96 More Bullies (1/2)

By the end of the class, all of the dummies were still in perfect condition. Regardless of what everyone tried, they couldn't even scratch them.

Oli gathered with Yeter and Netra so they could all go Vloz together.

”Can I join you?”

The group turned to see Karos, and Oli smiled. ”Of course! All you had to do was ask. Let's go!”

Together, the four of them headed off for the library. They found him on the first floor, helping a few novices select some new battle arts. After he finished helping them, he came over to see them. ”How can I help?”

”Is it possible to get dummies installed in our cultivation rooms?” asked Oli. ”It would help a ton and it would be great motivation for the other members of the advanced classes.”

”I can't help you with that,” stated Vloz, shaking his head. ”They've already been installed so there's nothing else I can do.”

”Wait, really?”

”Really. We did it while you were in class today,” replied Vloz. ”That way you wouldn't have to wait too long to get started.”

”That's great!” Oli looked back at Yeter and chuckled, ”Sorry, Yeter, it seems like we've got to get started right away.”

”Actually, Oli I have a request.”

Surprised, Oli turned around to meet Karos' gaze. ”What's up?”

”Can we spar?” asked Karos with an excited smile. ”From what I saw in class, we've both grown a lot. I don't think I can beat you just yet, but I still want to test my strength. So, can we?”

Oli's head tilted in thought before he laughed, ”Sure, why not? Will outside the library work?”

”Let's go!” Not waiting another second, Karos bolted out the door with his lightning-like speed.

”Oh! This will be good!” Yeter quickly followed after Karos, excited to watch and learn a few new things.

Netra glanced at Oli. ”Since you got them so excited, you should actually try. I'd like to see how strong you really are.”

With a sigh, Oli waved goodbye to Vloz and left with Netra. They easily found Karos and Yeter outside.

In typical Yeter-like fashion, Yeter had charged at Karos with a stomp attack and was evaded in the blink of an eye.

”Calm down, Yeter! I'm the one he's facing, not you,” chuckled Oli.

”But I want to play too!” whined the stallion. ”I'm just warming him up anyway. If he couldn't dodge that, then he wouldn't have any hope against you.”

”Fine, fine. Just back up and let us spar first. Then, maybe, Karos and I will play around with you.”

”Okay!”

”Good, now that's he's not interfering, should we start?” Karos asked, brandishing a warm smile.

”You can go first.” Earth essence gathered around Oli, covering his entire body and slowly compacting. It wasn't anywhere near as thin as his father's essence armor, but he was glad that he could at least make some kind of essence armor, even if it was very basic and fundamental.

”Alright, then I'll test out my offense with your defense. Here I come!”

The lynx almost disappeared, traveling at incredible speed toward Oli. Lightning essence danced over his fur, yet it seemed to be calming down. Its movements were tamer than lightning should be and followed a guided course, though the lightning was still wild and rampant.

Just as Karos appeared in front of Oli and struck his hand forward, all of the lightning around his body madly rushed into his paw and directly into his attack.

Despite his earth essence defenses having a natural advantage against lightning essence, Oli's blocking arm was still forced back. A patch of his earth essence armor was forcibly broken by the mad lightning.

Taking a few deep breaths, both Oli and Karos backed away laughed.

”Wow… That's a strange battle art,” mentioned Oli. ”You let stagnant lightning on your body rush to your attack toward the point of impact, using its sudden momentum to push it into a single point of mass destruction. That's scary…”

Karos added, ”To think your earth essence armor was able to block it without you needing to do anything else… You always surprise my Oli. I didn't know you found such a battle art.”

Oli laughed but didn't say a word. He didn't want to mention that his essence armor was a concept created from a battle art and not an actual battle art. It wasn't perfect, but Oli understood that his father's Infinite Compression art was an incredible battle art with many applications in defense or offense.

”Let's go again!”