Melodi prepared herself with Luna as Ardere sat back, concentrating on her mana manipulation. Kenji stood to the front of her, towering over her small frame, waiting. Melodi took this moment before she indicated she was ready to think on how she had managed to end up in this situation.
She had very little experience in combat and no experience fighting a real life person. She was nervous standing before Kenji as she struggled to form a plan in her head.
"When you're done thinking, you can make the first move" Kenji said
Melodi could think of a dozen ways to possibly fight another magician, but when it came to Kenji the only way she could think of was to keep her distance.
"Ready!" Melodi said and as soon as those words left her mouth Kenji came strait at her.
Luna made the first move and leapt from Melodies shoulder and circled around until eventually swinging its tail in Kenjis direction.
The hairs that hit Kenji were small and impossible to dodge at that range. The moment they touched him, he could feel the effect and his movements slowed slightly, but he continued his path towards Melodi.
seeing Kenjis pace slow Melodi summoned water and a stream shot out at Kenji. Melodi was a bit worried about hurting the Magic beast, but knew that he wouldn't want her to hold back.
As soon as Kenji saw the spell he turned his body and the spell missed by inches. Kenji continued on and the moment Melodi conjured another spell, sending it flying his way, but Kenji changed direction suddenly and her spell didn't come close this time.
Melodi continued to try and hit Kenji but couldn't land a blow and Kenji was getting close so Melodi changed tactics.
"Luna!" Melodi yelled.
Suddenly she began moving, turning her back to Kenji at a shocking speed and Kenji could feel the debuff effects ware off suddenly.
Melodi ran in the complete opposite direction of Kenji and as soon as she felt her buff wear off she turned around only to see a fist inches from her nose.
Melodi was confused as she Knew that with her buffed speed she should have been able to gain ground on kenji, however even with it he still caught her.
"You screwed up in many ways Mel. First things first, good job slowing me down. In order to attack me you needed to keep your distance and buying yourself that extra time was good for you."
"However you failed to hit me, or keep me at bay until you could figure out a way to win. When attacking someone who's running at you it's very important to actually hit them." Kenji criticized
"your attacks were too narrow and easy to avoid at the distance we were at, if you want to hit someone with such a slow attack then they need to be closer, or you could use a higher velocity attack."
"Second, the moment you turned your back to me you lost sight of me and you were not fast enough to outrun me even with a buff. You should have been moving to begin with when we started. Movement is life, and if you aren't moving then you won't be able to defend yourself properly."
"Another thing, always keep your eye on your target and never let them get out of sight, that only puts you at an unnecessary risk. Always keep your opponent in front of you and that goes for anything and everything you plan on fighting. Even if you need to run your back is your most vulnerable so showing your back to an opponent is just asking to be attacked."
Melodi felt disappointed with the outcome of the fight, but at the same time gratitude. she had never received any proper judgement on her fighting and everything Kenji said felt sincere and helpful rather than an earful of how she should have known better like her other tutors in her past.
"All in all you are very inexperienced and that's understandable, you've never had to protect yourself and you rely on your summons quite a bit."
Melodi took a good look at herself and realized she was sweating, sure using spells can drain one's stamina and be just as physically exhausting as mentally, but she was sweating a lot for the little amount of time she ran and the little spells she used. She relied on her magic and Luna to help her win this and didn't think about what her physical limitations were.
Kenji nodded his head as if he read her mind and continued on.
"You are slow and your stamina is very untouched, you haven't run for your life before and your body cannot keep up with the feats you are trying to achieve. I work you down to the bone almost every day and I focus on you using your body for a lot of things, because you as magicians plan on using your magic and Beasts to compensate for your lack of physique."
Melodi looked at her small Summon, her Vanis was watching Kenji with as much focus as Melodi. His nose wiggled with curiosity and his red eyes blinked with interest. Through the link the summon and master shared Luna could feel Melodi's gaze.
Luna turned his head and tilted it questioningly. He cooed and Melodi patted his head before looking back to Kenji.
"Kenji, what exactly is holding me back from being strong enough to protect myself?"
Kenji folded his arms, a smirk forming on his face.
"You have a lot of things holding you back Mel, but experience can fix most of them. The one major thing you should know about is that you are not suited to fight by yourself."
Ardere tried her best to drown out the conversation between the two, but when the topic of battle came up Ardere wavered for a moment trying to listen in while maintaining the mana and it all came apart like a house of cards.
Sweat beaded down her forehead as she wished to lay on her back and take a moment, but then she remembered Kenji's words
'You will need to exhaust your mana as much as possible and when you feel like your completely out you need to continue to try and conjure your spells.'
She felt sick as she began to gather her mana and move it like a serpant once more.
Melodi and Kenji continued their conversation whilst Ardere continued her training.
"Your skills point more towards support rather than a person on the front line or in a head to head confrontation. You can not only give an ally an advantage, but you can also handicap your enemy."
Kenji motioned Melodi towards the bench they often sat at and pulled a paper and pen from his bag.
Kenji then drew a triangle and labeled each one, at the top point of the triangle he labeled it "Tank" on either sude of the triangle he labeled it as "DPS".
"This is the very basics of a battle formation, the tank or the person who draws in the enemy and grabs their attention because they are the biggest one is at the front. The DPS is behind them and attacks those who attempt to get through the Tanks defences."
