Book 2 Chapter 64

Willow was wracked with nerves as the day of the fight arrived. He had endured a lecture from his sister about how unwise it was to go through with this, complete with repeated interjections from his mentor to really drive the point home.

However, he was still going to fight.

He kept saying it was for Mister Matias’ sake, and that was definitely a key part. The idea of someone being punished for such a stupid reason when all he had to do to prevent it was show up and fight meant that showing up was a foregone conclusion for him.

Yet… he couldn’t deny that a part of him was wondering how he stacked up compared to a girl from a prominent clan or house.

Miss Mu kept saying he had potential, and he knew that it would take still more time for that potential to fully bloom.

But he needed to see where he stood among his peers right now.

He needed to know that his struggles in training were bearing fruit.

He needed to know that his path was good enough.

The consequences of fulfilling those needs would be a problem for future him.

He felt a wave of warmth and support from his bonds, with Harmony and Change each sending him a variation of ‘You can do this!’

It was nice, and did much to calm his nerves.

Mister Matias placed a hand on his shoulder, bringing him back to the present.

“You’ll do fine, no need to fret.”

Willow nodded to his instructor with a small smile.

They were currently in a waiting room in the main compound of House Herrera. A group of older people had examined him on their arrival and some had even seemed interested in the golden shield strapped to his back, but they quickly tired of his presence and stuck him and his martial instructor here until it was time for the match to begin. Seemingly far away from the bustle of the city beyond its high walls.

In fact…

He slowly untangled the mental technique holding back his spiritual senses. He’d figured out a way to do it in a manner that made it possible for him to check if his surroundings would overwhelm him or not through trial and error. It wasn’t perfect, and he’d regretted trying it on more than one occasion, but he felt he might need every advantage he had for the coming fight.

There were far more people in the compound than he’d initially seen or suspected, but it was still within the bearable range.

Though it did leave him with many questions on why there were so many hidden passages between the walls. The people scurrying around between them seemed to be quite stressed as well.

Not to mention the powerful presence far below the compound.

He’d have to remember to ask Miss Mu about that later. It’s a real shame that she had to prep Rotter instead of watching the fight. And Maple wasn’t important enough to get in here either despite being his sister.

Which just left Mister Matias to protect him if the worst were to happen.

Eventually someone came to collect them and they were taken to a nearby courtyard that seemed to be commonly used for dueling. There was a pit of fine sand in the center with blazing fractals of power underneath that he suspected couldn’t be seen by the naked eye.

Neat.

The majority of the gathered crowd seemed to be unbelievably bored though they were great at hiding it on their faces. They were also neatly divided into two distinct groups.

One had almost exclusively sword tool spirits at their waist, with several having multiple strapped to their bodies. There was some variety in the style of sword, but there were few that used any other type of weapon.

The other group was mostly familiar to Willow, as he saw many of the same people from the Li clan that had visited the tea house over a year ago. There were several that he didn’t recognize, but he chalked that up to the Madame’s tea house being relatively small so there likely wasn’t room to accommodate them.

He was retroactively quite thankful for the extent the Madame had gone to beautify him when he was serving guests as it was unlikely for the Li clan members to recognize him in his current state as a result.

It would also help that he was currently in his boy form and he’d grown quite a bit in the past year. He’d also begun to notice more differences between his two forms as he’d gotten older aside from the obvious one. His muscles grew more noticeable and defined despite no clear difference in physical strength. His facial features were also a bit sharper, but that difference was harder to see. It was only thanks to Xandra switching between forms as he did that he even began to notice it.

The crowd only seemed interested in Willow and Matias’ arrival insofar as it meant that there would at least be some entertainment from the coming fight.

Li Xiangyin was already in the dueling pit, and if Willow was sensing her emotional state correctly she was bored out of her mind. Man Yue slowly orbited her, and both spirit and girl notably perked up when they noticed their opponent had arrived. Though a scowl quickly settled onto the girl’s face for reasons unknown to him.

Willow checked the straps of his shield for the hundredth time before he tried to make his way over to the dueling pit himself, only to be stopped by his martial instructor.

Matias knelt in front of him and placed both hands on his shoulders.

There was a heavy cocktail of emotions swirling in his core. The old guardsman had made it clear to him multiple times that there was no shame in losing and that it would, in fact, be better for both of them if he did.

So what he said next surprised him greatly.

“May your arm hold strong, and your victory be swift, Willow.” He spoke softly but clearly. “Ignore what I said before and give it your all.”

Willow cocked his head to the side, confused. But he still hesitantly nodded his head once. He was unsure what exactly brought on this change of heart, but he’d accept it.

“I will.”

His instructor smiled and walked with him to the pit.

As Willow hopped inside of it he checked his footing, doing some light footwork to make sure that there wouldn’t be any issues with this unfamiliar terrain type. After confirming that he’d be able to move around perfectly well he gave his full attention to his soon-to-be opponent.

Li Xiangyin had also grown both physically and spiritually since the last time he’d met her. Her long black hair was done up in a simple braid, likely to keep it out of the way, and her clothing was much less elaborate than the multilayer dress she’d worn at the tea house. It was still clearly of a much finer make than any clothes he’d owned, but at least it shouldn’t impede her movements.

The girl stared at him with an inscrutable expression, the scowl from earlier completely gone. From what Willow could sense she was holding back a laugh.

“Are you really my opponent? Playing in the sand the moment you step into the ring is rather unbecoming.”

Willow flashed his teeth as he smiled at her. “Just finding my footing. Haven’t fought in this stuff before, and I wanted to be sure I gave you my best.”

He’d decided that he wouldn’t be as deferential to her with his speech to further distance himself from the serving girl she’d met before.

Before they could continue their chat an elderly man began giving a long winded speech about observing the progress of the current generation of talents. Willow felt it was overly flowery and he was pretty sure some backhanded comments about him were slipped in, but he made a point to give the man his full attention anyways. In the seat of a major house’s power you don’t want to make them think you don’t respect them.

After what felt like an eternity the man finally stopped talking, and Willow locked eyes with Li Xiangyin.

Their fight was about to begin.