Ryan looked at Kit, who just stood there, staring at Lightspeed. He hurried over to the robot and quickly picked it up, sighing a breath of relief when he saw that it was fine. Kit glanced at Ryan, and the two locked eyes before the minogid quickly averted his gaze and moved back to his podium to inspect Lightspeed more closely.

  But Ryan didn’t even care about Kit’s reaction. He had no idea why, but Ryan just knew when exactly he had to hold his hand out there. Like some deep instinct that he couldn’t hold back. And then, Ryan looked at the system message that had appeared in front of him.

  [Your Intuition has increased by 0.01]

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Instinct or Precision

  Ryan stared at the system window. His intuition had increased. But … how? The established method for increasing intuition was by trying to sense mana and increase your magical sensibilities. It definitely wasn’t just through some fighting. Did his intuition stat present differently to others? That kind of thing could happen. The exact ways that stats presented had slight differences across individuals and classes, and rarely, they affected the user in more unique ways.

  Considering that Ryan had a unique class, maybe that was a possibility to consider. Whichever the case, Ryan really didn’t mind. If he could boost his intuition just through fighting, then that was nothing but a benefit to him.

  Ryan squatted down in front of Maximus, taking a closer look at the knight. There were scratches covering his armor. Nothing major, but at this rate, these scratches were going to stack up.

  “Want me to fix you up a bit?” Ryan asked, and Maximus looked down at his body. He shook his head, pointing over at Kit and Lightspeed. Ryan glanced over and slowly nodded. “Right, I guess we should wait for the last round to be over … But are you alright? You’re not hurt or anything?”

  Quickly, Maximus shook his head again, and Ryan sighed a breath of relief. The connection from the Spirit Link skill didn’t really tell him all too much; he could tell what it was that Maximus was seeing and hearing, and he could feel the impacts from Lightspeed’s attacks earlier. But there was no pain. And Ryan didn’t know if that was because of the nature of the skill, or because Maximus didn’t feel any pain to begin with. He was a spirit, and the armor was his body. Since Ryan could feel the impacts in the first place, Maximus clearly could sense touch through the armor, at least.

  “Are you gonna be fine fighting on your own in the last round?” Ryan asked, though he already knew the answer to that. Maximus was a great fighter; rather, he was probably a better fighter than Ryan.

  When Ryan fought, he did so with tricks and instinct and without hesitation. He used whatever he could, improvising along the way. But Maximus was different. He fought with precision and a plan. Most of the time when he was in his domain, he was training his techniques on the straw dummy. Ryan never even saw him try to sleep, even though he had a bed in there.

  Ryan stood back up and walked over to Modak and Silvia.

  “That was over quick,” Silvia pointed out. “But also, wasn’t that just so cool? Lightspeed was basically flying!”

  Modak slowly nodded, seemingly deep in thought. “Yeah … so Kit was using the crystal fibers to deploy barriers for a foothold? I didn’t realize that was possible … I’ll have to ask him about that later, that’s fascinating.”

  “You know him?” Ryan raised his brow. He found that barrier foothold interesting as well, but he didn’t care about it all too much from a technical perspective.

  Modak slowly nodded. “Yeah, I know everyone here. They’re all in the magic engineering course. Kit is a second-year; he’s the teacher’s aide for one of my math classes.”

  “Huh.” Ryan turned around and glanced at the minogid, before whispering to Modak, “Is he always like … that?”

  Unsure what exactly Ryan was talking about, Modak looked over at Kit as well. “Like what? I guess he was a bit more quiet than normal, but he put a lot of work into this project, so he’s concentrating, right?”

  Silvia looked at her friends and let out a long sigh. “Guys, he’s anxious. All of them are.”

  Ryan thought about it for a moment. “What, he’s anxious about doing well tomorrow or something?”

  “What? No, he’s anxious about fighting you, dumbass.” Silvia let out a long sigh. “Everyone here knows about you. And rumors tend to be exaggerated. People call you the ‘Knight in Scuffed-Up Armor.’ You’re not known to … hold back. They’re all clearly worried about you damaging their Duelists or getting mad. I mean, you’re basically shadow-boxing right behind Maximus; that’s not necessarily a calming view.”

