System vs Rebirth

"Wha—!" Stella was dumbfounded as she became hot-headed again. "What are you doing?"

She hurriedly chased after him while gritting her teeth.

It might look like he was running away, but Noel knew Stella's personality. So, instead of letting her become comfortable with her serious mode, he would prefer to fight her in this state since she was easier to manipulate.

Noel looped around a tree to use it as a shield.

"Do you think I will fall for this trick? I know you're going to use this tree as your shield to launch a sneak attack. All I have to do is to slice it through!" Stella smirked and waved her sword, striking the tree.

*Clink!*

"!!!" Stella widened her eyes when she heard the clicking sound. She looked at the tree and realized it was only half-cut. In other words, she couldn't penetrate the tree with that swing.

"What? Although Stella hasn't used her full power, she shouldn't have any problem cutting a tree!" Zion gasped.

"Take a look behind that tree!" Jonathan pointed at the rune behind the tree.

It was Noel's Hardening Rune. This was the rune he got after completing the previous mission in the valley.

Yes, he had opened the Spirit Enchantment System, so he could boost everything around him, including the tree.

Now that Stella's sword was stuck in the tree, Noel looped around and struck her from the opposite side.

clicked her tongue and formed a wind barrier to block this swing. But as expected,

Noel smirked, believing he had hit her with this. It seemed his strategy of riling her up

Stella answered with a light-hearted tone as the wind blew away the smoke from the explosion, revealing Stella's

to the tree with her sword fully pulled out from

He looked back for a second and realized Stella directed the explosion to the sword so that it

I realized my weakness. If I were not so hot-headed that I ended up overlooking things, I wouldn't have had to experience all that stuff. That's why no matter how hot-headed I will be, I'll keep my mind as

who had gotten stronger. Stella and all the people in the

have time to get stronger due to not being able to

that these people still tried to do their best

and pointed his sword

forward, trying to catch Noel off guard by moving before he could

since he used his Sword Fire to block

trying to overwhelm

was heated up. If this continued, her sword would become

the situation to run away, looping around the

trick will work on me twice?!" Stella smirked, moving toward the tree. When she was about to strike it,

he

"Yeah."

she instinctively ducked down. Suddenly,

thinking someone who had just graduated could

stopped there. Noel had waited for a bit before slicing down the tree because