"Are you ready, Ramy?"

Eren asked his auxiliary team member. The warm and breezy evening was as uneventful as usual. The team members had found some time from their busy schedule to practise their skills.

Eren was going to work on Ramy today. It's been a few weeks since the White Raven Crew's match with the Stormborns. Jason had tried to contact Eren again. But Eren delayed the talk for now saying he had too many things to take care of, which was a genuine reason all along.

Ramy had an untapped potential that Eren had seen when he fought the guy in this timeline. That's why he decided to put his Merps to work on the guy.

Eren spent his Merps to get the guy some spells and resources that suited him. He also trained him by tweaking his close combat style a tiny bit. Now it was time for the butcher to test the returns on his investment.

"I am weady when you awe, Ewen!"

Ramy was excited. Or maybe the word excitement was an understatement. The guy had started worshipping Eren instead of fanboying him ever since Eren had put his time and resources to help him.

Of course, scrooge would never give things for free. He had told Ramy he needed to return the Merps he had invested in instalments. But the sound-element ranker didn't see it as something unjustified. He had also decided in his mind that he would follow his idol's rules about money and everything else and make them his own.

"Good. Now show me what you got."

The other members of the White Raven Crew stopped their practices after hearing Eren's command to start the battle. They too had seen their shadow leader training Ramy for all these days now. They wanted to know how much the auxiliary member of their team had improved.

Ramy nodded at Eren and turned serious. He knew the guy in front of him wouldn't forgive him if he showed him some half-assed performance. Eren might just stop all his efforts to train him altogether if his performance in this practice match wasn't satisfactory.

The Surreal Sound Sword spell was activated by Ramy. But the execution was a bit different than Ramy's last time. Instead of manifesting swords made of tangible sound waves, he was using the real sword. The sword just had the spell-induced sound waves running through it, making it vibrate a small amount and producing a distinct sharp-pitched sound. It was as if Ramy's sword was trying to sing in its language.

And instead of using the spell as a mid-range attack like the last time, Ramy was planning to use it as a close combat aid. These were suggestions given to him by Eren, enabling him to explore the potential of being a knight while keeping the core of his spells mostly unchanged.

Since it was only running sound waves through a real sword, the silent incantation didn't take long and was almost instantaneous. Ramy's mastery over his previous spells had improved too, making him able to cut the execution time while ensuring better output.

Eren drew his katars. The two ran at each other before their weapons finally clashed. And Eren immediately felt Ramy's drastic improvements.

Ramy's overall expertise hadn't changed much. But his opponents would dread entering a close combat battle with him. That was because his sword that had sound waves running through it would pass those waves through his opponent's weapon, making it vibrate uncontrollably.

But that was not all. Up close, the sound vibrations would also affect the opponent's reflexes as the sound waves would travel through the air and affect their auditory senses.

Ramy's opponent would get disorganized and their weapon control would go into disarray every time they made contact with Ramy and his sword. And this was just because of the change in the execution of one simple spell.

Eren wasn't immune to the silent debuffs applied by Ramy's spell either. In fact, he was still better off since his body and bones had been flexible because of his transformation. Had it been a normal ranker, they would have been debuffed even more.

The vibration caused him to lose his grip on his katars for a short moment. And that short moment was all it took for Ramy to parry and attack Eren. Now that he had the chance, he took advantage of his attack against the butcher.

One of Eren's Katars, Diceros Left, was dropped by him. And his defence cracked. Ramy exploited it by holding Eren's left hand and running another series of sound waves through it.

Eren felt like his brain got fuzzy. His ears started ringing and his eyes could only see the world as some blurred holo-call displayed over a shaky spectral screen.

Ramy pressed on and followed his attack with another swing of his sword now that he had caught his opponent and idol in a groggy state. The sword was about to make contact with Eren's left side, which was defenceless because of the dropped weapon.

Alas, Ramy didn't know about Eren's transformation and his body's adaptability under external influences like this. The sound waves should have made it more difficult for Eren's muscles to function normally. His bones should have resonated with the sound waves, making his skeletal structure vibrate. As a result, the joints would be affected.

But Eren's body mitigated these effects because of its flexibility. It allowed the sound waves to pass through it without the muscles being adversely affected as a result.

Thanks to his transformation, Eren was able to wake up sooner than Ramy had anticipated. As soon as he regained his senses, he cast Seated Perception and Stunning Speed at the same time.

'It seems I underestimated the guy. He has potential.'

Eren thought as he saw Ramy moving in slow motion to attack him while he was in the stagnated world. The butcher knew he would have suffered a bit if he hadn't cast his time-element spells at this time.

Eren moved out of Ramy's range of attacks a little. He adjusted his stance in a way that he would be able to attack his opponent from the waist down, by crouching under the incoming sword.

Eren balled his fist and ran Blitz Bolt through it before making it land on Ramy's almost defenceless stomach. The butcher had shown a modicum of mercy on his teammate and controlled the lightning element spell's effect as well as the force behind his punch to make it easier for him to recover from the attack.

'Ramy Richards, you are doing well. But I'm too selfish, you know. I won't allow you to come out in a better light when you are fighting against me.'

Eren thought to himself as his punch hit the intended spot.