Chapter 10: A lesson

Lucas and Novis were currently in the game lobby together, The internet cafe was designed so if you were playing at the same table it would automatically put you in a lobby and voice chat.

Arthur was currently at the blue base testing out his character. He was swinging his sword adjusting between the delay of his mind and sword.

"I can still feel it a little, but I think I've gotten the timing down."

"Would you hurry up, Lucas probably thinks we got lost or something," Novis said.

Lucas was currently waiting down the middle lane for Novis to appear, it had been ten minutes and still, there was no sign of him.

"Hey, Novis is everything okay?"

"Sorry, I was just practising," Arthur replied.

"Wow, he really must be a beginner then." Lucas thought to himself.

Arthur quickly went down the middle path and saw Lucas there waiting for him. Since Lucas thought Novis was a complete beginner he decided that he was just going to practice and teach Novis a few things.

The two of them quickly met in the middle and began to clash swords with each other.

"I thought he was a beginner, but he's attacking me in difficult places." Lucas thought to himself.

They continued attacking each other with no winner in sight, neither of them had been injured. Lucas then realised something was odd.

He knew the character Novis was playing well, yet he hadn't used a single skill from that character. That meant only one thing, everything he was doing now was without the help of the system. It was his actual sword skill.

Lucas decided that he would no longer take it easy on his opponent and was attacking with everything he had. But even though Lucas was using his full strength Arthur was still able to deflect every attack.

"My moves, there having no effect on him."

Lucas was starting to sweat, suddenly, the tables had turned. Now Arthur was on the offensive, it had made Lucas realise that this whole time his opponent was just being defensive. He had never made a strike of his own.

After every strike Arthur would pause slightly, originally Lucas thought this was because Novis was using the character skills but now that he knew he wasn't, it could mean only one thing. His opponent was testing him, each strike that Arthur made was designed to make Lucas think.

This sent a shiver down Lucas's spine. The opponent he was currently facing was someone who stood much higher level than him.

******

The bell to the Cafe door sound chimed, a middle-aged man was walking through the door.

"Good afternoon," Sophie said.

"Is Lucas here, I'm here for my lesson." the man said.

"He's playing against a school kid at the moment," Sophie said while smiling.

"I heard he decided not to join a pro team this year?"

"Yeah, he said he wanted to become stronger first, even though we all know he's already plenty strong."

As the man was signing in on the tablet he said, "Justin bell must not be happy with his son, not going pro this year again."

As Sophie and the middle-aged man were speaking she noticed that Novis was on his way out.

"Oh, are you all done then?" Sophie asked.

"I guess it's still too early for me to play against people I'm still a bit slow so the match took a while. I'm all tired now."

Sophie went underneath her desk and pulled a leaflet out placing it on the counter.

"I think you should check this out, it's happening this week."

Novis picked up the leaflet from the table.

"A Children's VGW tournament."

"There will be a lot of kids from all over the country attending."

Novice decided to take the leaflet and started to leave the shop. "Thanks for everything today."

"Please come again."

The middle-aged man looked at the kid as he walked off. "Is that the kid that went up against Lucas, give him another 20 years maybe."

"Yeah, he was a strange kid," Sophie said while chuckling to her self.

As the old man looked at the playing area he could see that everyone had gathered around one screen.

"I wonder what's going on there?"

The people were in an uproar about something. The screen at the table was still displaying the ending results of the match. Everyone standing there couldn't believe their eyes.

"Did you lose Lucas!"

"That's impossible."

"He had to have given him a handicap right?"

"When I was looking earlier the kid was swinging his sword about as if he had never played before."

"That has to be impossible, we know that Lucas is basically a pro."

"How long did the match take?"

The crowd started to look at the information that was displayed on the screen, the match took around 30 minutes. This was rare for a solo match. A team match would often take anywhere between 30 minutes to two hours depending on how much stronger one team was compared to the other.

But a solo match, people didn't bother with the strategy of taking the other base's flag, nearly everyone played it as a one on one fight. The crowd could clearly see that Lucas had lost because his character had died. If the match had taken 30 minutes it must have meant the fight was close between the two of them.

"It took 30 minutes, that means the fight was quite close, maybe Lucas was just having an off day."

Lucas heard this and thought he wished he was having an off day. Maybe then he would have some sort of excuse about how he lost, but he knew that the person he had just faced was many levels higher than his own. Arthur hadn't even used his full strength against him.

Sophie came rushing over after hearing all the customers chatting to each other.

"Did he really beat you, Lucas? but that can't be true the kid didn't even have a rank."

Lucas thought that had to be impossible, he had clearly fought against someone who was born to use the sword. The opponent he had faced was a complete monster.