Ascension: Online

The battle between Furuwa and I began as soon as I said 'ready'.

Furuwa attacked first - she leaped at me, sword in hand, attempting to cleave me in half.

"What happened to no fighting to the death?" I chuckled as I dodged out of the way easily with my AGI stat of 80. Of course, I didn't show my full strength, since I wanted to use it to surprise Furuwa later on. I only used the minimum amount of power needed to dodge her attack.

"I was sure you were going to dodge that anyway-!" she yelled as she dashed towards me once more.

This time, I didn't attempt to dodge. As her sword came down, I raised Dokujin, my dagger of corruption, to block it. The reason I did so was that I wanted to test the durability of this dagger. The old dagger Ming Ye had crafted for me was at about 50% durability when I put it away and replaced it with this new one. For all the fighting I did with it, I was surprised I only used half.

However, I have yet to check the stats on Dokujin. I decided to do so after this duel. But for now, I had a battle to focus on. Furuwa was no easy opponent.

Metal struck metal, and sparks flew into the air. Both of our blades were black, and their green corrosive energy conflicted with one another. However, neither blade broke or showed any sign of weakness. I could overpower Furuwa here with my sheer STR stat of 80 alone, but that wouldn't be any fun.

I took advantage of the fact that Furuwa didn't have the 'Inspect' active skill, since she chose Knight as her main class. Ichigo was lucky; he got the Inspect skill before he chose his main class. Now, if Furuwa wanted to obtain this skill, she would need to spend extra AP - not worth it, put simply.

Furuwa backed off slightly after seeing that neither blades were going to budge. Then, suddenly, she closed her eyes, and her body began glowing with an ominous red hue.

"Increasing your stats, huh…" I muttered as she closed in on me once more, and prepared to brace for impact.

This time, she tried to pull a fake attack on me, making a motion of aiming for my stomach, but then suddenly changing her sword's direction to go for my neck. I wasn't fooled by this, and parried her attack with my dagger cleverly, sliding my dagger down the edge of her sword to close the distance between her and me even further.

Furuwa's eyes widened as she realized she was defenseless as her sword was still outreached, and she quickly jumped away.

"Tricky…" she spat in disgust.

"I'll take that as a compliment," I chuckled.

Furuwa sighed and closed her eyes once more as her body began glowing green, then yellow, then back to red.

"Hm… raising your AGI and DEX stats as well?" I mused.

"Prepare yourself," she said firmly, getting ready to charge at me again.

I smirked. "In that case… perhaps I'll send you a little something of my own."

She didn't heed my warning and instead ran towards me. I used my mathematical skills to calculate:

There was a distance of about 50 meters between us. At the speed she was currently running with her enhanced AGI stat - 20 meters per second - it would take her roughly 2.5 seconds to reach me. That was more than enough.

I calmly raised my hand out and chanted almost inaudibly under my breath:

"Basic Pyromancy Art - Pyrosphere."

Just as she was about to strike me with her sword, a ball of fire shot out of my palm. Her eyes widened as she quickly moved her sword in front of her to block the attack. The flaming projectile ended up being successfully defended, but the explosion still caused Furuwa to be sent back a short distance, though not enough to cause any harm.

I glanced down at my hands. "Hm… these hidden arts are weaker than I expected. Is it my MAG stat, or just the fact that these are the first arts of their respective element…?"

"You… learned hidden arts?" Furuwa asked, panting heavily. It must've taken a lot out of her to block my spell… perhaps I underestimated its power.

I nodded. "They're all under the Mage class's skill path. The Support class has hidden arts, but they're more healing and defense-oriented."

The Mage class skill path also had Biomancy, which contained certain healing arts, but it was a lot less compared to the Support class skills. I didn't see a point in telling Furuwa all this though.

"You're really going for a hybrid build, huh?" she muttered.

"So what if I am?"

Apparently dissatisfied with my response, Furuwa gritted her teeth and leaped towards me once more. However, I had already tested out a hidden art and its limits - I just wanted to see how strong my hidden arts were with my current MAG stat of 30, and if chanting the name really quietly worked. Having found my answer to both of these questions, there was no reason to delay this fight any longer.

As she dashed towards me, I used a single skill:

'Vanishing Steps.'

Furuwa's eyes widened in surprise as I turned invisible, completely disappearing from her sight. She cleaved nothing but thin air as I had already circled around to behind her using my boosted agility and speed.

I then set my dagger right in front of her throat, and whispered into her ear.

"Good game."

She clenched her fists in anger, before trying to strike me with her elbow. However, once again, she hit nothing but thin air as I backed out in the blink of an eye. My 'Vanishing Steps' ran out soon after, and I reappeared in her sight as my cloak of invisibility wore off.

"That was pretty unsportsmanlike, you know," I said with a shrug. "Trying to elbow me after I won the battle."

"You got what you deserved for whispering into my ear," she muttered, then put her sword away back into her inventory. "You win."

I smiled wryly. "It was close."

"If you're just lying to make me feel better, save it," Furuwa spat as she went over to a nearby tree and sat down by it. "We both know if you had just used that skill at the beginning, it wouldn't have even been a fight."

I sighed and walked over to her, sitting down beside her. Surprisingly, she didn't move away. "Sure, but… if we were to go for a round two right now, there's no guarantee I would win."

"Huh? You're kidding, right? The difference in our strength has been made clear. Stop trying to make me feel better - it's not working."

"No, I'm being honest. That skill I just used has a 24 hour cooldown."

"… 24 hours? A whole day?"

I nodded, then turned to her. "Yep. So? How about it? Want to fight again?"

She looked into my eyes for a brief moment, but then averted her gaze and hugged her knees. "Nah. Even without that skill, you are much stronger. I can tell."

"Hm… so, what? You're just going to give up?" I taunted her.

She sent me a sideways glare. "Of course not. I'll continue getting stronger, and chase you down one day. Be ready."

I chuckled. "That's the Chiaki Furuwa I know."

"About that… you've called me by my first name several times now," Furuwa muttered in disgust, looking away and dropping her tone. "Without even getting my permission first, mind you."

"Don't like it?"

"Of course I don't. That's why…"

"Hm? You want me to stop?"

"… You have to let me call you by your first name too."

I blinked. Now that, I did not expect.

"Uh… sure?" I answered hesitantly.

"Alright… Kaze-kun, I'll get revenge on you one day, I swear."

Saying this, she stood up and took a deep breath. I did the same and observed the other two battles, which were still ongoing.

"… Where are you going after this fight?" I asked.

"Leaving Tianyin, obviously. The primary quest says to descend Mount Valgan, so that's exactly what I'll do."

"In that case, want to go with Hina-nee and I?"

"… Huh?"

"We're planning on doing the same. Might as well travel together, y'know?"

She then suddenly punched me on my left arm. "O-Ow-"

"You think I would want to travel with you? In your dreams."

"Right… uh, you do you then."

She gave a slight 'hmph' and turned away to spectate the battle between Hina-nee and Jim. I rubbed my arm where she struck me and winced in pain. This was definitely going to be a bruise later. Damn, she hit hard. Wasn't STR supposed to increase your physical defense as well? I have a STR stat of 80, a full armor set equipped, and her punch still hurts this much?

I shook my head in resignation as I turned to observe the other fight, Ichigo vs. Horiya.