"That’s exactly what I mean," Lucius replied. "I met yet another magical creature today, it seems that magic isn’t as rare as we once thought," he whispered.

"We ought to start practicing magical combat. There’s something I want us to join and we have to increase our combat strength if we want to be ready for it. Not to mention the current enemies we have lurking in the forest," he said after.

"Since you’re the only other one with magic, I’m afraid we’ll have to spar with each other," he added.

Lucius knew that Pagan wouldn’t be up for the idea of fighting against him, but after some thought Pagan nodded his head.

"We’ll start after replenishing our reserves. The sun is still up, so it should replenish within an hour or so," Lucius said.

After resting for an hour and a half, the two prepared for their duel. It was mid-afternoon, so the sun was directly overhead.

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"They’ve started to gather?" Lucius wondered, realizing that nearly the entire shroom population had gathered once they saw Pagan and Lucius preparing.

"I hope there are guards posted at the pillars," Lucius called out.

"They have strict orders to stay at their posts. I doubt they would disobey even if there was something interesting going on," Pagan replied, clearly still bothered by the fact he had to fight him.

"Everyone move back, at least past that tree over there," Lucius announced, pointing towards a tree 15 meters away. Which was quite far for the shrooms, barely enough for them to even see the fight properly.

~Actually, this is good. Showing them our power might motivate them to work harder. Not that I’ll give them power even if they do, but hope is a good weapon,~ Lucius thought to himself.

"Since I’m larger than you, we’ll keep this battle purely magical. Realistically, I would’ve wanted to simulate full combat, but it won’t be much of a fight if we do it that way," he announced to Pagan, who was currently standing 6 meters away from him.

"Keep your spells controlled, we don’t want to set the forest alight. First, one to sustain grievous damage loses. We’ll keep it to a level that solar cleanse can heal," he explained, before pulling out his crux.

"Ready?" he asked, to which Pagan called his crux out as well before nodding his head.

"Begin!"

The moment the words were uttered, a solar beam began powering up from Pagan’s crux, and based on its luminosity Lucius could tell it was high-powered.

~Solar field,~ he chanted in response, inferring where the beam would hit him, and maxing out the solar energy being fed to that point.

The beam launched a moment later, hitting more or less around the point that Lucius had predicted it would.

~Hmm, I hadn’t realized this before. But solar beam telegraphs its attacks,~ Lucius thought to himself as Pagan loaded yet another solar beam.

~And there’s a four-second gap.~

~He’s probably trying to break through it,~ Lucius thought to himself. And though Pagan had no experience fighting, his thinking wasn’t too off.

Keeping solar field active took solar energy, and blocking an attack took just as much energy as it costed. If he managed to break through, Lucius would’ve wasted solar energy, as well as sustained damage.

So Lucius let down the field and dodged the attack as it came. The distance between them, coupled with the telegraphing made it easy to dodge even though the beam was sent out at incredible speeds.

~Okay, my turn,~ Lucius thought to himself, before making a gesture for his crux to move behind his head.

Pagan stopped for a moment, before putting up his own solar field. Casting two solar beams in quick succession must’ve pushed him close to overheating his mind.

~Solar beam.~

At the instant Lucius cast the attack, he moved his crux ever so slightly out of the bottom right corner of his back, catching Pagan by surprise.

Pagan couldn’t react in time to strengthen the region of the field it would hit, and with one beam, his defense broke, causing him to take the hit on his chest.

Lucius sent out yet another one, this time sending a lower-powered beam from the right side of his head.

Pagan managed to set up another field in time, but it broke through this one as well, causing him to sustain damage to his right arm this time.

If Lucius wanted to end this, he could’ve done so. But this exercise was for the purpose of learning, and there wouldn’t be much to learn if it finished too quickly.

Pagan realized that staying stationary was a disadvantage so after healing himself he began moving. He made sure to keep his crux behind him, out of Lucius’s sight, mimicking the latter.

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As Pagan moved to close the distance between them, a solar beam came rushing from the bottom left side of his back. And perhaps the attack would’ve worked if Lucius wasn’t watching out for it.

