Limitless Path

"How about that?" Soph exclaimed, turning to stick her nose up in the air at Beth.

"Better, but how much mana do you have right now?" Beth replied with a slight shake of her head.

"Uh," Soph's eyebrows scrunched as she concentrated for just a second. "About a third."

"So, could you win the same fight again, right now?" Beth asked.

"If I meditated-" Soph started.

"Not what I asked," Beth cut in. "There are times where you don't get that kind of luxury. This is what I was saying; you're good at fighting, even against people, but your mana conservation sucks right now. And you don't always get a chance to meditate for ten or twenty or a hundred minutes to restore what you spent."

"Then, what am I supposed to do?" Soph asked crossly.

"My biggest suggestion is to be more precise," Beth explained. She held up her hand to keep Soph from jumping in, saying, "You're accurate, sure, but not precise. How much is the minimum amount of mana you can use to stop someone around your stats from moving?"

"I'm…not sure," Soph answered, frowning deeply.

"When you're fighting other people, you can't just dump all your mana right away. Especially if you encounter anybody like me who has even decent resistances," Beth said. "It'll also help with you fighting beasts, but trying to be more conservative and precise with your mana is going to be a big deal when fighting people."

"I see," Soph said, still frowning, but thinking about what Beth meant, at least.

"Kim and Sabs. In the ring," Beth said, while jerking her head at Soph to get her to clear out.

They did a few more fights with the lower-level girls battling against each other, Soph faring much worse when she didn't have mana to throw tons of spells at an opponent. They spent the morning fighting, with Beth giving only occasional instructions, before they broke for lunch. After they had eaten at the cafeteria, they spent a bit of time going over the fights and discussing skills to give them some time to digest.

When they were ready to continue, Beth stepped up onto the stage before saying, "All three of you. And yes, I'll avoid gut shots."

"Limited stats?" Blood asked from outside the ring and Beth nodded.

The other three took positions across from her and Beth felt her strength drop significantly, taking a few jabs at the air before rolling her neck. The others looked distinctly nervous, but still determined to fight to the best of their ability. Beth wasn't exactly super confident, as the other three had good teamwork and were relatively strong for their current level. It would likely be even harder than taking down Bai's team had been while her stats were limited.

Blood yelled for them to start, and Beth took off across the stage, hurtling towards the other three. Kim counter-charged her, trying to keep her from reaching either of the other two, and Beth's sword appeared in her hands as she met her middle sister in the center of the training stage. She immediately lashed out with a Monstrous Blow, seeing Kim's eyes bulge wide as the full-power strike lifted her off the ground and sent her sailing back across the ring, just barely missing Soph. Fortunately for Kim, she had blocked the blow, so other than a bit of numbness in her hands, she hadn't really taken any damage. That would have been a different story if Beth had her full STR stat available, but then again, the whole fight would have been very different.

Beth had followed Kim as she flew, ignoring Sabs out to the side, charging right for Soph. The caster was the biggest danger in the fight, and she needed to lock her down and hopefully take her out quickly. Sabs abandoned trying to circle behind Beth and charged her to try to keep Soph covered, but she was too far out of position to get to Beth before the tall girl could reach Soph, even with the latter throwing out tons of frost attacks. Beth swung hard, going for a clean killing blow from the start, and Soph was only barely able to parry, shunting Beth's sword aside with her staff. Beth reversed her swing instantly, bringing the blade back around towards Soph's throat, which the short girl only partially blocked, the massive sword scraping against the side of her face. The block almost didn't matter, as Beth let the swing continue with one hand while releasing the hilt with her other hand and punching Soph in the throat.

The short girl collapsed with a crushed airway, gagging before the training field teleported her out to the sidelines, where Blood checked her to make sure she was fine. Meanwhile, back in the ring, both Sabs and Kim had reached Beth, swinging for her in unison as she hadn't fully recovered from her swing against Soph. What Sabs and Kim had not forgotten, but not fully understood, was that Beth didn't need a sword to fight at a high level. Nor was she ever really out of position, not with her speed and flexibility. She made her sword disappear, vanishing back into necklace as she leapt into Sabs, punching the questing stab at her neck away with her left arm before throwing out a right-straight. Sabs deflected, albeit barely, before returning with a series of incredibly rapid slashes all concentrated on the same place.

