System Change

Avery’s eyes gleamed in excitement as he looked at Tyron, and the smith shrugged. It looked like neither of them had a problem with going after Derek and Edgar. Tyron didn’t look too excited, but he agreed nonetheless.

Soon, Derek followed Edgar a bit away from the others, so they wouldn’t get caught up in anything. Of course, Jasper stuck close enough where he could intervene if necessary. There was no point in bringing a healer if you weren’t going to make use of them, after all.

“Are you ready?” Derek asked Edgar.

“Hold on,” Edgar said. “We need to make a few rules first. We don’t want to go all out and end up killing each other.”

“Agreed,” Derek said. “What did you have in mind?”

“First off… no using that weird teleporting move of yours.”

“What? Why not? It’s a regular part of my moveset,” Derek complained.

“It’s odd, and I’m afraid I’d have to bring out some skills I don’t want to use on anyone who is not an enemy to counter it,” Edgar explained.

Derek thought for a moment before shrugging. “Okay, but you can’t turn into that ball of lightning.”

Edgar grinned. “That was one of the skills I didn’t plan on using, so don’t worry. Another rule, if we hit below 30% health, we call out, so the other can stop attacking. 30% seems like a good threshold.”

“That’s fine,” Derek said. “Anything else?”

“Other than the standard ‘don’t aim for vitals,’ I think that’s it.”

“Alright, good,” Derek agreed, then stored his shirt in his storage bracelet. There was no sense in ruining a good shirt for a spar, and since Edgar was fast and used lightning, he was sure his clothing was bound to get destroyed. He hesitated before deciding to leave his jeans on. He had given Brandi the task of making something like denim before he left, so hopefully she would have something waiting for him when he got back.

Edgar gave him an odd look before shrugging. “Okay, we’ll start in five seconds.” Edgar flashed away, putting some distance between the two of them. “Five… four… three…” he counted down and went silent at two.

Two… one… go! Derek finished in his head. At the same time he finished counting, Edgar drew his sword and began walking around Derek.

“Okay, I’m not going to go easy,” Edgar said before he released his aura, causing his eyes to turn light blue, and his white hair even took on an electric shimmer. The aura was palpable and pushed into Derek even more than Silvi’s had.

Derek grinned. Two can play that game. He thought as he let the void flow through his body and released his own aura. With his aura on full blast, it pushed any hinderance caused by Edgar’s aura to the side. As their aura’s clashed, Derek’s came out on top, but not by a high margin. What aura was left was not enough to affect Edgar in any meaningful way.

“Miss Savannah wasn’t joking when she said you had stats that were higher than mine,” Edgar commented as he slowly drew closer to Derek. “Very interesting…”

With about fifteen feet between the two, Edgar pointed his sword forward, causing the sword to radiate a blue gleam. Suddenly, the energy around the sword concentrated into the tip of the blade before a stunningly powerful bolt of lighting shot out a Derek at an incomprehensible speed.

Derek’s stats weren’t nearly high enough to dodge the full blow at that speed, and he had agreed not to use Void Shift during the fight, so he was basically a sitting duck waiting for the skill to hit him. As fast as he could, he activated Greater Meditation and pushed himself as hard as he could to at least try to block the blow.

Luckily, Edgar wasn’t aiming for any place that could have been fatal, so, even though Derek was barely able to move, the bolt of lightning struck him just above his hip. Derek waited for the pain to come, and it did.

The pain felt like he just stuck a fork in an electric outlet. It radiated throughout his entire body. Derek glanced down at where the bolt had hit him to see a quickly closing charred hole. The shock and attack dealt a decent amount of damage to him, doing over 7,500 damage in one hit. But, with his Vitality and the regeneration increase caused by Greater Meditation, it was nothing, and in a handful of seconds, his health was back to full.

Derek wiped the residue from his previously charred skin off of his side as he looked up and smiled at Edgar. “I hope you can do better than that.”

Edgar’s eyes were wide as he had stood back and waited to see the damage caused by his strike. Derek didn’t know exactly how powerful that skill was compared to others, but he imagined it was up there. The skill had eaten through over twenty percent of his health in one shot, and it had taken time to charge up.

If it weren’t for Derek’s Magical Resistance skill and his staggeringly high Endurance stat, there was no telling how much damage a skill like that would have caused. The only reason the shock from the skill didn’t seem bad to Derek was because of how it compared to breaking the 1,500 point threshold in Endurance. When compared to that, burning alive probably wouldn’t feel too bad.

By the look on Edgar’s face, Derek’s guess was most likely correct. Soon, though, the young prince broke out of his daze and continued with an onslaught of attacks.

Derek couldn’t name the skill, but a cowl made of pure electricity formed over the prince’s body, and his already fast speed increased even more. There really wasn’t much Derek could do in the fight, as he was slow and clunky without his Void Shift ability, a problem that he planned on remedying as soon as he got the chance.

