The Dao of Magic

68 - Encounter

"Who do you think is winning?" I ask with a glance to the lady standing next to me.

She looks at me with a funny expression on her face. I turn the wheel a bit and the ship turns into the next meters high wave, the crashing bow sending shudders through the ship.

"The fat kid seems to be winning, but I think the shadow girl has the most points."

Bord is making quite a show of the fact that none of the other disciples can even hurt him, casually taking brutal crunching punch after punch without flinching. He then uses his higher bodily mass to pin his victim down and give them a couple of dozen light slaps per second. Vox is getting this treatment right now, and his body is once again becoming red as a lobster, but this time not from sunburn.

Tess is flickering across the deck, using every single shadow to pop an arm or leg out of, claiming some beautiful slaps. Selis is finally feeling what kind of mistake that brutal fighting style of hers is, at last! Why the most timid and cute looking girl of the group asked for the most brutal and dumb fighting style, I will never know. I do know it, of course, I just don't want to look it up.

Ket has bowed out, his physical strength is the weakest and the external qi limitation really shut him down. He is now chilling on the top of the mast, out of easy reach. My eyes become wide as I see the thread that Ket is holding though, taking a better look at the students, and I see them behaving like they walked through spider webs frequently. Is external qi control inside of an object also external?

I created a small hit counter program to keep count, and I was wondering why it was requesting more brain space. I check the numbers and see that it has trouble counting all the hits Ket is making with his thread control. Technically he is winning, the sneaky bastard. Good job!

Vox has squeezed out from under Bord, but that's only because Angeta went full crazy cat lady on the fatty's face. Tess attempts to slap Selis, but a heavy smash blocks the shadowy hand. I see the thread brush against Selis' face, and she does the ninja dance that most people do when they walk into a spider web.

I did not expect her to stand still, cock her arm back and punch with such ferocity that the raindrops in the air form a steam cannon though. Ket hastily shimmies behind the mast, using it as a shield against the blast of superheated water and air.

"The guy in the mast is using a thread to make the most hits, though... I don't know if I should count those."

"Hah, devious, as expected of a human. Blue girl has impressive arm strength."

"See Bord, the fat kid. His body glows with an inner light every time he sits down on somebody."

"He seems to be getting heavier? What kind of mana technique is that?"

I cough a bit. "Nice weather, right?"

Great, that killed the mood. Didn't I already tell her about qi? Did she forget or did she even pay attention back then? We stand there in an awkward silence for a few minutes. Massive sounds of the crashing ocean and fleshy slaps resound around us, but I still feel like this one of those uncomfortable silences where both parties are busily looking for something to say.

I am almost thankful for the new contact my scanning process picks up. It also tells me that we should be exiting the storm any moment now.

"THREE!"

My students are too busy with scoring more points to look my way.

"TWO! ONE! END MATCH!"

They all suddenly freeze and land on the wet deck one by one, breathing hard.