Roge felt his stage fright come into full force at the glare of the adventurer, his heart pounding in his chest as the man moved close to Roge and his party. He wore full plate armor that looked to be made of some white/silver colored rock with runes carved into it, his helmet off to show his face. The shape was human enough, but Roge could immediately tell he was a water elemental, as his body was made up of the liquid. It reminded him of an elemental movie he never watched, though his anxious musings were cut off with the man’s deep voice.

  “You think these pipsqueaks are going to help? They’re going to get frozen alive if they come within a mile of the creature!” He clearly directed his voice at the League Master, Bert, though the smaller man clearly ignored him as he tried to move on.

  “Now ! The creature we’re going to-“

  “Hey! Seriously! Are you trying to get the small fry killed?!”

  “Adventurer Brice! Shut your mouth before I shut it for you!” Bert’s reply didn’t seem to lessen the water man’s anger, though it did at least shut him up for the moment. “As I was going to say, from the scouting we received, it seems we’re going to encounter a level ten frost drake. The main thing we’re going to have to worry about is the monster’s weather effect, which has caused this nice chilly day out. Fortunately, we have a solution for that.”

  The League Master waved a hand at the dragon kobold, Roge feeling a bit awkward as he pushed out his aura to encompass more people in the room. He was so used to only using it on his party members, though, and felt the strain as he tried to envelop everyone. To his surprise, he wasn’t able to push it into everyone in the room, looking slightly confused as he counted. ‘It can only effect thirty eight people? Why-‘ He nearly facepalmed as he found out the issue, pulling up his sheet and letting out a sigh.

  “I can’t effect everyone,” Roge squeaked out, feeling his voice tremble as he powered through. “The maximum amount of people I can effect is limited by my charisma.”

  “Still. An added sixty cold resistance is impressive for your level,” another man called out, this one in a simple cloth garb with a black cloak. He walked up to the group and gave them a charming grin, Roge’s nervousness seeming to fade away with the proximity. The man looked somewhat like a wolf, though the feline paws he had made classifying the adventurer a bit hard. His fur seemed to be a mix of tan and grey, his golden brown eyes assessing the group. “And if you need more charisma, I can give you a buff for it during the fight. It’s only a five increase, but with some stat boosts, you should be able to hit everyone here.”

  “Uh… thanks,” Roge stated warily, frowning as his anxiety failed to ping with the man. He also found one instance where his shorter height was a problem, as he constantly had to look upwards to see everything. “I’m actually close to hitting a level so-“

  “Are we seriously entertaining this?! All over a buff?!” the other adventurer called out, his stone armor making loud thunking noises as he stalked over to stand in front of Roge.

  “He can also give you potions that stack,” Hops interrupted, giving the large water man a glare. “As well as outfit people with fire magical tools. Should be helpful against an ice creature, yes?” Roge felt a bit surprised that it was the elf that responded, though as he looked over at Marge and Sean, he flinched at the murderous look the lion was giving. The deer woman had a hand on Sean’s shoulder as well, stopping him from moving forward and attacking the man.

  “It’s still stupid! I bet his constitution hasn’t even hit twenty yet, and you want him to face something so high leveled?! Are you trying to kill newbies?” That last question was aimed at the League Master, who looked on in contemplation.

  “Why not spar then? I had several reports from Centerville, so I know how well Mr. Youngston here can fight.” Roge twitched at the mention of his name, sighing as he realized Bert knew he wasn’t a kobold.

  “I would wipe the floor with him. Are you serious?” the adventurer asked, looking genuinely confused.

  “Well that would also tell us something,” Bert stated sweetly, though his eyes were still hard. “An adventurer that can’t control their strength has no place in the guild. So I expect you to hold back from seriously hurting him. What do you say Mr. Youngston.”

  Roge looked nervously at his party, Hops and Sean looking like they wanted to spar the guy, while Marge kept her head and looked around the area. After a few moments, she nodded, giving Roge an evil grin that clearly said ‘Fuck that dude up.’

  “Well, this is going to be interesting,” the cat/wolf adventurer muttered, grinning once he noticed Roge’s stare.

  “Alright…” Roge grunted, giving the League Master a glare. “But I want a favor for doing this.”

