Chương 28

Alex was silent. He was thinking about what he didn't mind saying, and what he did. He's more perceptive than I gave him credit for.

"C'mon, don't think!" said Beckett.

"First thing that comes to mind?" Alex smiled thinly.

"You don't strike me as the kind of guy that can keep a secret."

"So there is a secret."

"We all have secrets."

"Not all of us! I'm an open book." Beckett put up his hands.

"Ask me anything, and I'll tell you. God's honest truth."

"Yeah, I can tell," said Alex—innocuously, in his mind. Beckett paused. Then he flushed slightly.

"You've seen my Instagram."

"I—" How did he get that, from that?

"I didn't say that."

"You have," said Beckett. He turned away, visibly cringing.

"Oh, my god."

"I mean, I did come across it," Alex admitted.

"It's for fun," said Beckett quickly.

"And it's—my mentors keep telling me it's important to, uh, build a personal brand if you want to get selected for Dueling, so that's—that's why."

"Plenty of people have social medias, it's fine," said Alex. Beckett gave him a glance.

"Which post did you see?"

"You were giving advice on Mana Manipulation." Alex didn't see why he wouldn't tell him—as long as he omitted a key detail, of course." Ah." Another silence.

"Yeah, um—I've gotten feedback, since," Beckett said.

"From my orientation group, who, uh, found my page. I'm not—look, I don't regret putting it up," he said.

"What kind of feedback?" Beckett hesitated.

"Weren't you an open book?" It was Alex's turn to be amused.

"I—okay, well, they're calling me sensei now, which I'm kind of hoping will blow over."

"That's not so bad." The guy was still a bit red.

"Also, uh—they're leaving comments, like—well, they're making fun of me. Well—they're making fun of the comments my posts are getting, anyway."

"How so?" Alex felt obliged to ask, given, well— he'd left a comment.

"It's just—the gender ratio of my comments is a bit, um, skewed," said Beckett.

"So my friends—well, my guy friends—they're writing stuff mirroring what's there, like, comments that aren't, uh, really about the content."

"As in, what?"

"Like—' whatever you say handsome,'" said Beckett, flushing more.

"With a heart-eyes emoji. Stuff like that." Alex was speechless. This freaking guy. He was glad, in a way, it wasn't his comment that'd brought down this apparent torrent of teasing. Still, it was difficult for Alex to muster too much sympathy, given the circumstances. He kind of felt like the guy should be teased more, if anything.

"Let's delve," said Alex, finally. Beckett seemed relieved.

"Yeah, let's!" They went forward out of the starting zone. Slightly to the right, so they wouldn't potentially stray into the Guild evaluation. A few dozen steps later, and they were into the forest proper, crunching patches of ice. About thirty seconds of somewhat awkward silence passed before they came across their first rift creature. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Alex saw it from thirty-ish feet away.

A translucent, light-blue creature, his vision split up by a few trees in the way. The light struck it, and it glimmered.

"Ice slime," said Beckett. Alex was about to ask how he could tell, when Beckett said, "Level 4," and he realized. He used Identify on it. Of course. Alex's own identify gave him a notification which said the same.

"I'll take this." They said it at the same time. There was another awkward silence, in which they both seemed to be waiting for the other to graciously acquiesce. They both seemed a little excited.

"I have armor," said Beckett, breaking the silence.

"I can face it from the front—you can come in from the side?" Alex shrugged.

"Works for me." Beckett drew his spear, and Alex his sword. They crept closer, and Alex didn't see any more rift creatures in their immediate surroundings; it seemed they'd have this to themselves. Alex split off when they were about fifteen feet away, and now he saw the rift creature in full—a giant, six-foot-tall, dewdrop shaped mass.

It was sitting underneath a series of icicles, letting the melting droplets strike it; curiously, during the split-second it landed Alex could visually see the way the droplets' mana dispersed into the slime's translucent body. Its entire body's one big mass of mana, he realized. It kind of reminded him of a jellyfish. It'd shown little evidence it was even sentient, until it shivered as a particularly fat droplet struck it, and bounced slightly. It froze. Alex did also. Did it sense something?