Then Kenji placed 2 more Xs behind the triangle and labeled them "Support" and "Healer"
"This is the Support." Kenji said pointing at the X
"This person provides the rest of the party with either buffs or the enemies with debuffs. They can also be the range, taking out enemies from behind the front line that somehow manage to get an upper hand or catch one of your own off guard."
Melodi was always a better visual learner than auditory so seeing it all drawn out made it so much easier to understand.
"Finally there is the Healer, The Healer is exactly what it sounds like. They Heal everyone and make sure they can continue fighting, they are generally weak and can't fight, but not all Healers are the same some can fight, but most don't since it's the rest of the parties job to protect the Healer and if they go down then everything falls apart very quickly."
Melodi was suspicious about how much experience Kenji had when it came to battle considering he looked to be about the same age as her and Ardere and more so that he was supposed to be a summon.
"Kenji if you don't mind me asking, how do you know all of this?"
Kenji looked up from the paper, meeting Melodi's gaze before putting the pen down and speaking.
"Someone I knew used to mine crypto currency, he got caught using an abandoned warehouse that still had it's electricity running and when the police raided it thinking it was an illegal marijuana farm they confiscated all of his computer equipment cause he was stealing the electricity to mine all the crypto and got left with a hefty fine."
"He managed to keep the hard drive that contained all the currency and paid the fine along with getting a new computer. Anyways when I would come to do my drop offs to him he would let me play a couple of games on it while he made some lunch. I actually managed to get him up to platinum in ranked."
Ardere and Melodi had no clue what Kenji was speaking about, but instead of asking for clarification the two just went along with it.
"This will be the formation we follow when we go on the hunt so I expect you two to know your roles and train hard."
Ardere was beginning to shake and her body quivered from the strain she was enduring. It felt as if she had just walked a thousand steps up a mountain while carrying a cart.
The magic in front of her was beginning to get sloppy and the serpant pattern was beginning to look more like a ball of fire circling around her.
Instead of a long slithering flame wrapping around Ardere it was more like a ball orbiting her body in a random pattern.
Kenji saw Ardere struggling to hold her spell, but he felt no need to intervene just yet.
"Don't lose focus, concentrate and keep the spell smooth. The exhaustion you feel right now is nothing compared to your fight with Ian."
Ardere heard Kenji's words "Encouragement" and knew he was right. When they fought Ian she felt burning pain from her wounds and sore everywhere. right now all she felt was weak and not just from the mana exhaustion, she felt weak physically, mentally and emotionally. She knew what her goals were and she was going to push herself farther than she ever thought possible.
Ardere closed her eyes and focused and after a bit the exhaustion began to hit Ardere so bad she felt numb, everything seemed fine though she knew if she opened her eyes she would break her concentration and wouldn't be able to conjure another spell for a bit of time.
Ardere did whatever she could to take her mind off her shaking body and keep her breathing steady as she sat. She counted the stars she began to see, she thought about what her father might have been doing at the moment. She hadn't written to him just yet all she did was send for a potion to be made and she began to feel guilty about how much her father might miss her.
Ardere loved her father and more than anything she wanted to be strong for her father. He was once a great Demon, one of the top Demon houses in all of the thirteen territories, but your house rank came from your riches, your land and most importantly, your magic.
The top Demons families hold magical artifacts and original spells that gives them the strength to hold their ranks. The ranks of each family is determined by challenges. A demon noble house can challenge another in a stronger position and if they were to win then the two houses switch ranks.
Her father had incredible magic, artifacts and influence among the other noble houses.
'Had' was the keyword in that as in recent years Arderes family had fallen to the bottom of the noble ranks. Her father traded most of his Artifacts and Original spells for a favor from the other Houses.
They took his trade eagerly and in the end they could not hold up their end of the bargain, but a deal was a deal, no one would make the trade with Berul Damonium for results, only an attempt and because of that they were left at the bottom.
Ardere remembered a time when they were so high in the ranks, Noble houses came from all around to offer her father marriage and other political joinings.
Now....things were different.
"Ardere...Ardere!."
Ardere opened her eyes and it felt like she took a breath for the first time in years, she greedily sucked the air in and could feel her body dripping with sweat and her eyes felt too heavy to look around. She sat for a moment breathing heavy and feeling nauseous, though she felt she didn't have the energy to expell her lunch.
She sat for a long moment only breathing with Kenji staring at Ardere that same nonchalant look he always had
Finally Ardere felt she had enough strength to look around and moving her head she looked at herself. The sweat covering her made her feel cold and she shivered with goosebumps all over her arms, but despite feeling cold Ardere still felt something warm surrounding her body. It moved and when she saw a light out of the corner of her eyes she turned and saw her spell floating freely around her in that familiar slithering serpent pattern.
Ardere had stopped concentrating and the spell was still active and most importantly it wasn't draining any more stamina.
With a thought the slithering flame trailed around her body until it wrapped around her cold hand, the flame warming her and making her goosebumps disappear.
"It looks like you have more skill then you know." Kenji said
With another thought the spell disappeared and Ardere could feel her body give out. Even if she wasn't wasting any more stamina she was still exhausted and couldn't hold herself upright anymore.
Ardere was asleep before her head touched the ground and then it was dark, nothing but bliss and silence. She was aware she was no longer conscious, but somehow knew she wasn't dreaming. The darkness felt comfortable and it felt like minutes passed alongside hours and seconds, time twisted and eternity felt like seconds.
The vast emptiness cradled her and kept her calm, then from the darkness Ardere felt a warm presence. turning in the direction of the source she saw a bright figure, too bright to make out any details in the never ending void.