Chapter 105 - Last Match Of Round One (3)

"Brother, I can't hold on any longer?" Shin muttered, sweat formed and evaporated in the warping of waves surrounding his body.

It was how Elior was training him, though most of the time, Shin would be torn and throb with the surrounding waves of tension around his body. It was what Elior created to train him through to prepare for the tournament, not that he had any way out of it.

"Hold on?" Elior eyed him, glaring. "Did I tell you to hold on? Or do you think it is a contest of how much you can hold on? What I want you be to break through the waves of tension I surrounded you with. The faster you can do that, the faster we will move to the next thing."

That did not relieve Shin in the slightest. It only meant it was the beginning, so what good it will be even if he manages to break the waves of tension. Well, if Elior put away the restriction of the usage of air or water attribute, then it would be many times easier. But he had to break through the surface tension Elior specially created by condensing his own waves.

Let alone condensing, Shin could feel nothing but the waves of mana, slow and soft. How could the slow and soft mana break the tension wall surrounding his body?

"Brother, are you sure you are not wrong?" Shin asked pitifully. His face was pale red from all the tension against his skin and muscle. Elior had not been injured in these few days even once. Well, to be exact, Elior had not been injured unintentionally. But even when it did not leave any injuries, it was damn painful. And that was not the end of it. His muscle turned sore within a couple of minutes. If he did not protect it with mana, it was stressful for his mind and body both. And there were two ways for him to get out of it.

In the first and practical way was to learn the wave control Elior wanted to teach him; There Shin had progressed only a little, but he was a master in the other way. The other way was faint. Shin had succeeded there dozens of times already. Yet Elior was still putting him through the training far harder every day, even if there was not even a slight improvement.

"Brother, what if you are wrong about all this?" he asked again. "What if my class is really not for this? This kind of creating tension and condensing it are not for me. I am only a little boy of 16, after all."

The tension in his body surged with the very mention that it was not for him. 'It's going to leave some marks,' Shin thought and heard Elior say:

"What is the name of your class?" Elior asked coldly in his training mode. There was not even a speck of brotherly love or even a friendly vibe in his empty eyes. It was quite frightening to think this was actually Elior.

"Wave Runner Apprentice," Shin muttered and expected what would be coming for him.

"So," Elior paused for a second and the tension surrounding his body started to change, swirling and revolving like a damning tornado, wrestling, twisting, turning, pulling, and rumbling over Shin's body. "You telling me a Wave Runner is not meant to run waves? What is the good of the class then? Did you ever think for even a second what kind of power you can control on this path?

"Almost every kind of ability related to mana moves in the medium of waves, be it light, sound, air, fire. . . You might not be able to control a lot of them, but you can stop them if you learn well. Do you know what ability I'm using to create that tension surrounding your body? Yes it is my spatial force, but can you say how I am doing this?"

"I don't know," Shin muttered, panting. "You are manipulating spatial nodes?"

"That's the basics of it," Elior muttered, showing a disappointed look. "What I'm doing is disrupting the natural flow of the spatial nodes, and in response, they create the shock wave ripples. Meaning, I was not meant to have this power to manipulate shock waves, yet I am doing it doing something else. Think of it as how every transformation occurs. If you burn something, with the fire, there is light too. There is no way to destroy energy, it only transforms from one to another.

"What I am doing is breaking the natural fundamentals of waves using my spatial ability, and what you are supposed to do is exactly the opposite. You, the Waverunner apprentice, you are better handled to have this ability than me, and yet here you are struggling, not even finding a way of the pesky tension I created."

"This is pesky?" Shin muttered in protest. Yet his pesky was enough to kill him if he did not put any defence with his mana.

"I can crush your heart without even lifting a finger. Tell me what you are going through is pesky or not?"

Shin swallowed coldly. That thought itself was threatening enough. 'can I do all these too?' he wondered. At first he believed he could with his boundless belief in Elior, but after days of mindless torturous training, he thought otherwise.

"Brother, you win," he said, biting his lips. "But can't you just use another way?"

"There were other ways, but they were all slow and inefficient. It will take you months to even condense waves. You can learn faster through the way we were doing if only you are a little more prudent in your thought process. Feel the flow from the little ripples to the very amount of it. Close your eyes and feel it. Start from the bottom, start from the tiniest ripples you can manage to get hold of, and take another one. Connect the two, and take another, slow and steady that is the way."

. . .

And now.

'One at a time,' Shin thought as ripples of waves formed surrounding his sword. His eyes were still closed as the warping of the ripples heightened. 'I can do better.'

His sword moved, still condensing the sharp ripples of waves along the blade of his sword. It struck in a cross in Lara's breastplate, collapsing her armament defence as well as damaging her breastplate. she was flung away a couple of meters, eyes stark with naked panic at the attack.

Shin opened his eyes and looked at his sword that was glowing colder, with smoke like cold aura radiating, but there was something more along the line of the dull blade. No, it was not dull. Not dull at all.

Lifting his eyes from the blade, Shin swung violently at his opponent.

Lara pulled back her sword in time. But it was futile. Just with the contract, it broke into two pieces. Even Shin's dull blade was not in good shape, it was damaged further from the impact, though still in one piece. He still could not use it if it was not mended well. There was a thin crack in the spot of impact, and it will broke with a few more swings. But that was not of his worries currently.

Shin did not attack and saw his training partner collapsing on her four knees.

She had lost. 

Ford looked at the situation and blew the whistle, ending the final match of today.

The crowds that were bewildered a moment ago cheered uproar. This was probably the most entertaining match for them. A duel of equals.

Shin was not further away from collapsing, but he steadied himself to sit down next to Lara.

"I actually made it," Shin muttered. Other than the joy of winning, he was celebrating because his pain was not for nothing. He had made it just in time. Then again, could he do it again? Perhaps he concentrated like crazy. "Brother will be so proud of me."

Then a congratulatory message appeared with the 16 of the students who went to the next round. There were a total of three freshmen on the list with whom they will be facing in the next round. Shin, Elior, and Leroy. All three with the winning streak.

"Leroy will face Naeli," Shin muttered, looking at the screen. Naeli was the one Ileana defeated craftily, hiding her earth spirit, though that did not mean Naeli was an easy opponent. 'Brother got it hard. Gaivan of all people, but I should not be worried about brother of all people.' he thought and found his picture next to lines of Elior's meaning if he won, he will face Elior, but he has to win first. His opponent was someone named Rjakkar, a heavy shield user. 

"Then there was the surprise." 

On the high seat, Elior gave a look at the screen and made his way towards the two resting in the duelling ground. 

The first round finally ended, not that it mattered. At least for Elior, and nor will the second round will matter for him.. What matters is after the tournament.