Ashan's gaze sharpened as Zevi stepped forward.
He studied him.
The way Zevi's shoulders rolled once before settling.
The way his breathing slowed instead of quickened.
The way his fingers brushed lightly against the rope at his waist; not nervously, but affectionately.
—------------------------------
Name - Zevi Starwell
Age - 23
Gender - Male
[Power rank - A]
[specialty -Battle mage]
[Strength - 190]
[Stamina - 200]
[Endurence - 250]
[Agility - 140]
[Other powers and skills]
<> Phase Step (A)
Short teleport or dash that blurs motion, letting him reposition mid-fight.
<> Battle Instinct (A)
Auto-adjusts mana flow to reinforce weak points under attack.
<> Manaflow Counter (A)
When blocking, the user can absorb part of the enemy's magic energy and redirect it into his next attack.
<> Photographic Focus (B)
When concentrating, the user gains perfect recall of anything they see, from spell formations to fighting techniques. Every detail is memorized with absolute accuracy, enabling near-instant analysis. It gives a headache as a side effect.
<> Binding Serpent (C)
Allows channels mana through a rope, moving like a serpent to restrain or trip targets.
—------------------------------
Zevi…'
Ashan narrowed his eyes slightly.
'He's my age.'
He lingered on the endurance stat.
'Two hundred and fifty endurance. That's absurd for someone our age.'
Memory surfaced slowly.
'Right. He's known for his arrogant attitude and fearless behavior. Always challenging people stronger than him. Persistent. Relentless.'
He exhaled quietly.
'A powerful individual… but I don't recall anything significant about his future.'
'His existence is like an NPC.'
Ashan's gaze shifted toward Lunara.
'Let's see how he fights the instructor.'
The moment Lunara finished acknowledging him, Zevi vanished.
Not dramatically. Not loudly. The air around him simply distorted, as though a layer of reality had been folded aside and snapped back into place.
Phase Step activated with precision, and he reappeared within striking distance before others could fully register that he had moved.
The rope shot forward from his waist in a whip-like arc, mana surging through it in visible pulses that made it ripple like a living thing. It wasn't thrown wildly; its trajectory was exact, angled toward Lunara's throat with calculated intent.
Lunara's reaction was subtle, almost elegant. She did not leap back in panic nor block directly. Instead, she shifted her weight and allowed a thin plane of frost to bloom beneath her heel.
Frozen Step formed mid-air, and her body glided sideways with frictionless grace, the rope slicing past the space her neck had occupied a heartbeat earlier.
The team inhaled sharply.
Zevi's wrist rotated, and the rope curved unnaturally mid-flight, redirecting with predatory hunger toward her ribs. Mana surged through its fibers again, strengthening the strike.
This time Lunara did not evade.
Her dagger ignited with Mana Blade, not in a flamboyant burst, but in a tightly compressed glow that condensed along the edge until it hummed with restrained lethality.
Rather than striking the rope itself, she angled her blade to sever the mana current feeding it.
The result was immediate: the serpent-like weapon faltered mid-motion, its momentum scattering in fractured arcs before losing coherence.
Zevi smiled faintly.
He had expected that.
[Phase Step]
He reappeared behind her, his fist descending toward her spine with reinforced force. His strength might have been slightly lower than hers on paper, but his timing was immaculate.
Glacial Veil shimmered into existence along Lunara's back at the last instant. The impact resounded like a hammer striking tempered glass. Frost fractured outward in jagged lines, and a dull shockwave rippled across the stone beneath them.
Several students flinched visibly.
But Lunara did not stumble.
She pivoted on her lead foot, allowing the recoil of his strike to rotate her body into a horizontal slash aimed at his ribs. The blade cut through the air with chilling precision.
Zevi raised his forearm to intercept.
[Manaflow Counter]
The instant her blade connected, the mana coating it liquefied under his control. The absorbed energy coiled around his arm and then detonated outward in a compressed burst directed straight back at her torso.
The redirected force struck with startling violence.
Lunara was driven backward across the stone, boots scraping and leaving twin streaks of frost behind her as she absorbed the impact.
Ashan narrowed his eyes.
'He's not overpowering her,' he realized. 'He's turning her strength into ammunition.'
Zevi advanced relentlessly, his rope snapping low this time in an attempt to bind her ankles.
She leapt lightly, summoning another Frozen Step beneath her foot mid-air to stabilize her landing.
Yet even as she did so, Zevi's Battle Instinct flared, reinforcing the precise angle where her balance would be most vulnerable.
He flickered again with Phase Step, appearing above her in mid-descent and driving downward with brutal intent.
Their weapons collided in mid-air, mana erupting between them in a violent spray of ice and light. The force pressed Lunara downward harder than expected, and her boots cracked against the stone as she landed.
The team sensed genuine pressure on their instructor.
Zevi did not give her space. He stepped inside her guard, striking in tight arcs, forcing close-quarters exchanges where Manaflow Counter could repeatedly siphon off her power.
Every clash of blade against forearm ended with him redirecting a fraction of her strength back into her, grinding her rhythm down little by little.
Ashan activated his Sharingan silently, tracking the micro-adjustments in Zevi's stance, the minute shifts in mana flow around his joints. It was meticulous.
