Philip did not wait for her to nod. He stepped forward, his body transforming into a storm of motion. The two wooden sticks in his hands moved with a speed that defied his age. He held them in a high guard, one leading and the other tucked beneath his arm, ready to strike from angles that Maddy had never encountered in the wild. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

He lashed out with a diagonal strike toward her shoulder. Before she could fully bring her shield up, the second stick whipped around from the opposite side, aiming for her ribs.

"Everything changed!" Maddy thought, her heart racing. "His rhythm is gone. It is as if I am... fighting two men at once!"

She twisted her body, using the edge of her heavy shield to deflect the first blow, but the vibration traveled deep into her marrow. She barely leaned back in time to let the second stick whistle past her chest.

Philip was a master of the Arnis style; he used the sticks not just to hit, but to trap, parry, and disarm. He moved in triangular patterns, his footwork keeping him always at the perfect distance to strike while Maddy struggled to close the gap with her heavy iron.

Philip’s sticks became a wall of wood. He delivered a flurry of rapid fire strikes—forehand, backhand, and then a sudden thrust toward her throat. Maddy felt overwhelmed. She couldn’t track which hand was the primary threat. She was forced into a full defensive shell, her shield arm growing numb from the constant impact.

"Twenty seconds left!"

Philip shouted. His face was set in a mask of intense focus.

"Do not just look at the wood, girl! Look at the space between the strikes!"

He performed a deceptive "Sinawali" pattern, the sticks weaving in a continuous, flowing motion that looked like a double helix of destruction. He caught the edge of Maddy’s greatsword with one stick, pinning it down, while the other accelerated toward her temple.

Maddy felt the shadow of the wood closing in. She realized that trying to match his speed with her heavy blade was a mistake. She stopped trying to follow his hands and instead watched his shoulders.

"A low flame does not mean a weak soul!"

Philip’s voice rang through the hall as he pressed his attack.

"The Rank F on your token is your innate power—the spark you were born with. It is what you are. But this? This combat is what you have become. The external mastery can bridge the gap when the internal flame is small!"

Maddy inhaled. She dropped her greatsword’s tip into the stone, using it as a pivot. As Philip’s stick descended, she didn’t block it. She slanted her shield at a sharp forty five degree angle. The wooden weapon slid off the curved surface, and Maddy used the opening to surge forward.

She didn’t swing the sword; she used the pommel. She stepped into Philip’s personal space, her shoulder slamming into his chest to disrupt his triangular footwork. Before he could reset his twin sticks, she swept her leg in a low arc.

Philip had to leap back to avoid the trip, breaking his continuous flow. For a brief moment, the "Lightning" was silenced.

"Ten seconds!"

A bystander cried out. Philip laughed, a wild and genuine sound. He crossed his sticks again and charged. This time, Maddy met him halfway. She used her shield as a weapon, bashing the sticks aside to create a path for her iron blade. She delivered a series of precise, controlled thrusts that forced Philip to use both sticks just to stay safe.

She was no longer just defending. She was hunting the openings in his master level guard.

The final five seconds were a blur of wood against iron. Philip tried a finishing "Double Abaniko" strike, a fan like motion meant to confuse her vision, but Maddy closed her eyes for a split second, relying on the sound of the air and the vibration of the floor. She brought her shield up and her sword across in a perfect cross-block.

The air went still.

Philip’s twin sticks remained pressed against Maddy’s iron, frozen in mid-strike. Both were breathing heavily, their sweat dripping onto the cold stone floor of the hall. The thirty seconds had passed, yet the silence that followed felt even longer.

One of the nearby examiners, himself a veteran of countless trials, wiped a bead of sweat from his own brow and murmured,

"In this guild, if you don’t prove you’ve mastered your weapon in the first few exchanges, you’re dismissed. Even seasoned warriors have been told to pack their bags and come back next week because they lacked ’soul’ in their strikes."

Another whispered in disbelief,

"But this F-Rank girl... she didn’t just exchange blows. She matched him—beat for beat, strike for strike... that is a talent."

Philip was breathing hard, his chest heaving, but his eyes were shining with a deep, newfound respect. He slowly lowered his wooden sticks, the tension finally bleeding out of his frame, and slid them back into his leather harness with a definitive click.

"You survived... you proved it to everyone here. Your ’flame’ might be registered as F Rank by the scales, but your hands... your hands belong to a true hunter. You are the kind of person who will actually stay alive out there."

Suddenly, at the entrance the young man with the golden flame charged in, his eyes darting frantically around the room. He was panting, his hair a mess from sprinting through the halls.

"Please let her still be here! Please don’t tell me they sent her home already!"

His eyes locked onto the center circle. From his distance and angle, all he saw was the grizzled, elderly examiner firmly grasping Maddy’s soft hand while she looked "distressed" and "shaky."

"HEY! UNHAND HER, YOU OLD—"

His protective roar echoed through the rafters, but he was cut off instantly by Philip’s voice.

"You pass..."

The young man froze his mouth hanging open. The fire in his eyes died out, replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated shock. He looked at the "strict" examiner who had been failing everyone all day, then at the "F Rank" girl.

"She... she passed?"