As agreed, Milo was to honour a spar with the elemental champion of salt, he could only wonder how salt could be used offensively or for any sort of typical spells, its main usage seemed to lie in the caster learning to recreate actual salt to perfection and just serve as a furnisher of the good, salt was the main method of preservation for many after all, and if you had a good source of it, why bother developing complex arrays and such?
A sparring room within the palace was lit up with mana lights, Lunate was a rather stylish swordswoman, wielding a rapier in one hand, the other up against her hips, posture tall and compact despite her lack of height.
The thin blade of her sword was held with the tip pointed straight at the ceiling, splitting her face into two, Milo had heard that she had been grievously wounded back at Ircron, having most of her bones broken, left weakened and on the verge of death, he could not see any signs of this happening right now, Rosemary's healing flames were incredibly potent, if something could be healed, you better believe that it would be healed to perfection.
Milo rose his hands, golden mana reinforcing his entire body, he too had learned the intricacy of healing oneself using their own mana, his golden element was quite suited for it, otherwise he probably wouldn't have been able of learning this trick at all, with his own regular mana, he could not do it.
Thanks to this, he had been pushing himself well beyond the limits repeatedly, often sparring with Griar, whose battle art was horrendously powerful, capable of denying nearly all of someone's abilities and tricks with ease, since Milo did not have any ability that could bypass this, so it was preferable to also spar with people against which he could actually train his magical capabilities.
Stepping forward first, Lunate brought her free hand close to her blade as she pointed it forward, bringing it forward, salt gathering around her blade, dark blue eyes focusing intently, Milo augmenting his speed, focusing mana on his legs into a burst as he sensed what was coming.
Standing well away from her, he dodge to the side immediately as her blade thrusted forward, the blade itself out of reach, but followed by a condensed, spinning whirling of salt, here he had his answer, you just needed to want to deal damage to find an offensive usage to anything.
That initial thrust was followed by five others, coming out in quick succession, as Milo ran in an arc around the elemental champion, barely avoiding the destructive spell that seemed intertwined with a battle art as well.
Not only that, but raising her blade after the repeated attacks, lightly swinging it and manifesting three masses of salt hovering above her head and shoulders, she was also using her sword as a catalyst for her spells, which took Milo by surprise.
Gliding forth on salt, she rapidly attacked, a mixture of thrusts and light slashes, at least, Milo didn't have to worry about her regular blade strikes, his reinforcement had progressed enough to shrug those of, stomping his foot down, throwing a punch at her solar plexus, one of the hovering spells activating and launching itself at his face, pulling out his fist, striking the approaching spell with the back of his fist as he leaned back, dispelling the orb of salt as another was set into motion, for this one, Milo stepped off the side, evading another attack from Lunate's blade as he did so, twisting her wrist, a helix of raging particles of salt lashed out, scraping against Milo's skin with excessive efficiency.
Without his augmentation, his muscles would have been exposed to the outside air, the bright red strands of muscles would have been invaded by salt and caused unimaginable pain, sending out the last hovering mass of salt forth, Milo ducked beneath it.
The second and third mass arched right around and hit Milo in his back, the two tearing his shirt to shreds, each bits of salt trying to tear into his flesh, the pain it procured even when failing to do so was outlandish, to think that something as innocuous as salt magic was predisposed to inflict such severe suffering was unnerving to say the least.
But Milo was used to pain, and aimed a low kick at the champion's legs, pushing Lunate to the ground where he grabbed her into a hold, sending his golden mana against her in a specific way as taught by Rosemary to disrupt the flow of an enemy's energy.
"My loss" Lunate casually tapped her hand against the floor, swiftly getting back up, slithering to her feet the moment Milo even slightly lessened his hold, sheathing her rapier back in its scabbard.
"As expected, you are rather strong Milo, you certainly make for a nice pair with Helena" she slightly bowed her head, bidding her goodbyes after this one sparring session, stepping into the darkened hallway, without hesitation.
Milo scratched the back of his head, that was a weird interaction, it was like she had really only meant to test him rather than have an actual spar, they barely used their spells and martial finesses as well.
That said, although her strikes had not hurt him, it was a given that she had not actually given her all to skewer him, like he had not hit her with the intent of breaking something, still, her attacks stung a fair bit, it was like she had dosed her strength just enough for her thrusts to be felt, but weak enough to not leave a mark, that was a rather fine level of control, unexpected considering that it was their first time sparring together, and it was not like she had been around to see him in other situations as well.
Lunate had a stellar grasp of her power output and sturdiness of her opponents simply by looking at them once.
If that was the youngest and least experienced of the elemental champions, then Milo ought to seek out the others to see what they could do as well, although the champions were mostly staying amidst themselves he did know that Griar was getting quite familiar with Msir, the champion of sword since they had the same elemental affinity.
Yes, it was for the best to get the most experience from as many sources as was possible, simply training what he had been taught was not the greatest source of progression for Milo, action and conflict had made him advance incredibly fast, his two fight with the green-bladed swordswoman, and his confrontation against Alkayne had brought in tremendous gains afterwards.
Having experienced a natural heightening of the strength of a blow for a split instant, he felt on the verge of comprehending something about his element.
'Hold on, where did she even go? There is only the main inner garden that way…' he only now realised that Lunate went in a completely nonsensical direction.
And although the gardens were normally very pleasant, suffused in pure darkness, they were more of an environmental hazard than anything.
'Surely, she knows where she is going…'