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  “Obviously I’m going to reward you here. But only if you win.”

  ~~~

  “The rules of the spar are simple,” Bert intoned, having brought Roge and the water man, Brice, out into one of the practice areas. “The first person to knock out the other wins. No going for obvious kill shorts, or the person who does instantly loses. Any questions?”

  “That’s it?!” Brice cried out, giving the League Master a smug look. “I can use all of my skills and everything?” Roge ignored the water man’s outburst, quickly thinking of his wand that he’d left behind at the inn. While he couldn’t do much with it, the distance fuzzing away the connection, he could summon the object into his inventory, effectively transporting it into his claw.

  “I’m sure Mr. Youngston will be fine,” Bert replied, giving Roge a grin as the dragon kobold swapped the orange fire wand with a bluish fire wand. After all, if someone is made of water, they would be effected equally by heat and cold, which Roge planned to use to great effect.

  “You use wands? Really?” Brice taunted, which Roge completely ignored. He was more focused on sheathing his wand to his belt, having not used the accessory once since he got it at the clothing shop. He complained that it was unnecessary, but with his newfound knowledge on how far he could use his wand from, it was giving him an idea.

  “We ready?” Roge asked, finally looking up at the enraged adventurer. Without a single word, Brice lunged forward at Roge, the dragon kobold expecting it as he teleported himself away. It was easier and easier to get the timing down right, especially when he could slow down his target slightly by pushing against them with [Spacial Magic].

  Roge grumbled as he pushed the notifications off to the side, his training from his friends informing him that the water tank wasn’t taking him seriously. Not just from the fact that the adventurer stood there dumbfounded as Roge had teleported nearly thirty feet away, but also because he was getting notifications in the middle of the fight.

  ‘Real combat saves those notices for after,’ Sean had told him, the dragon kobold feeling annoyed as he tried his next trick. When he went to activate his wand, he felt it trying to summon the effect from that tip, as that’s how he’d used it all the time. This time, however, Roge changed the intention of his attack, glad for the fact that Brice was still getting over his shock at the dodge. With a bit of effort, he summoned the solid ball of blue flames in front of his hand, grinning as the ball quickly formed. He hadn’t really had the chance to experiment after his cap has increased, and he could feel the magic flow so much better. Instead of a measly one mana ball, after one second, he had nearly four, the ball somehow not increasing much in size. Roge was only confused for a moment, however, as he realized the ball had grown four times in *volume*, meaning it’s diameter would only go up a small amount.

  ‘Here we go,’ he thought to himself, as he flicked the little ball forward like he was flicking a quarter across a table. He expected the ball to move faster, but he did not expect the *crack* as it nearly instantly hit the water tank in the chest with how fast it was moving.

  As expected, the solidified ball of frost fire instantly exploded upon impact, benefiting from his use of the thunder buff to increase its area of effect. Instead of the explosion only reaching a foot or two out from the impact, it nearly engulfed Roge’s opponent, the blue fire spreading across the sand with the use of his new flame buff.

  “That… actually hurt,” a voice called out behind Roge, the dragon kobold not even turning around as he pushed out with his [Spacial Magic]. Feeling the attack coming in from behind, he quickly teleported next to where the blue fire was raging before turning around.

  Unfortunately, Roge seemed to have mostly hit the armor with his attack, as Brice looked mostly unharmed besides a bit of frost on his armor. “How long can you do that for if your charisma is so high,” the water tank mumbled, using another of his high speed steps to try and hit Roge again, to no avail.

  ‘Maybe an acid attack…’ Roge mused, swapping out [Frost Fire] for [Voracious Frost] and summoning another ball. This time, his opponent was prepared, dashing towards Roge right as he was about to aim. ‘Don’t need to aim…’ he thought, smirking as he teleported away once more. Without him holding up the ball of magic, it quickly fell to the ground, Brice not noticing as he tried to see where Roge had teleported to. Unluckily for him, Roge had gone thirty feet up in the air and transformed himself into his fairy wolf form to keep aloft.

  With the explosion of the acidic frost covering up the area, Roge quickly glanced around to see if Brice had moved before summoning his wand again, this time holding it in his mouth as he prepared a flame lightning strike. “Where’d you go?!” the water tank yelled out, the fog from Roge’s attack thinning to reveal the cracks spreading across his armor from the acid-based attack. They were small cracks, sure, and nothing near enough to break any time soon, but it was a start. Instead of using another explosive ball, Roge decided to go with the beam version of his attack, electricity and fire collecting and then beaming down from in front of his nose to hit the tank square on the head.

  Roge was not expecting the attack to do much damage, and was shocked when the man’s body swayed from the attack before landing face down on the ground. Wary of a trick, Roge slowly moved downward, noting that Brice’s body was twitching inside his armor. ‘Did I… stun him?’ He didn’t know how electricity reacted with water-based creatures, so he hit the man again with another beam of mana, causing the shaking to get even worse.

  Roge was very glad for his caution, as in the blink of an eye, fire spread out in a wave from Brice, Roge dodging the attack by once again teleporting upwards. This time, however, he couldn’t dodge all of it, feeling some of the heat hit one of his back legs. To his shock, the pain was minimal, though his leg seemed more… gelatinous. As though the fire had softened up his body. ‘Okay… don’t get hit by fire…’

  That was going to be hard, though, as the water tank seemed to have activated some type of fire defense ability. It manifested as a half-sphere of fire making a barrier all around Roge’s opponent. Roge even tried two attacks to see if he could penetrate the barrier, though he found no success.

  “Just give up already,” Brice called out, Roge barely able to see him standing calmly in the center of the effect. “There’s no way you have more mana than me, and I can keep using this for close to an hour. How long will your transformation last?”

  Roge felt slightly confused at that, glancing at his resources to see that his opponent was wrong. The [Wild Forms] transformations didn’t cost Roge any mana to maintain. He did notice that it cost him some mana to do the initial transformation, as he was just above four hundred mana, when he should have had more than that. But the only mana he was spending as the mana to heal himself back up, having used his swapper slot to switch to his rank eighteen healing. It barely took a second for him to heal up the damage, Roge feeling smug as he looked down.

  ‘Can’t overpower it. Obviously it’s using more juice than his regeneration. Maybe… I just wait it out?’ Roge felt a bit uncomfortable doing that, though, as it felt like he was just wasting everyone’s time. At the very least, he would spend a few minutes contemplating things, lazing swooping around in the air to avoid the flaming rocks that Brice started throwing at him.

