Avyr flipped a page in his book again, before closing it softly. “That’s enough of that.” He yawned, stretching out languidly— in dappled sunlight his fur catching aglow, a bronzed, golden thing she was sure was at least somewhat enhanced by his recent advancement. He’d make a really good rug… which was probably a weird thing to think about her best friend, even if it was true. “Would you be willing to spar? I’ll keep things tempered, of course.” Sparring with Avyr was like wrestling with a crashinging airship. Which was to say, utterly unwinnable.

Still, she slipped the vial of blood-that-echoed-molten into her pocket, pulling out a stack of talismans. “Sure, why not.” Their little arena still existed, baked into the hard earth now— with most of the spring muddiness gone with the last of the snow, it looked like it was going to stay. Most of the weeds that’d tried to spring up in it had been trampled by… everything, their vigorous sparring, various techniques, and the churning of the earth from all the times she’d had to smooth the whole thing out again after one of them broke it too badly. She’d considered transmuting it to stone, but… no, that would probably just make the problem worse, if anything. Most of her transmuted materials were still a little bit lackluster.

Either way, it was plenty good enough for their purposes. Avyr slunk over to the other side of the arena as she took her own place, talismans in hand, fingers dividing them— perfectly ready for anything she might need. “Alright. Ready when you are?”

Avyr just nodded. “Standard rules. Ready.” Three seconds passed slowly, then—

A handful of talismans burned up as she cast them forward, arrays bursting into existence out of nowhere as the natural qi of the park was violently disrupted. Even as they still fluttered, igniting into lurid flame, swirls of air materialized into flowing, orderly patterns across the dusty ground. Then not even a second later they snapped into place and—

Lightning.

A crack of energy leapt between her and Avyr with so much speed that it was impossible for even him to dodge. A single bold of immense energy that scarred afterimages into her vision and boomed through the clearing around her and—

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Avyr had stopped it with a single paw.

A single paw and a whole lot of qi, to be fair, but still, the entire bolt of lightning— all that energy wrenched from the world and qi, dissipated into nothing more than static electricity— and now, with her first attack complete, he could attack her. Though she did have to admit that he looked pretty funny with all his hair puffed up like that… He stalked forward slowly, keeping a careful eye on her every motion, and Lily slowly began to circle herself, shuffling through her stack of talismans with practiced ease. “So you managed to beat the lightning formation.”

“I’ve long since learned to be wary of lightning.” Long since being two weeks ago but still! It sounded cool. “I’m going to attack soon, so…” before, he’d have just attacked, but now, with his advanced cultivation, their usual rules meant he had to give a warning.

It didn’t really matter either way. Warning or no warning, she was still fighting two whole stages up. The answer had been more or less obvious from the start. Yet… of course, she didn’t give up. If there was no point to winning, no point to losing…

Two talismans burnt up in a flare of qi and as the utter wrecking ball that was Avyr leapt forward, two planes of force solidified out of the ambient qi. Drawing on the strength of the blood-vial in her pocket, they were just barely strong enough to deflect Avyr’s lunge by a scant few inches before they shattered— a tiny distance, but still enough to send him skidding to a stop some twenty feet behind her instead of on top of her.

“That was smart.” He sounded genuinely impressed as he circled back around toward her, tail lashing in that peculiar way she’d come to associate with excitement. “I need to remember that…” then, with a few bounding steps he was on her again, this time not leaping but running— which was slower, but still not so slow that she couldn’t barely see it to start with. It was all she could to do throw up a basic shield, but— she watched with dismay as Avyr’s paw swept through them like so much paper, and through the extra, emergency shield that tried vainly to stop him— only to catch her on the arm and send her to the ground, head spinning from the force of the impact. He plodded over to where she was laying down, nudging her with a paw. “Are you alright?”