Demonic Skeleton God-Chapter 131: Flain vs Nafu (2)

"Did you think you’d catch me off guard?" Flain whispered with a smile.

Nafu stepped back, his eyes glowing with frustration.

"No... not yet," he snapped, channeling energy into the mace. Suddenly, the arena ceiling came alive – shadowy figures descended and rushed at Flain like an avalanche.

"Heh, I see you focus quite a bit on summons. At least we have something in common," Flain said.

However, Flain didn’t move from his spot. With the confidence of a wrestler, he twisted both swords beside his body, and the moment the phantoms reached his waist, he slashed into the ground. The stone floor beneath him vibrated, and he launched himself at them and began to fight.

They were quite fast, but not very strong. One of them managed to hit Flain’s arm, but it wasn’t a strong blow.

[-100 HP] freeωebnovēl.c૦m

Nafu felt the impact all the way at the end of the handle when Flain blasted off the ground. He switched the mace to the other hand and looked at Flain with a puckered voice:

"Is that all, Flain? I thought you had something more... creative. So far, you haven’t used a single spell or technique," he laughed mockingly, but fear lingered in his eyes about what might come next.

Flain’s smile didn’t leave his face. "Pretty strong words for someone who’s losing," he said.

Without hesitation, he whipped his tail – the sharp tip lodged into the stone wall behind Nafu and stopped him in his tracks. That barely opened a window through which victory could arrive. Both swords leapt toward the mace – one struck hard at the handle, and the other sliced along the head of the mace, splitting it in two.

Nafu bled and the mace slipped from his hand. With tremendous effort, he tried to launch another spell, but his body trembled, blood streamed from his eyes, and he had nearly no mana left.

Flain lunged forward without a second thought – he delivered two clean slashes with his swords, which bounced off Nafu’s defense. A lightning-fast tail swipe shattered the remaining shadow barrier from the side.

He grabbed Nafu by the hair so he could look him straight in the eyes. "This was all just a little game. I didn’t use any spell or technique because I wasn’t going all out and wanted to toy with you for a bit. If I wanted to, I could’ve ended it much quicker," he said.

Then he dropped his sword, clenched his fist, and punched Nafu so hard in the face that most of his teeth flew out, and his limp body slid to the ground.

The referee raised his hand. "Enough. The winner is Eran Girflodor," he announced.

Flain placed his swords into his inventory and retracted his tail. A loud applause erupted from the crowd, many students were delighted because they had bet on Flain and their gamble paid off.

Flain walked out of the arena and was already looking forward to the camping he would be experiencing frequently in the near future.

Medics quickly ran up to Nafu and began healing him. His face was deformed from the brutal punch he received; one of his ears was even dangling from a piece of skin that was still holding it in place.

As he walked, one thing caught his attention. Why were Nafu’s spells so weak? Nafu came from a noble family and was definitely at the beginning of Stage 3, so he had to possess Stage 3 skills. But when he fought him, they didn’t seem like Stage 3 to him, even though they looked quite strong. So he became interested in the system’s answer.

[Tip: If I told you this directly, it would be against the rules because it’s not basic information about the system or this world, so I’ll say it in a different way. When you learn a spell, it’s in the weakest possible state. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes until it reaches the stage limit it’s on. After that, it will continue to grow with use, but very slowly and only slightly.]

When Flain read it, he understood what the system meant. Although they were Stage 3 spells, Nafu had probably not had the time to train or use them much recently. Flain knew that how well you can use a spell affects its power, but he didn’t know it mattered this much.

Yesterday, Flain had told Ivy to learn Ice Spikes and Aran to learn Poison Layer. Once they learn them, he will tell them to train constantly because it will strengthen them significantly.

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The next day, Flain went to accept the quest he had chosen the day before. Near the quest board, there were doors that led into a small office where a man responsible for them worked.

Flain received a map to the peak of the White Stream and a pouch in which he would collect mana cores. In electric tigers, the mana core is located in the head directly near the brain. He also said that this quest was Permanent, meaning any number of students could take it, and it would remain posted until there were enough materials obtained from it—in this case, mana cores.

Flain had seen this label on quests before but didn’t know what it meant, so it’s good he found out. However, Flain realized that while hunting, he might run into other students also hunting lightning tigers. This quest is in the difficult category, so Flain hoped there wouldn’t be too many of them.

Flain thanked him and opened the map. The peak of the White Stream is about 120 kilometers from the academy. Flain estimated he’d get there in around 10 hours, though his estimate might not be accurate.

He came to the Academy to study, not to earn Mana Crystals, since he could do that outside the academy as well. Therefore, this would be the only quest he would do. So he planned to flood the entire White Stream peak with the blood of lightning tigers. He would kill every last one of them.

Flain left the academy onto the meadow, pushed off the ground, and ran at lightning speed while holding the map in front of him so he wouldn’t waste time getting lost.

The best thing about being a skeleton was that he didn’t have stamina—or more precisely, he had unlimited stamina. So he could keep running at full speed constantly without being weakened by fatigue when it came to battle...

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