Chapter 50: Friendly Bout

Linda Storm was considered, easily, one of the strongest students in their class, and before the tournament, she had been considered the strongest.

That changed after Leon won the tournament of course, though she was still one of the strongest students in the year.

She was tall for a girl, standing at around six feet, with long blonde hair and an appearance that naturally drew attention, even though she didn’t seem to care much about it. Her expression was usually calm and serious, especially when she was training.

Training was something Linda took very seriously. She knew she had high potential, which wasn’t any secret at all, given her summon, perhaps because of that, Linda was the type who viewed free time as another opportunity to improve herself. There was always something she could work on, and wasting time was something she didn’t particularly like.

So, when Leon won the tournament, she naturally assumed that he would become even more focused, or at the very least, now noticing him, she expected he was such a hard worker, perhaps one that could even challenge her to do more, and someone who had managed to defeat the strongest students should have realized how much further he could go if he continued putting in the effort.

Instead, he seemed to become lazier.

At least, that was how it looked to Linda, and she wasn’t alone.

She had never really cared for him at all before, heck, she had barely noticed his existence until the tournament started. Now though, she seemed to see him more often, and it wasn’t what she would have expected.

She first noticed him sitting alone after one of their combat training sessions. The rest of the students were either practicing with their summons, discussing the match, or talking about what they planned to work on next.

What was Leon doing? He was sitting on a bench with a book in one hand, and he wasn’t even looking at the training field.

Linda watched him for a few seconds before returning her attention to her own training.

The next day, she saw him sleeping.

The day after that, he was reading again, and the book didn’t look like an academic one, maybe it was just distance.

A few days later, she found him sitting against a wall with his eyes closed while everyone else was training.

It happened often enough that Linda eventually stopped thinking it was a coincidence.

She began wondering if she had misunderstood him.

The winner of the tournament should have been the person working harder than everyone else. At the very least, Linda had expected Leon to use his victory as motivation to improve even further.

Instead, Leon Carter seemed perfectly comfortable doing nothing.

He didn’t seem worried about falling behind, and he didn’t seem particularly interested in proving that his victory at the tournament wasn’t a fluke.

For Linda, that was probably the strangest part.

She had expected him to become someone she would have to compete against, but Leon didn’t seem interested in competing with anyone at all, and the more she noticed it, the more it started to bother her.

She couldn’t understand how someone who had shown that kind of strength could be so relaxed about it.

Not letting herself think too much about it, she decided to cast it away from her mind.

His behaviour was strange, and honestly below what she expected from someone who had just won the tournament, but that was about it. At least, that was what she told herself.

She had her own training to focus on anyway, and whatever small impression Leon had left on her wasn’t something she needed to think about for now.

That aside, elsewhere, Dustin and Raul were taking their training a lot more seriously.

Neither of them suddenly became obsessed with getting stronger or started waking up before sunrise every day just to train, but after watching the tournament, there were some things that became difficult to ignore.

First off, while they already knew it before, it just became glaringly clear that there were a lot of strong students around them... much stronger than they originally thought.

Watching people like Aaron fight was already enough to make that clear, but Leon winning the whole thing made it feel a bit different, especially since Leon was someone they lived with, ate with and argued with almost every day.

It was a little difficult to look at him exactly the same after watching him stand in the arena with three undead beside him, coming on top over one of the academy’s best.

Neither Dustin nor Raul would openly say it, but having someone like Leon that close to them was pushing them more than they probably realised. Neither of them wanted to remain where they were.

Dustin’s Stone Golem had already improved quite a bit, more during the course of one or two weeks following the tournament, than it had throughout the semester.

Its movements had become smoother than before, and Dustin himself had become better at using the Golem’s weight instead of simply ordering it to swing at whatever was standing in front of it.

Raul’s Dark Panther had also become faster, but the bigger improvement was probably his understanding of its ’Shadow Cloaking’ ability.

While it still wasn’t perfect, and under direct sunlight or in very bright places, the effect became much weaker, in darker areas or places where there were enough shadows, the Panther could blend into the surroundings enough that tracking it became difficult.

It wasn’t completely invisible, but it didn’t need to be either. Being difficult to follow was already dangerous enough.

