“Heh. This is pretty neat.” Leo casually swung the sword around.
“When you imbue your weapon with an element, that weapon will also gain the element’s effects. For example, dark magic affinity will increase the force of the weapon while fire magic affinity will burn its target.” Lilith said to him a moment later.
“Is that so…”
Leo tried imbuing his sword with his fire magic affinity next.
His sword immediately became engulfed with flames, and it emanated a stronger aura than his dark element even though his dark magic affinity was higher in rank.
‘Is this due to the Phoenix Sword?’ He wondered to himself.
Lilith also noticed this abnormality and asked, “Why is your fire aura stronger than your dark aura?”
“It’s thanks to the system.”
“Eh? Elaborate it some more!”
“Well—”
Leo was suddenly interrupted by knocking on his door.
“Leo, are you ready? I want to see how much you’ve improved since the Wilderness Training Course.” Camille’s voice resounded from outside his room.
“Yes, I am ready.” Leo quickly jumped off the bed and rushed outside before following Camille to the training building behind the living quarters.
The building was very simple. The interior was only a single large training room, but it was half as big as the entire Training Center.
“Whenever you’re ready.” Camille said to him.
However, Leo didn’t respond for a good moment as he stared at her in silence.
“Why are you fully geared? This is the first time you’re this heavily geared when sparring with me.” He asked her.
“You’re already strong enough to defeat A-Rank monsters by yourself, so I can no longer go easy on you.” Camille said in a calm voice.
“Oh? So I am finally strong enough for you to take me seriously?” A prideful grin appeared on Leo’s face after hearing this, and he asked, “So how powerful am I now when compared to the old Leo?”
Camille narrowed her eyes slightly, and after a moment of silence, she spoke, “In terms of swordsmanship, you are still far behind. However, if we consider your magic prowess, you’re probably on equal terms in strength. With that being said, the old Leo has far more experience than you when it comes to fighting, so you’ll still lose to him in a one-on-one fight.”
“I see…”
Of course, Camille was unaware of Leo’s upgrades and high tier magic spells. If she did, she might have had a different opinion regarding their fight.
“Can I use magic, or am I restricted to only the sword?” Leo asked her a moment later.
“We’ll spar two times. One without magic and one with magic. This way, I can assess your performance with both.” Camille said.
“I understand.” Leo nodded and retrieved the Blood Sword.
“This room is protected with magic so you don’t need to worry about hurting me. Treat me as though I am a monster and fight me like you want to kill me.” Camille said to him.
Sometime later, they began fighting each other.
‘Huh? What is this feeling? Why am I suddenly feeling weaker than usual?’
Camille could feel her body suddenly growing weaker the moment the fight started. Unbeknownst to her, since they are fighting, she has become his opponent— his enemy. Therefore, his B-Rank passive skill Weakening Aura was affecting her.
While Camille was distracted by this phenomenon, Leo closed their distance very quickly and swung his sword at her.
‘So fast!’ Camille narrowly dodged his strike.
However, even though she dodged his blade, she still felt a grazing sensation where the blade would’ve landed if she didn’t dodge.
Whoosh!
Leo didn’t want to lose this flow and continued to pressure Camille with his lightning quick slashes and profound body movements, and he was moving quicker and quicker with every passing second.
Camille had no choice but to force Leo away by expanding her mana very quickly, creating an explosion-like effect around her, blowing Leo away.
pᴀɴᴅᴀ-ɴoᴠᴇʟ However, Leo still managed to land on his feet after being blown away.
“Not bad, Leo… You’ve grown much more than I’d anticipated…” Camille said to him with a drop of sweat on her forehead. She was taken aback by his tremendous growth.
‘If he’s already this powerful with just the sword, how powerful is he with magic?’ She swallowed nervously.
After taking a brief moment to take a breath, they continued to fight with Camille going on the offense this time.
Wielding two golden spears in her grasp, she would limit his movements and control his actions slightly.
Whenever Leo tried to get close, Camille would easily predict his movements and keep his movements limited with her golden spears from afar before distancing herself from him.
However, she didn’t use this strategy for the whole fight, as she was trying to assess his strength, and she would not be able to accurately do that if she kept forcing him to chase after her.
After spending a few minutes messing with Leo, she would purposefully let him get close enough to reach her with his sword, but even then, she would still be able to predict and block all of his attacks.
Although Leo was powerful, he still lacked fighting experience while Camille has over a decade of experience as an Adventurer.
Thus, even though he’d successfully pushed Camille back at first, she quickly regained control over the flow of their fight.
Over the next half an hour, the two of them would attack and block each others’ strike without any rest until Leo eventually ran out of energy.
“You have exceeded my expectations, Leo.” Camille said to him afterward with a slight smile on her face. “I haven’t sweat this much in a long time from a spar.”
“Thank you for your praises, Miss Camille, but I am still not satisfied. In fact, I am even a little disappointed and frustrated. I thought that I would finally be able to reach you with my sword, especially after getting good results at first, but alas…”
Camille suddenly tossed him an energy potion and said, “Show me what you can do with magic.”
Leo nodded and quickly swallowed the energy potion.
