Reluctantly, Mash released control of his body to Priscilla. He expected himself to lose consciousness or something, but that wasn’t the case. He could still see and feel what his body was doing, despite Priscilla controlling it.

“I thought I had to be unconscious for this.”

He sent the message to Priscilla, finding it oddly strange to form the thought. It felt even more like he was thinking to himself, than communicating with someone else.

“No, it is simply another option. So that I may continue the fight, even after you have lost.”

Seeing Priscilla start to push back against the frost, he saw the value in her suggestion. She didn’t immediately break the ice, instead she used his energy to simply push against the mana that was around him. it was like those tricks he learned when he was a child, but on a much grander scale.

“You have been greatly misusing your energy. It is far more dense than normal mana, so blocking most spells should be easier.”

Mash didn’t need her to elaborate, he could see her doing it. Feel her manipulating the energy, pushing it against the sword’s mana, stopping the freezing effect from reaching him. That was only done with part of her focus, and she started forming wooden creations around him. They didn’t start from anywhere specific, instead sprouting from all over his body and armor, breaking through the thin layer of ice that was coating him. Half of them formed as larger replica’s of priscilla herself, while the others formed into the dragon-like mouths he used for biting his opponents.

“Don’t try to kill him.”

He could tell from the connection that she wasn’t planning to, but felt like he needed to reassure her anyways. She was a lot faster at forming the wooden structures. Each was already larger than was reasonable, and he worried about any of those landing against Arthur.

“You must know now, even my lightning attack from before would only manage to do a little damage to him. This is paltry in comparison.”

Sounding sure of herself, she continued to grow the dragon head larger, but sent her wooden duplicates out to attack. They grew as the traveled, closing the distance far faster than Mash had ever been with his creations. By the time they reached Arthur, they were big enough to swallow him whole. She explained to him that his energy was far more capable than mana, and his use of it thus far had been poor. Unable to disagree, he watched as his brother swung his sword toward the first of the approaching snakes. The blade released a long wave of ice, that followed the motion he made when he swung. It sliced through the wood like it was bread, but it didn’t make it all the way through. Priscilla kept pushing energy into his creations, they never stopped growing in size or length.

One of the dragon mouths opened, revealing a series of large spikes, much like the javelins he usually made. It pulled back, before making a quick whip-like motion and releasing the spikes toward Arthur. Mash didn’t have a skill to control his wood after separating it from his body, but it didn’t matter. The spikes flew incredibly quickly, faster than he would be able to manage with a simple control skill. His brother was distracted, still fighting with two more of Priscilla’s fakes. Mash watched in horror as the spikes arrived. Most actually hit his own creations, but a few did slam into Arthur. They pierced through Arthur’s body, and Mash forcibly snatched control of himself from Priscilla, her yell echoing in his mind as she gave up her control.

“Fool!”

The sudden shift was jarring, his own mind was unable to manage so many creations. Some fell limply to the ground, but he didn’t care watching his brother. He watched as Arthur’s body broke into pieces of ice. He turned realizing, that he could feel Arthur behind him, within the range of his mana territory. He slumped in relief at seeing his brother, though his brother just shook his head at him. Frost had already started to regrow on Mash’s skin, and he tried to resist it like Priscilla had. He barely managed even that, having to focus on a single part at a time.

“Get up, the fight isn’t over yet.”

His brother sounded annoyed, probably frustrated at Mash’s assumption that he seriously hurt him. Reluctantly, Mash rose to his feet, letting Priscilla regain control of his body. She had done nothing wrong, knowing that her attack wouldn’t do serious damage even if it landed. As soon as the spikes hit, she had known that something was wrong. Apparently, even Mash’s strongest attacks wouldn’t be able to harm Arthur if his defenses were up.

As she regained access to his body, she started moving all the wooden limbs again. When he took control, he realized that he could only manage to control half of what she was able to. Also, he was surprised to see how much energy she had used. In about a minute, she managed to use almost all of his energy. Having tested it before, he had taken several minutes to expend his energy with his creation skill. How, when she had never used energy before, been so much better at it?

“Intuition. Your skill only gives you a taste of what I have.”

Mash knew that Priscilla was talking about his inhumanity skill. Assuming that she was telling the truth, he wondered how many monsters were as capable as her. He didn’t have much time to ask her however, his brother signaling for the fight to begin again.

Priscilla reacted quickly, using the nearby wooden limbs to try to hit Arthur, but he was too fast at this distance. He appeared only a few feet away from Mash in an instant, but Priscilla had read his movements and started growing spikes from Mash’s armor. They grew fast, and intercepted his brother’s swing, but his sword was cutting through them easily. It did buy her a quarter of a second, and she tried to step back and dodge the blow. She tripped, falling backwards in a sprawl. Despite having adjusted to his strange mana, she was not able to do the same with his physical body.

“This worthless body!”

He could feel her annoyance easily, the connection seeming to be even stronger now. More than just the words she said, he could feel her growing frustration at feeling all the joints of his body. Recalling his previous fights with her, he realized that she never attacked with the beast-like body she had been occupying. Strictly attacking with her real body at the time. He received confirmation as he thought of the idea, Priscilla explaining that she was only using it for its mana. Arthur had his sword leveled against Mash’s chest, and he knew that the fight was over.

