Gilliam, Savia and Petal had left their room and were currently making their way to the Light Field. He couldn’t help wondering a few things, why did Kintas want this fight so bad, was it just not having fought anyone really good as of late or... Was there something else? How did he know about a sword that was from another world? Or... was it that the sword was actually from this world and he knew of it... He also had some ideas about Gilliam’s gift... This man apparently knew so much.. How and why?

He mused at this line of thoughts and questions until he found that he had entered the Light Field without really realising, he had walked down the long hallway, down stairs and through the central hall, all without considering anything. Damn autopilot brain.

However, he was a bit surprised at not getting pelted with water, the rain sounded relatively heavy when he woke up, didn’t really look outside but he could hear it. Now that he was outside he could see that everything was as dry as ever, there was apparently a large rain shield over the whole of the school, making it look like it was inside a bubble. It was an odd thing, why would they dedicate this much mana to just keeping the rain away...

Walking towards the dome in the light field, he found that it was not active. It seemed the construction and circle on the ground was present but the dome itself didn’t seem turned on? Parts of Gilliam hoped that it was currently out of order, so he didn’t have to go through with it. Though, the very, very little he knew about Kintas’ personality hinted that; no fight, no info....

Around the dome there was a huge crowd, Gilliam hoped this would not be a huge event but Kintas did seem like the obnoxious type at times so...

Getting closer he saw that Kintas was talking to a short girl with super long black hair and glasses. As he got closer she said something to him and scampered off into the crowd, he turned to Gilliam with a super wide smile, seeming legitly happy to see him.

He was wearing the same green attire that he seemed to always use, and though he had the same sword in a scabbard on his hip as he had seen before, Gilliam decided to take a better look at it this round. The short sword looked very flat and wide, it was like someone had just flattened the normal sword, handle and all. The pommel was a hexagon shaped ring showing signs of tear along its internal edges. The crossguard was a curved piece of metal that ended in a cross sticking out on each side, the handle itself seemed to be wrapped by some cord rope thing, it actually looked like some paracord.

The whole thing was dark grey, metal as well as the cord, the only colour was the crossguard that looked like brass or some golden coloured thing.

“Gilliam!-” He shouted well after he was within normal talking distance. “-I’m very glad you decided to show up.” In his defence he did look it.

“I’m mainly here for the info, Kintas.” The reply was dry and bored of sorts. Gilliam was interested in the info, very much so, but he didn’t want to go through all that pain and agony again... The fight against Ghaos was hard enough and... Ghaos admitted that he himself had no chance against Kintas... This was going to be bad.

“Ah, don’t be like that. But, on that topic, I would like you to make one of those fancyass mana crystals of yours. Like the one that Ghaos got.” He smiled, seeming to know more about Gilliam than he really expected.

“.... Why?” There was a brief pause before his question. On one side he didn’t mind but on the other, this was basically giving him a live grenade to do with what he wanted...

“The thing here-” Kintas started his answer by pointing at the dome over his shoulder like it was nothing special. “-runs on mana. It has a compartment for mana crystals. It will let us know before it runs out of energy so we don’t actually kill each other, but the better the crystal we put in here the better it will work. And since we plan to fight, and not spar, I thought it would be best with some automatic healing. I could always get Morgan to heal us as we fight but I’d rather not have her in that dome... Besides, I expect that you’ll be throwing some powerful magic in there, let’s not kill the students.”

The explanation was actually pretty interesting, he referenced a name that Gilliam had not heard before, probably a friend who could heal. And the joke at the end, though it was toned as a joke, Gilliam could not help but take the warning within it.

But, there was one thing.

“Wait... You’re allowing me to use magic in the fight?” He was a bit surprised, Kintas was a swordsman, right? Wouldn’t it be a bit cheating or too much for someone like that to fight... well.. Someone like Gilliam?

“Oh, are you wondering about the possible powergap? Nah, don’t worry about that, you go nuts in there. If you manage to get some spells off they might help you but...-” Kintas smile faded a tiny bit and he, for the first time since he saw him all that time ago, looked a tiny bit serious. “-Let me warn you. I am quite skilled in fighting mages.”

The pressure on ‘quite’ and something about how he said it sent a small chill down Gilliam’s spine.

Just... What was this man? Remembering back to the first Gate, Jial shouted for Kintas to stall the Gatekeeper... He had a vague memory of the Gatekeeper successfully being stalled. That seemed a bit odd. Good, yes, but a bit strange.

Gilliam sort of wanted to know now, this man was apparently incredibly skilled, and he was skilled in fighting mages...