A solar field came up just in time, however due to the fact that Lucius couldn’t predict its trajectory, he had to strengthen the entire thing, draining a large chunk of his solar reserves.

~This is getting interesting,~ he thought to himself, before running back to create some distance between them. Pagan kept sending out lowered versions of solar beam, perhaps realizing that his reserves were running low.

And in turn, for each attack he dished out, Lucius countered with a solar field. The speed with which the crux showed itself wasn’t fast enough to full the senses completely, so it was now a battle of attrition.

After watching for a bit, Lucius began sending out attacks of his own, and the two were in a constant battle of block and attack. However, Lucius added an interesting twist to his beams. He would snap his finger from the direction from which he was about to launch them.

Casting spells required focus, and it was getting easier to slip up as he had to juggle between moving and setting up solar field in between attacks.

Pagan himself had slipped up a few times, and got hit as a result, though he was smart enough to realize that Lucius’s method had a vital downside.

Pagan picked up on the pattern that had been laid out, now creating solar fields that strengthened only the region where the attack would strike.

Slowly he applied more and more pressure to Lucius, becoming more and more comfortable as the telegraphed beams came.

It became a sort of sequence for him now. The sound queue from the snap instantly told him where the attack was coming from. And after setting up the field he would quickly counter with a solar beam.

Their minds were both dangerously close to overheating, and their reserves slowly diminishing. And though Lucius had a larger reserve than Pagan, the amount of full-powered solar field he had cast put him at a disadvantage.

"I’m glad you’re a quick learner," Lucius announced with a smile on his face.

"It seems the Lighted One has gone easy on me and allowed me this victory. I shall accept this gift," Pagan replied, realizing that he must have more solar energy left as he had managed to block a great deal of the attacks.

Lucius snapped his fingers, this time from the top left side of his face, and Pagan immediately set up a solar field to block it in response.

"Checkmate," Lucius whispered, as a full-powered beam launched from the opposite direction of the snap. Breaking through the shield and goring through Pagan’s left shoulder.

The snapping of fingers had all been a rouse to confuse his senses. A calculated risk Lucius had taken to teach him to be warier of tricky enemies.

"I have been bested," Pagan said, before genuflecting, sap still dripping from his open wound.

~Does he feel no pain?~ Lucius thought to himself. Though he quickly realized that Pagan was just putting doing this out of twisted reverence.

"I can heal half your injuries, though my solar reserves are nearly depleted," Lucius said before moving to heal him.

"There is no need Lighted One, I shall keep this wound for now... as a reminder of your strength," Pagan replied, still bowing.

"Enough of that... we don’t know whether that can get infected," Lucius said, healing Pagan’s injuries for a small amount.

"Heal the rest of your injuries and get some rest. Think of new ways to use your crux in combat while you’re at it," Lucius said, before turning to look at the crowd of shrooms that were still watching on.

The shrooms were all staring in complete awe. Not one of them could move or speak. The fight they had watched was akin to titans battling, no... gods. Just one of those lower-powered beams could eradicate them, and that was a skill they had never seen before.

This fight made two things even more clear to them.

These overlords had a whole arsenal of spells at their disposal, in fact, as far as they were concerned they had the ability to do anything. And the other thing was that Lucius was not just Pagan’s master in strength, but in thought as well.

Lucius was a supreme being and coupled with the growth that everyone had noticed in Asclepius, there was no doubt he was the shri’killian.

"All hail the shri’killian!" the chieftains shouted. And in unison, every shroom genuflected, "All hail the shri’killian!"

"They dare rubbish the Lighted One’s name?!" Pagan shouted in anger. Regardless of how much worth they put in that name, to Pagan, it was blasphemy.

"It’s okay Pagan. it’s their custom, basically, their religion. If it will open their minds to me, then let it be," Lucius said, calming Pagan down with but a hand gesture.

"Religion?" Pagan asked, after calming down.

"Forget I said that," Lucius replied immediately, biting his tongue.

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