Time flew by in the cave beneath the lake. The teens no longer needed a tunnel to enter it as the cavern had grown so big it went way beyond the shore.
From the bottom of his neck all the way to his toes, Ethan was covered in various tattoos. He was particularly proud of the giant flaming dragon painted on his backs whose wings embraced his rib cage.
"What do you think?" he asked Ana after the drawing was done.
"Looks ominous." she responded honestly.
"Nonesense! It's majestic, beautiful, the epitome of dragons." The drawing was the spitting image of his former pet. To anyone else, the protruding teeth and abnormally large claws would probably look terrifying. But to Ethan, they were all parts of its charm.
"Anyway, it's your turn. Time to get over your squirming."
Though Ana had tattoos on both her arms and legs, she had refused to get some on any other part of her body.
"What's the point?" the girl complained. "I already have several tattoos for every earth technique I might need. You've said it yourself that using others would just slow down my progress."
"I've also said you should have them just in case. You never know when flying or a healing spell might save your life."
Though Ethan could manipulate the needles and ink without even touching them, Ana was still uncomfortable showing her skin. The ancient mage recognized this problem, but he found it superfluous. If embarrassment was all he had to endure on his quest for power, then his past life would have been a joy ride.
"What a pain…" Ethan scratched his head for a solution. Eventually, his limited social skills and battle crazy personality led to a singular idea forming inside his head.
"Ana." The girl lifted her chin. Ethan placed one arm on his hip and pointed a finger at her using the other. "I challenge you to a duel."
"Huh?" The boy's cartoonish provocation was met with confusion.
"If you don't need more tattoos, then you must be super strong already." he snickered mockingly. "Surely, you can take me on by now."
Ana knew he was baiting her but accepted anyway. There was a lot of pent up stress she had accumulated in the past few months, mostly because of him.
"Are you ready, My Lady?" the boy asked sarcastically.
Her response was a stone spear to the face. There was no warning, no warm up, and definitely no rules being set before spells started flying everywhere.
For several minutes, the cave shook violently as numerous holes formed within its walls. Water began dripping from the broken ceiling and the now mana-less rock from the middle the lake threatened to come crashing down on their heads.
"You plan on taking down Charles with just this?" asked Ethan while covering the cave in flames. The girl hid within the ground and started an assault of her own.
"When his daddy tries to kill you for smacking his progeny, what then?" Every spear she threw at him got obliterated by a series of gravity fields. "As you are now, you can barely take on a rank two."
Every word out of his mouth was designed to piss her off. To Ethan's credit, he succeeded marvelously. After a couple more insults, Ana had more than enough.
"Hey, if I mortally wound you, do you have a way to recover?" she asked in a serious tone.
"Unless you can somehow damage my soul," 'which you thankfully haven't learned yet,' "I can take anything you've got."
Demons were especially scary for this very reason. However, if the soul wasn't targeted, Ethan could continuously restore his body until his mana ran out. Given his low rank and the healing spells he placed in half of the dragon's claws, he was confident in recovering from just about anything.
"I won't forgive you if you die." warned Ana.
Ethan wanted to laugh out loud, but his expression soon did a 180. He could see a wave of mana wash over the cave's walls, one much larger than what Ana should've had access to.
"…Shit." Before he could take a single breath, thousands of stone needles came flying towards him. There were so many of them that the flames were extinguished and even the gravity fields collapsed. At the end of the barrage, the cave's surface area had shrunk by more than a foot.
Fortunately, as soon as he sensed danger, Ethan dug himself into the ground avoiding most of the assault. "Muahaha! Nice try." Though his ears and shoulders were bleeding, and his arms resembled dangling vines, the boy still felt like taunting her.
"What now? Want to give up?" he asked while rapidly healing his body. "If you don't come out, I'll come find you."
"No need." A cold voice was heard from somewhere nearby. Suddenly, a huge amount of mana surrounded the tiny hole Ethan had dug himself into.
"Surely you didn't think I ran out of mana cores, did you? I've been hunting for months."