“So, Kintas, as I make the crystal, mind explaining to me why you are so good at fighting mages?”

Trying to goad him into sharing information with the promise of the fight he so desperately wanted.

To keep his side of the bargain he started condensing mana into a single point, aiming to make one of the orb-shaped crystals he used in the Fractured Lands.

“Oh, that’s no secret. Ask around and you’ll hear a lot of rumours and information. Some are just dumb, but others are correct. I just realised that this means nothing... Well. In short, I have considerable training and experience ki*Fighting mages.”

Kintas smiled as he explained, realising that half his explanation literally meant nothing. But that second half was a bit scary... He looked like he was in his late thirties at the most, and his failed attempt to cover the word Kill with Fighting just had Gilliam wonder even more.

“So, you’re not really sharing any information, are you...?” Though Gilliam was focused on controlling the channelling he could easily keep a normal conversation on the side.

And the shit that Kintas spewed, there was no good info in there.

“Right you are!” Kintas pointed at Gilliam with a double finger-gun point like he had just unravelled a complex question. “If you manage to win against me I’ll let you know, if not you’ll just have to live never knowing!”

Gilliam sighed and focused on the gem a bit more.

“Well, you promised me to at least explain why you know about the sword.”

Some information was better than none, even though he was being an ass about it.

“Oh, you will know that as soon as we get the dome up and running, I don’t want to share my secrets with everybody.” Though it sounded like a joke, he did have a point, it’s rarely a good idea to overshare information like that.

Not long after the gem was done. Like the ones he made before this fist-sized crystal held a considerable amount of energy. If what Kintas said about the dome’s function, this should hopefully be a good battery.

He handed it to Kintas who grabbed it with one hand like it was an apple, inspecting it with odd interest.

“This shit is incredibly pure. You could make a living selling these alone.” He smiled, but turned around and started moving towards the dome control box.

Gilliam lifted his hand to the little creature that always lived in his hair, Savia climbed into his hand and was handed over to Petal. This was not the first time she had been the Savia carrier so there was no real need to explain what to do here.

Following Kintas as he was a bit interested in the dome controls, but he quickly found out that it was surprisingly simple. There was a drawer of sorts for the gem, in which Kintas placed the crystal that Gilliam made. There were a few leavers on it but one of them was just marked with ‘ON’, this was the one he pulled.

A lot of energy was pumped out of the little control panel that went into the plethora of magic circles and runes surrounding the dome. The dome itself started growing a few minutes after everything else was done charging up, and once it had begun Kintas walked into it.

The crowd around started getting amped, their murmuring started getting louder and more shouty to talk over each other. The black haired girl Kintas was talking to before just stood there without much interest in the others, not even a tiny bit worried.

Shrugging for himself he walked into the dome as well, taking out the sword from the ring and hoped that the man would keep his word.

“Now!-” Kintas started as soon as the dome completed its construction. “-Now that we’re alone in here, and the dome is ever so nicely blocking most sounds and the possibility to properly make out tiny details, about your sword.”

Gilliam looked at his broken sword, currently completely charged with the teal glowing runes.

“What about it?”

Kintas smiled as he pulled out his own sword. Now that Gilliam got a good look at it he could see its dimensions better, as before he just saw the handle side of things.

The whole sword was not more than 60cm long (~26.6inch), where the blade part was about 42cm (16.5inch). The blade itself had a part above the crossguard that widened out a bit, like a droplet with the thinnest part dragged out into a sword.

The blade was long and narrow, the first 1/4th or 1/5th of the blade, the droplet shape, was not sharpened, but the rest was. The half of the blade closest to the handle was a fuller, but rather than just being a groove it went all the way through the blade.

An odd part was the tip of it, though the whole blade tapered towards it, as it got to the tip it sharply angled into a suddenly angled tip, almost like someone had just taken some shears to it and cut it like that.

Though, the most interesting parts of it, were teal glowing runes exactly like the sword that Gilliam has along the blade, this gave him a moment of pause.

“So... You know about this sword because you have something similar?” Gilliam wanted to confirm it more than actually wondering.

“Well, I also got my sword from the creators of them, so I might have some more knowledge than just having a similar sword.” He smiled even wider now, deepening the mystery of who or what he was. “But I promised some info. Now, let me demonstrate something fun.”

He proceeded to take out some hexagon shaped gems from a pouch he had. “I have a little magic, though very, very different from yours so I can’t channel it into the sword like you can, so I substitute it with these. Now-” He slotted one of the gems, a white one. The teal runes changed into pure white runes. “Now comes the fun question; what changed? And how does this apply to you?” He smiled, not really answering his own questions.