  Was that it? Were these guys … scared of Ryan? It certainly wasn’t impossible. As he looked around the room, he locked eyes with one of the club members momentarily. They immediately averted their gaze, actually turning their whole body away from Ryan.

  Oh gods, they’re actually scared of me? Ryan’s stomach sank. His attitude as he came in here earlier probably didn’t help with that either. Letting out a loud, involuntary groan, Ryan rubbed his eyes.

  “Should I, like, talk to them about it? Try to get them to … not be scared?”

  “I don’t think they’re actually scared of you. Richie said that the only people you’d be ‘duelling’ are the ones that agreed to do that, right? And clearly they all agreed,” Silvia pointed out. “They’re probably just a bit on edge, you know?”

  Ryan scratched the side of his neck. “I guess you’re right … Man, this is annoying. Should I go on some kind of massive ‘I’m not scary’ campaign?”

  “I think that could make it a little worse,” Modak pointed out. “But really, the moment people actually get to know you, it’s fine. We’ll be spending all day with everyone here. That’s a good opportunity to mingle, right?”

  “Yeah … yeah, you’re right. Sorry, today’s already been a weird day,” Ryan admitted, taking a long, deep breath to calm himself down a bit. Right around then, Kit seemed to be ready to continue. The Spirit Link skill had been deactivated automatically and had around half an hour of cooldown left until he could activate it again, so this whole fight was going to be handled just by Maximus. Ryan’s only task was pressing the buttons on the tablet in case Maximus used either of his active skills.

  Ryan walked back over to the podium, leaning onto it. Kit glanced over at him as well, and the two locked eyes before Kit quickly looked back away and activated the countdown. Ryan sighed lightly, looking over at Maximus.

  “You good to go?” Ryan asked, and the knight briefly turned around and nodded, continuing to stretch before the last round against Lightspeed started.

  “What are you doing?” Kit asked, as the countdown reached zero. He saw that Ryan didn’t seem to have the intention to “control” Maximus anymore.

  “Hm? Oh, I’m just letting Max do his thing,” Ryan replied, as if it were obvious. At the same time, he was trying to sound a little more friendly than he did before, forcing himself to smile, although he wasn’t really in the mood. “I was using a skill for the first two rounds that let me and Maximus sort of ‘sync up’ for a bit. But now he’s just doing his own thing.”

  Kit looked at Maximus seemingly surprised. It was one of the first times that he didn’t have that tense blank expression on his face. At that point, Ryan realized that none of these people had seen Maximus fight without Ryan being directly involved through a Spirit Link.

  “Don’t worry, this data will be useful for you guys too. Now, get started, alright? Max is looking bored,” Ryan pointed out. The knight was stood on his side of the arena, patiently waiting for Kit to be ready despite the countdown already having reached zero.

  And though he seemed a bit hesitant, the minogid looked back at Lightspeed to get started. And then, the robot shot forward. Maybe even faster than before. And this time around, it really wasn’t holding back with those barrier jumps either. As if Kit was trying to confuse Maximus with complicated movements, it jumped up and down and left and right, moving around the knight at high speeds.

  But no matter what Kit tried, this time around, Lightspeed never hit Maximus. He tried, of course, but Maximus didn’t get the slightest scratch on him. With careful, precise steps and twists of his body, the knight simply stepped out of the way no matter what Kit tried. It didn’t matter what; Maximus dodged it all with relative ease.

  And, throughout it all, Maximus wasn’t only looking at Lightspeed. Others probably couldn’t tell, but Ryan did. Maximus was regularly glancing at Kit. He was listening to the sound of the keyboard keys clattering and the taps on the touch screen of the tablet. It was like he knew exactly what sound corresponded to what movement, filling in the gaps that he couldn’t gather just from looking at Lightspeed alone.

