Laden stared at the student that was currently standing in the tree not too far behind him.

"Greed has finally showcased itself," Laden said while shaking his head.

He had expected something like this to happen when he hadn’t heard the instructor give them any instructions against stealing other people’s harvests.

"They even seem to actively promote it," Laden thought.

All while he thought this, their assailant remained on the tree, appearing completely unbothered that he was about to fight against two opponents.

"Are you going to take them, or do we have to hand them to you?" Laden said in an extremely annoyed voice.

He had always been someone that hated greed; that was why most of his actions in his previous life were to go against greed, and he ended up dying for people.

"Whether you hand it to me or I take it, nonetheless it will be mine," the student responded while Spirit Energy steered beside him.

A dark crow-like spirit appeared beside him briefly before merging into the student.

Laden watched as feathers sprouted out of the sides of his hands and large dark bird claws came out through his footwear.

"Of course his familiar is a crow," Laden said with a frown.

"Birds of the same feather flock together."

Despite being extremely angry and ready to beat up his opponent, Laden couldn’t really go into his merge, as Laden just finished training with Prime, and their Spirit Energy is exhausted.

Triggered by Laden’s derogatory remark, the student leaped off the tree and came swooping down straight at Laden with its claws stretched forward.

Feeling quite confident due to his recent successful training, Laden didn’t rush to react; instead, he remained in his place with his staff ready.

He was waiting for the student to get to the perfect distance before swinging the staff with as much force and speed his normal hand could generate.

But all of that was useless against his opponent; the students watched Laden swing the staff with a smirk on his face when he felt it get close.

With a fluid sideways Motion, he dodged the

staff and continued his attack.

But Laden wasn’t also going for a single attack. Instead, the moment the staff missed, he had prepared the next attack.

He hit the staff with his legs and sent it back up with really good precision.

An attack from the back was harder for the student to dodge, so this time, the staff hit him on the leg, stopping his own attack.

"Hahahaha, don’t tell me you expected that to injure me at all," the student said.

"I am sorry to tell you this, but it can’t; my scales are much more durable."

Laden did nothing more than just release a soft sigh when he heard that.

"That wasn’t the plan," he said.

Watching Laden act so aloof in such a situation immediately made the student extremely infuriated.

He flapped his hands to gain a bit of height before swooping back down again with a much faster Speed.

This time he was moving extremely fast, making it difficult for Laden to even see it, not to speak of blocking or countering.

Slllaassshhh. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

His long claws gave Laden a slash on the face, which would have been more severe if Caleb hadn’t been prepared.

"Did you just heal me? Are you going against your friend?" The student said with a shocked face while staring at Caleb.

Having no other method of attacking, when Caleb noticed Laden was about to get seriously injured, he had sent a green ball of energy flying straight at him, knocking him off course but inadvertently healing him.

The distracted student refused to pay attention to Laden since he had concluded he was incapable of actually hurting him.

"Don’t ignore me," Laden said angrily while he jumped a little and sent the staff smashing towards the low-flying figure.

Bammmm!

This time his staff hit his opponent extremely cleanly, making him almost totally fall to the ground.

"Ohhh wow, that had a bit of power," Laden thought in shock.

But the student was more surprised than he had expected as he noticed it fly back and land on another tree nearby.

"Ohhhh, you dare hit me so hard," the student shouted, losing his earlier smugness.

"Now you have done it."

He opened the bag that was currently beside him and removed some Claw-shaped metal, which he strapped to his hand.

"I won’t be using just my legs anymore," he said angrily while flying towards the sky.

He flew above the trees and circled multiple times to gain more momentum, and that was exactly what happened.

Laden noticed his opponent grow increasingly faster the more he circled up until the point that he couldn’t even track him anymore.

"He had really gotten serious," Laden wanted to mutter.

Before he could finish speaking, he noticed a blur approaching, and the next instant he had a wound on his hand.

The blur parted again and headed back to the sky; a few moments later, he arrived again, leaving another wound on Laden’s shoulder.

One time after the other, the student came diving in, leaving a wound on Laden and going back up as if he wanted him to bleed out naturally.

"Aren’t you still ready yet, Prime?" Laden shouted impatiently.

He could feel the stinging pain that was currently all over his body and also the intention behind the attacks.

"He has slowly been giving increasingly more fatal injuries, and the next one should be the final one," he predicted.

"Caleb on the count of three sent over a healing blast," Laden shouted.

"One,"

"Two," he watched the blur coming back down at that moment and tightly approaching.

"Three,"

The green blast came flying over, knocking Laden backwards by a bit and pushing him out of the attack path while simultaneously healing most of the injuries.

To top it all off, Prime appeared beside Laden and then merged into him, producing the usual results.

Utilizing the opportunity, Laden took his staff and sent it flying straight at the swooping student’s head, and without a single error, it hit cleanly.

"Exhumed."