CHAPTER 55: A SPAR AND A SPA

After watching Zara easily handle both of my companions I must admit I was quite nervous to face her. But at the same time I was curious about how I would stack up to someone who had trained for most of their life. Would I need stand the smallest of chances? Would my magic mean anything in front of a trained warrior or would I truly learn how inadequate my abilities actually are.

I would have to truly push my magical abilities here if I wanted to not be embarrassed. And so I focused my mind, feeling the mana within me rotate around as its potency steadily increased within me. It surged against my control ready and eager to be put to use. Nature mana was a funny thing, it could be the most relaxing and peaceful thing around pulling you into a sense of serene peace. Or it could be wild chaotic and dangerous, which made sense given the duality of nature itself.

Afterall whilst you could admire the natural world around you on a good day, not even the strongest person would be willing to face nature when disaster strikes. This thought made me pause for a moment as I ciders that line of thinking. Whilst I naturally considered nature mana to focus soley on plants and flora that wasn’t all that nature entailed was it? I mean I was able to create flowers of fire, ice and other elements wasn’t I? My dress could be imbued with various elements to provide bonuses to me. So why would my spells be limited to just controlling plant life?

I felt a grin widen on my face as I felt like something within me click into place and I felt like a door I didn’t even know existed had just unlocked for me.

Saddly Zara didn’t seem to want to give me more time to ponder this fact as she suddenly butt forward and charged at me. I used nature moulding and seized control of the sand in front of her willing it to hider her movement. And it responded, it was by no means perfect and I would likely have to practice more to fully get ahold of this power but it worked!

As Zara charged towards me her foot suddenly sank into the sand throwing her off balance and halting her forward charge momentarily. Her look of surprise was quite satisfying to watch, especially when a vine grew up rapidly from the ground besides her and whipped towards her side.

Her training kicked in at this point though and she swiftly raised her shield and blocked the vine causing a resounding Thwak to echo in the room. "Oh I didn’t mention Zara but I have nature magic of my own." The smile that was firming on my lips only grew as her look of surprise turned into one of actual shock at my statement which allowed me to sneak a vine around to strike her on her bum.

She let out a quick yelp and turned to see what struck her only to witness another vine slowly retracting into the sand. She then turned to glare at me in a possibly adorable way and I could help but tease her some more. "Don’t go getting distracted now dear, would hate to have to punish you for it." Whilst I could see her trying to focus back in the fight my words seemed to have done the trick and a blush was beginning to grow on her face.

This blush inly grew as I insured my dress with wind mana. This caused the already fairly revaling dress to turn semi transparent, it did hide all the important parts still but gave a tantalising view to anyone who might look on. Which was a thought I was growing to enjoy, guess I really am a bit of an exhibitionist after all I chuckled to myself.

Before my thoughts could wander any further Zara managed to free herself from the sand that had still been trying to suck her into the ground this entire time. She reoriented on me before charging once more. I summoned a quick root wall in front of her and followed that up by creating a elemental flower imbued with fire and allowed it to float in front of me closer to the ground as a trap of sorts.

This worked quite well as Zara only seemed to be slowed for a moment as she leapt over the wall I summoned instead of going around or through it and resumed her charge, 2 more vines whipped out to her from either side causing her to focus on desling with them quickly, one being blocked by her shield and the other being cut down swiftly by her sword. It was then that she stepped over the flower.

A burt of fire exploded upwards covering her lower half. That was one thing I had discovered with my flowers, if I just summoned them at their basic form they would gently release their attuned element, but if overcharged and then triggered they would erupt with their element creating quite the versatile spell if used wisely.

Zara was briefly engulfed in the fire but sadly it didn’t seem to do a whole lot more than singe her as she continued her charge towards me. I retrieved my sword from my storage and got into one of the basic combat stances that Amanda had shown me. Seeing this Zara grinned thinking I was out of tricks. As she got into mele range with me she pulled back her sword are and was about to thrust her blade forward when a root suddenly burst out of the ground below her aiming for her gut.

She tried to dodge out of the way and partially managed to succeed but still took a glancing blow which knocked her off ballence and allowed me to go in for a basic chop with my sword. Even when off ballance and likely in pain from being bludgeoned by a root, I had made sure they weren’t sharp for the spar. She still managed to get her shield into place to block my basic swing and then using that momentum spun around and whipped her sword up to my neck and stopped it a few centimetres from the skin.

She grinned at me but froze as she noticed my grin too. She then looked behind her at the 3 other roots that had themselves halted from impaling her back and each side. "Well I don’t know about you but I think I’d call this one a draw?" I offered.

Her grin returned as she replied to me. "A draw sounds about right, I didn’t use any skills but I figure you also didn’t use any of your more leathal spells." I nodded at that before retracting the root spears and then took a step back befor summoning my strongest spell. Spear of the wilds and imbued it with air, letting it hover besides me for a moment before sending it flying towards the far wall where it exploded with a satisfying boom.

Seeing that Zara just shook her head and muttered "mages" under breath, this elicited a short giggle from myself before she spoke up again. "Well you were right you can barely use a sword but given your magical abilities it’s unlikely that you would need to use them all too much." She then turned to the others as they approached and continued. "You are all clearly skilled in your own field so I think we should make a great team for the upcoming trial. I’m looking forward to working with you all going forward." She ended with a smile.

"You are very skilled with your sword, I would appriciate if you would be willing to have some more spars with me going forward, I fell I have neglected my abilities with the blade recently." Amanda spoke up and received a quick nod from the wolfkin in return.

"Well as fun as that was I am now feeling a touch grimy, how about I show you ladies to one of my favourite spots in the city to clean up?" Zara then asked of us, raising my eyebrows in question she continued. "I know a great boathouse not too far away. The use some magical herbs in the water which just makes the whole experience worth it."

Finishing that I enjoyed the idea of that I again couldn’t help myself as I poked the wolf girl and spoke up. "You know if you just wanted to see us all naked you could have just asked." Seeing her face darken as her mouth fell open was a truly wonderous sight and caused myself and Kana to burst into laughter, Amanda too had a small smile playing at the corners of her lips.

Once I had gotten ahold of my laugher I continued. "But in all seriousness a bath does sound wonderful so please do lead on." She took a few moments longer to get herself under control before nodding briskly and gesturing out of the sparing room.

She led us out of the adventures guild and through the city for some time before we arrived at another large building adorned in the classic white marble of the city. It was built in a way that reminded me of Roman architecture with large pillars adorning the walls of the building and a red tiled roof.

Entering the building Zara approached the receptionist, a human woman of middle years and quickly booked us into a ’premium private bath’ which I assumed was the magical water she spoke to us about.

We were led down a short corridor and shown into a changing room, here I got to see Zara in all her glory for the first time and oh boy was it a sight to see. She was just under 6ft tall and her chocolate skin was lined with muscles, nothing egregious but the type of lean muscle that comes from a long time spent honing your body. Some small scars adorned her body, clearly a result in training with the blade for most of her life. Her black hair was shoulder length and whilst she had it up in a braid previously she let it down at this time. Her black ears twitched in my direction as she noticed my unabashed stare, she turned around whilst blushing but her wagging tail couldn’t quite hide that she was happy with my gaze. Chuckling at that I walked past her towards the bath which caused her to speak up in confusion.

"U-umm aren’t you going to get changed?"

I smiled at her and turned around to face her before dismissing my dress. I got to watch as her eyes widened as she watched my dress slowly dissipated before her eyes revealing my small but curvy body in all its glory to her. "I am changed." I simply said before turning around and entering into the bath. Leaving the 3 girls staring at my swishing hips as I sauntered away.