Chapter 31: Training with Rebecca (Part 6)
We stood facing each other from a reasonable distance away.
"Becca, I am not going to go easy on you. I care about you and don't want to hurt you, but the harder we go in our sparring together, the more we will grow. Let's help each other grow strong enough that our enemies have no chance of defeating us."
Becca was grinning at me, "I couldn't say it better myself. I don't want to hurt you, but I also really want to beat you at least a few times. I could brag to everyone that I beat an advanced mage."
Becca's competitive spirit fueled mine as well.
"Bring it on."
She started shooting water streams at me from a distance, but I teleported behind her and landed a lightning bolt before she could react.
While she was stunned for a moment, I teleported again to directly behind her with a lightning blade pointed at her defenseless body.
"That's 1-0 me."
"Alright, let's go again."
"You don't need a stamina potion?"
"No way! I don't want to waste them! I could take 5 of those lightning bolts before I need a stamina potion."
"Don't push yourself too far…"
Becca turned around and patted my chest,
"You got me, I probably can only handle being hit by 4 before I need to take a stamina potion. Now come on, let's keep going."
I teleported back to my original spot, "ok, I'm ready to go."
In the first 4 matches, I was able to hit Becca with a lightning bolt each time to take the win. However, with each match we had, she was slowly growing accustomed to the speed of my teleportations.
We both took a stamina potion and started our fifth match. I didn't badly need a stamina potion, but I didn't want Becca to be at full stamina while I was half tired.
On our fifth match, Becca was able to predict where I would teleport to and shot her own water stream at my lightning bolt. When they collided, the water got charged by my lightning and some of it ended up splashing on me, leaving me stunned.
Becca cheered, "yes! I won one!"
After she took the charged water off of me, I shook off the numbness. "Good job, looks like I was being too predictable."
"Yes, I'll give you a hint. You only ever teleport to a place where I won't be able to see you."
I see, I have very predictable habits. It was to be expected from a beginner like me. I was always thinking of my teleports as a way to sneak around someone and get a critical strike. However, the more prolonged the battle was, the easier it was to find and counter my habit. Our sparring was already helping me improve.
As we continued, Becca was able to keep up with my speed now. I was able to still win most of the matches because I could dodge everything she could throw at me.
Now it was time for my advice, "Becca, I think you are underutilizing your ice. If you spread a layer of it out on the surface of the floor near you, then I will not be able to teleport there without having a chance of slipping.
Also, right now you are easy to deal with because you are a sitting duck. If you try using your ice to skate around the terrain, you will have much more mobility. Though it might be hard to try to learn how to skate on your ice in the middle of a spar, if it is your first time trying it."
Becca seemed to have an epiphany, "you are right! I only got my ice control 6 months ago, so I don't have as much experience with my ice as with my water. I couldn't even try skate on my ice if I wanted since I was stuck in my room, but I am willing to try anything."
Becca took my advice and ran with it. She was making my life a lot harder by spreading ice all around her and even placing it at random spots further away that she predicted I would want to teleport to.
Her ice skating was clumsy, but she was able to move quickly enough that I had to switch from using forward basic spells to controlled basic spells. This gave her a lot more room to breath since I could only control two at once.
In one of our matches, she was even able to predict where I would teleport to and perfectly put ice on that location the moment I teleported so that my feet got stuck to the ground.
We continued having match after match until all of our stamina potions were used up. After we finished the last potions, I wanted to call it a day, but Becca was begging me.
"Please Nick! Let's keep sparring until we get exhausted. It's the same as if we didn't have any stamina potions in the first place. Also, once we are done, we are just going to eat dinner and go to bed anyways."
She sounded like a little kid begging to stay up past their bedtime, but I couldn't say no to her.
"Alright, let's keep going."
We went 6 more rounds of sparring before I could tell that Becca was too tired.
As she stood there trying to get ready for another match, I called out to her.
"That's enough for today Becca. We both already grew a lot stronger with the experience we gained today. I won't take no for an answer this time."
Becca muttered absentmindedly, "ok…"
I was surprised to hear her sound so out of it. A moment later, I saw her closing her eyes and slumping over. Luckily, I am the type that can't switch off my battle focus too quickly, so I was still able to react and teleport in front of the falling Becca.
I was worried about her, but when I looked at her, she had a soft smile on her face and was breathing calmly.
'She's just sleeping!'
All of her adrenaline must have stopped pumping the moment she knew we were done for the day and she past out.
I was not as fatigued as her because I took a lot less damage throughout our spars. Counting all of our matches, it ended up as 5 wins for Becca and 20 wins for me.
I slowly lowered myself towards the ground and picked up Becca in a piggy back ride.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone