Fight and breakthrough

Leo and the Shmidt brothers went into a secluded place out of the borders of the city. Of course Elly and Elen joined them. Elen was ready to stop the fight if someone will go over the edge in terms of the damage dealt to the other side. He was more worried about his two sons then Leo.

"Well you can attack me whenever you are ready." Leo said with a flat tone.

He found all of this very boring. It was not a test for his power but a test for his patience. He was ready to show those guys who is the boss here so they will not make any problems for him later.

The brothers exchanged a glance and charged at Leo with their shields and swords drawn. Leo sighed and started to shoot earth bullets at those guys while applying the stone skin on himself. He was not going to use the earth bullets in full force and also was not going to use the earth spike skill. He did not want to kill them by mistake. The brother duo did not really knew how to fight mages and because of that they decided to take those hits head on and placed the shield before their vital points. The shields did not cover all their bodies and because of that some of the earth bullets hit the brothers legs that were not covered. Most of the attack hit the shields and they dented under Leo relentless attack. The ones that hit the legs of the brothers cause wounds to open and blood gashed out of them.

'Oh man. They cant even take the weakened attacks.' Leo sighed internally.

"Just give up. I don't even use the skill in a full force. If I did you both would be dead already." Leo said and shot two earth bullets with full force. The bullets hit the shield and caused both brothers to fall back. They stared at the kid with horror. 'How is he that strong? He is only 10 years old. Holy shit.' They thought.

After that their anger overcame their fear and they shouted pretty similar phrases. It sounded like: "Fight us in a close range battle. It is not fair to fight knights from long range."

Leo smirked with distain and said: "That's what you are going to say to every mage you will meet? You will not live for long that way. Also I have more skills to isolate you in a close range battle and kill you without any chances for you to retaliate."

After Leo said that he made a few stone walls around him and then used a few earth spikes in quick succession. The meaning of this action was simple. You come close to me and you will die. There is only one chance to survive. To destroy the stone walls fast and attack Leo in a speed he could not react to. It was not very realistic. The brothers duo understood that they had no chance at all. It was not even close. Elly was shocked by this display of strength. It was one thing to kill some bandits but to win two high level apprentice knights was another thing altogether. Elen on the other hand was calm in the beginning of the fight because he did saw low level mage apprentices fight and he knew about the stone bullet skill but the final hit on the brothers and the two other skills he saw confirmed the fact that this brat had the power to fight him on an equal ground and maybe even win. It is just a matter of time before he will get overshadowed by Leo in terms of fighting strength. He sighed and said internally: 'Where is this little guy came from? He is a genius. A true prodigy. We need this guy more then he needs us. We need to close this deal.'

"This enough Felix, Greg. You are not his match. Go and tend you wounds. I will take the negotiations from now on." Elen said.

The brothers looked at Leo for some time and then sighed. After a short while they stood up and were ready to leave but Leo stopped them.

"Wait. I can help you tend your wounds. At least increase the rate of recovery." Leo said and put his hands on both of them. After that he started to rotate the world energy that he attracted by his breathing technique in their bodies. He knew he was not really a healer but he could tend small wounds by using the world energy he was attracting by his breathing technique. The wounds started to close is a very slow phase. It was still a very impressive feat. Two hours passed and an unexpected thing happened. Felix that was at a bottleneck for a long time started to feel that it was loosening up and he said: "Leo please don't stop what you are doing. I think I'm about to break through to the ninth stage."

"Alright. You can use your knight technique and I will try to adjust my rhythm to your technique." Leo said.

"Can you really do that?" Felix asked.

"He was ready to try and break through with only the energies that were rotating in his body. He was not sure if he could succeed that way but with the help of his breathing technique he knew that his chances were on the higher side now. Felix started to use his knight breathing technique and life force entered his body in a steady phase. Leo felt that his energies were going all over the place but not in the direction they should because of the breathing technique Felix started to use. It took him some time to adjust. He saw the tense facial expression of Felix relax with time. After around two more hours of this process Felix opened his closed eyes and said: "Get back!"

Leo complied and went to the other Shmidt family members to see if Felix would succeed or not. With most techniques when you tried to break through there was a chance of failure. Because of that the body condition of the participant needed to be at top condition and really reach a bottleneck. Otherwise there was a good chance of failure and a backlash. This backlash will take time to treat and could slow he future progression of the person trying to breakthrough. Because of that people preferred to breakthrough in one go. Felix released a strong battle cry and the energy of a ninth rank knight apprentice gashed out of his body. He was Elated. "I broke trough!" He shouted.