Gilliam looked at the broken sword in his hand. He had just been channelling energy into it, not considering elements or methods. Taking Kintas’ explanation to heart he carefully tried to channel fire-elemented energy into it. And as expected, over the course of a few seconds the teal runes changed into fiery orange ones.

An incredibly surprised look on Gilliam’s face had him look to Kintas, and back to the sword, repeating this a few times before spawning the slender blade.

Before it was blue, the same teal colour as the runes, the blade looked very crystalline and glowing a bit. Now the blade had the same shape and pattern, but it was burning with an angry fire.

“This... is interesting.” The statement was very, very underwhelming. “But, what does this do with the cutting power of the blade?”

Kintas shrugged. “Have no idea, not my sword. Mine acts based on how it works for me. I know that doesn’t mean much but it will mean more once you understand it better. You were probably never taught to commune with it, so you will have to just try and see.”

He explained this like it was the most logical thing ever, but one thing stood out.

“Commune... with the sword?” Gilliam looked back at the burning blade he was holding, almost with a look where he was questioning if the sword was home.

Kintas faked a surprised expression. “Oops, said too much~”

Swapping the gems, a teal gem was back in the pommel, swapping the rune colour to the same teal colour, he put the other gems in pouches. “Now, let’s fight. I’ll let you know more if you do good in our fight. If you fail, then this is as much as you get from me.” He had a mischievous smile as he took a stance. It was not as much as a stance as him widening the distance between his feet and bending his knees ever so slightly.

“I’ll let you start, but remember; treat this as an actual fight. I will, and you. Will. Die.”

His smile was very, very much present and as shit-eating as ever, but his tone was... Oddly terrifying.

Just standing there he waited for Gilliam to make a move.

Gilliam had been in the dome before, but parts of him wanted to just make sure, he didn’t want to accidentally kill Kintas, or potentially more likely; getting killed by him.

Dismissing the blade, Gilliam first channelled untyped energy into the blade which brought them back to teal. He also used the broken metal blade to cut himself ever so slightly. The barely bleeding wound instantly healed to perfect condition. Good, the healing was properly working.

Taking advantage of the moment where he was resetting his sword and testing the healing, Gilliam wanted to try and catch Kintas off guard.

Using a spell he was getting rather used to using, he prepared for an Aether dart.

Waving his hand towards Kintas he formed the magic circle and channelled the energy at the same time, it was completed in record time and collapsed into the speeding dart as expected.

Kintas almost looked like he barely twitched but in reality ended up standing a bit different with his sword higher up. The dart that moved at breakneck speed was swatted out of the air by him. The dart had disintegrated and Kintas was unphased.

“I assume you haven’t learned to enhance your body yet, have you?” Kintas asked, seeming honest in wondering.

“... no... I have been meaning to learn that but... No.” Gilliam could have lied or something but he quickly realised that Kintas would find out fast enough if this was true, and since this was not a proper life and death thing it could be educational to just be honest.

“Ah, that’s fair then. I’ll start without my own enhancements then.” Kintas seemed to be a surprisingly fair person, perhaps this was not going to be so bad after a*

Gilliam’s thought was instantly, as in instantly-instantly put to shame as he barely blinked and Kintas was standing next to him with his short sword in Gilliam’s chest.

Not even being able to take advantage of the moment where Kintas’ blade was stuck in his chest, Kintas pulled his blade out and in one fluid move had spun around behind Gilliam and stomped him in the back. This had the now bleeding and basically dead Gilliam fall forwards, face planting on the ground.

The healing circle did as it should and Gilliam was back on his feet in a few seconds.

“You lying piece of shit!” Gilliam shouted at Kintas, absolutely not being happy about this. “You said you wouldn’t use your self enhancement!”

Kintas looked at him with a slightly confused look. “But, I didn’t activate anything yet. I did, however, take advantage of your blinking and inexperienced brain.”

This had Gilliam both confused and annoyed, though he was correct in stating Gilliam’s inexperience, this felt like he was also told that he was dumb.

“Explain...”

“Oh, it’s simple. You were focused on our discussion, this slows the combat side of your brain just a tad as you were processing things. In short; your eyes were paying attention but your brain wasn’t. And when you blinked this gave me enough time to close up on you.”

This sort of computation but... Didn’t feel right to Gilliam.

“Even so.. Closing that distance that fast?” Even with that lapse of reaction he was way faster than he should be.

“Oh, yeah. That makes sense. I’m still not used to properly fighting against people not knowing what I am. I only said I wouldn’t activate any enhancements, even without them I am... Well.. Let’s call me special.” He smiled as he pseudo hinted that he might not be a normal human. Which felt cheat’y but..

