The whip-user didn’t hesitate. He didn’t retreat. He didn’t pause to reassess.

The instant Ludger steadied himself, the man resumed his assault as if nothing had happened, whips snapping back into motion, lightning crawling along their lengths with renewed violence. The tempo returned to what it had been before the hit, fast and relentless… and then climbed again.

Cracks of thunder split the air as the whips lashed out in overlapping arcs, spikes screaming, electricity ripping through the space Ludger occupied a moment too late. The man pressed forward, intent clear: don’t let him think, don’t let him heal, don’t let him breathe.

Ludger felt the wound on his shoulder seal fully. The bleeding stopped, skin knitting under controlled mana flow. The pain dulled, not gone, but pushed aside. Enough. Not showing his cards was one thing. Looking weak was another.

And frightening his family, letting them see him bleed like that, was worse than either. Ludger’s expression hardened. His posture shifted, weight settling lower, aura tightening around him like drawn steel.

Then he charged. Not cautiously. Not defensively.

He surged forward like a gale unleashed, boots biting into the sand as wind gathered around his legs. Two steps, just two, and the opponent’s instincts screamed again. The whip-user braced, shoulders tightening, wrists snapping into motion as he prepared to intercept the charge with a killing lash. But Ludger vanished.

The air tore with a sharp crack as heavily condensed wind overdrive detonated around his legs. To the crowd, it looked like he’d been erased, no blur, no trail, just absence.

Then he was there. Right in front of the whip-user.

Ludger drove his palm forward, earth- and wing-aligned mana packed dense and brutal behind it. The strike landed squarely in the opponent’s abdomen, the same finishing blow he’d used on Varkas the day before, the same technique meant to shatter breath, bone, and resolve in one decisive impact.

But this time… it felt wrong. Not soft. Not yielding. Hard.

The force still exploded outward, sending the whip-user flying backward across the arena. Sand tore up beneath his heels as he skidded away, body snapping back under the impact. But he didn’t crash into the wall.

He stopped, boots grinding to a halt a breath away from the stone. Still standing. Ludger’s eyes narrowed as the dust settled. Whatever he had just hit… It wasn’t normal.

Ludger clicked his tongue, sharp and irritated.

So they studied even that.

It made sense. The finisher itself wasn’t some secret art carved into ancient stone. It was simple. Brutally so. A palm strike delivered with overwhelming speed, mass, and condensed force. Anyone watching closely, anyone willing to dissect yesterday’s matches frame by frame, could figure out where it landed and why it worked.

They might not know what he used. Wind overdrive layered with controlled force. Timing compressed to the edge of perception. But they didn’t need to.

As long as the final blow was straightforward, they knew where he would aim. The abdomen. The center. Somewhere disabling, but not instantly lethal. They were counting on that, on his restraint, on the fact that he wasn’t trying to kill people in front of an audience, in front of his family.

Mercy as a variable, Ludger thought grimly.

Across the arena, the whip-user exhaled slowly through his nose. A thin line of blood leaked from the corner of his closed mouth, dark red against pale skin. The hit had hurt him, there was no denying that. Internal damage, compressed shock, something rattled loose inside.

But not enough. Not even close.

The man straightened, spine rolling back into alignment with a faint crack, eyes still cold, still focused. He took a step forward, then another, boots grinding into the sand with deliberate calm. Then the whips moved again.

He swung both arms upward, wrists rotating in perfect synchronization. The whips snapped overhead, carving wide arcs as lightning surged along their lengths. The crackling energy stitched itself into a spinning ring above him, leather, metal, and electricity blurring together into a perfect circle.

The noise rose to a shrill, constant scream. The circle tightened. Stabilized.

A rotating shield of whips and lightning formed above and around him, arcs overlapping just enough to intercept anything coming straight in. Sparks rained down around his feet, the air shimmering with heat and ozone.

Ludger narrowed his eyes.

Prepared, he thought.

Not just for speed. Not just for power. Prepared for him.

The circle above the whip-user tightened, leather and metal blurring into a spinning halo of crackling force. The lightning crawling along the whips intensified, gathering at the apex of the rotation like storm clouds compressed into a ring.

Then it broke loose.

Small lightning bolts rained down from the spinning circle, not wild, not chaotic, but measured, deliberate. Each bolt snapped free with a sharp crack and curved through the air, homing toward Ludger in staggered intervals. They struck the sand first, detonating in brief flashes that scorched the ground, then redirected, angling up, angling sideways, angling in.

The first bolt screamed straight for Ludger’s chest. He didn’t flinch.

A translucent mana wall materialized in front of him an instant before impact, condensing from nothing into a solid plane of force. The lightning slammed into it and dispersed in a violent spray of sparks, the sound echoing like a hammer striking glass. Ludger crossed his arms calmly behind the barrier, posture relaxed, eyes fixed forward.

The second wave came immediately.

Three bolts, one toward his left arm, one toward his thigh, one toward his ribs, each from a different angle, each timed to punish hesitation.

Ludger moved only his eyes.

Another mana wall flickered into existence to his side, intercepting the bolt aimed at his arm. A heartbeat later, a second wall formed low, blocking the strike at his leg. The third bolt hit a shield that snapped up directly in front of his torso, perfectly placed, perfectly timed.