  Of course, it was an impressive sight in the first place. The only strikes that Maximus allowed were minimal and light, seeped with purpose behind it. He did end up losing a bit of health, though, along the way. That was, until Maximus finally activated his Knight’s Attack skill. Ryan almost didn’t manage to press the button on the tablet in time before Maximus threw a precise punch forward as he dodged backward, striking Lightspeed in the head.

  It might have looked similar to what Ryan had done earlier. It was the same outcome, really. Both times, Lightspeed’s movements had been predicted. But while Ryan did so basically on pure instinct, Maximus predicted it by simply realizing Lightspeed’s movement patterns and knowing that if Kit did certain things on his keyboard, it was going to lead to specific reactions in the robot.

  It was much more technical and … impressive.

  Lightspeed fell to the ground, but quickly recovered. In that time, Maximus had closed the distance and glanced at the monitor for just a moment.

  Lightspeed - 90 | Maximus - 73

  Ryan noticed that the punch, despite the activation of Maximus’s skill, didn’t actually do that much damage. But it didn’t take him long to realize why.

  Maximus struck at Lightspeed once more before it could properly recover. It was a light strike, just as before, but it brought the robot down to eighty points exactly. As Kit maneuvered it around Maximus, trying to attack however it could, the knight kept on striking instead. And each time, Lightspeed’s points were reduced by exactly ten points. And at the same time, Maximus never struck the same place twice. The first targeted the head, the second the shoulder. Then the hip, the chest, the back. It didn’t take Ryan long to know what Maximus was doing. He was giving Kit precise “data,” as if trying to make this duel worth it for the minogid.

  And before long, Lightspeed’s points dropped to zero.

  Kit silently lifted his hands from the keyboard, staring at his robot. He walked up to it, and Ryan felt like he seemed maybe a bit dejected.

  With an inward sigh, Ryan walked up to Kit. “Hey, good job! Those barrier footholds were crazy cool.”

  Kit glanced up at Ryan as he slowly grabbed Lightspeed. “… Thank you. I did not expect that we would be beaten this easily.”

  “I mean … You don’t really play fighting games, do you?”

  “I prefer strategy games,” Kit responded carefully.

  “Exactly. Maximus and I know how to fight, it’s kinda our thing. But for you, you had to control Lightspeed as if you were playing a game you weren’t used to. That’s not a great matchup, right?”

  Kit looked up at Ryan, hesitating to respond. “I appreciate that. But whichever the case, this was quite insightful. Exactly as you said, the way you and … Maximus, was it? Anyhow, the way you two moved and fought was different to how Duelists can. I appreciate the help.”

  Ryan shook his head, lightly smiling. But compared to before, it was a bit more genuine. “Nah, man, we’re getting something out of this too. I awakened like … a week and a half ago? This is amazing practice. I should be the one thanking you.”

  Kit was silent for a few more moments, but soon, he held his hand forward. “Thank you for the duel, Ryan.”

  “Of course.”

  The two shook hands as Modak and Silvia came up behind them.

  “Kit, just how the hell did you make that work? Don’t barriers usually move with the deployment conduit? That’s like … lifting yourself up.” Modak’s curiosity immediately came over him. And Kit didn’t hesitate to mirror that energy.

  He held Lightspeed up, running his fingers over the crystal fibers on its legs. “I use fibers to actually manifest the barrier, but the actual conduit is inside a magnetic tube inside the leg. The conduit is shot up at the moment of deployment, and since a barrier isn’t physically but magically connected to the conduit, it can provide enough resistance and leverage for Lightspeed to jump off.”

  “Right, I see …” With a curious grin, Modak took a closer look at the Duelist. “How does that translate to a higher scale?”

  “… Not well, but it’s theoretically possible if the barrier’s formula is changed and a stronger power source is used. Neither of which I could do with the resources I have.”

  “Ah … yeah, mana output is always a weird thing. I’m working on my own small project right now, and I struggled a bit to find the right thing.”

  “Oh? What is it you’re working on?”

  As Kit and Modak continued talking about some very technical things that went far over Ryan’s and Silvia’s heads, the two decided to step to the side. It was time for the next two people to start their duel in this spot, so they had to move anyway.

