Blood Queen Reborn-Chapter 36: Swapped Fighters

One of the things Erin wanted to do was to train their skills in a fight. Given that the assessment was going to have them travel to a planet away from earth, they were going to need to learn how to fight with each other. Having someone die was something Erin would very much like to avoid.

"Quinn, you fight with me, and Layla fights with him," Erin said as she pointed at Peter.

"What about Fex?" Peter asked, looking at the teenager in question.

Fex had already laid on top of a stack of mats, chewing on something. He just waved his hand, "Eh, don’t even worry about me."

Erin rolled her eyes. She didn’t really need to worry about him since he was one of their stronger members. The bigger concern was the other 3.

Inside of the training center was an area for people to practice sparring. Layla and Peter stood opposite of each other on a wide flat spot with no forms of cover, and it was the same for Erin and Quinn.

Erin saw Quinn prepare his gauntlets, and readied himself into a fighting position. Partially crouched with his fists up.

Erin had a wide stance, and held a wooden training sword in front of her. She looked at Quinn carefully, ready for him to make the first move.

[Inspect]

[Name: Quinn Talen]

[Race: Human]

[Ability: Earth]

[HP 10/10]

[Blood type O-]

[Quest: Defeat Quinn Talen]

[Reward: 50 EXP]

{Erin} Finally at 50 EXP, huh? Must be because you have an ability now.

Erin ran up and sliced with her sword, throwing slash after slash as Quinn blocked the hits with his wrists. With a fist, he punched into Erin’s gut, causing her to take a step back.

[-2 HP]

[HP 23/25]

Quinn was about to punch her gut again, but her reaction speed was faster. She quickly ran around him, kicking his back. Quinn stumbled forward, and turned around only to just narrowly catch Erin’s blade.

She was stronger than him, and his knees buckled under her strength. Quinn, however, was able to push the blade away from him, causing Erin to overshoot her strength and almost fall over.

At that moment, she saw Quinn prepare to do a hammer strike.

’You’re not the only one who saw those tutorials,’ Erin thought, as she readied herself to flash step.

Just like she had seen the blonde man in the video do, she crouched down, and managed to sprint around Quinn. With the flat part of her sword, she smacked it across Quinn’s back. Thankfully, it was a wooden training sword, but Quinn was able to narrowly turn around, wrapping his arms around the blade.

Shifting the mud around his hands, the training sword became embedded around his arms. Then, he yanked it out of Erin’s grip, but she had let go on purpose.

Erin kicked him in the chest, and he fell onto his back, taking the sword with him. He scrambled to his knees, and liquefied his gauntlets, spreading across the floor and wrapped around Erin’s foot. With a flick of his hand, Erin’s ankle was twisted.

[-2 HP]

[HP 21/25]

She stumbled, and Quinn tossed the training sword to the side. He jumped up, about to strike her, when she broke out of the mud holding her ankle, and rolled to the side avoiding the blow.

Erin ran to the sword, and grabbed it, meanwhile Quinn retracted all of the mud on the ground and turned around to face her.

’He’s a level 1, he stopped touching the mud when he made that jump,’ Erin thought, ’but why was it still solid when he did?’

Erin didn’t think much further on it, only that it meant this would be a little bit more of a challenging fight.

Erin flash stepped right in front of Quinn, the move draining her energy. She staggered for just a moment, allowing for Quinn to place his foot down, and thrust his fist forward.

The faux hammer strike hit.

[-4 HP]

[HP 17/25]

’I saw the video, it should’ve hurt her more!’ Quinn thought, ’is it because I was only able to reach a 10 in strength?’

Despite it not being at full strength, she still felt some sort of internal damage inside. It was as if her organs got rustled.

Erin swung her sword over Quinn’s head, but he was narrowly able to catch it. Yet again, Erin’s strength was overpowering Quinn’s, and he was slowly getting pushed back, sliding against the ground.

In a desperate moment like this, something clicked in Quinn’s mind. At level 1, the earth ability was only capable of controlling mud when physically touched, and Quinn’s earth ability book said to treat earth as an extension of himself. Doing so would make learning the ability easier to learn, but that was just the first step.

[User Quinn Talen has gained a higher understanding of the earth ability]

[Ability level: 2]

In that moment, Erin saw Quinn’s mud gauntlets harden, the wet smoothness of it became ridged, and he had one of his hands let go of the sword only to deck Erin in the jaw. When it did, the gauntlet shot out like a bullet, doing further damage.