Its body brightened; the ground beneath it started cracking with ice. It bounced. The thing had no face, so Alex couldn't tell where it'd go until it was already in motion. It flew through the air, crashing clean through a tree, and anywhere it touched was instantly coated with a thick new layer of ice. Beckett had cried out and leaped out of the way; a second later it landed exactly he'd been standing, freezing solid the place where it'd landed. It squelched angrily—with what Alex thought was anger, anyway.

It squelched even more when Beckett's speartip started searing with fire mana. Beckett charged. The slime leaped and he ducked under, raking the spear across its belly as it passed overhead; there was a cracking sound, and the slime visibly trembled at the strike. Fire's very effective against ice. At the same time, Beckett cursed in surprise; he was glancing at his speartip. The steel had frozen solid.

It scrunched in, bounced at him again, faster this time, and Beckett's spear lit up with mana; he'd barely managed to free the speartip when the slime was upon him. He went under it, stabbing upward as he did, almost blindly. There was a flash of bright-blue light. Beckett was wrenched forward, barely tumbling away in time. His spear was stuck deep into the Ice Slime's side—the steel was frozen inside. Which surprised Alex as much as it did Beckett.

The Slime scrunched in again, clearly about to bounce at the guy again. Alex stepped in front of it and slashed it twice, his blade filled with Swordforce. The steel sank straight into the slime's body, and he saw its force-blue lash deep into the slime's core. It bounced again, in place, like it was turning itself—like it was only now growing aware of him as a new player in all this. Alex slashed it twice more before it could react; he also impacted it with two fake Mana Spears.

The Mana Spears didn't seem to do very much. Which he'd kind of expected; they were more useful as sharp objects he slid into weaknesses, or smashed into someone's face. This Slime was a giant, uniform, firm object. What surprised him was that his mana spears couldn't even shatter properly—they struck the slime, and were infected with ice-mana in a semi-shattered state, and clinked to the ground—shattering and dispersing. Where his spears had struck, for a split-second, the slime's body shone the color of ice-mana.

Its ice works that fast? The slime's body also shone where his sword strikes landed, and Alex felt the way the ice invaded his blade, wrestling against the extra Swordforce he was pumping in to counteract it. Two more exchanges, and several more Swordforce slashes went deep into the Slime. He enjoyed feeling exactly how much faster he was, how much more force he could put through his slashes as a result of his new stats from his third Class Level; he'd barely gotten a chance to experience it.

It was hard to tell how much damage he was doing, but by the way it was shivering, he guessed it was hurting quite a bit. The issue was what it was doing to his blade. After he saw what it'd done to Beckett's spear he wasn't taking any chances. He'd flooded the surface of his weapon with Swordforce and it'd held off the ice, to a degree. But ice was starting to creep up the blade. I'll have to back off a little, he thought. Maybe hold it off with a few shields and dodge, clear the ice fully. Then finish it.

He was quite certain he would with a little time. The Slime had gone still again, squelched another time. Heat licked Alex's back; a red tint flooded the air.

"Alex?" said a voice behind him.

"Could you step back a few feet?" Alex obliged, lips pursed. A lance of fire flew through the air, spiking straight into the slime's side. The lance exploded in brilliance. A second lance struck an instant later, and then two more; every lance carried its own brilliant blast. A shape blurred past him—Beckett, who'd leaped, grabbed his own spear, wrenching it free; its tip flooded with fiery mana, and he stabbed.

This time when his spear struck, its tip sank into the slime's body and sank a blast into it; Alex could see the flash of blurred brilliance through the slime's body. Another stab, and a second internal blast, finished it. Alex was pretty certain the first time Beckett had wielded his spear on the Slime; the guy had wanted to test it, get a sense for it first. He'd underpowered his spear, and it'd surprised him. That was quite some firepower.

The speed at which he'd constructed those fire-lances, and the accuracy he'd had, felt reminiscent of Alex's mana spears. If slightly lower in both categories; he'd still give himself the edge there. It was Alex's first look at borderline exceptional Fire talent. The first talent that was given the same grade as his own Pure talent. Beckett looked over his shoulder; the light of the fire was reflected in his eyes.

"Thanks for the help."

"Next time," said Alex, meeting his eyes.

"Let me finish fights I've won." Beckett looked surprised; then—"Okay," he said seriously.

"I get you." He smiled.

"You're really good. What were those spears, was that a Skill?"