sighed, then he looked at her. "Would you like to teach me?"

"…. I have to think about it," Ninia said, clearly avoiding the question. It did make sense. Ki was something precious here since not many learned it. If Kyle learned it, he would be far stronger but this wasn't the problem for Ninia. Her problem was that she wasn't sure if it would be effective to teach someone as old as Kyle, and she didn't know if her Master would allow her to impart this knowledge to anyone else.

"Don't think too hard about it." Kyle waved his hand. "Even if you decide to refuse, it is fine. After all, I'm thinking of a way to counter ki."

"Counter ki?" Ninia repeated.

"I realized that there is no way that ki is all-mighty and far more powerful than mana. So there must be a trick; it is just that you have found how to use ki to counter magic while nobody knows how to counter ki with magic."

Ninia was silent. Her eyes were gazing at him with the intent of trying to find out whether he was joking or not.

"Then I wish you luck." After saying that, she turned around and left.

"Heh, I have already found it," Kyle whispered.

In the past, magic and ki countered each other. It was only a matter of the person's skill with one to overcome the other. However, in this era, almost nobody probably knew how to counter ki.

{'Let's see who won ….'} Kyle eyed the fight. He saw that Friena was fighting toe-to-toe with Eric. It was truly a sight to behold, though. Fire among the shadows; that was the depiction of Friena, who was surrounded by shadows cast by Eric.

{'Friena isn't a person that would focus on spreading her magic, so she can easily be overwhelmed with spreading magic as Eric did. However ... can the shadow devour the ever-shining fire?'}

In a flash, Friena let out a burst of fire. The shadows around her shrunk away when the fire began to spread out. Looking at this, Kyle whistled. {'So she used it... Flame Armor.'}

Flame Armor was one of Friena's trump cards. By covering herself with fire and turning her path into a scorching flame, she ensured nobody would attack her.

As of this moment, Friena was truly covered in fire. She rushed toward Eric and swung her sword, it let out a roar of flame, and the ground beneath turned into a sea of flame, which forced Eric to retreat back by using his shadows.

{'If Eric doesn't have any magic spell that can overwhelm her fire, then it will be her win.'}

In the end, Eric didn't have anything that could stop Friena. Sure the range of his shadows was large and perhaps useful against a lot of people, but against someone like Friena, where shadows couldn't even approach, it was useless. Friena's team won by overwhelming the others with her power.

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Kyle saw Friena walking toward him. "Hey, congratulations on your win!" he said cheerfully.

"Yeah, whatever! Now, let's talk!" she said with a frightening yet charming smile.

"H-huh? But didn't you already finish it during our spar?" Kyle immediately stood up and looked around.

"That …." Friena folded her sleeves. "Wasn't enough."

Immediately, Kyle bolted out, and Friena followed. The others who saw this were left bewildered by their actions and couldn't help but stare in confusion.

"Stop chasing me!" Kyle said without looking back. They left the training building.

"Then don't run!" Friena replied. "We have already done this many times, Kyle! And you know the result!"

"Not this time! I was going easy on you back then!"

"Bullshit!"

"A woman holding her grudge is not attractive, you know!"

"So be it! You will have to take responsibility for it!"

"What?" Kyle stopped, and Friena stopped as well. Both stared at each other while blinking. They tried to process just what had just happened.

It was then that Friena suddenly blushed. "T-that! No! Do not misunderstand!"

"Uh, whatever, bye." Kyle immediately sprinted away. That shook Friena away from her embarrassment.

"Wha― you! Stop running!" Thus, they continued running away and chasing each other till the end of the world.

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Author: Aida Hanabi

Proofreader: Teppo