Alyssa caught her breath. As usual she was the first one to show up, except for the trainer Dinesh who probably lived here. She looked back at the city Dvorhaven.

Dvorhaven was a city for the rich and powerful and looked that way. The buildings were adorned with expensive looking statues and other decorations, each one seemingly wanting to one-up the competition. Many people had protested that it didn’t make sense to have all the powerful people in one place, only to fall on deaf ears.

Alyssa almost screamed out as something jumped at her, pushing her to the ground. She needed a second to focus on the person on top of her.

The girl had wild red hair that was bound into a ponytail, to questionable success. Her freckles added to her wild, unruly look while her large green eyes almost seemed to glow with life. This was Alexandra Crow, the daughter of Bran ’Smith’ Crow one of the five heroes, her best friend.

Alex smiled at Alyssa.

“Lyssy, you look like shit. Partied the whole night after you impressed your gramps, hmm? You could’ve at least invited me dipshit.”

Alyssa didn’t really know what to say which created an awkward silence. It needed a second before Alex caught up on what was happening.

“He WAS impressed, right?”

Alyssa had to swallow her tears as she answered.

“He burn- hic -burned it all. The trophies, the money, everything.”

Alex froze up for a second before hugging Alyssa.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t… didn’t know what… shit.”

They lay in that position until they heard a squeak of protest coming from the side. Turning to the side they saw a displeased Pebbles forming two stubby arms and holding them out for a hug. Both couldn’t help but smile and jumped at the little grey slime for a group hug.

They stopped when Dinesh left his small cabin.

“Morning. Seem to be quite energetic today eh? Before I forget it, we’re getting guests today. So, please be nice. Especially you Alexandra.”

Alex dropped her smile and replaced it with a pout.

“It’s not me, it’s them! I told you often enough, if they stopped ogling my Lyssy there would be far less ’accidents’.”

Dinesh raised his brow and began a staring contest with Alex. To Alyssa it seemed as sparks flew between them as the tension slowly rose. She stood up to mediate but before she could step in Dinesh sighed and broke eye contact.

“You won. I tell the guests that messing with Alyssa is bad idea, but please avoid detaching any limbs this time, ok? It’s bad for my report and the healing mages have sent several complaints that it’s a shit ton of work to reattach limbs that had been literally ripped off.”

Alex hugged Pebbles as she answered in an accusatory voice.

“That was only one time and he deserved it for touching her butt. Goddamn pervert. That butt is mi…”

Alex couldn’t finish her sentence as her head was buried in the dirt. The perpetrator’s, Alyssa’s, face was deep red while trying to hide behind her hands.

“Alex god damn it! Say that one more time and I tell Yakov that you have a crush on him.”

Alex, who had just gotten the dirt off her face snapped her head back at her.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Seemingly annoyed, Dinesh interrupted them both.

“If you guys are done you could start training. As I’ve said, we’ll be getting guests today and I doubt you want to embarrass yourself before them. So, get on with it.”

Before turning around and going back to his hut.

Alyssa, feeling better after their banter, grabbed Alex and stepped towards a rack full of training weapons. She grabbed a greatsword out of light blue metal with dulled edges and turned back to Alex.

Turning around she was confronted with Alex’s still sulking face, which in turn made her giggle.

“That was a joke idiot. As if I’d tell him. Come on, get a weapon and get ready or I’ll whoop your ass.”

Taking two daggers off the rack, Alex followed Alyssa to a free spot and got into battle stance. Looking Alyssa deep into her eyes Alex couldn’t help but grin.

“We’ll see who gets his ass beaten.”

Alex vanished, making Alyssa go on alert.

Alyssa tried making out Alex location with her “True Sight”-rune, but had to observe that Alex’s “Invisibility” had grown stronger yet again. Before she could try something else she felt movement to her right. Getting ready to block she made a slight step back but seemed to trip over something. In falling she hit in the direction she had perceived the motion before and made a backwards-roll to lessen the fall.

Getting up Alyssa looked at the dagger she had hit out of the air. Realizing that the dagger was a distraction so that Alex could attack her from behind she first felt impressed, then angry and finally confused. Impressed at the maneuver, then angry that Alex just tripped her instead of using a real attack, and finally confused when she noticed that everything didn’t seem to add up.

If Alex tripped me she must’ve been faster than the dagger while being as silent as possible, plus she wouldn’t give up a win so easily. Something’s wrong.

Alyssa used her wind sorcery to ’feel’ the space around her and found the difference immediately.

“You can solidify air? Neat little trick you added to your repertoire.”

Hearing a displeased snort in front of her Alyssa couldn’t help but giggle. She tried to feel her surroundings one more time but was disrupted when she felt Alex attacking her from behind. Turning around she barely blocked the dagger before she was pushed back. Alex, whose invisibility had worn off after the attack, grinned before pulling out a second dagger.

“You get to easily distracted Lyssy.”

Seeing the second strike come at her, Alyssa thought about her options. Blocking was impossible as the first dagger was still locked with her sword and dodging could be countered with Alex new trick so Alyssa’s only option was to go on the offensive.

She pushed forward while sending electricity through her sword. While it had not enough power to hurt Alex, it brought her off balance which in combination with her push made Alex fall backwards.

When Alex realized what just happened she already lay on the ground with a swordtip directly before her face.

Alyssa grinned at Alex’s lost expression.

“And you are as overconfident as ever.”

She put her sword away and held her hand out to Alex.

“But neat new tricks you have there. Nothing a knight could learn so you…”

“Yeah, those were low-level spells. Learned the path of law a few weeks ago and tested what I could do. It isn’t official yet but I’m now a rank 1 magus.”

Alyssa helped Alex up and patted her on the shoulder.

“Congrats. What did your family say? Your father must be overjoyed.”

Alex blushed.

“Well… they don’t know yet… I wanted to show it off when I got better at it. As you’ve seen I can’t use spells very well yet.”

Alyssa raised her brow at that.

“How? To me it seemed that you could use them pretty well. You just don’t want to embarrass yourself in front of your father, you have to get over your inferiority complex.”

Alex seemed to grow slightly angry at that.

“Says the right person. It’s hard to live up to expectations when you’re the daughter of a ’hero’, you should know that. And especially you when you always try impress that waste of a…”

Alex was cut short when a young blonde man with radiant blue eyes interrupted them. He would give one an impression of a knight in shining armor… if he wouldn’t be half a head shorter than Alyssa and Alex. This was Yakov, a friend of both Alyssa and Alex and a talented cultivator.

“Girls if you could stop bickering, Dinesh wants to introduce the guests.”

Only now did the two girls notice that everyone had already shown up and blushed at the thought that everyone had seen them bickering.

They both couldn’t help but try to hide their faces out of embarrassment as they moved over to the crowd.