[-3 HP]

[HP 14/25]

Erin stumbled back, and began panting heavily. Quinn was becoming a formidable foe. Similarly, Quinn fell to his knees breathing heavily. It wasn’t easy fighting against someone with super human strength when he only started working out a few days ago.

[Opponent has been defeated]

[You have received 50 EXP]

[Opponent has gained power during the fight]

[An additional 30 EXP shall be rewarded]

[105/400 EXP]

Quinn and Erin were both in shock for more reasons than one. It was rare for someone to level up their ability naturally without the use of an ability book, but then again, that’s how the originals learned to use their powers.

What was really shocking, especially to Quinn, was the new stats page in the system. When selecting it, it listed information about himself.

[User: Quinn Talen]

[Race: Human]

[HP: 3/10]

[Ability Level: 2]

There wasn’t anything else listed like strength, agility or stamina aside from those three things.

"Lets... take a break," Erin huffed as she walked over to the water fountain.

Fex, while he was chilling on his stack of mats, took notice of Quinn and Erin’s moves. Erin seemed like a newbie when it came to vampire stuff, especially regarding how she seemed to lack the proper equipment. Not only that, but Quinn seemed to be replicating a move that was only taught by vampires. Perhaps it was something he saw in a book or taught by a teacher who saw another vampire.

Or... Erin was planning on turning Quinn, but since she was still a halfling, she’s just introducing him to some concepts of being a vampire without actually telling him about vampires. She wouldn’t be able to turn him just yet.

’But what about the person who turned her? If they had done so without following vampire law...’ Fex theorized.

Meanwhile, Peter and Layla were fighting.

Layla was practicing fighting up close since it was her weakest skill. There was a chance that a beast could sneak up on her, and she didn’t want to take that chance. Peter swung downwards with his club, and Layla jumped out of the way. She had an arrow hanging over Peter’s head, dulled of course because they were training, and dropped it, landing squarely on his head.

"Ow!" Peter said as he rubbed his head, "Couldn’t you go a little easier on me?"

"You’ve been here for how long? We need to practice!" Layla shouted as she drew back her bow.

Layla’s arrow hit Peter in the chest, and he stumbled back. Peter sighed and held his club to the side indicating he didn’t want to fight anymore. He knew it wasn’t exactly fair for him to fight against a level 2 ability user, but he thought that he could’ve done better since Layla was a bow user.

Layla suddenly walked up to the boy, which startled him a little.

"Look, in a real fight, there won’t be anyone to go easier on you. Every fight can mean life or death, and you need to take this seriously."

Peter was about to respond when suddenly, someone’s name was called.

"Layla, come over here!" Erin yelled out, to which Layla’s attention was immediately caught.

"Yes? What is it?" Layla quickly said.

Layla put her bow away, and walked over to Erin.

"I’m going to need a... little bit of assistance..." Erin whispered.

Layla nodded, and the two walked off over to the bathroom, leaving Fex, Quinn and Peter alone in the training center.

Fex got off his stack of mats, and walked over to Quinn, which concerned him somewhat. He was afraid Fex might’ve found out about something to do with Layla knowing the truth about Erin. Strangely, Fex seemed a lot more intimidating than he usually was.

However, Fex was as casual as ever, "Wow, what do you think they’re doing in there? I mean, asking for ’assistance?’"

Quinn was more confused than ever, "Huh?"

Fex smirked, "Ah, right, I did joke about you two dating, but it looks like I guessed wrong."

Suddenly, Quinn got a bunch of notifications on Erin’s side, something about Erin’s stats increasing. However, he was more focused on what Fex said.

"Uh— We’re not dating."

Fex then placed an arm around Quinn’s shoulder, "I know, but I’ll let you in on a little secret. You never even had a chance to begin with, bro."

"What???" Quinn was running a thousand thoughts a second, but nothing seemed to help him figure out what Fex was talking about.

"Y’know... I did see them come out of the bathroom together once, and... well... I shan’t say..." Peter whispered as his face grew redder by the second.

"Oh look, they’re back," Fex said, pointing at the two girls with his thumb.

Quinn looked at them, and noticed that Layla’s skin was a bit paler.

’She’s drinking her roommate again!’ Quinn thought.