DEMON'S VIRTUE

"You know, that attitude of yours can get pretty annoying..." Jess muttered quietly as she ground her teeth, "Fine, but don't cry when you lose! The first to three first spell casts wins!" She exclaimed, full of determination, and Eiro just lightly smirked as he stood on the opposite side of the room to her.

"Just start already." Eiro said, and watched as Jess held her staff forward before a line of glowing light appeared in the air in front of her. And without hesitation, Eiro started copying exactly what she was doing, without any delay visible to Krog or James.

Jess was silently moving her lips, a bad habit that many mages had. Even when not making use of chants for a magic circle, very often, they still subconsciously connected the action of casting a spell with audibly chanting it, despite it not being a direct necessity for casting low-tier spells, which Jess and Eiro were restricted to.

Using the movement of Jess' lips, Eiro was able to very quickly narrow down what kind of spell she was trying to cast by simply reading her lips.

And soon, Eiro completely figured it out after remembering the patterns of the spell and the chant usually used to enhance the effect of the magic circle. Without hesitation, Eiro started moving his hand around rapidly and James and Krog were now completely focused on Eiro, who finished the magic circle within a few moments and started to smirk.

"Wind spiral, I see." Eiro said after activating the spell, causing a literal horizontal spiraling tunnel of wind to appear in front of him, blasting air into Jess' direction, albeit rather weakly. Obviously Eiro didn't push too much mana into this magic circle, this wasn't supposed to be an actual fight, after all.

"Wh-What, but how?" She asked confusedly as she interrupted her casting, making the magic circle in front of her disappear. But Eiro just smiled at her, "I'll explain afterward. Now continue." The Demon told her, and the mage slowly nodded her head before re-adjusting her hair that was slightly pushed to the side through the wind spiral just now.

And then, the Demon spotted Jess' eyes slowly moving toward the bucket of water standing in front of her as well as the flames floating right next to it. Already, Eiro had a rough idea of what she was going to do. She didn't just glance over those two things, but she switched inbetween them for a while before she started moving her staff around. Eiro of course started moving his finger at the same time again. This time, figuring it out was even easier than before, after all, he was already trying to compare what Jess was drawing in front of her with any spell he knew about that used either fire, water, or both. And soon, he could already narrow it down to the last of those three options, because he saw parts that were meant to access both flames and water.

Soon, Eiro also noticed that the dominant element for this spell was fire, at which point he immediately started finishing the spell up. The moment he did and activated the spell, the room was filled with steam after both flames and water were absorbed for this, and he heard Jess groan annoyedly on the other side of the room.

"Seriously, again?!" She asked, and Eiro just chuckled as he moved his hand around and started pulling all of the steam in the room toward him, swiftly turning it back into water that he dropped into the bucket in front of him within a few moments.

"Mhm. But good choice, really. That's a pretty nice spell in my opinion." Eiro pointed out with a light smile, and Jess started grinding her teeth even more, "How is this so easy for you?" She asked annoyedly, and Eiro just sighed and shook his head.

"I'll tell you later. Now, continue. And finish it off with a bang, it's the last round, after all." The Demon said with a smirk on his face, and Jess just kept on getting more and more annoyed. She took especially long to figure out which spell to use this time, and since that was the case, Eiro slightly laughed after seeing that, "What, out of ideas?" Eiro asked, and the young woman just stared at him with a deep glare.

"Shut it!" She exclaimed, and Eiro simply kept on smirking. Soon, Jess started drawing the magic circle.

Instead of being harder than before, like Jess was planning, this was simply much, much easier to figure out. Jess basically swung her staff around while trying to draw the magic circle as quickly as she possibly could, all the whilst Eiro more than easily followed her actions. And she simply became more careless while trying to hide what magic circle it was supposed to be, and soon, Eiro could overtake her again and had a small rock be absorbed from the rocks laying on the ground in front of him.

It crumbled into dust and was then propelled forward toward Jess. And now, while Jess just let her arms drop to the side of her body in disbelief, Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose with a deep groan.

"One. Remember the scenery around you and think about what to do without looking at your materials. Two. Get rid of that annoying mage-tongue. Three. Realize when your opponent is deliberately trying to piss you off into getting careless." Eiro told Jess, whose light glare quickly disappeared after hearing all that advice.

"Huh..?" She asked, and Eiro lightly frowned, "What, are those concepts so hard to understand? In a fight, a mage needs two things to not be a burden to their companions. They need to be as prepared as possible, and they can't let their opponent find out about the spell about to be cast. You can't only start thinking about what spell you can make use of during the fight, but long before you even get close to your opponent. And seriously, that damn mage-tongue is just far too annoying, I don't know why you people all have such issues controlling your own bodies that much."

