Which makes a person grow more? Pain or failure?

Elaine did her best to defend against the flurry of knife attacks which Vienna was swinging at her. By using wind magic, she was able to create a wall of air to protect herself from harm. However, since she didn't have time to create a fully proper defense due to her opponent's constant attack, she could only defend one of her side.

When a knife was swung to her right, she would have to wholly cover her left side with a wall of air and leave her right completely open to attacks. She could tell that Vienna wasn't as skilled as Freya in handling her blade, but what she lacked in ability, was made up with the agility and strength granted by her Extinct Formulae Magic. Her attacks were something a veteran knight like Dunnford could easily read, but Elaine couldn't. Hence the reason why she completely defended one side when the knife was swung. Because she couldn't pinpoint the destination of the blade with her eyes.

Elaine did lots of training for stamina, since having stamina was an important factor when it comes to wielding magic. She never did any training like the knights to be able to efficiently move her body. If she did, then she would surely be able to try and evade the knife attacks instead of blocking it with her wind magic. If she had the chance, a short moment of time, to use her enhancement magic to improve her movement, she would've done so. That wasn't a luxury which the enemy granted her however.

She could see Vienna swinging the knife from Elaine's right side. To which, she responded by making a wall of air to block the knife. She needed to put in more power to the wind magic, as the blows her opponent struck was strong. Elaine managed to block the attack successfully, but without being disappointed or anything, her opponent continued on with her attack.

Seeing a chance, Elaine managed to create a small ball of fire in the air at the end of her wand and flung it towards Vienna. To which, she wasn't even astonished, and blocked the flame with her bare palm. Another thing which her Extinct Formulae Magic had granted Vienna was durability. Elaine's quick minor magic didn't seem to deal any damage against her.

Again the barrage of attacks continued and Elaine did her best to block those attacks. Elaine was irritated. Not because of her opponent's constant attacks which didn't allow her to use magic, but rather because of Vienna's despicable stare. The look on her eyes expressed pain and underestimation. Her eyes declared that she had gone through lots of pain and that there was no way for Elaine to beat her.

Perhaps that was true, as Elaine was weak. The night when Elaine had to run away from Vienna flashed through her mind, that moment which was like an arrow to the chest for her, even worse than that actually. Irritated, Elaine pointed her wand at Vienna and used thunder magic. Jolt of electricity appeared from thin air and yellow thunder struck out from it, striking straight at Vienna, but she dodged it. Elaine clicked her tongue.

Vienna swung her knife to her right and Elaine created a wall of air on that side to block. However, instead of continuing with her attack, she stopped the trajectory of her blade swing and attacked Elaine's left side with a kick. Impulsively, Elaine took a step back and the strong kick barely missed. If that had hit, her ribs would have been broken just like Ray. No, even worse; as Elaine wasn't defending with anything. Worst case scenario, if that kick had landed, Elaine would've died.

The thought of death ignited fear inside Elaine's mind. But, that spark wasn't enough to create a fire within her. If any emotion was fiery inside her, it was her rage. Vienna's stare annoyed her extremely. Her gray colored eyes which showed the pain she had been through caused her to be vexed.

The battle had became a guessing battle for Elaine, as Vienna had included feints in her attacks and Elaine was too inexperienced in battle to be able to read it. She had to guess her attacks and rely on luck. Elaine was in a peril, but she was too irritated to care.

Elaine had known of Extinct Formulae Magic ever since she was 10. Her current mentor at that time was teaching about Formulae Magic and the topic of Extinct Formulae Magic came up naturally. Her mentor had explained that Extinct Formulae Magic was not a magic she should particularly mess around with as it was dangerous and wouldn't yield much result. Most people who tried inscribing the extinct language to their body would die a horrible death. Death so horrible that the person would've wished to die of other causes.

Her mentor, being able to project her memories into reality with her Special Magic, showed Elaine the gruesome scene of someone who got experimented with Extinct Formulae Magic. At first, the pain which occurred to the man in her mentor's memory was just normal pain of when someone was getting stabbed by needles for tattoos. However, as soon as the inscription of the symbols were finished, bad things-- happened. Unsightly, disgusting, horrifying, terrorizing, terrifying, traumatizing. Elaine couldn't resist the urge to throw up as she saw the horrible scene her mentor showed her.

After Elaine got her rest, her mentor explained that Extinct Formulae Magic was never safe to use. Perhaps in the past, when there were people who could read the symbols, it was a safe and revolutionary magic which people used. But in the present, the magic was far from safe. Even when the result was lucky and the victim of the inscription of such magic was alive, he or she would be inflicted in terrifying pain which would scar the person for life. Although some people yield successful result, such magic would often time have other side-effects than just pain alone.

But so what?

Again Elaine was fortunately able to step back and dodged Vienna's attack with a hair's breadth. Fear wasn't there within her. What reigned inside Elaine was anger.

So What? Just because you know of pain, just because you have experienced such agony, you think I can't beat you?

As a magician who researched magics, failure was a part of Elaine's life. It stuck to her like it was a part of her body. Regardless, Elaine always thought that failure was simply a necessary step needed to reach success. Because of failures, she was able to grow. She was able to learn from her mistake and improve herself in many ways possible.

When Elaine had ran away from her first fight with Vienna, she thought that she finally tasted what real failure was like. Her running away, seemed to her as an irreparable failure. That very act of showing her back was like a statement saying that all her hard work and effort amounted to nothing. That Ray was right, that magic was useless.

She couldn't get herself peaceful sleep that night as the thought kept on going back to her. Coming back to her as nightmares during her sleep. Was that true failure? A failure so impactful that it shattered her will to keep on trying?

Elaine was still defending Vienna's attacks and her luck was running out. She had relied too much on her fortunate evasion. As Vienna threw out a fist to Elaine, she did her best to dodge, but the pinky of Vienna's fist grazed her left shoulder. With strength granted by Extinct Formulae Magic and without any defense from Elaine, that graze dislocated her shoulder and inflicted pain to her.

It hurt.

Elaine couldn't use her left arm as willed due to the pain and the situation was looking bleak for her. Everything went from bad to worse. All because of a graze.

Maybe I am not used to pain, since I don't experience it often, she thought. But I have suffered through many failures, more than I can ever count. From small ones-- to big ones.

The talk Elaine had with Dunnford in the morning opened her eyes. The point that the veteran knight was making was right. Perhaps her failure that night against Vienna was different compared to the rest. It was bigger and more impactful to her, so much that it shattered her will. But, at the end of the day it was still failure just like any other: a setback which she could overcome. Perhaps it was more major compared to her other failures, but she could still learn from it, and improve herself.

I'll show you.