The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows over the lush, grassy hills surrounding the mountain estate. A cool breeze swept through the clearing, rustling the tall grass and sending leaves tumbling lazily through the air.
After lunch Arthur, Selene and her grandfather left the mansion towards a large clearing near the mansion. After Selene's insistence they had decided not to spar in the mansion's training area, not to damage it. Steve then led them towards the clearing a few kilometers away from the mansion.
Arthur stood at the edge of the large clearing, his arms folded as he stared at the man in front of him, Steve Smith. While doing lunch Arthur had learned the name of Selene's grandfather.
'Steve Smith? That's… not what I expected from a dragon princess's grandfather,' Arthur thought, mildly amused. It sounded more like a typical math teacher from Earth than a man strong enough to scare off dragons.
Still, he didn't question and didn't think much into it. Names aside, there was nothing ordinary about Steve.
He stood in the center of the field like he owned the world. No aura leaked from him, nor did he exude any dramatic pressure.
Selene hovered above them some distance away for better view, her golden eyes watching from the air like a referee that was also a little too entertained by this match-up.
"I still don't understand why we can't use the training hall," Steve muttered as he rolled his shoulders lazily.
"Because you broke the last one." Selene shouted from above. "No more destroying buildings, Grandpa!"
Steve let out a theatrical sigh. "One meteor strike and everyone gets so dramatic."
Arthur chuckled despite not wanting to, at what he heard. "You know… that might be the most terrifyingly casual thing I've heard someone say."
"Get used to it, kid," Steve said with a grin, then slid into a loose, open stance. "You ready?"
Arthur didn't answer. Instead, he took a deep breath and rolled his neck until it gave a satisfying pop. His eyes locked onto Steve, and in the next heartbeat, he blurred forward.
The ground cracked beneath his feet as he surged ahead, closing the distance in less than a second. He didn't augment his body with Chi or lightning, not yet. He just wanted to probe into Steve's strength first and see how much of a gap they have between them.
Arthur's right fist came swinging straight for Steve's midsection.
The man didn't flinch.
Instead, Steve's hand snapped up at the last second, casually redirecting the punch with a palm flick. Arthur barely had time to twist before Steve's foot swept low, forcing him to leap back.
Arthur landed cleanly a few feet away, sliding to a stop.
'Whoa,' he thought. 'That was… fast.'
Not just fast. The move was too clean and surgical.
Arthur came in again, this time with a spinning kick that would've obliterated a large boulder into dust on impact. Steve leaned to the side like a leaf drifting in the breeze and jabbed forward, just grazing Arthur's ribs.
It didn't hurt, but it wasn't meant to. It was a message that Steve could have injured him with that strike if he wanted to.
Arthur backed off, breathing steadily, as he evaluated his next moves.
This time, he went in with a flurry, three punches, low-high-low, followed by a quick feint and a rising knee. Steve blocked the first two strikes with minimal motion, ducked the third, and caught the knee mid-air with one hand like he was handling a shopping bag.
Arthur's expression twitched. "Seriously?"
Steve looked at him with a raised brow. "You're not bad. Your movements are fast, and precise. You also have good instincts. But right now, you're fighting like someone who's never been humbled."
Arthur twisted out of the grip, backflipped, and landed cleanly again.
That stung more than the jab.
He came again, ducking low this time and throwing a sweep at Steve's ankles while simultaneously firing off a quick [Mana Bullet] toward his face.
Steve hopped clean over the sweep and caught the mana bullet between two fingers. It fizzled out like a spark.
Arthur froze mid-pivot.
"…You caught a mana bullet with your fingers," he said, deadpan.
"Caught? That was me being polite," Steve replied with a wink.
Up above, Selene was snorting laughter now, clearly enjoying herself far too much.
Arthur exhaled and took a step back, assessing.
'Okay. He's matching me perfectly. Speed, strength, rhythm… but he's not even trying. It's like he's… mimicking me?'
It was true. Every time Arthur pushed, Steve pushed just enough. Every strike Arthur launched, Steve responded in kind, but no more than necessary. He was deliberately matching Arthur's baseline, probing his strength just like Arthur was doing.
That meant Steve was holding back by a lot. Arthur's fists clenched slightly, the air around his skin crackling just faintly.
"Alright," he said, voice low but determined. "No more dancing around."
Steve raised a brow. "Good. Because I'd hate to think that's all you've got."
Arthur's lips curved into a grin. "You haven't seen anything yet."
Then, with a pulse of energy, Arthur's Chi flared to life, golden aura rippling across his limbs like glowing flame.
The real fight was just beginning.
…
The air trembled.
Arthur's Chi flared around him like a storm, golden and radiant, pulsing with rhythm synced to his heartbeat. His muscles tightened subtly beneath his shirt as he activated his full augmentation, nearly tripling his base strength in an instant. From sixty-two kilotons… to nearly a hundred and eighty-five.
The earth cracked beneath his feet from the sheer weight of his presence.
Steve raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Well, someone's been eating their magic spinach."
Arthur didn't answer. His response came in the form of action.
With a sonic boom, he vanished.
In the next instant, he appeared in front of Steve, mid-air, a golden gauntlet of Chi wrapped tightly around his fist. He drove it forward with a shout, Chi surging around his body as he put his full weight behind it.