  Silvia looked down at the small knight that Ryan was carrying around. “So … Maximus is actually pretty strong, huh?”

  “You kidding? Maximus is ridiculous. If he were our size, even with the stats he has right now, he’d dominate the lower Awakened League,” Ryan scoffed smugly. Maximus averted his gaze, almost embarrassed at what Ryan had just said.

  With a smile, Ryan pulled open his backpack’s zipper. But he also noticed Silvia’s expression, and looked at her with a raised brow. “What? Do I have something on my face?”

  “No, no, you’re fine,” Silvia replied immediately. “I just thought that your mood improved pretty quickly.”

  “… Shut up.” With a click of his tongue, Ryan pulled out his father’s wooden box out of his backpack.

  “What did you bring that for?”

  Ryan turned to Silvia with a smug grin. “Just watch.”

  After he quickly opened the box, a number of tools were revealed. But the one that Ryan pulled out was none other than the silken handkerchief. It had deeply intricate patterns embroidered on it, and in two of the corners, on each side, a cursive A was written. And then, all those patterns slowly lit up as Ryan activated his Spirit Construction skill, just as the patterns on the clippers did. As Ryan had found, everything inside that box was a tool that reacted to the Spirit Construction skill somehow; even the needles. He hadn’t found the use for all of them yet, but maybe he would at some point. Whichever the case, Ryan looked at Maximus with a smile, as the spirit slowly held his arms to the side and lifted his chin up. Ryan carefully ran the handkerchief over the scratched-up metal plates on Maximus’s chest, and the scratches seemed to fade. Almost as if Ryan was using an eraser to get rid of mistakes on a pencil sketch.

  “Huh?” Silvia watched curiously.

  “It’s cool, right? It doesn’t look like Maximus can repair his body on his own, so ‘upkeep’ seems to be one of my tasks,” Ryan explained. “I ended up playing around with the skill a bit while building models the past couple days. I was wondering if it would make any difference, but it didn’t, so I ended up trying some other things, and found out that this worked.”

  “… And how does it work? Are you, like … shaping the metal? Like smoothing clay or something?” Silvia wondered, but Ryan was quickly able to deny that.

  “It’s nothing like that, no. So, apparently spirits are like fully made of magic, right? And that seems to be the case with Maximus as well, just that his body is a bit different from most other spirits. But it’s still magic in the end. I think I’m maybe just filling in the gaps with ‘new materials’? Either way, it’s pretty neat, and I feel like I’m getting a better—”

  In the middle of his sentence, Ryan felt a deep cramp in his shoulder and his whole body tensed up. “Oh shit, gods-fucking—” he groaned loudly, letting go of the handkerchief and stepping away from the table that had been pushed up against the wall that he and Silvia were standing at.

  In a panic, Silvia looked around, unsure what to do. “A-Are you—”

  “All good, don’t worry, it’s just …” Ryan held his shoulder as he carefully moved it around. “I haven’t been able to move my shoulder around a lot so it’s been getting super stiff. I think I overdid it a bit earlier. The doc said to stretch a bit when this happens, but it’ll settle down soon, don’t worry.”

  Ryan continued to stretch, moving his arm around. However, maybe it was because the only one really focusing on him was Silvia, or because he forgot that the shirt he was wearing was kind of old and had shrunk down in the wash before, making it a bit shorter than normal, but he didn’t pay too much attention to what others were able to see.

  As his shirt slightly lifted, revealing part of his belly and back, Silvia’s eyes widened. She stared at her friend’s lower back, not sure if she was seeing right.

  Ryan turned around a moment later, looking Silvia in the eye. Almost immediately, he realized what happened, pulling down his shirt. A little awkwardly, Ryan grabbed his jacket and put it back on, even though it was a bit warm in this room. Silvia was just watching silently.

  Ryan nervously looked away. “I … I’ll tell you about it later. Just not right now, okay?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Roxie

  Ryan was seated on the edge of one of the desks, watching everyone get ready again. They had just taken a longer break, now that half of the duels had all been fought. Just from those six duels, Ryan learned a lot of things.