62 Surpassing Expectations
Elapsed time since the battle started– 2 minutes.
Miranda saw Eren launching another close combat campaign against her. With spiked water spheres and a wall of defense, the captain welcomed him with open arms.
Eren decided to tap into his infinite mana core this time. He was about to stack his spells to increase their potency.
Blitz Steps x2
Blitz Wave x2
Although mana expenditure or intelligence stat was not a problem, Eren’s mana circuits had a limit. They couldn’t support infinite spell stacking. Especially when the situation involved the spell-stacking of different spells at the same time.
Eren had found out that this was an ideal spell-stacking scenario for him in his current condition. He had been trying various methods for the last three months. But he had realized that practicing alone and dueling with a veteran ranker were two different things.
This fight with Miranda was making him understand more than what he had been learning in semi-isolation for three months.
Miranda’s mana sense suddenly couldn’t keep up with Eren’s presence. She looked around her and found out that the hustler had been missing.
‘Up!’
Miranda thought and looked up. She also readjusted her spells and made the spiked spheres change direction. This was as she watched Eren coming at her with his sword in front of him like a comet trying to break into Earth’s surface.
Clang.
Miranda’s spells couldn’t keep up with Eren’s sudden change of pace. She had to use her spear blade to clash with Eren’s Tachi.
A mana pulse was released in the area when the two weapons collided. Miranda had to expend quite a lot of mana into her weapon to deflect Eren’s attack.
Eren landed just a meter away from Miranda and swung his sword around to create flying lightning blades around him that destroyed the incoming water spheres.
Blitz Steps x2
Blitz Wave x2
Zoom. Swoosh. Cut.
A sword wound had been inflicted on Miranda’s torso, from her right shoulder to her left side waist. Lightning mana penetrated her natural mana defense layer and cut her clothes before dispersing.
However, she didn’t have time to worry about those as she got busy handling Eren’s charge with her weapon arts.
Eren mixed Jeet Kune Do with mortal weapon arts to clash head-on against his captain. The sparks flew and the mana pulses blasted off around both of them as they operated on their weapons and countered each other’s moves.
Both rankers now had some minor flesh wounds from the clash. The cuts were just enough to draw blood. But not enough to make them give up the fights.
***
“Unbelievable.”
Rhea spoke with her mouth wide open as she saw Eren’s way of handling his weapon. Even she could tell that the guy was going to be a competent close combat expert shortly if he kept improving his skills.
Although Eren hadn’t completely overwhelmed Miranda, fighting this long with such ferocity was already enough. She then had a doubt and asked Ekay.
“Can the battlemage class support such a reckless use of mana given the fact that it is already notorious for its inefficient mana expenditure, Ekay?”
Ekay chuckled before answering.
“No. It can’t. But the battlemage class has ways to counter the negative effects. Eren has already taken the potion imprint from his credit limit. It should allow him to fight until the mana potions he has stored in his potion imprint tap out.”
Ekay said and laughed. Rhea looked at Ekay angrily before replying.
“You knew about this, didn’t you? That’s why you agreed to our bet.”
Ekay shrugged his shoulders before answering.
“I just like to keep tabs on the person who is about to join our team. And I wasn’t the one who came up with the bet or its time limit. It was all you.”
The imprint of a potion was similar to that of I-Rune in its storage functions. The only difference was that it was only used to store potions in its spatial pocket. Activating the potion imprint would allow the rankers to consume the potions stored in them.
A huge amount of credit had been spent on Eren’s purchase of the potion imprint. And he did it without any care. This imprint could be used as his cover for using the infinite mana core to a certain extent.
Of course, the consumption of potions itself had limits. A ranker couldn’t keep themselves fighting forever after drinking a mana recovery potion or all-stats recovery potion. The body would develop tolerance with each use in a short period. It would give diminishing returns with each use until there was no effect.
Therefore, the use of potion imprints also had its natural limit. Yet, it was an ideal tool for Eren to use his infinite mana core in a pinch without raising suspicions.
Because of this, the potion imprint served as Eren’s cover during the fight. There was no potion saved in Eren’s potion imprint of course. The potion imprint would become Eren’s smokescreen to use his infinite mana for a short time in front of everybody.
Ekay narrowed his eyes on the battle that was going on in front of him with keen interest. Eventually, he smiled and spoke up in a playful voice.
“Time’s up, Rhea. Pay up.”
Ekay said and smiled. Three oversized, spiky water spheres struck Eren at once, forcing him to go airborne and away from his initial position.
***
Eren had surpassed Miranda’s expectations by a long margin by the time he was thrown into the air by her sphere spells. When he landed on his two legs not too far from her with his wounded body, she looked at him.
The difference between Eren’s martial arts-infused weapon arts and Miranda’s genuine weapon arts made for rankers lies in the fact that her weapon arts rely on mana points. In contrast, the martial arts digested, relearned and adapted by Eren utilized only brute strength.
Therefore, while he had serious and bloody injuries, injuries on Miranda’s body were relatively minor and could be mended with a drink of a normal health potion.
“You… you did great, Eren.”
Miranda said to Eren and walked toward him, wondering why Eren was looking at her chest with such fascination.