Zevi was not fighting for spectacle. He was fighting to collapse her pattern.
Then Lunara's gaze snapped toward Ashan mid-exchange.
It lasted less than a second, but it was piercing.
Ashan immediately dispelled the Sharingan, masking his focus. A bead of sweat formed at his temple.
'She sensed it,' he thought. 'Even while under that pressure.
Zevi remained unaware of that silent exchange. He pressed forward again, rope looping upward to snare Lunara's dominant arm. For a fraction of a second, the rope coiled around her wrist.
Then frost surged through it like liquid silver.
Ice raced along its length toward Zevi's hand. Reacting instantly, he flooded the rope with mana and shattered the freezing effect before it could reach him, yanking sharply to destabilize her.
Instead of resisting, Lunara stepped forward into the pull, using the tension to close distance. Her dagger flashed toward his collarbone with surgical precision.
He blocked.
Manaflow Counter absorbed.
But this time she deliberately minimized the mana output behind her strike.
The redirected force was weaker than expected.
His timing faltered by the slightest margin.
Her blade sliced across his forearm, drawing blood.
Zevi's grin widened instead of fading.
Then his expression shifted.
[Photographic Focus]
He inhaled once, and the battlefield reorganized within his mind. Every frost mark Lunara had left behind.
Every angle of her shoulders. Every cadence in her breathing. Perfect recall locked into place, forming a predictive map of her next movements.
He moved differently now.
Sharper.
More predictive.
Her next pivot was anticipated. His rope flicked behind her knee before she completed the turn. His elbow struck her side before she could fully guard. His reinforced fist hammered against her Glacial Veil, cracking it in spreading fractures.
Students fell utterly silent.
Zevi drove forward for what would have been the decisive strike.
And then the backlash came.
A spike of white-hot pain detonated behind his eyes, the consequence of sustaining Photographic Focus under intense mana stress. His vision pulsed, edges blurring for the briefest fraction of a second.
That fraction was enough.
Lunara's demeanor shifted from defensive pressure to calculated offense in an instant.
She burst forward, blade sweeping low, not to cut deeply, but to force a block.
When Zevi intercepted, she used the recoil of the collision to vault upward, chaining Frozen Step platforms mid-air in rapid succession.
She did not move in a straight line.
She zigzagged, altering elevation unpredictably, her trajectory refracting through the air in patterns too irregular to cleanly process through the pounding in Zevi's skull.
Her dagger descended.
Clean.
Decisive.
It severed the rope completely.
The severed end snapped uselessly back into Zevi's grip.
He attempted to trigger Phase Step again.
But the ground beneath him erupted.
Earlier in the duel, during each mid-air clash, Lunara had subtly embedded crescent-shaped frost marks across the battlefield. Now they ignited simultaneously.
Jagged ice pillars surged upward in a precise formation around him, disrupting spatial alignment and preventing a clean teleport.
Ice coiled around his legs first, then torso, then arms, locking him against a crystalline pillar before he could fully recalibrate.
Silence fell across the training ground.
Lunara landed softly in front of him, Glacial Veil reforming lightly around her shoulders as though the prior pressure had never truly threatened her.
"The fight is over," she said calmly. "You fought well."
Zevi exhaled slowly, then laughed; not bitterly, but with genuine admiration.
"You laid that trap from the beginning," he said, glancing at the frost patterns beneath the ice. "Those mid-air exchanges weren't just defense. They were preparation."
She did not deny it.
"I fight with preparation," she replied evenly.
He shattered the ice with raw endurance and stepped free, brushing frost from his shoulders.
"I accept my defeat," he said with a grin. "But next time, I'll adapt faster."
"I hope you do," she answered.
"You can go now."
Then her gaze shifted.
It landed on Ashan.
"You, over there. Your name was Ashan, right? Why don't you take your chance now?"
Ashan kept his expression calm, though inwardly he sighed.
'So she got suspicious of me. Even though I hid my Sharingan, she must have noticed me analyzing too closely.'
He stepped through the crowd. 'Fine. I'll just play along.'
"Oho… this guy? I know you."
Zevi's voice cut in again.
"Aren't you the one who beat all the A-rankers and managed to get close to the S-rankers in the first-day race? Where have you been? I didn't see you until now."
Murmurs erupted.
"Huh..? Something like that happened?" Lunara asked, intrigued.
"Of course," Zevi replied. "I was racing with the A-rankers. He came out of nowhere and passed all of us. Even closed in on the S-rankers."
He pointed toward the A-rankers.
"All of us ran like raging beasts trying to catch him. And those fellows there looked like they wanted to kill him."
"Ahemm…"
The A-rankers avoided eye contact.
"That's amazing," Lunara said, genuinely impressed. "Did you really accomplish that? I've never heard of such a feat."
"Haha… it's my pleasure, Senior," Ashan replied with a forced smile.
'This situation came out of nowhere… but maybe it will help build a better impression.'
Zevi smirked.
"Not only that. He won the newcomers' arena duel and broke the longest breath-holding record in hardcore training. He was a hot topic for a while."
Ashan felt irritation rising.
'Ahh… what's his deal?'
His smile twitched slightly.
'Please just shut your mouth.'