VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 31: You are Ready

They rapidly exchanged blows, some of them being allowed to land on their bodies while others were quickly blocked. Belladonna’s skin still shone with the greyish stone texture that made her look like an ancient statue that had come to life.

After the repeated beat-downs, the Earth Element had become her go to Infusion. It was robust, offering a good balance between defence and offence as it increased her strength and gave her tougher fists to punch with.

But after so many battles, her Teacher was well aware of her habits. Even if she practised with all three of the elements, a favourite was easy enough to spot.

So instead he started to switch up his attacks. His punches sped up, his fists almost becoming nothing but blurs they were moving so fast, while he himself became nearly impossible to hit.

The slow but devastating punches of her Earth Infusion became useless as she hit nothing but air.

Gritting her teeth, Belladonna focused once more. Her stony textured skin slowly turning back to normal, before her nervous system started to glow a soft blue that pierced through her skin. Sparks flew around her as her body sped up the instant the Infusion took hold, his blurred fists becoming easier to track and dodge.

If this had been her usual lesson, that would be enough, but her teacher wasn’t satisfied letting her dodge everything. Once again he mixed up the attacks, keeping his fast attacks and occasionally slipping in a more heavy handed blow that sent jolts of pain surging through her arms when she tried to block it.

Belladonna immediately leapt back, the glow of her nervous system fading and slowly replaced itself with a haze of heat that surrounded her body. Her skin glowed a soft orange as the Infusion of fire took hold, pouring revitalising energy into her tired body.

Her strained muscles became more accepting of her movements, her breathing became less ragged as the weight built up over the course of the battles was lifted. Even the pain in her arms dulled as the flames started to heal her.

But still, her Teacher wasn’t going to take it easy on her. Before she had a chance to relieve her arms for more than a second, he was on her, sending more of the blurring blows down onto her pain stricken body.

The pain reduction of the game was helping, but even then it seemed to either have its limits, or was gradually turning off its function as she grew more accustomed to the game.

Ever since she had drank from that water and understood what it was like to drink liquid hellfire, her pain tolerance had been strange. Cuts and wounds she still got reduced, but the strained pain of her overworked body was never dulled. She felt every pulled muscle and weakened limb from training, and she loved it.

It was obvious what her Teacher was doing here, he had literally told her after all. Quick blows that required lightning for speed, and heavy bone crushing blows that required earth for defence or fire for recovery.

If she wanted to survive and pass, she had to get better at rapid switching. Keeping the lightning on long enough to track the punch, then instantly switching to earth to take the brunt of the blow.

It wasn’t going to be easy, but then again the worthwhile things never were. With a smile on her face and countless bruises littering her pale skin, Belladonna thrust herself into the battle with the glee of a true masochist.

***

A few hours later, Belladonna lay flat on her back in the grass while gasping for breath. Her chest heaved up and down as she sucked in lungfuls of that deliciously cool air and reluctantly exhaled it a second later.

She hadn’t quite gotten the rapid switching down to a science. It was still difficult, requiring a few seconds of visualisation to switch, especially if they were polar opposites. Lightning to Earth, for example was especially difficult. More so than Earth to Fire and even less than Lightning to Fire or vice versa.

But even if she hadn’t mastered the skill, she had still made progress in it, at the cost of all of her mana. Rapidly switching wasn’t like changing the settings on her skill, instead it was like casting the skill multiple times in a row.

She was reducing the cooldown, so to speak, but she couldn’t eliminate the cost. Reduce it with efficiency, perhaps, but never eliminate it. Each cast took its own dose of mana that she simply didn’t get back when she stopped casting the skill.

So with dozens of casts a second, that detriment quickly built up until her reserves had run dry. However with every breath of this mana rich air, those reserves were starting to recover just as quickly. Almost.

After a few minutes of lying there and recovering, Belladonna slowly clambered to her feet to look for her Demonic Teacher once again,

"Okay big guy, I’m ready. I think just a few more fights and I’ll really get the hang of- Oh.. Hello there."

Instead of finding the lumbering, muscular demon, her eyes actually landed on the sight of the balding, skinny Wizard. He wore a mischievous, knowing smile on his face as he stared at her silently.

Belladonna stood there awkwardly, waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t. He just stood there, silently studying her like she was some kind of science experiment or puzzle waiting to be unlocked.

"So um... Where’s Zul’ra? Did he go inside to do some chores before the next combat lesson? Because I’m fine waiting for him. I’ve still got another hour or two before I need to log off and-"

"He won’t be coming back. At least not for combat lessons. You are done, they are finished. Congratulations my protégé. You are finally ready."

Belladonna pouted slightly at the news of no more combat lessons, before frowning softly at the rest of the wizards words. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

"Ready?" She asked as she focused more on regenerating her mana reserves, "Ready for what exactly? To fight you?"

The Wizard let out a hearty laugh at that statement. A bit too enthusiastic of a laugh, as if he found the suggestion to be the most ridiculous thing he had ever word in the world, which didn’t feel very nice.

Once he stopped laughing, he shook his head slightly,

"No my dear. You are ready for the final step of your training. You are ready to gain your class."