Beth recognized a skill use when she saw it and immediately disengaged, using Spatial Step to suddenly appear behind Kim, who had timed a Burst Slash to hit as Sabs's Flurry finished. She was not expecting the teleport at all, and was caught totally unprepared as Beth's fist made contact with the back of her skull, smashing in her helmet and sending her to the ground. She struggled on the ground, not having taken lethal damage, but Beth solved that by kicking under her torso, lifting her up and into Sabs, the two tumbling a dozen feet back. Kim flashed out of the arena, one of Sabs's knives burying in her eye having been more than enough to add up to lethal damage and take her out.

Sabs didn't last much longer herself, springing back to her feet only to barely deflect two heavy punches aimed at her face. She tried to parry and cut, the way she had trained with John, but Beth was a little too fast for her to get any good cuts in. She also had a hard time blocking or deflecting Beth's punches, as her fists felt like mountains falling towards Sabs, and everything she did still wound up with her giving ground and taking damage. Beth ended with a near-textbook one-two, in which she hit Sabs with an opening jab that was empowered with Crush as she swung it, throwing the older girl off and nearly causing her to drop one of her knives. The second punch coming in with a fully charged Celestial Annihilation sealed the deal, doing enough damage that Sabs was counted dead and teleported outside the field, fully healed and grunting at the lingering memory of pain.

"I can't believe that's with your stats limited," Kim said, shaking her head as Beth walked over to them.

"Peak Silver skills and Journeymen weaponskills can do that," Beth said with a shrug. "That, and Blood and I have multiple years worth of combat experience, with everything we've been through. It really helps, especially a lot of experience fighting against other people, not just beasts."

"What next?" asked Sabs, a tired note in her voice.

"Next, I think we finish up a bit early, but it was always going to wind up like this anyway," Beth said. "We have the three of you use your Presences to fight, though I'm trying to decide if you should go against each other or me again."

"I think we should fight you," Kim said, getting surprised looks from the other two. "Look, if we fight against Soph, she'll just vaporize us with OP spells before we get a chance. At least, if you limit yourself, we might actually get a real fight out of it."

"Makes sense," Beth said with another shrug. "Alright, get some water, then back on the training stage."

Once everyone had had something to drink, they got back on the stage, squaring off in the same way again. Blood was monitoring the systems again, setting Beth to have a limited stat set before starting their spar. The other three immediately called in their Presences, and Beth took advantage of that, exploding across the stage to clock Kim right on the chin. It wasn't a lethal blow, but it staggered her and disrupted her concentration, causing her to have trouble summoning her Presence and have to take several extra seconds to stabilize and complete the process. Beth had turned, meanwhile, and attacked Sabs, hitting her just as her Presence was summoned and she was ready to start moving. She only partially deflected the blow, surprised that Beth not only was able to move while they summoned, unlike the beasts they had been using the ability against, but that she wasn't at all affected by their Presences, even without hers running.

Beth had to stop and brace herself, grunting as a massive bolt of lightning blasted into her right side, taking it on the gauntlet and her upper arm. The mana coursed into her and shot across her torso, causing her lungs to heave and her heart to stutter slightly, but she clamped down on the feelings and pulsed her healing lightly, shaking off the damage. She turned and met the second bolt with a punch, empowering it with Celestial Annihilation to quite literally annihilate the mana the bolt was composed of. What little she wasn't able to cancel out barely singed her gauntlets, though she had to leap away to avoid a blast of ice.