No wasted motion. No panic. The lightning shattered harmlessly against invisible barriers, sparks scattering across the arena floor.

The audience erupted, not in cheers at first, but in stunned noise. Gasps. Sharp intakes of breath. People stood without realizing it, hands gripping railings, eyes wide. Even seasoned adventurers leaned forward, disbelief written across their faces.

He wasn’t dodging. He wasn’t scrambling. He was calm.

More bolts rained down, four this time, faster, tighter. Ludger answered each one with flawless precision. Mana walls blinked into existence and vanished just as quickly, appearing exactly where needed and nowhere else. Each shield formed a fraction of a second before impact, as if he were reading the storm itself.

To the crowd, it looked unreal. Like watching someone stand unmoving in the middle of a thunderstorm, deciding which strikes were allowed to touch the ground.

Whispers spread through the stands.

“He didn’t even move…”

“Is he insane?”

“That timing… stars above…”

Ludger stood in the center of it all, lightning exploding around him, sand scorched black at his feet, arms still crossed. His expression didn’t change. His breathing didn’t hitch.

Nerves of steel. Control absolute. And as the last bolt dispersed against a fading mana wall, the arena understood something vital: This wasn’t defense born of fear. This was composure born of confidence.

Ludger exhaled slowly, the last sparks of lightning fading against the invisible walls he’d raised. His posture remained relaxed, but his mind was already moving, turning over possibilities, weighing risks the way he always did in the middle of a fight.

He wanted to try it.

The principles Rufas had explained were still fresh in his thoughts: angle control, pressure lines, momentum redirection, the way weapon-focused styles treated space itself as something to be managed rather than crossed. But wanting to experiment and deciding where to do it were two very different things.

Ludger didn’t want to scare people away from teaching him. If word spread too quickly that anything shared with him could be absorbed, adapted, and weaponized within minutes, fewer instructors would open their mouths. Masters guarded their styles jealously. Pride and tradition mattered. No one liked the idea of becoming obsolete the moment they demonstrated a technique.

And yet… There was another side to that coin.

Showing that he could learn fast, dangerously fast, was also a filter. A brutally efficient one. Those who recoiled, who grew secretive, hostile, or paranoid at the thought of him learning from them were people he should never rely on. Teachers who feared their students’ growth were rarely allies worth keeping.

On the other hand, those who didn’t flinch, those who saw potential rather than threat, who felt pride instead of fear when a student surpassed expectations, those were the ones he could trust. The ones who might stand beside him when things turned ugly.

It was risky.

The merits were obvious: He’d attract bold allies. He’d accelerate his own growth. He’d expose hidden hostility early, before it could fester.

The demerits were just as clear: He’d paint a target on his back. He’d provoke envy, insecurity, and fear. He’d encourage schemers to treat him as a problem that needed solving, sooner rather than later.

Ludger’s lips twitched faintly.

So basically, he thought, it makes people honest.

And honesty, even hostile honesty, was preferable to smiling knives.

Decision made, he shifted his stance. His arms uncrossed. His shoulders settled. His breathing deepened, rhythm aligning with intent rather than reaction.

Mana began to gather around him, not explosively, not with the roaring pressure of Rage Flow or Overdrive, but smoothly, deliberately. It pooled along his limbs, traced subtle lines through muscle and bone, responding to structure rather than force.

The air around him grew heavy. Across the arena, the whip-user watched closely, instincts screaming once more. Ludger’s eyes lifted, focused and calm.

Let’s see how much this works…

Mana flowed outward from Ludger’s palms, not in a burst, not in a flare, but in a controlled expansion, measured, deliberate, almost patient. The energy thickened around his hands, swirling in tight spirals that compressed rather than dispersed, layers folding over themselves as if being forged rather than summoned.

The crowd felt it before they understood it. The air grew heavy. Pressure settled. Then the mana hardened. From each of Ludger’s hands, a blade took shape.

They weren’t the ephemeral mana swords he could fire from his Sage abilities, those were constructs meant to be launched, to burn bright and vanish. This was something else entirely. These blades stayed. They had weight. Presence. Purpose.

Two swords formed completely, extending from his grip with a crystalline sheen. Blue, deep and luminous, like ice pulled straight from a frozen labyrinth, but without the brittleness. Light refracted through their edges in sharp, angular lines, giving the impression of crystal, yet the mana density was unmistakably solid. These weren’t fragile spell-forms. They were forged constructs, stabilized enough to be wielded, parried with, and clashed against steel.

Ludger flexed his fingers once. The swords responded.

A faint hum vibrated through the arena as the mana settled into equilibrium, edges sharpening, balance perfecting itself instinctively to his grip. The blades looked elegant, but dangerous in the way a guillotine was elegant.

Shock rippled through the stands.

People rose to their feet without realizing it. Mouths hung open. Whispers broke out in frantic waves. Even veteran adventurers stared, eyes wide, recognizing just how absurdly difficult it was to manifest stable, handheld mana weapons without a casting focus or long preparation.

“He’s… holding them?”

“Those aren’t projectiles, those are real constructs!”

“The Magic Knights of the Dalmoren house…”

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