OP— 19

Title: Spar of Will? Skill?

“Again?” As if a high-ranking exec of a foundation, Rogue inquired Mana while standing in front of him while making others feel that his time was worth a lot more than he let on. It did not.

“Why not?” Mana inquired, still shirtless.

“Dharma didn’t challenge me for a reason despite being a Heart’s disciple… aside from Drake who is definitely insane, not even Chrome challenged me again.”

When it comes to bragging and showing off, Rogue loved putting all his cards out in the open. A trait his fellow disciples of second-year were already aware of.

‘Why face a loss knowingly, right?’ Chrome thought internally while shrugging.

Silently, Lilia deactivated her skill. Meanwhile, Mana stretched his waist, his words managing to anger everyone— Dharma, and the few girls who started to find him cute, too.

“What’s the use of sparring against the weaker opponents? You’re definitely the only guy I can spar right now,” Mana replied with a carefree attitude.

Pursing his lips, quite pleased by Mana’s statement, Rogue nodded.

“Alright, all the senior teammates should step back while the junior disciples should gather around the battle stage. Ah, nobody will use their rune skills to interrupt the sparring session. Professor Klyde is not feeling well, so I will be the referee of all the spars!”

Lilia, Vedra, and Rogue looked towards Chrome with a mocking stare, easily seeing through his schemes yet the yellow-eyed senior remained unperturbed. Soon enough, the disciples gathered around the battle stage of the gymnasium while a few seniors introduced the functions of the stage, their words spreading to other disciples, too.

Stepping up on the circular stage, Rogue pointed towards the location on the stage edging outwards and holding a carved chair where Chrome soon sat down.

“That chair is the control unit of the Battle Stage. This stage has self-repair runes and plenty of elemental and qi barriers to prevent damages to the gymnasium. This means, I really can go crazy here.”

“You say as if you didn’t go crazy yesterday,” Mana smiled while Chrome interjected.

“Junior disciples, every spar is limited by a time duration. Each spar cannot last longer than 20 minutes and since this is only a spar, the loss and victory will not be counted in any official records.”

Rogue and Mana nodded.

“The one to step out of the bounds wins,” Rogue rejected everything Chrome directed instantly.

“The loser pays for the dinner.”

Mana added.

Dharma gulped. No matter who won, he is going to have a feast tonight.

“Fine.”

With their personal rules set, Mana and Rogue entered their stances once again.

“Begin!!”

Chrome smiled as Rogue’s entire body turned pitch-black the moment he summoned his origin, greatly intimidating the surrounding disciples, both freshman and veterans.

However, Mana summoned his glowing gold origin with no visible rune on its surface as Chrome narrowed his gaze once again.

‘This much of a natural talent can be troublesome, too.’

Chrome realized that the rivalry was simply formed between the seemingly most talented freshman and the most talented failure.

Instead of having his arm wrapped by a golden, spiked vine, Mana let the vine grow out of his origin. Seeing the beautiful vine with a metallic luster appearing once again, Rogue’s gaze turned cautious once again. He now admitted the versatility of a vine and understood that anyone with a master control over an elemental vine can cause mighty damage.

This was simply a crowd-controlling rune skill that could benefit with low restrictions.

Not willing to turn this spar into a battle of words despite the ability of words to cause disastrous mental damage, the two inched forward slowly.

‘Here it goes!’

With a single thought, Mana’s vine shot forward and got dodged by Rogue with a swift sidestep, and at this moment, the vine detached from the origin while the metallic spikes finally struck the stage and dug into the surface.

However, before Rogue could rush Mana, he found another vine coiling around his left arm and slithering out of his shoulder. With one hand holding the edge of a detached vine and the other one coiled by a defensive vine, Mana was ready to up his game.

“You don’t have any multiplicative rune. Heh, that detached plant won’t survive for long!” Rogue cackled but seeing the confident smile on Mana, he felt something amiss.

“And how would you know the number of my rune skills?” Mana mocked. His eyes surprisingly sharp as Rogue finally realized the truth of the situation.

‘That’s right,’ Lilia pursed her lips, almost disgusted by her lack of finding the truth. ‘Theoretically speaking, Mana could have carved out all of his skills onto the origin and none would be the wiser. We simply cannot discern the truth…’

Meanwhile, Vedra seemed as disinterested as ever.

“Heh,” not speaking anymore, Rogue shot forward.

Even if Mana carved all nine of his skills, the correct answer would simply be using his own 9 skills to make Mana fight at his best. After all, what’s the use of getting caught by your opponent's words? Whether Mana is lying or not, all will be revealed once he fights it out!

Seeing Mana retreating with a strange movement technique that he did not reveal yesterday, Chrome grew more interested, his yellow pupils flashing continuously.

‘One order of ass-whooping coming right up!’

Snapping the detached vine, Mana tore a small chunk of the stage as he showed great ability in controlling the vine as if a…

‘Whip!’ Rogue realized instantly and as he felt the long vine looping around him, his body was launched up through a thick black pillar as thick as an average leg. A use of blunt spike.

Seeing his move countered once again, Mana could only act up again, snapping his arm in a slightly more exaggeration since he could only control a detached vine without any other runic skill as such.