After a lot of arguing over who was better and a few other matters, the two eventually decided to test themselves properly, and since neither really wanted people watching, they found a private training area around evening when most had returned to their rooms and other activities, where they could spar without anyone bothering them.

"You ready?" Raul asked while looking across the field at Dustin.

"I was about to ask you that." Dustin said, rolling his shoulders a little, a cheeky look on his face.

"Don’t cry when you lose."

"You say that every time."

"And one day it’ll be true." Raul said with a grin.

"Oh please, everyone knows the quiet kids cry the loudest. Come out." Dustin said, ignoring him as he summoned his Stone Golem.

The Golem appeared beside him with a heavy thud, its body looking thicker than it had months ago, especially around the shoulders and arms where the stone looked more compact.

It wasn’t exactly elegant to look at, but it looked quite solid.

Raul summoned his Dark Panther at the same time, and the creature appeared low to the ground, its black fur almost seeming to absorb some of the light around it as its eyes settled on the Stone Golem.

"Same rules?" Dustin asked while looking at Raul.

"Same rules."

"No attacking each other directly unless there’s an opening?"

"Try not to die." Raul said with a nod.

"Ha.Ha. Very funny."

"Go." Raul ordered.

The Dark Panther moved immediately.

Dustin barely had enough time to react before it had already crossed more than half the distance between them.

"Evade block." Dustin ordered.

The Stone Golem shifted sideways, but the Panther changed direction before reaching it, slipping around the Golem’s arm before striking at its side.

Its claws scraped against the stone, making a harsh sound, though the damage itself was shallow.

"That’s it?" Dustin asked with a smile.

"Again." Raul said, completely ignoring him.

The Panther moved out of the Golem’s reach before quickly circling around again.

The Stone Golem tried turning to keep up with it, but the Panther was already attacking from another angle before it properly faced the first one.

Then it attacked again.

And then again, coming from different angles.

Dustin quickly understood what the problem was.

The Golem could take the hits, so that wasn’t really an issue. The problem was actually landing one of its own.

"Left." Dustin ordered.

The Golem swung immediately, but the Panther ducked underneath the arm before the attack could touch it.

"Too slow." Raul said with a grin.

"Shut up."

The Panther rushed forward again, but this time Dustin didn’t immediately order the Golem to chase after it.

He waited for the Panther to jump toward the Golem’s side, then, "Now." Dustin said.

The Golem’s arm came down hard.

"Back!" Raul shouted, his expression changing immediately.

The Panther twisted its body in the air, barely moving out of the way as the Golem’s fist smashed into the ground, causing cracks to spread through the stone beneath it.

"Okay." Raul said while staring at the ground for a second.

"Still want to get hit?" Dustin asked with a smile.

"No."

"Thought so."

The next exchange became a little slower, though it wasn’t because Raul had suddenly lost the advantage. He was simply being more careful now.

The Dark Panther continued moving around the Golem, but it wasn’t committing to every attack anymore, and Dustin noticed that almost immediately.

’Good.’ He thought to himself.

That was what he wanted.

The Golem didn’t need to land many hits.

It just needed one good one, and Raul understood that too.

The Dark Panther moved close to the shadow of one of the stone pillars surrounding the training area, and its body immediately became harder to see, almost as though it disappeared, looking from afar.

"You’re using that now?" Dustin asked, narrowing his eyes as he tried to keep track of it.

"Why wouldn’t I?" Raul said with a smile.

The Panther moved, but Dustin had lost sight of it for a moment, then he caught something moving close to the Golem’s back.

"Turn!"

But it was already too late.

The Panther struck the Golem from behind, but that didn’t really do much apart from chipping away at its exterior.

"That one hurt." Raul said, raising an eyebrow.

"Rocks don’t feel pain." Dustin replied with a frown. Of course, Raul wasn’t referring to physical pain. "Don’t get excited."

The Panther moved back toward the shadows again, and Dustin kept his eyes on the area this time.

’He has definitely gotten better at using this annoying ability.’ He said in his mind.

The Panther wasn’t turning completely invisible, but that wasn’t exactly what the ability did anyway. Its body seemed to blend into darker surroundings, making the outline difficult to follow, and if Raul used it in the right kind of environment, Dustin could already tell it would become a serious problem.

That was a good thing, but as an opponent at that moment, it could as much be the worst.