When Qu finally returned to the tavern a familiar face greeted her. The boy that she had scared a couple days ago into giving her information was standing by the board looking over the different requests that were present.
Qu walked up to the boy and looked over his shoulder to try and get a good understanding at what exactly the boy was looking at, from what it seemed he was either looking at a request to collect the usual priest petal and whatnot or he was looking at the request to bring back some rabbit meat.
After a little while the boy finally pulled a request off the board, it seemed that he chose to grab the request for rabbit meat. But when he turned around to walk over to the bar he was startled by Qus presence.
He quickly asked her to move and walked up to the bar to confirm his request, soon afterwards he left the tavern presumably to do his request. But Qu wouldn't let him get away so easily. So she quickly ran out the tavern a caught up to the boy before he could reach the forest.
She then tapped him on the shoulder, causing him to turn around, "Hello again, you probably don't recognise me, but shall we walk and talk, we have much to discuss" she said sternly. Before the boy could even start to hesitate she grabbed the boy by the back of his neck and started to push him forward towards the forest.
But her plan was soon brought to halt when she could sense the boy using his mana, so she quickly let go of him, right after she did so a dirt spike shot up where she had previously been. "i don't know what you playing at, but if you try that shit again I'll kill you right here and now" the boy told her.
Qu could only chuckle at this remark and soon retaliated by transforming into her horned form. But this time her transformation seemed different, rather that turning to ooze her hair seemed to slowly morph and change to develop her vine like hair. And the horns on her head seemed to materialise from a swirling storm of bone that soon pieced itself together to form her horns. It seemed with each passing day she became less and less like her original ooze form.
After transforming into the appearance the boy knew better, his eyes were quickly filled with fear and his body froze up. "Now that you recognise me how about you do as I say before I roast you alive for that comment" she quickly told him. After saying this the boy instantly started saying sorry to her for his rude behaviour.
After the boy was finally done saying sorry, Qu walked ahead of him and beckoned him to follow, which he soon did. They then continued to walk deeper into the forest in silence before reaching an open space where the trees seemed to part.
"Would you consider yourself a good fighter?" she asked him, "I'm just below your average guard, so somewhat good" he responded. " Good, good, well then I want you to fight me, it will not be serious match. But I want to test my skill, if you do this for me I will permit you to ask me some questions".
The boy soon nodded, the rules were, no lethal injuries, don't intentionally try to kill your opponent but don't go easy on them, and if the one of them tap the floor 3 times then they stop. After confirming the rules were okay with the boy Qu then started the count down.
"3"
"2"
"1"
"Start"
While she was counting down, Qu took her clothing off to make sure she didn't burn them, it also for some reason made the boy blush.
When she finished the countdown she instantly activated her aura, causing a light layer of flames to cover her body. She then activated her flaming tips to there max so that they would coat her arms up to the elbow. And then finally she changed back to her fire elemental human form, as the horns on her head weighed her down slightly.
The boy on the other, scooped up some dirt and condensed it together until it was fairly packed together and then morphed it into a spear. As soon as he did this he ran towards Qu with his spear aimed directly at her.
Qu waited for the spear to come into her distance, and when the boy thrust it towards her, she grabbed the shaft of it and tried made her flames go to max heat and tried to cook the spear. But all she did was weld the dirt together and reinforce the spears shaft even more. This surprised her and she was caught off guard and the spear was thrust out again and grazed her ribs.
Qu jumped backwards away from the spear and began to activate her burning streak on her pinky finger. While she charged it Keno seemed to sense something was going on and ran straight for her again, but this time he seemed to manipulate the tip of his spear to spin in a drill like fashion.
He once again thrust his spear towards Qu when he got close enough but this time a beam of fire hit the tip of the spear and blasted away the majority of his spear, essentially disarming him. She then stepped closer to him and struck out an open palm towards his chest. With Keno being distracted by the fragments of spear flying off in all directions, he had no time to react to the strike.
Her palm collided heavily with his chest and pushed him back a couple of steps as well as slightly singe his clothing where he was hit. As soon as that strike hit him, Qu once again stepped closer to him, this time he had his arms up in a defensive manner, but Qu ignored this by ducking down low and sweeping her leg out. Sadly she didn't give herself enough time to put her flames on her foot, but it still tripped him up.
She then jumped back up from her squatting position and looked down on the boy, he seemed to have been winded when he dropped to the ground so hard. It seemed that this boy was no challenge to Qu after all.
But just as she let her guard down a blunt pillar or dirt struck her in ribs causing her to her lose her balance and drop to the ground. In this time Keno pulled himself back up from the ground and smashed his hands into the pillar he made before pulling them back out, but this time with a pair of compressed dirt knuckle duster.
He then ran over to Qu and swung his fist down towards her stomach, but as his fist came into her reach, she grabbed his hand and compressed all her flames to the palm of her hands to try and get the hottest flame she could muster to burn him.
As soon as her hands lit up with flames he quickly pulled his hands away, in this time Qu got onto her hands and knees and lunged for his legs before dragging him down to the floor. When he hit the floor, she then jumped back up and manoeuvred around him until she was behind his head.
She then ducked back down and wrapped her arms around his neck and slid her legs over his arms and pinned him down. After doing so he struggled for a little while before he finally stopped and she heard the "tap" "tap" "tap" she was waiting for.