First Spar

Nikolai clicked his tongue when his boots' active skill, [Seismic Path], was stopped by Gina's [Earth Wall]. The cracks formed by the isolated earthquake traveled in a line and crawled up the two-meter wall, eventually breaking it apart.

In the meantime, Gina had made her move, circling around the wall while holding the shield with one hand. Her other hand was raised, its index and middle fingers extended. She rotated her wrist as if her fingers were writing a C in the air.

[Water Serpent]!

Droplets of water condensed out of thin air close to Nikolai, before they quickly formed an elongated liquid substance that weaved a few times in the air. It was heading in Nikolai's direction.

Meanwhile, the man in question was expecting his opponent to appear in the other direction as he was preparing to cast a skill. The water serpent had caught him off guard and it was too late for him to defend himself.

At this level, the water serpent was slow and had very low impact when it hit the target. Which was why, it was only able to splash Nikolai in the face and shove him backward by a few steps. After the man received his 'cold water facial skin care' treatment, he wiped his face while preparing a distraction. He couldn't let his opponent advance any further. First, he needed to force her to retreat or at least go on the defense.

He had noticed Gina was a bit slow while carrying her shield, so he had time to execute one of his recently-learned skills. He raised his fist. Half a second later, a rock the size of a soccer ball burst out of the asphalt. It floated before him before he applied wind element mana on it. The man might not have an affinity to wind element, but that didn't mean he couldn't use it. It just took a little extra mana and time to utilize it.

[Weathered]!

The floating rock abruptly broke into a million pieces. Each piece was the size of a grain of sand. Yes, the man had basically just created sand out of a rock. The sand was then thrown at Gina.

The woman raised her shield out of reflex, especially to protect her eyes. She looked away as the sand clashed against [Fortitude], creating a light brown spray around the shield. Unfortunately, she had lost sight of Nikolai.

In the meantime, the Russian man had already moved behind her to prepare a surprise attack.

Gina's conscious mind couldn't keep up with the speed at which the fight was unfolding, but human instinct was often faster than their cognitive functioning. That very instinct suddenly told her that her back was vulnerable, and therefore had to be protected at once.

Gina raised another [Earth Wall], but this time it was erected behind her. She was then shocked when a blunt [Earth Spike] collided with her wall. Fortunately, the wall was sturdy enough to withstand the collision. However, she couldn't get over her shock quickly enough to come up with her next move.

On the other hand, Nikolai's mind caught up with the current situation faster, since he had been the attacker and had half-anticipated his opponent would put up a defense. Pulling himself together, he created a small pebble that burst out of the ground. It looked like the beginning phase of the skill [Earth Bullet], except that the pebble didn't possess a pointed front, on the account of less lethality. However, when the pebble moved, it was clear that Nikolai wasn't using [Earth Bullet].

[Earth Missile]!

It was the latest skill the man managed to learn. In fact, he had only received the congratulations notification from the system earlier that morning. Magnus had been kind enough to slowly explain how the skill's final form looked like, therefore enlightening Nikolai on how to manipulate his mana in a certain way so that he could reach the desired effect.

Magnus himself had been inspired by Dazhbog's white flame balls that hadn't been just shot out in a straight line. As long as it homed in on a specific target, it was able to maneuver midair and curve around any obstacle.

Nikolai's earth missile zoomed in toward Gina's earth wall that was still standing. However, as it was about to bang against the wall, it made a sudden turn around it. After bypassing the wall, the missile was able to head toward Gina unhindered.

"Agh!"

Gina groaned as the tiny missile hit her right shoulder from the side. Blood spurted out of her shoulder joint.

Seeing what had just taken place, Magnus thought, 'Should I stop the fight now?' However, he quickly saw the determined expression on Garrett's mother's face. 'Nah, let's let it play out for a bit more.' He placed his trust on Mr. Alexandrov not to go overboard and on himself to be fast enough to interfere if any of the duelists were to be lethally harmed.

Summer stole a glance at her boyfriend. She was wondering why he hadn't stopped the fight. She had to wince when the missile hit Mrs. Williams's shoulder, and a part of her wanted to avert her eyes. She also felt an urge to run to the woman and stop the fight. However, she decided to fully trust Magnus' judgement. If he thought the fight should go on, then so be it.

Trying to bear with the sharp pain from her shoulder, Gina gritted her teeth and whipped around.

Her vision was once again obscured by Nikolai's [Weathered]. This time, though, the sand was too far to reach her eyes. Still, the traces that lingered in the air for a couple of seconds caused her to lose sight of her opponent.

