"Just like before. Take your time to prepare yourself, and once you will be ready, do your best!"
Sending an encouraging smile to Fen, Stiel pointed at the place where Kashia tragically lost just a moment ago. No matter how much the young man tried to discover what this feeling was, for some reason, just the thought of what just happened was enough to put him on the edge.
Decisively stepping into the empty area at the front of the class, Fen eyeballed his opponent.
A relatively young man for a veteran. While most of his face was covered by a dragon-skull shaped helmet, the number of wrinkles around his eyes could still help one to gauge his age. Most likely around his forties, this man gave off the vibes of a seasoned warrior, who made his way to his position not through the court games but due to the amount of blood that he shed on the battlefield.
In other words, an opponent, who Fen would never be able to defeat just like that.
The young man knew a fair bit of martial arts. For some reason, his master decided that in the forest, those strange moves could work better than the ability to wield some kind of weapon. Back in the village, Fen would spend days hitting his fists against the wood or stone. And while he was ultimately done in by the beasts twice already, if not for his knowledge to move around, he would die to the weak beasts several years prior.
Just like mentioned before, fists against swords. Just the matching itself wasn't even worth laughing, so how could Fen win?
With all the praising for the enemy and belittling himself, there was still this one, distinctive difference between the two of them. The soldier, the veteran in front of Fen's eyes maybe could protect himself against the fire, but…
But, he could not wield it.
Raising his head, the young arcanist apprentice stole a glance at his enemy once again. Standing hard on the ground, one-handed sword in his right hand and his left one surprisingly empty. While it felt a bit like an insult at first, seeing how he dealt with Kashia's fireball, he might simply prefer the agility over toughness.
'Think, Fen, think…"
All of the information's that he learned recently, were now rapidly crashing around within Fen's head. To be the flow? To absorb the energy? Why did absorbing the spirits increase the flow in my core? To control it…
All those questions were suddenly appearing in front of the young man's eyes, as his mind allocated all of its ability into calculating the most efficient path. Amongst this sea of knowledge, there just had to be something that could help this young arcanist to win the bout!
'What did Kashia do…'
Despite seeing the event right with his eyes just a moment ago, Fen's mind had to switch for a bit before the young man managed to extract the important part. She threw a fireball, basically. But once one looked deeper, then her technique of holding her own fire back from lighting up until the last possible moment, was worth inspecting.
'What if…'
A sudden spark of an idea appeared in Fen's mind. In one instant, the waves of implications of using said technique shook the young man so strongly, that even his body rapidly jerked up.
"Are you ready?"
Clearing his mind from anything but just the intent to follow this sudden bout of inspiration, Fen raised his eyes at his teacher.
"Yeah."
There was no point stalling this moment any longer. Seeing that Stiel backed out from between them, Fen's body changed position. With all the smoothness and not even a hint of anxiety, the young man fixed his position, lowering the centre of his mass. With his arms hanging free beside his waist, there was simply a complete lack of threat from him.
Yet, the soldier didn't move.
With the eyes of two men interlocking, they seemed to understand each other. In this one spark of a moment, it was as if their mutual fighting instincts took over, revealing one's soul to another completely.
But there was no hesitation in their moves.
Finally completing his preparations, Fen stepped forward. Just a single pace that one's friend would make while strolling through the park with his group, in between a sip of juice and bite of a snack. At the same time, the soldier leaned forward, putting his leading feet in front.
By the time his opponent stepped on the ground and jumped forward, Fen's eyes lost all the sense of focus, turning him wobbly. Making his second and most likely last step, he surprisingly didn't show any signs of stress or worry.
As if everything that was about to happen, was already laid clearly before him.
It was a single step.
In what could only be described as a momentary flash, so short that most of the people would doubt whether it actually appeared, Fen disappeared.
An explosion?
A sudden eruption of a thick smoke right beneath the soldier's chest quickly stole everyone's attention.
With steam pouring out of every single pore in Fen's suddenly reddish skin, his feet was angled perfectly. Sliding underneath the veteran, he was somehow able to appear in this position within a single frame of the soldier's lounge forward!
"STOP!"
Stiel's eyes were filled with astoundment as his lips parted ways and squeezed a sudden and loud shriek.
'...'
As if a horse kicked him out of his state, a sane look returned to Fen's eyes. His right feet, an inch away from the soldier's face, was trembling lightly, hinting at the potential damage to its muscles.
The very next moment, seeming as if the forces of momentum resumed their usual authority, the two men crashed against each other. This time though, there was no tense intent behind even a single of their movement. Rather than two warriors standing off against each other in the epic battle, it was about two confused men attempting to free themselves from the mess of entangled arms and legs!
Yet all the joy mixed with awe that the rest of the students in the class had in their eyes as they watched the event, disappeared when the soldier finally managed to free himself from Fen's lifeless body.
"FEN!"
The reality of the weight behind what just happened, Kaisha screamed. Lunging forward, she was about to grab the motionless body of her classmate, when a sudden barrier of fire stopped the girl in her tracks.
"Stay back."
Instantaneously recovering his calm, Stiel stepped in, kneeling in front of the young man's body. A quick eyeballing scan later, he confirmed there was no lethal wounds, or in fact, any wounds on Fen's body.
"Could it be…"
Stiel's eyebrows tensed up, creating huge and ugly wrinkle across his entire forehead. Yet, in the next moment, as if his curiosity had some healing effect on the young man, Fen twitched.
And right in the next moment, he opened his eyes.
His body was normally moving, as he casually sat down on the ground. With his head lowered up, Fen appeared as the literal meaning of the word confusion.
Instead of rejoicing, Stiel's arms shoot forward, getting a hold on Fen's head. Bringing the young man's face up, his teacher looked into the lifeless eyes of his.
In this one instant, a plethora of feelings appeared on the middle-aged man all at once, only to disappear in the very next moment. Allowing Fen's face to gently fall back down to its previous position, Stiel raised his head to the others.
"He will be okay. It seems as if the complexity of what he did, lead him to strain his control. You could say he ignited his fire within his body, resulting in the great exhaustion. Normally, that technique is only taught in the academies, not simple school like this one. It is taught, but as the last resort in the critical situations where nothing else seems to work. Right now, he is just exhausted to no end."
Instantly covering the entire place with a sea of information, Stiel lowered his eyes back at Fen's figure, before rapidly moving up.
"Either way, we can't have him continue the lesson like that. Kashia, I believe it is you who I should task with the mission of bringing him back to his archarity."
Sending a meaningful look towards the girl, currently kneeling on the ground and looking with worry at her partner's face.
"Yes, master!"