Edgar soon vanished from the spot he was standing, then appeared just in front of Derek with a slash. Derek raised his arm just in time to have the blade dig into his forearm, stopping halfway through the muscle and sending another shock throughout his body. The shock wasn’t as intense as the previous one, but he didn’t have time to wait it out before the sword was ripped out of his arm and redirected to his side.

The wound in his arm cauterized as the sword was torn away, and by the time the sword was stabbed into his abdomen, the wound in his arm was already partly healed. Derek hadn’t dared to cancel his Greater Meditation skill.

This onslaught continued for over a minute before Edgar flashed away and appeared a dozen feet in front of him once again. And once again, the lightning energy gathered into his sword before forming on the tip and shooting out. This time, however, the already powerful bolt of lightning was even stronger.

Derek put two and two together and realized that whatever the skill was that covered Edgar in lighting had increased more than just his speed. It had also increased the damage he could deal with his element.

The bolt shot out even faster this time, hitting Derek directly in the center of his abdomen. The blast still didn’t rip all the way through him, but both the shock and hole that it left was a sight to behold. The blast made it at least halfway through his body this time, and the jolt that arrived at the same time as the blast felt even worse.

It was still not up there with the Endurance threshold, but it had greatly closed in on it. It may have even surpassed the pain from passing the Vitality threshold.

Edgar didn’t give Derek the time to worry about his wound this time, as he quickly flashed in and began the assault anew. While doing his best to endure the blows, Derek moved his left hand over the burned hole in his stomach and cast Rejuvenation. Instantly, the perpetual shock lessened and the skill’s ability coordinated with his regeneration abilities and began healing the wound at an alarming speed.

The attack had dealt nearly fifty percent of Derek’s health pool in one hit, then combined with the rush from Edgar, not even his regeneration could keep up. If not for his Rejuvenation ability and the fact that the wound didn’t actually bleed, Edgar would have been able to chip away his health until he lost.

However, that was the last time Derek would let Edgar use that move. The first time was a surprise, and the second was a test to see how much it affected him. There wouldn’t be a third. Sure enough, Derek outlasted Edgar’s assault once again, leading to the prince flashing away and charging yet another lightning bolt.

This time, Derek used Absolute Nullify and the wall of void sprang up in between them, shocking everyone. With its damn near magnetic effect on all things magic, Derek wouldn’t have to worry about the ability again as long as he stayed close to the wall, which he did.

It also seemed like Edgar couldn’t move much while charging his skill, so he was stuck shooting it off at the wall of void. When the bolt of lightning hit the wall, the wall’s energy fluctuated a bit before settling down, like nothing happened.

“Fucking cockroach!” Edgar let out a defeated sigh as he appeared next to Derek once again. “You win.”

“I haven’t even attacked yet,” Derek said with a smile. Inwardly, he was relieved. Edgar was the real test of how far he had come. If I ever see that damn lunatic Jace again, I’ll leave him beaten in a pool of his own blood for once. Oh, how the turns have tabled.

“But I’m out of Mana and almost out of Stamina and you… you don’t even have a bruise,” Edgar whined.

“My pants are in pretty rough shape.” Derek touched multiple places where his jeans had caught on fire and burned to his skin from Edgar’s sword. “Besides, it would be different if you had gone for my throat or head. I don’t think I could have stopped the attack without using my… other ability.”

“A win is a win,” Edgar said. “No vital attacks were part of the rules. If I would have attacked your head or throat, I still would have lost. Now I need to get rid of this damnable mana fatigue.” Edgar took a blue potion out of his storage ring and drank it before he and Derek walked over to the audience.

“I thought you’d be a better version of a punching bag than Gerald, but this is much better than that,” Avery said once they got close. “I want to fight you after the big guy.”

Edgar plopped down on the ground and began meditating with his eyes open, showing that his skill was very high level. He was already at the point where he could see all of his surroundings while in the trance, which Derek saw as only having a couple levels left in the skill before he could transform it into Greater Meditation.

Derek looked at the other two. “Well, go ahead, we don’t have all day… well, we do, but you should still hurry.”

“Shall we do this?” Avery asked the blacksmith.

Tyron grunted, then began walking out to where Edgar and Derek’s battle had taken place.

“You didn’t even use an attack skill,” Edgar muttered from his sitting position, clearly agitated enough to break his trance and complain.

Derek shrugged. “Didn’t need to.” He laughed. “Probably couldn’t have hit you with anything even if I did. Not without my other skill.”

Edgar sighed. “1500 gold on the small one.”

“Hmm…” Derek looked over at the two. He figured Tyron would be in the same situation as he was against Edgar, but without the regeneration to get through it. Still… why not? “I’ll take that bet.”