By now, Rogue had seen through Mana’s intention and couldn’t help but feel amazed at how he was being attacked by such a strategy in the next match right after their first match.

‘This strategy makes sense if Mana’s a good whip user. He intentionally consumed his qi to lengthen the vine before detaching it and making it go past me in a form of attack. In a way, I’m still inside Mana’s range of attack. Not to mention, if I get close to him, I will have to struggle against the other vine around his left arm. But with my skill set, I’m only best when I’m at close range, and to insult my opponent by not fighting at my best… that’s a treat only for bitches like Shera and Zack!’

Seeing that the vine would soon reach high towards his position given the shift in the loop, Rogue grinned as his light physique suddenly shot downwards with an extreme speed. Stunned, Mana failed to cope up with the change and the apparent shift of Rogue’s weight. Broken fragments of concrete flew up as Rogue formed a small crater around him by the heavy landing.

‘You’re in my range!’

‘Fuck, I’m in his range!’

They both realized the situation as Mana instantly spun his right arm, forming continuous loops with his vine around Rogue’s struck fist and even if his right shoulder ached greatly, the hit wasn’t direct while a smile touched Mana’s lips.

Holding the vine with a tight grip as it coiled around Rogue’s arm, Mana whispered with a tinge of menace while his exposed shoulder already grew red and started to swell a little.

“One arm down,” clenching his left first with the coiled vine still unused, Mana continued, “One left.”

"Oh?" Rogue smiled, his fist surprisingly extending suddenly.

Another spike.

A sharp one this time!

But without flinching and keeping Rogue in place, Mana struck, too. The vine over his other arm came to life as it slithered with an extreme speed, striking and coiling around Rogues face, instantly moving down and soon covering the entirety of Rogue with his single arm out.

*Drip*

Stabbed into Mana's shoulder.

"Move again and you'll get lacerated," Mana warned coolly as if it was not his shoulder that was stabbed and he hadn't bound his classmate, nay, a roommate with an extremely dangerous vine.

The surrounding disciples grew silent while Dharma looked a bit weirded out.

Would Rogue stop still?

'He won't act reasonably. The more one controls a situation, the more he desires to wreck such control into dust,' Vedra narrowed her gaze, fully realizing the true cause of her loss against the bound man.

'Sigh, I overestimated the freshman… he's still green… pun intended,' Chrome realized how the situation was out of Mana's control the moment Rogue pushed his spike into Mana's body. If Mana can lacerate Rogue, then Rogue can stab Mana's internal organs by branching out his spikes within Mana's body, too.

Within the expectations of Chrome, Vedra, and Dharma, dozens of spikes, pitch-black, instantly tore through the coiled vine while producing a grating noise as if a clash of two metallic weapons.

His face finally free, Rogue gazed at Mana as if watching a fool.

"Are you an idiot or something?"

Pulling his spikes back into his body, Rogue left a gaping stab wound in Mana's chest.

Free from tattered vines, Rogue pulled back slightly while Mana took a deep breath and began wrapping his own shoulder by the soft side of the vine.

"I will say that your plan of using two vines to have more options of attack range and confusing me without having any more skills was… just enough to make me feel a little giddy."

"What are you talking about?" Mana frowned.

"I hardly lie," he pointed towards Rogue's fist as it held a small speckle of gold over his knuckle.

"I thought of this over lunch… noodles are an inspiring form of meal."

Within moments, the golden speckle grew into a beautiful golden rose. A single rose without any bush or thorns but Rogue soon realized how demonic the flower was.

"Isn't that— a Drain Rose!"

Mira gasped.

A classified vegetation fey that looks like a rose but has more than one center of the bloom, making it seem from the top that it is a drain in the form of a rose and it acts like one. Absorbing all the fluid qi within itself to grow and wilt after consumption excessive to its rank.

Vedra blinked, a rare occasion of incorrectly estimating someone while Lilia frowned.

"Damn," Rogue clicked his tongue.

"Anyway, I will pay for dinner. Don't wanna get unconscious again and wake to find master sitting beside me," Mana shrugged and walked down the stage.

"Oi!" recalling how confident he was to conclude that Mana didn't have any new rune skill just yet, Rogue gritted his teeth while he felt the rose wilt away.

"How many skills do you actually have?"

Musing, Mana turned and revealed a troubled expression.

"I don't want to lie for such a small matter…so… guess."

Smilingly, he picked his clothes and left for the healing ward yet again.

"Please get off the stage so that I can start the self-repair runes!" Chrome instructed, making Rogue deactivate his skills as he got down the stage with a dark expression.

Thinking for a moment, Lilia followed behind Mana.

'He might just fall unconscious while walking… I did use heat poison on him…' She thought without a hint of shame.

'I could have countered the drain skill, too… but I don't think the skill itself is about the drainage of qi,' Rogue being the first to confront Mana's second skill felt a little rattled. Only now was he beginning to realize that wood can be extremely versatile and with the added sharpness of metal…

'Man… what good luck to stay back and come across a compound element user!' Rogue smiled.

"Next, Junior Dharma and Sam, step onto the stage."

Chrome called out while the stage returned to its undamaged state.