  ~~~

  After a few minutes of easily dodging the rocks, Roge came to the realization that his mana wasn’t regenerating. He should have gotten back ten to twenty within the past few minutes, but his mana stayed stubbornly at four hundred. ‘Maybe… resources don’t regenerate in combat?’ He thought his regen rate was insane, but if it didn’t apply in combat, then what mattered most was his maximum mana, as that was all he’d have for the duration of the fight.

  He swooped down to the ground, ignoring Brice’s wining as he shifted back into his kobold form and took his wand out of his mouth. “I don’t want him to run out of mana for the upcoming fight,” Roge said, looking at the League Master who was watching with everyone else from the edges of the training hall. Roge paused for longer than necessary when he noticed everyone giving him various looks from disdain to awe. “Can I just forfeit here or something?”

  “Ha! I knew you-“

  “What’s your mana at?” Bert asked, cutting off the water tank’s taunt.

  “Four hundred,” Roge replied, causing almost everyone to gasp and for the League Master’s eyes to squint. “These transformations don’t cost me anything besides the initial mana to shift. So I could have just waited out his shield and then attacked him with more lightning. But I didn’t want us to be down a fighter.” At that, Brice’s shield went down, the tank looking offended at Roge’s plan of attack.

  “Very well. Brice? As the winner, you get to pick if Roge stays in the group or not.”

  “Of fucking course not! We don’t need him in the slightest.”

  ~~~

  “Okay… maybe we need him,” Brice grunted out, several hours having passed since the group had headed out to fight the drake. Roge suspected they might have won if some of their number hadn’t stayed behind, mostly the people that gave Roge appreciative looks not wanting to go without the dragon kobold. He didn’t say that however, finishing up the last of his alchemy that he’d been working on in the meantime.