Mash took back control of his body, just in time to see Jill appear next to Arthur. Swinging with her dagger as she appeared, it only met a body made of ice. Mash watched as Arthur appeared behind Jill, swinging his own weapon in retaliation. He turned the blade to its side, not wanting to seriously injure Jill. The strike though, met with Jill’s new armor. It slowed drastically, but his brother managed to force it, though it met air as Jill teleported again. His brother didn’t chase after her, and realization hit Mash; he was using a counter-attack skill and couldn’t teleport freely.

Jill reappeared a short distance away, but she seemed to freeze upon appearing. Arthur was holding his hand out to her, and his eyes were glowing white. Whatever he was doing was making it so that she couldn’t teleport, or even move, though that might be the frost effect. Surrendering, Jill slumped to the ground when Arthur released her. With her defeat, the fight ended. Although, Mash wasn’t disappointed with the results; he, or rather Priscilla, had managed to do well.

Mash looked over the training grounds, getting a full view of what had happened. Surprised to see how many of his creations were over the battlefield. Red and Luke were entombed in ice, and he saw Amara making her way over to them. he saw fire coursing up her arms and learned why she had really been invited. He didn’t think that Arthur would invite people to watch him humiliate them. With his immediate concern out of the way, he thought about the biggest lesson of the fight. He needed to practice more with Priscilla.

“Priscilla, can I control my body while you control my energy?”

He sent her the thought, but she only replied with uncertainty. She had never tried it before and didn’t know how feasible it would be. Though she did agree that it would be extremely useful. Well, it was something he could start practicing. Even gaining half of her ability would be a massive upgrade. At the very least, he wanted her to be able to use his energy to disrupt mana like she had done earlier. He would certainly try and imitate her but didn’t think he could ever match her ability. Also, she was more familiar with splitting her concentration among many different parts. Asking her about different aspects of the fight, he stopped when his brother called everyone over.

He pushed himself to his feet, making his way over and finding a seat in the small circle that was forming around Arthur. Though the only people sitting there were Niviss, Luna, and Jill. It reminded him of a long time ago, when he was little and would sit around the training grounds and watch the knights. That had been back before he received his first class. The others were still defrosting, so Arthur started with Mash’s evaluation.

“First, let’s look at what you did right. Your magical defenses are incredible. Even without using an item, you managed to stop the sword, which make no mistake, is an impressive feat. On top of that, your attacks were also fearsome. How did you manage to make your creations so quickly? That was something I would expect to see from people closer to my level.”

His brother sounded genuinely pleased with his performance, but Mash knew that it was not really directed at him. Not wanting to maintain the farce, he explained the situation.

“It wasn’t me. I couldn’t get past your sword’s effect, but Priscilla told me that she could. I gave her control of my body and let her fight back.”

Knowing that everything Arthur praised was done by Priscilla, Mash felt a little worse, but not much. Excited by what it meant for his future, and after all, Priscilla was another part of him now. She sent affirmation, glad that he was recognizing their situation. However, Arthur’s next words surprised Mash.

“That makes sense. I’m assuming you panicked and took control when you thought I got hit. Were you also the reason you fell at the end?”

“No, Priscilla wasn’t used to my body and tripped. That was the first time we tried this.”

His brother nodded in understanding, and Mash grew more confused at the situation. His brother had comprehended a lot with very little information. That was a good sign for the coming training, but still felt jarring. The next little bit was even more strange. His brother started telling Priscilla what she should’ve done differently. She was not amused, and Mash didn’t bother sharing her thoughts. Having reached the same conclusion as Mash, his brother encouraged him to practice splitting his skills between the two of them. It wasn’t hard to see how much stronger he would be if he could accomplish it.

“Let’s take a break for lunch. I think it will be a while before your friends are in fighting condition again.”

Looking over, he saw what Arthur meant. The ice was taking a while to melt, even with Amara’s fire skills. It looked like she was being careful not to burn them. Jill wasn’t frozen but was getting healed by Luna. Mash hadn’t noticed it before, but her feet was covered in blood. She must have forcibly removed the ice from earlier. Unsurprisingly, she also received some praise from Arthur. While he was impressed with her armor, he was more impressed by her decisiveness in using her teleports. Jill glowed under the praise and gave Mash a smug grin.

“Didn’t think anyone else could keep up.”

She didn’t really speak, but he could practically hear the unsaid words. He gave her the most exaggerated “you did your best” look that he could manage. Luna smacked the back of his head when she saw it. At the same time, she sent some healing magic through him. It caused him to relax, and he slowly slumped backwards, until he was laying on the ground.

“So, what are you going to do about all this shit?”

Jill spoke, while gesturing over the field in front of him. The training grounds were now covered in large wooden replicas of Priscilla, a few dragon mouths were resting around them too. Not to mention the spikes that were impaling the ground. He would probably have to move them, but that could wait until after lunch.