She blindly shot out [Riptide] in the general direction where the Nikolai's earth spike had burst out of earlier. She couldn't really think straight, mostly due to the wound, but in part also because of her distress. Her mental fortitude had never been trained to resist such an adrenaline-pumping situation and especially when she had just received a setback.

The [Riptide] never landed on its target. Using the sand to his advantage, Nikolai had already dashed to the other side. When his eyes sighted the woman's figure slightly hunched behind her massive shield, Nikolai smirked.

A blunt earth spike shot out of the ground right behind Gina's exposed back. It abruptly halted just a few inches from her spine. Nikolai didn't want to seriously harm the woman, after all.

Magnus had been able to see the earth spike when it was still forming, but decided not to interfere since he knew Nikolai had the situation under control. When the earth spike stopped, he immediately clapped his hands.

"Alright, the winner is Mr. Alexandrov!" he shouted before nodding to his girlfriend.

Summer ran up to Mrs. Williams and immediately got to work. She plucked out the tiny pebble from Gina's shoulder, causing the woman to let out a muffled scream through her covered mouth. Summer then casted [Lesser Heal]. Thankfully, the pebble wasn't planted very deep since the force behind it was so weak; Nikolai's [Earth Missile] skill was still on Level 1.

Summer's [Lesser Heal] was already on Level 5, so even though its speed and effectiveness was still way below Magnus' [Big Spark], it got the job done. In about three minutes, the wound was already closing. It took another minute before the relatively shallow wound was completely healed.

In comparison, it would've taken Magnus only five seconds to reach the same result.

About five minutes later, both Gina and Nikolai sat down on the side of the parking lot, discussing their earlier fight. Both had clearly used a lot of mana, especially Nikolai who had almost depleted his reserves. Magnus had warned everybody about the penalty in the form of skill cooldown, so they were always careful of their mana usage.

"I was honestly shocked at how you were able to raise an earth wall in time, without even knowing I was going to attack you from behind," said Nikolai, genuinely praising Gina's fast reflexes.

Gina, on the other hand, was quite disappointed in her performance. "It was just instinct. I couldn't even process what happened afterward fast enough. In a real life-and-death battle, I can't rely on my instincts all the time. The moment you had my sight blocked, I was instantly forced into defense. I was unable to come up with a counterattack quickly enough."

The woman sighed. "What I learned is that I have to be able to consciously follow the pace of the fight, instead of relying on instincts or worse, on luck. Besides, my inability to keep my head clear after getting injured is another letdown. So that's another thing to work on; my mental strength."

Nikolai agreed with Gina's statement. However, he also understood that it wasn't easy to adapt one's mentality from decades of normal, mundane life to...a literal fight to the death.

Well, this time the phrase 'to the death' wasn't literal. But the feeling of being under constant pressure was well-simulated. Even though both of them knew, in the back of their minds, that it was just a sparring session meant for training and not a real fight, no sane person wanted to get hurt regardless. They would always instinctively avoid getting wounded. So that was still enough pressure.

"Also," Gina continued, "I think your utilization of skills was better than mine. You knew you had to make me go on the defense first, and for that you used that sand skill of yours. And that earth missile was also pretty damn effective.

"Whereas in hindsight, I could've used the shield's [Mud Mayhem] right after I splashed your face to lock you in place. So even though you managed to block my vision, at least you wouldn't have been able to move and attack me from my blind spot."

Nikolai stared thoughtfully at the woman. "You know, you're pretty good at this. Analyzing a fight, I mean. Even though I won, I can't even come up with any sort of evaluation on how you or I could do better next time."

Hearing the man's word of compliment, Gina smiled. She then noticed two men taking position at the center of the parking lot. "Oh, this is going to be interesting," she mumbled.

The next spar was going to be between the fathers of the two strongest people in the group. Plus, both these men had an affinity to dark element.

Owen had his [Darkness User's Starter Pack] necklace equipped, and Markus held his [Rogue Autumn] dagger in his right hand. The former was standing with his chin slightly elevated, his eyes steady and his face impassive. The latter was giving out a friendly smile, but with a tinge of determination and unwillingness to lose hidden behind it.

TJ, seeing his own father facing his best friend's father, watched on in anticipation. He had been bored watching Gina's and Nikolai's fight. Now, he could finally assuage his annoyance for being forced to pause his training.

Magnus almost laughed sensing the overly masculine Aura surrounding the two men. It was like watching two male wolves, each wanting to prove to his mate that his strength didn't lose to the other's.

Reining in his humorous bones, Magnus clapped his hands. "Alright, you guys can start the fight!"

Both men ignored Magnus' awkward cue and immediately made their first moves.