Boom!
Steve blocked with a single arm. The shockwave of the collision tore through the clearing like a miniature explosion, flattening grass for tens of meters around them and sending a gust of wind rolling back toward the mountains.
Arthur's fist didn't move Steve an inch.
But Steve's expression shifted slightly, not in pain, but in acknowledgment. He was impressed.
Arthur gritted his teeth and followed up with a barrage of strikes, Chi-enhanced punches, spinning elbows, low kicks, and sweeping strikes. His hands moved like hammers, his footwork like a blur of golden trails against the grass.
Steve met each blow with clinical ease, dodging, parrying, or deflecting, but now with a fraction more effort.
'He still isn't taking me seriously,' Arthur realized, frustration creeping into the back of his mind. 'He's not even sweating. Damn it, I need him to go harder.'
He leapt back and formed two Chi constructs mid-air, one a shield on his left arm, the other a crackling golden glaive in his right. He hurled the shield forward like a discus and charged behind it, hoping to bait Steve into deflecting the wrong threat.
Steve sidestepped the shield, caught the glaive, and crushed it with one hand.
"Is that all you got?" he asked casually.
Arthur's eyes narrowed. "No."
From his opposite palm, he fired a barrage of [Mana Bullets] at point-blank range. Steve swatted them away like flies, but Arthur was already moving.
He appeared under Steve's guard and drove an uppercut into his ribs.
Pow!
Steve grunted. But not from pain, but seeing Arthurs flexibility at using his powers.
He backed off quickly and launched a series of Chi Orbs, condensed golden energy spheres that curved mid-flight like guided missiles. Steve dodged them with ease, his footwork elegant, but two of them exploded just behind him, kicking up enough dirt and debris to obscure his vision.
Arthur launched forward again. This time he spun mid-air and slammed both fists down like hammers.
Steve raised both hands to meet him, catching the blow, but this time, his feet skidded half an inch backward.
"That's more like it," he said with a grin.
Arthur panted slightly, already sweating a bit. "Then stop holding back."
Steve's smile faded. "Alright. But you asked for it."
In the blink of an eye, Steve vanished.
Arthur had no time to react.
Crack!
A punch slammed into Arthur's abdomen, lifting him off his feet and launching him nearly hundred meters back. He hit the ground hard, skidding across dirt and grass, leaving a shallow crater where his body finally came to a stop.
"Arthur!!" Selene called out, concern bleeding into her voice.
She instinctively opened a telepathic link. 'Grandpa! Don't…'
'Relax,' Steve's voice answered calmly in her mind. 'He can take it.'
He had noticed it during the earlier exchange, Arthur's body healed far too quickly. That last punch should've broken bones. Instead, the bruising faded before Steve even finished his sentence.
Sure enough, Arthur groaned, pushed himself off the ground, and rolled his shoulders. A thin trail of blood slid down his cheek… and then stopped within a few seconds.
Selene, watching from above, was stunned. "He really is insane."
Arthur cracked his neck. "Okay," he exhaled. "That hurt a bit."
Then he smiled.
"But it also helped."
Steve raised a brow.
Arthur's Chi flared again, stronger, and more refined. His body adapted not just to the pain, but to the speed, and power of Steve's last strike, leading to his body to get stronger.
And they collided again.
The field erupted in chaos.
Shockwaves tore through the terrain, kicking up grass, stone, and dirt in every direction. Arthur's fists moved in blurs, one moment wrapped in Chi gauntlets, the next morphing into spears, spiked knuckles, or blade-like constructs.
Steve kept up with all of it. His movements were graceful and deliberate, but no longer bored.
He was enjoying himself now.
Arthur fired more Mana Bullets, but only as distractions. He'd learned quickly they did nothing to Steve. But when paired with a Chi orb from the opposite direction? That got him to react.
Steve adjusted effortlessly, even when Arthur struck from unpredictable angles, flipping, sidestepping midair, or launching himself from shattered rocks. But Arthur's persistence was unrelenting.
Minutes passed like moments.
Boom!
Another crater tore through the clearing as Arthur drove a knee into the ground, launching himself skyward and attempting to dropkick Steve from above.
Steve met him midair with a palm strike that sent him hurtling across the field.
Crash!
Arthur hit a boulder, and the boulder cracked and was blasted away.
He stood again. Even his shirt which was made out of durable nanobots was shredded and the nanobots were unable to keep up its regeneration with the damage it took. His face and arms were splattered with dried blood. He looked like he'd walked through hell.
But there wasn't a single wound on him.
Selene hovered above, wide-eyed. She whispered under her breath, "He's… healing as fast as he's getting hurt. Maybe even faster."
Below her, the clearing was a battlefield.
Dozens of impact craters. Trees blown away, rocks shattered into dust. The ground looked like it had been shelled by hundreds of siege magic spells.
Arthur stood, cracked his knuckles, already feeling his increasing strength.
Steve, still uninjured, dusted off his jacket with one hand.
"Well," he said, sounding almost impressed. "I think we're ready to take off the real fight."
Arthur nodded, eyes blazing. "Good. Because I've only just started."
***
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