Chapter 46 - Sparring

He didn't come," A jovial old voice said from the side, half gloating and half stating the facts of the bet they had both made.

"He will."

The principal of the Faustian Academy gave the man in the suit of armour an incredulous look.

"It's been five days since teaching began and he's been here for a full week before. It has been almost two weeks since your conversation with him. Do you really believe he'll come here?" It was his honest opinion, but the General didn't seem intent on backing down.

He wordlessly stared at the training puppet soldiers for a while, until it appeared that the Principal was about to live.

"The boy will soon realise what he lacks. And when that happens he will come here."

"How do you know?" The old man cocked his head, as he headed towards the door.

"Instinct."

. . . .

Three of them stood in the centre of a padded open arena with stands on each side and a square ring in the middle. It wasn't nearly as large as the Death Battle arena but big enough that he could move around easily.

"You ready?"

Amari asked, gathering mana inside his palms. After the lesson on Spell creation, he began to see the prospects that even Basic Element Manipulation could offer. It didn't matter whether he had to constantly think about the shape of the spell, he would just make it so that his brain could occupy such thoughts all at the same time.

Ken let out an audible gulp, holding two oversized chef knives in his hands. Undoubtedly a comical weapon, but he wouldn't underestimate the Ifrit.

He wasn't properly able to gauge his true strength in the fight against the Spore Goblin Fairy, and he'd also never thought to use Observation on the boy.

'That reminds me…' his mind shifted focus for a brief second and all of Ken's details appeared before his eyes.

[Name: Ken]

[Race: Demon]

[Rank: Lesser Demon (Birth Rank) - Evolvable]

[Species: Ifrit]

[Class: None]

[Level: Acolyte]

[Patrons: God Of Cooking]

[Elements: Fire Element]

[Attributes]

[STR: 120]

[AGI: 180]

[STA: 200]

[INT: 400]

[Skills: Simple Mana Cooking, Elemental Knife, Ten Element Carving Technique, Innate Fire Manipulation, Delicate Cut, Heavy Cut, Flame Knife Basic Knife Technique, Lid Shield].

[MP: 800/800]

[Titles: Hand of Flavour]

[Remark: Young Ifrit walking on a path never walked by normal people and conquered by the fiercest]

(Note: Ken is a Level higher but Amari has the unknown advantage of way better physical and magical stats. Reason is not explained and it is kind of a minor spoiler so I'm not mentioning it here)

Amari's eyebrows raised for two reasons, the first being the high regard the system seemed to hold for Ken and the second was the boy's stats and skills. He had a lot of questions about them, most of which couldn't be answered in one sitting.

He never checked the attributes of any of the Ifrits or anyone weaker than him for that matter, so he didn't have much of a scale to go by, but from the stamina stat alone which was equal to his, he could tell that Ken was some sort of anomaly.

'He even has a title. I'll need to check Melchomar out to get some sort of idea of how the average student's stats look like,'

It was just for safety measures, he wouldn't want to kill some student by accident.

"Do you want to fight or what?!" Ken called out, laughing.

Amari couldn't help but reciprocate the boy. They hadn't talked to each other often or at all, but they had a connection no one in the world could hope to replace or contaminate.

Food!

"Big talk for someone that's going to lose!" he yelled out, forming an illusory blade of shadow in his hands after some thought.

He didn't intend to wield it as he would a real blade, it was just practice for visualisation.

'Damn, it's so faint. I got rusty…'

Ken didn't waste any more words, as he knew who his opponent was.

"Heavy Cut!"

The Ifrit jumped into the air, swinging his large blades with even more force than Amari expected. Both blades clashed, sending a small shockwave through the entire room, even pushing the abnormally large Melchomar back.

Amari unwittingly took a step back as the shadow blade in his hands gradually began to lose its true shape.

A small o formed on his mouth as this happened. 'He's strong! But…

I'm stronger!'

Without wasting any more time, he pushed back on the Ifrit, sending his two blades flying into the wall and him to the ground.

"I win!"

It wasn't a long fight. The sheer difference in stats wasn't something that could be handled normally.

"Hey, careful!" Mel yelled before either could respond, pointing at the two blades that narrowly missed his head.

Amari broke out into cold sweat, then went over to help Ken up.

"You're much stronger than you look,"

The young Ifrit took his hand and jumped to his feet, dusting his uniform quickly. His wasn't the same design as Amari's and looked even worse quality. Probably handled by one of the old seamstress's apprentices.

"Yeah, but I still wasn't a match for you. You're much stronger than you look or act, you know that, Raion,"

Amari shook his head. He did not know that.

"You are. Perhaps only Lilia, Isla, and Fuller would be your match. The rest of us shouldn't be able to affect you."

He snorted at the last name, but jumped back to the second, his heart skipping a beat.

"Yeah, she's much stronger than she actually looks. She's the young miss' cousin. Meaning her bloodline is much stronger than ours. Sucks that she can't stand most other Ifrits cause of what they did,"

Noting the information carefully, he thought back to the aloof girl that he couldn't help but be gravitated to.

'Curse my love for goth girls!!'

But he pushed the thought aside. Presently, he was barely holding on to some of the basics of his lessons. He wouldn't get distracted by a girl just yet. Cute goth or not.

So he turned to Melchomar, who just silently listened. The demon was the definition of a gentle giant, but he was very honest so Amari would try his best to keep him around.

"How about we get this spar started, Mel."

The demon nodded and took his place at the other end of the sparring field. Hugo moved first, in the form of scouting the enemy out.

'Observation!'

[Name: Melchomar]

[Race: Demon]

[Rank: Lesser Demon (Birth Rank) - Evolvable]

[Species: ???]

[Class: ???]

[Level: Acolyte]

[Patrons: ???]

[Elements: Earth Element-> Crystal Element, Metal Element]

[Attributes]

[STR: 570]

[AGI: 200]

[STA: 600]

[INT: 500]

[Skills: Advanced Innate Earth Manipulation, Defend, Shield Rush, Earth Guard, Crystal Armour, ???, Guardian Blitz, ???]

[MP: 1000/1000]

[Titles: Aegis]

[Remark: Unable to determine]

[Pzzt! Interference detected, unable to retrieve information. Some information is subject to manipulation. Please beware, host.]

. . . .

AN: So I've seen some authors do this and I've thought it would be cool to do. And I don't plan any character beforehand so this would just take the burden off me. Comment under this paragraph the idea for a character and I'll pick the first and the best idea. Please not too overpowered, just a modest/versatile character and what you want them to be (hunter, mercenary, mage, soldier etc)