Wanting to hit him with anything, Gilliam decided for something wider, he went for the same spell that finally took out Ghaos, the ground spikes over a large area. Forming the spell circle and runes, he started channelling the energy into the spell cir*... Before it had properly started taking in any energy it had vanished and there was yet again a sharp pain in Gilliam’s chest.

Looking down he saw Kintas’ sword lodged deep in his chest, the pommel had no gems in it but rather a small carabiner-like hook attached to a thin wire, the wire went from the hook to Kintas.

The fucker threw his sword... When did he swap the gem for the wire? Perhaps when he was behind Gilliam before?

Faster than Gilliam could react to try and cut the wire or grab the sword, Kintas had yanked at it which had the sword fly back into his hand.

Though he didn’t fall over this time, he still counted as dead before the dome healed him back to perfect health.

This was going to be... problematic.. If he couldn’t cast structured spells, perhaps Unstructured was the way to go!

Spawning his slender blade he banked on the increased combat sense aiding his movements against the smug cunt in the dome with him. Trying to close the distance as he planned to mess with his footing; forcing the earth beneath him to make a pit. It didn’t need to be deep, just a small change to get him off his balance.

Kintas didn’t move before the spell was complete, removing a chunk of dirt underneath him, success! Gilliam went in for a proper cut with his sword as Kintas was off bala*

His train of thought ended with the weird sound of his energy blade hitting something hard, it sounded like energy hitting energy... somehow, as Kintas had easily parried Gilliam’s blade with his own. The vibrating teal blade from Gilliam’s sword doing its best against Kintas’ much shorter sword.

“Nice try.” Kintas smiled as he delivered the worst punch Gilliam had gotten in his life. It connected to his gut, he could feel his organs rupturing inside as he was lifted off his feet a considerable distance before landing on his side a few metres (1m ~3.2ft) away.

This almost hurt more than being stabbed in the chest, and though not instantly fatal he would not survive long with this. He knew that abdomen damages were incredibly bad. The dome did its job and he was fine a few seconds later. Taking a quick check it seems that Kintas was indeed standing in the little hole he had made, about ankle deep, did he see it coming?

Well, It didn’t matter now as Kintas stepped out of the little dip.

“That was a good attempt to be honest. But I think I know what the problem is. You might never have learned to sense mana properly, so you might forget that others can.” He didn’t sound like he was berating him or talking down to him, he was actually explaining something!

“I am an exception in many things, but most mages learn to sense mana within themselves and their surroundings very early. I think your magic boost thing might have been so fast that you never learned this. Sounds about right?”

Gilliam couldn’t do anything but nod.

“I thought so. That’s the problem, though you have very good ideas, which could work against many people, since you don’t have a sense for mana you use too much power on your spells. Though this makes them incredibly powerful it also makes them easier to sense.”

Teacher-mode Kintas was actually a good person! And he had a very, very good point.

Gilliam had really banked on just using his overwhelming power, but as the fights in the Demon world had shown him; he could run out of energy far too fast.

“And I suggest you learn more about your sword before you start using the other elements. We can do that later, so for fairness I’ll also just use the same energy as you. It won’t change things much besides making sure that our blades don't take damage as well as allowing us to attack magic.”

His explanation made sense, he had taken out the Aether dart with a simple swing, and Gilliam had used this himself against the demon mages before.

It was also surprisingly nice of him to not use the other elements for now...

The fight continued and like with Ghaos, Gilliam had no chance at all of winning. In this case it was not any fears or uncertainties, but more that Kintas’ skill was just at a different level. Even with the weird cheaty magic skill bonus thing that helped him win against armies, he couldn’t land a hit on the Academy swordsman. Was there any chance of winning?

Kintas said that he wasn’t even using his self empowerment things but he was still dummy fast and strong. Assuming he was some weird mutant, experiment or whatever, Gilliam tried to not look at him as a human or ally.

Considering this allowed Gilliam to surrender more to the automatic battlesense, there was still a slight hint of holding back in the back of his head and once this was turned off he started doing better.

Not good enough, but better.

Gilliam died again and again, hands were cut, legs were cut, his head taken off a few times. The pain he was oddly used to from his fight against Ghaos, but the speed was harder to do anything about. This was the power of experience, and whatever cheats that Kintas had for himself.

“Now, this feels like a good time-” Kintas stopped the fight a little. “-Let me quickly explain how self empowerment works.”

Kintas explained how to enchant yourself, referencing Ghaos’ tattoos and how though he cannot cast magic, like any other spell they can be activated with magic crystals or channelling energy into them.