Before Jess could say anything, James quickly asked something that seemingly all three of them wanted to know, "What the hell do you mean with 'mage tongue'?" The Light Elf asked, and Eiro turned his eyes toward him and then scratched the back of his neck.

"Fair enough, usually it only happens in stressful situations like combat, so it's not surprising you guys don't know. It's simply something similar to muscle-memory. Krog, James, you two must know about how it gets easier and easier to do a certain move the more you use it, right? That's because your body gets used to doing that motion."

"We know what muscle-memory is, we ain't idiots." Krog replied with his arms crossed, and Eiro quickly shook his head, "I didn't say that, I just wanted to compare it properly. Mage-tongue is something similar to an extent. It's not actually muscle-related, it's more habit-related. Magic casting is supported by your mental image. The more you cast a spell, the easier it will get to cast it because your image simply gets more completed over time. But things like an image will usually have the words of a chant be part of it. It's completely subconscious, and pretty normal, but at some point not only does your mana affect your spellcasting, but your mana will also affect your body." Eiro explained as quickly as he could, "And that's what mage-tongue is. Chanting becomes part of your image, and you will start moving your lips even if you try not to chant. It's relatively easy to get rid of when you actually try to though."

Rather surprised, Jess looked at Eiro while holding her hand in front of her mouth, "I didn't even know I did that!"

"I figured. Not many people do. It's just a bad habit, like biting your nails for example." Eiro replied, and then slowly looked toward James.

"Anyway, I think the last one would be you, then." Eiro pointed out, and James slowly stepped up to him and pulled out his dagger. He took his stance and properly prepared to attack, and Eiro took his fighting-stance as well while Jess and Krog moved out of the way.

"Go ahead." The Demon said, and James immediately jumped forward. Eiro stared at every spot of James' body to figure out if his movements and habits were still the same as last year when they fought, and seeing that this was the case, Eiro just chose to quickly finish this.

The Demon slipped past the dagger-attack and toward the side of James' body. And of course, it was the side that was missing an Arm. Or at least, that's what James thought, because Eiro started moving his feet into that direction. Rapidly, as if in a panic, James swung the dagger toward Eiro, but the Demon's movement stopped rapidly as he kicked himself off the ground and jumped over James' attack.

He reached down and grabbed the Light Elf's hand before pushing it in the right places to make James drop his dagger. Mid-Jump, Eiro wrapped his legs around James' shoulder and immediately used his own body-weight to pull him down.

This was something that was achieved extremely quickly. James dropped to the ground and was unable to free himself from the grip that Eiro had on his arm, meaning that he immediately had to give up. Once more, Eiro slipped away and stood up before helping his opponent stand up, in the same way as he did with Krog, and then looked at the Light-Elf.

"In general, you have an extremely good form, but you're too self-conscious of your missing arm. Other issues, like balance, moves you can't make use, and so on are also the result of your missing arm. We'll be able to fix that, though." Eiro pointed out pretty quickly.

At this point, all three of the people here had a few questions that they really, really wanted to ask.

"What... are your stats at right now?" James asked as he tried to move his arm around a bit to get rid of the slight pain in his shoulder after that fight.

"Is that important?" The demon asked, and Krog immediately nodded his head, "Of course it fucking is! Sure, you've got amazing technique, but those stats of yours are even more insane, right?" The warrior exclaimed, "Come on, at least tell us that!"

With a slight sigh, Eiro scratched his neck and in the end gave in and agreed, "Fine. My lowest stat is charisma at..."

"Heh, who'd have thought..." The warrior laughed lightly, and Eiro immediately glared at him, "Do you want to know or not?"

"Right, right. Go on."

Annoyedly, Eiro continued, "Anyway, it's my lowest stat at currently 56."

"Hm?" All three of the others, James, Jess and Krog looked at Eiro surprised, "All my other stats passed the 100 point threshold. Strength, Constitution, Resistance, Evasion and Willpower are all around 100. Dexterity and perception are around 150, and then my other stats passed the 200 threshold. Agility just barely, but my Intelligence and Wisdom are both around 250." The Demon said, Of course, he wasn't lying. Technically they were all 'around' that... he didn't need to mention that those numbers were actually the exact state of his stats.... Maybe he should make them seem more natural in case someone can appraise him? It would seem a bit weird if he had such pretty stats, after all.

"O-Oi, that's a joke, right..?" Krog asked with a wry smile, "My highest stats are Strength and Resistance, and only my strength passed 100 until now..."

"My highest stat is agility, and it's the only one that passed it..." James muttered, and Jess also slowly nodded her head.

"...for me it's the same, just with intelligence instead..."

Slowly, Eiro stared back at these three with immense surprise. He knew he was stronger than them, but he didn't expect.... this.