*swish* *clang* *clang* *swish*
The sound of steel clashing was echoing around the colosseum , two figures were seen running around the arena thrusting and slashing their swords at each other trying their hardest to kill one another
"huff ... huff...huff" Lucian was panting he had been fighting his doubleganger for hours trying his hardest to find an opening and finish it off to no avail
"This is ridiculous" he exclaimed
"If i had known he would never let himself be caught of guard by the same move again i wouldn't have used petty tricks to beat him so often just to make my self feel better"
Lucian watched as the doubleganger stood still waiting for him to attack it once again , he smiled he would like to say that he didn't remember how many times he used this mechanic to rest and catch his breath but he would be lying
And believe it or not the biggest reason he remembers was not because he had a good memory even though that helped , it was because of how many times he had died at the hands of that damn doubleganger for getting to overconfident ..... yes died
You could not believe how scared he was when he first got stabbed through the heart and this time there was no feeling of freedom while he was dying but regret , overflowing regret with his stupidity and his overconfidence just because he had beaten his doubleganger a couple of times
But that was nothing compared to the shock he received when he woke up on the ground , alive and well with no wounds to be found on his body
At first he thought that he was given one more chance by the entity out of pity so he stopped fighting his doubleganger with weapons but after thousands of fights he started winning every single time and he felt no improvement whatsoever but throughout all those bouts he learned that the doubleganger would never attack him unless he engaged himself
So with that thought in mind he clenched his teeth and decided to use weapons again only this time he picked a staff out of fear of getting his heart stabbed again or even worse his head chopped off this time
The good thing about the doubleganger was that he knew exactly what Lucian did no more no less if Lucian knew how to swing a sword so would he if Lucian knew how to wield a staff so would he , with the only difference being that the doubleganger had no emotions
And that's exactly why Lucian was killed although both of them didn't know how to properly wield a sword Lucian was fearful of getting hurt while the doubleganger wasn't and that fear was something he had to overcome if he wanted to progress
After thousands of bouts against the doubleganger using the staff Lucian finally felt confident enough trying the sword once again. He still had a small lingering fear but he knew the doubleganger would never attack him as long as he stop attacking him for a minute so that gave him some comfort
But soon , he learned how wrong he was to have that thought process because one minute was a long time for an accident to happen when your opponent was holding a weapons that can kill you , and it did. Lucian died twenty three times before he was even able to hold his ground for one minute in order to reset the doubleganger so he can rest.
Just remembering that time made Lucian annoyed considering that was just the start of it
"Fifty-Seven times you bastard , there's not going to be another one" Lucian said panting while fiercely glaring at the doubleganger
He had died a total of fifty seven times to this doubleganger after three thousand duels that would mean he had died at least once per fifty three duels on average. Lucian didn't like that , he was sure that he would have to fight a lot more than fifty three times if he wanted to wonder the world unrestricted like he had planned
After regaining his breath Lucian took his battle stance and prepared to charge the doubleganger once again
"Alright copycat , time for you to go to sleep"
Lucian dashed towards the doubleganger and swung at him with his left arm in a diagonal downwards slash which was parried as he expected so he twisted his sword around the doublegangers and pushed outwards as soon as he did he kicked him as hard as he can with a push kick trying to brake his balance
And he did , Lucian didn't hesitate he lunged towards the doubleganger with grate speed and slashed with an upward diagonal strike , the doubleganger quickly tried to stabilize himself and successfully parried Lucian strike once again , only to receive a powerful turning kick to the right side of his kidney
Lucian didn't stop he quickly retracted his foot and gripped his sword with both hands and did a downward chop with all his might , the doubleganger struggled but managed to parry Lucians heavy strike with grate difficulty , only this time it was not enough as Lucians powerful chop did exactly what he wanted , witch was to bring the doublegangers sword lower than his shoulder level
He turned his sword and scraped it against the doublegangers towards the right , as soon as he lost the feeling of the friction between the two blades Lucian quickly slashed towards the left aiming for the doublegangers head now that the sword was out of the way
The doubleganger understood what Lucian wanted to achieve but it only had enough time to lift its arm in hopes that sacrificing an arm would be enough to stop the momentum of Lucians blade in order for it to escape , but unfortunately it was not enough as Lucians sword cleanly cut through the doublegangers arm along with its head
*thud*
The doublegangers head fell and soon after his body as it slowly started disappearing
"Huff...huff man no matter how many times i do it , it always feels weird killing myself" Lucian stated , he didn't feel hesitant or sick not even disgusted when he killed the doubleganger , not anymore at least , now he felt like it was just a sport or a game and he just felt weird seeing himself die over and over again
The first time Lucian killed the doubleganger he felt sick , so much so that he didn't even summon it for at least a couple of days. But slowly that feeling completely disappeared as he had killed it thousands of times
"I think that's enough combat practice" he grinned , it was time to learn how to use something much cooler than swords
He wanted to start with it the moment he got here but decided against it because he knew that as soon as he learned how to wield magic Lucian would forget about combat practice completely and even if he didn't his heart would not be in it 100% therefore stagnating his progress
But now that he has learned how to fight in close combat without much fear to his satisfaction. Lucian could turn his eye on the prized jewel that is magic , he didn't know how much time has past since he first got here but that was of no concern since he was never bored , Lucian imagined that he would spend twice as much time learning magic than he did learning how to fight since this was an area he only knew the basics of thanks to the knowledge Magnus gave him
He decided to give the entity a name since he got tired of calling him that so he chose Magnus , supposedly it meant "Grate" in Latin so he went with it
"Time for some magic" he said as he sat down to rest and waited for his wounds to be healed by this area