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.

a wind barrier to block this swing. But as expected, Noel used his Ignition

with this. It seemed his

tone as the wind blew away the

was standing next to the tree with her

directed the explosion to the sword so that it knocked off the tree. Stella shouldn't be

so hot-headed that I ended up overlooking things, I wouldn't have had to experience all

right. Noel wasn't the only one who had gotten stronger. Stella and all the people in the Zero Squad had tried to fix their mistakes

one who didn't have time to get stronger due to

these people still tried to

his sword at her neck again, challenging

and jumped forward, trying to catch Noel off

for this since he used

as if trying to overwhelm

her, the result was still disappointing as she could see her sword reddened as if it was heated up. If this continued, her sword would become soft and eventually become molten lava, so she had to jump back, avoiding the worst

advantage of the situation to run away, looping around

you think the same trick will work on me twice?!" Stella smirked, moving toward the tree. When she was

time, he heard Noel's

"Yeah."

down. Suddenly,

never thinking someone who had just graduated could be

waited for a bit before slicing down the tree because he had prepared another