Special Chapter V - Valencia (part 1)

We ended up going to the gigantic backyard that the Hoaqin family owns.

Apparently, they had a training ground at the very back of their house, possibly for their family members to practice their magic or some sort. I know that they are incredibly rich, but to have a training spot in your backyard is a bit… overkill.

I have given it a long thought, but for some reason, I became very doubtful of myself. After all, I am in the midst of limiting myself.

I can't use my fire magic for a certain training reason, and I can only use my shadow magic, which is still at the Intermediate tier.

I don't know how powerful she is, but if adventuring with Hod has taught me anything, it is that there are over 101 ways that you can defeat an ice magician without using magic at all. Standing and watching Hod doing ice magic during our adventuring days has shown me quite a lot of things that an ice mage can do.

So really, fighting her shouldn't be that difficult. She may have joined class A in the academy, but how strong can a shy and antisocial girl like her be when compared with an adventurer like Hod?

The two of them may have ice magic, but one is definitely more known than the other. I mean, Hod was called the ice king. 

Who's this girl's name, again?

I'm kidding. I shouldn't compare Hod too much with her. It's not fair for one side.

The two of us are staring at one another in the middle of this wide field. The floor is made out of stone, so it can be destroyed and fixed later on. The temperature is not particularly too cold, so it should strive towards my side.

Or… so I thought.

As soon as she emitted her aura, the wind became colder. The maids who were watching on the sides suddenly began shuddering, but somehow the old maid didn't look too affected.

A grin formed on her face as she stared at me with an evil curly smile. Her fingers began to tremble, possibly because of how cold it was.

She is… a battle maniac…

Not a trait I would expect from an antisocial girl who stays in her room 20/7.

"So what are the rules?"

"Anything you can use."

I asked, but she simply answered so freely. She is very confident that she can take me, as if the person standing before her has not defeated anyone before.

That, or she was just… excited.

A grin curled on my mouth as well, and I lifted my right hand to the left. I formed a shadow sword, and sliced the air with it as my right hand returned to my right side.

Seeing the shadow magic created in front of her eyes, Valencia became even more excited.

The two of us can't hold back anymore. In less than a second, we rushed at the same time.

BOOOM!!!!

I swung my shadow sword towards her, and I was certain that she didn't have any weapons. But while she was rushing at me, her right hand slowly got engulfed in a white smoke. Without realizing, my sword struck a heavy object, and the impact caused a powerful shockwave around us.

BAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The powerful gust of cold wind was thrown to our surroundings. The maids who were already hiding behind the door still got affected by the shockwave.

The impact also caused a smoke screen on our surroundings, which at first I assumed to be dust. Turns out, those were ice particles.

The ice particles cleared up, showing me her figure clearly. On her hand, was a long thin blade made out of ice. And what's funnier is that there were no cracks formed on it even after we impacted so hard.

Such a powerful impact… and no cracks were formed!?

W-What tier is her ice-

Shock was fully shown on my face, and Valencia used this chance to strike even further. She ducked, and placed her free hand to the ground.

ZRIINNGGGG!!!!!

With just one hand, she conjured thousands of large ice spikes right on the ground where I'm standing.

JREBB!!

"Tch!"

The ice spikes managed to stab my leg a little bit, but I was able to leap away. I landed quite far away from her position to try to breathe, but she spared no time for me to even do that.

VWOOSHH!!!

Using a speed that I was not expecting, she arrived in front of me faster than what I had expected from a lazy academy graduate. 

Shit!!!

She swung her ice sword forward, straight towards my neck, but luckily I was able to dodge it. 

Unfortunately, that was simply a fluke.

Instead of swinging it normally, she released the handle and the sword flew away at high speed from her hand, stabbing the ground on my left. The sword immediately burst into a giant mountain of ice spikes, which stabbed my left side quite a lot of times as I tried to escape.

That ice mountain grew faster than my eyes can blink… and Valencia was even faster.

Once again, using a wonderful performance of movement speed, Valencia used this chance to land tens of ice shards to my body. Around six of them stabbed me on various sides of my body.

JREBB!!!!

JREBB!!!!

Each ice shard was very powerful, and for every stab pushes me so far back. I got knocked quite far away and crashed to the ground outside the training field after getting hit by so many sharp and powerful shards. The maids saw me fly, and got quite worried at how bad my condition would be after this.

They were already prepared to face the consequences, as well as apologizing to everyone that will be mad for this. They partially closed their eyes to not see the reality.

That speed… those techniques…

These are not something a lazy academy graduate would even think of doing, let alone actually perfecting and mastering it.

Valencia however, was laughing.

"Gyahahah!! I was ignoring you the entire time at the academy, thinking about how dumb you are for openly challenging the entire academy. 

Though, I did hear you defeating the likes of Milly or those three idiots from the Dealan family... And I knew that it was all luck--"

"Damn! You were very unpredictable, you know?"

Immediately, the air became heavier.

Valencia immediately choked as her face turned to shock, while the maids ran inside the house for protection. They couldn't handle the pressure, and they were forced to leave the arena so that they could breathe normally.

Huh… for sure I diverted the pressure from them…

Well, whatever. Focus it all on Valencia.