Soph definitely made the fight more annoying, locking Beth down enough that Kim and Sabs could get back in and get their own attacks off. Sabs was made more blurry and ethereal with her Presence active, Beth feeling a little tug like her eyes wanted to slide right off the girl. She assumed she was almost un-affected because of Indomitable Heart, but it would be something very tedious for others to deal with, and would be very powerful against beasts.

Getting held down by a caster was annoying, even if she wasn't necessarily in danger of getting eliminated by Soph's spells, especially when combined with the dual melee assault, and it became quite stifling. She really wanted to break free from how she was locked down, but she knew that patience could be just as important as decisive action in a fight.

That patience paid off in spades, as what she was waiting for happened, or rather, didn't happen anymore. Soph had been blasting her with abandon while burning her Presence as strongly as she could, and the small girl's equally small mana reservoir was the first thing in the fight to tap out. The entire dynamic shifted in the space of one second, as all three of the melee fighters realized instantly what had happened, and Sabs and Kim desperately tried to rack up some damage before Beth took control of the fight.

It was a hopeless effort, however, as Beth was just too strong and too experienced to be baited into any traps or fall for any feints. In a straight-up, head-to-head duel, none of the others had a chance against her, and even having her fight both Kim and Sabs at the same time only slowed the inevitable. Not to mention, while it wasn't lethal, the first hit she got on Kim for free had done a decent bit of damage, forcing the swordswoman to fight through pain and dizziness. Even without that, the outcome was not really ever in doubt, as Beth managed to knock Kim out before dealing Sabs a lethal blow with her sword. She had to tank through a desperate last spell blasted out of Soph before the match was over, but that so exhausted the already spent girl that she directly passed out, without Beth even having to tap her.

"Alright, that was fine, but it's clear we've got work to do," Beth said when they had gathered again. All but Soph, who was unconscious in Blood's arms. "Well, work that we'll start tomorrow. I think you've had enough for today."

"Thank God," Kim muttered.

"You're welcome to stay here, Kim," Beth mentioned.

"Nah, I'll head home today. It's still kinda early, and I need to check on some stuff. I'll walk back down tomorrow," Kim denied with a quick shake of her head.

"That's cool. Just know you're welcome any time," Beth said, giving Kim a wave as she left first.

"What about sleeping beauty?" Sabs asked, indicating the tiny terror asleep in Blood's arms.

"We'll bring her down with us and if she wakes up and wants to leave, she knows the way home," Beth said with a small chuckle.

Blood carried Soph as they walked back to the room, depositing her on the couch before the other three showered up after a day of hard fighting. Well, Sabs had had a rough time, Beth and especially Blood were still quite fresh. They all cleaned up anyway and returned to the living room to find Soph had apparently awoken long enough to strip out of her grimy gear and clothes but had passed out again on the edge of the couch. While Sabs cooked a large meal, Beth gently woke Soph and made her take a shower, allowing her to pass out again as soon as she was clean and dry.

The other three ate, Blood a little worried that Soph wasn't able to have anything, what with being unconscious and all, but Beth assured her one missed meal, even after a hard day, wasn't going to kill her. The others cleaned up their gear and got ready for bed, turning in a little early, mainly because of Sabs being quite tired, not to mention Soph, who was asleep on Blood's chair. It only took a few hours for Beth to be rested, her reset END already back to well over one hundred, and Blood wasn't much worse off. Sabs was up next, with it taking until what could actually be considered early morning before Soph stirred. They went about getting prepped for the day, with the tiny terror dragging her feet the most out of all of them, before dragging the small girl up to the lounge to pick up Kim.

They spent the whole day training in fighting against sapient opponents, Beth forcing them to withhold their Presences until the afternoon. She went over an explanation at lunch of how she had trained to get used to her Presence, emphasizing how learning to adapt to it had allowed her to practice activating it quickly as well as deactivating it after just a few moments. That part was very important, and she explained the reasoning behind most people using their Presence as a last resort weapon was that they didn't train to deactivate it quickly after activating it. Her method was still tiring, but it could give somebody a burst of power without taking them out of the fight right afterwards due to exhaustion.