~shing~

~clink~

~clang~

The two men clashed their swords and sparred, all the while displaying their best to the others that were observing them. Both were almost the same in terms of skill, but if an experienced person saw it, they would be able to tell that one of them was actually holding back.

'Hmm… his skill is indeed good.' Lucius thought upon seeing John spar.

He chose not to interrupt them and held Kiana back as well. He wanted to see how the spar would turn out and get a better judgment on the man. Till now, if he compared the man's skill with the average swordsman from his past life, he could say for sure he was above them.

"Seems like its time to get serious," John spoke.

"You can feel free to use your gift lieutenant John, I'll use mine too. Let's give these kids some entertainment." Donald spoke with a smile.

He was truly having a great time sparring with John and it was not something he got to do every day. Most of the other guards were no match for him and he was far too ahead of them in terms of experiences as well.

To get to test out his skills to the full extent, Donald could only spar against Count Gabriel himself when he came here. But that was still quite rare, as the count was mostly away and busy with work.

"If you say so, Donald. Mirror Coat!" John yelled.

Lucius's interest peaked the moment Donald said it was fine to use gifts. This meant that he would get to see a gift without having to use his own gift. And that was what he got because when John said Mirror Coat, Nexus activated automatically and the words popped up in front of him.

Gift Name: Mirror coat

'Hmm… so they don't need to specifically tell me what their gift is, either. As long as they say the name, Nexus will pick it up and display it without using Aether.' Lucius understood.

He watched as John's arm suddenly changed in texture. It was as if a mirror like layer had appareled on it, and one could see their reflections on it. John had used this on his left arm, which was free as he was using his right arm for the sword.

John suddenly dodged and raised his hand.

"Ow!" Donald yelped in pain as a beam of light directly hit his eyes.

Still, he didn't dare to keep them close for too long as he could already hear the sword of John shearing through the air.

~clang~

Donald managed to block the sword strike and stomped his leg on the ground.

~Rumble~

The stomp caused tremors in the ground which made everyone in the hall stumble except for Kiana, who easily adjusted her stance as if it was nothing. Lucius too stumbled, but Kiana held his hand at the last moment.

John stumbled due to the sudden change but managed to morph that stumble into a roll and dodged again, appearing to the side of Donald.

~Clang~

Their sword met once again, and Donald was pushed back slightly. But when he took a step back, he suddenly lost balance and fell.

~thud~

John placed his sword at the neck of Donald and smiled.

"Hahaha! I've been missing this for so long!" Donald laughed out loud, not bothered by his loss.

Lucius was a bit confused as to how Donald suddenly slipped and thus looked at the ground. That's where he saw the reason behind it. A patch of the ground had been turned into a mirror as well and Donald had slipped on this very patch.

'Looks like he can apply a mirror like layer on anything he touches or on his body. When he rolled to dodge during the tremor, he touched the ground and made it turn into a mirror. Due to the surface becoming extremely smooth, Donald slipped and fell on it.' Lucius analyzed.

Another surprise presented to Lucius when he finished his thought as more words appeared in front of him.

Gift Name: Mirror coat

Description: Transform a part of the body's surface or anything that is touched into a mirror.

'Now this is a pleasant surprise… guessing the description is also enough for Nexus to unlock it. Hmm… will this work for its rank too? There are only seven ranks I can easily just go through them one by one.' Lucius thought.

Wanting to test his hypothesis, Lucius went through the seven ranks, but there was no change to the data he got from Nexus.

'So it does not work this way… I guess asking should work for this case.' Lucius inferred.

John gave a hand to Donald, and he stood up with his help.

"We should do this more often lieutenant John, I don't have many people I can spar against here." Donald said.

"Haha! Fear not, I'll be here from now on every day. We will have plenty of time to spar." John replied.

"That's good, at least these kids will get to learn some real skills of an elite army man as well." Donald spoke, pointing to the other guards, who just felt a bit embarrassed.

All of them knew they were far from being their captain's match. They were all men and women who were unable to qualify the exam to join the army as an officer and while their skill was enough for them to join as a normal soldier, they would rather do the job of a guard here than do that as the pay was simply not worth the risk for them.

"Seems like young lord Asher is in good hands then." Kiana spoke with a smile.

It was now that they saw the duo of master and maid who had been standing at the entrance all this time. The other guards had been busy observing them, so had not seen them either.

"Ah! Young lord Asher, you're finally here! Come, come, we should start now. We have so many things to go over." John spoke with a jovial tone.