Jane opened his eyes to the harsh light of the morning. He struggled on the surface of the bed, but his core muscles wouldn't comply with him. He rolled over onto his side, feeling an entirely new set of muscles begin aching.
'Oh, god...'
He would have let out a groan, but he knew it would only make it hurt even more. Taking shallow breaths, he rolled off of the bed and landed on his aching feet.
Whenever he had felt sore in the past, doing light exercises always helped relieve it. So despite stiff ligaments and muscles, he began moving his body around. The blood flowing to his damaged tissue caused burning at first, but it slowly subsided, leaving only a sense of strength. While there was nothing he could do about the scars that were accumulating on his body, he could at least make sure his muscles were in good shape.
Jane whipped his head around, and looked at the space behind him for a moment. Satisfied that his teacher was not currently in the room, he turned back around. His teacher's face, however, was right in front of him.
"Ahh!"
'Goddamnit, again?'
Jane jumped back.
"Honestly, why are you still so skittish? I admit it's a little fun to sneak up on you, but that can only happen so many times before you wise up, you know?"
"You know, nobody ever called me skittish before they started trying to catch me by surprise."
"No, no, you're really just abnormally jumpy."
His teacher looked at him with a bit of concern.
"You're jumpy, you like carrots, you don't care about getting hurt... was one of your ancestors a rabbit?"
"How exactly would that work?"
Calex frowned a bit.
"Huh."
"Anyways, what are we doing today? Seeing as you appeared in my room."
"I'm just here to check up on your progress."
"What, of making concealed runes?"
"Close, but not quite. Since you apparently want to fight me so bad, how's about a spar for a change?"
---
Jane and his teacher were yet again in some forgotten part of the forest.
'If I walk around the woods long enough, will I end up finding a mage?'
It was better that he didn't. If what his teacher told him was true, then he would be killed on sight by almost all mages. And those that didn't kill him would subject him to an even worse fate.
"The rules are simple. You will attack me, and I will attack back. Since the matchup is heavily in my favor, I'll be giving you a handicap as well."
His teacher manifested mana into an messy 'Light' rune. The rough cloud of mana gave off a weak light, barely managing to make itself seen against the sun's rays.
"I will only be using incredibly weak runes to attack. You, meanwhile, are free to use as potent of spells as you can muster. Additionally, I will not conceal myself. I will not move from this spot, either. Whoever lands the first hit wins."
At first glance, it seemed like an unreasonably dangerous exercise for his teacher. After all, even if he was confident in his defense magic, the condition of 'one hit' guaranteed that his defenses would be breached if Jane won. However, his teacher was not one to die that easily. Knowing this, Jane decided not to hold anything back.
"My disciple, have you prepared yourself?"
Jane stuffed his hands in his pocket...
"Wait. I need to ask you something—"
And acitvated the 'Concealment' of his locket.
He immediately ran to the side, and flanked his teacher with two spells: a combination of 'Water' and 'Lightning', and a 'Fire'. They shot out towards his teacher. Calex smiled and manifested runes in the air.
'Shoot, that was a bad combo.'
In response to the 'Water' and 'Lightning', he formed a wall out of 'Soil'. In response to the 'Fire', he simply extended the range of his wall to defend against it. Jane had made a poor decision by using two attacks that were similarly countered. Calex then enclosed his preexisting runes inside of a 'Project', aimed at where his disciple was running to.
Jane already knew that he would be targeted, of course. His teacher would never have suggested the duel if he didn't have a way to attack his student. Because of this, Jane was running to find cover behind a tree. The shoddily-formed dirt pelted the bark of the oak Jane was hiding behind, but none of it managed to reach his body.
He looked at the path where he had been running. Small indentations were left by his feet along the grass. Jane realized his teacher was using the changes in landscape to tell where he was. In that case, he needed to obstruct his vision.
Jane constructed a 'Diffuse' in the air, then filled it with 'Heat' and 'Water'. Soon, steam began filling the forest. He knew that his teacher would blow it away soon, but messy 'Air' runes would take a while to counter his magic.
'What would he do in this situation?'
His teacher knew that an ambush was coming, but had no idea what kind of magic it would be. Therefore, he would have to rely on an all-rounder form of defense. It would most likely be the defense magic that was used on Jane when he first tried using circles in magic. Thus, Jane would have to use a spell with the maximum firepower, regardless of element.
As attacks blasted the tree he was leaning on, Jane began constructing magic. He first constructed a circle, with several auxiliary 'Amplify' runes, and a single 'Negate'. Inside of it, a 'Project' would encircle a 'Metal'... the construction of the innermost rune could be a little messy this time.
Jane took a deep breath, and released the magic. A lump of metal formed in midair, before being launched towards his teacher at a dire speed. Jane quickly lost control of his magic, but the effects were still there. As the metal flew, it blew away the cloud of steam, and revealed his teacher's visage, covered in a weak defensive layer. The magic offered no resistance whatever, and so the metal struck his teacher in the chest and sent him flying into a nearby tree.
The well-dressed body slammed into the trunk, causing the tree to splinter and leaves to rain down. A nearby bird was protesting the loss of it's home, too. Jane stared at where his teacher's body had ended up. The tree he was sprawled against had bent from the impact, and teetered on the edge of falling. Sawdust and bits of bark were sprayed around the tree.
'Oh my god...'
Jane covered his mouth, as if staying silent would make the sight in front of him fake.
'He's dead... There's no way a normal person could have survived that... Wait, a normal person?'
"Get up, what the hell are you acting dead for?"
His teacher extricated himself from the tree, which promptly fell down.
"What a rude way of addressing your teacher. And here I was trying to get some rest."
"How are you still alive? I know your weak body couldn't have survived that."
Calex grinned, and pointed to the region where his Manaheart was located.
"Magic."
'Yeah, no shit.'