The spells worked surprisingly similar to Gilliam’s flight spell, attaching the spell to a person could empower them that way as the spell is constructed with ‘the attached’ as the target. Meaning whatever the spell is, it will affect the target it's stuck on.

This is a good debuff as well for some but in this case it would then empower the target. The runes should focus on a measurable concept, like stronger or faster muscles both affect the muscles but make you stronger or faster respectively.

“With that in mind, try to boost your speed and we’ll see how that changes things.” Kintas seemed to actually allow Gilliam to do this, potentially to get a better fight for himself.

Deciding not to argue the gift, Gilliam took a moment to construct a test. In the dome was the best place to test these things since if he accidentally tore himself apart it would fix him. He also decided to overdo it a little for the sake of the experiment and perhaps get the jump on Kintas.

Setting up a circle that targets the attached target’s muscles, he filled it with the Aether rune as a base and connected several speed, reaction time and physical power runes. It ended up becoming oddly complex as he wanted to be faster, stronger and react easier.

Upon activation it consumed a tremendous amount of energy, having Kintas nod in approval as the circle ate the mana before it was attached to Gilliam’s chest.

The rush he got once it connected, it was like warm electrified water running over him. He felt like he was filled with adrenaline, caffeine and all the energy drinks in the world at the same time.

Not wanting to wait too long, as he had no idea how long this would last, he darted for Kintas, who stepped to the side and just had his foot out. Gilliam couldn’t control the increased speed and was successfully tripped, planting his face so hard in the ground that he not only broke his nose but also tore up a decent gash in the ground.

The healing handled his body fine, Gilliam couldn’t do much but laugh at himself, this made a lot of sense. A few more attempts were needed before he could reliably handle it, oddly enough it didn’t take long to get used to it, just a few first times until the body realised what it could do.

At this point, due to the overpowering nature of the enhancement spell that Gilliam used he almost got to the point that he could hit Kintas now.

Kintas’ smile grew wider and wider, he seemed honestly more and more happy.

“Yes! Finally! Keep at it, this is where the fun begins!”

There was no magic circle or buildup of energy, Kintas just spoke something that Gilliam couldn’t hear, but immediately afterwards his speed had increased something fierce. The gap between them suddenly grew again but after each death, Gilliam got just a tiny bit closer. Trying smarter and smarter ways to cast his spells, he found out that against Kintas any spell circle was instantly taken out. Either from his blade, a thrown pebble that destabilised it or just a weird snap of the fingers towards Gilliam that just popped the magic out of existence.

Like before, this continued for a while, though Kintas was the victor in every round, Gilliam felt that he was getting closer. If this was just wishful thinking or not wasn’t that important. The sudden usage of the wider blade that also gave a bit of extra range caught him off guard, it was not enough to land a proper hit but he drew blood for the first time!

It was barely a flesh wound and it wouldn’t have stopped most people, but Gilliam was incredibly happy! This was followed up by Kintas’ blade finding its way through Gilliam’s side, marking another loss.

Gilliam didn’t really know what to do here. He was not fond of the idea of dying over and over again with no progress. Kintas seemed to enjoy himself which was good in one way but... No. He just had no chance.

He needed an edge, he needed something that could help him with this. If he tried to cast Structured spells, Kintas would just destabilise the circle. If he tried to use unstructured magic his skilled mana sense would just let him find out what was going on. And in pure sword combat there was no chance, even with his enhanced speed. He even tried overwhelming force with an explosion that would cover everything in the dome, but Kintas did something weird that just destabilised the gathering energy, failing the spell...

Magic was useless against him in a duel, he couldn’t cast it, sword combat was possible but what could he do against a god-like professional like him?

Gilliam tried to ponder this as he was killed over and over again, he did his best with ideas but the more he tried the more he failed. But, with all of this came a weird idea.

A smirk finally grew on his lips, there was one thing he could do, and if he succeeded it would easily work!

He darted towards Kintas, who did what Kintas did and avoided everything he threw after him. A swing of the broken sword didn’t do anything as Kintas just swatted it to the side without any effort. Dropping the sword and grabbing it with his left hand, Gilliam made another desperate swing for Kintas, who like before redirected the force without much effort. This opened him up for a brief moment, and Gilliam reached out with his right hand towards Kintas.

Gilliam’s hand was stopped by Kintas’ sword stabbing through its palm, Kintas smiling in a ‘no you won’t’ manner.

Gilliam still grinned, giving Kintas a very, very brief moment of hesitation.

Gilliam proceeded with the next step of his plan!