"Warrior?"
"Talent?"
Although Ada and Ethan deliberately lowered their voices, the enclosed environment of the basement and the absence of others meant that Thea and Oliver could still hear their conversation.
Another reason was that the two were quite interested in what Ethan and Ada were discussing.
Earlier, it had just seemed like a normal conversation between a man and a woman. Although Ethan appeared a bit young, this made the scene look a little strange to Oliver and Thea, who were watching nearby.
At the same time, Ada's words revealed a lot of interesting information: a magic school?
As for Ethan possibly being a playboy, that wasn't a big deal. Thea was curious about magic, while Oliver suddenly realized something. During their previous fight, he hadn't been able to hurt Ethan. That must have been because of magic. (Green Arrow knows some magic.)
However, what Ethan said next left Thea and Oliver speechless. Just now, he tested Thea's strength and concluded that her level of strength wasn't worth training, yet now he was saying she had talent? That change was too sudden.
Oliver immediately drew a conclusion: This guy is trying to hit on his sister.
As a playboy himself, he knew exactly how people like Ethan thought. Especially since Ethan seemed young, clearly in his most impulsive years, Oliver wasn't going to give him a chance.
"Thea has the talent to become a warrior? How can you tell?"
If Ethan had said she had magical talent, Oliver might not have been able to refute it so easily. But a warrior... He wanted to see how Ethan would explain that.
"From her name."
"..."
That answer left Oliver speechless. He didn't even know how to respond.
You can tell if someone has talent just from their name? He thought Ethan was just talking nonsense.
What he didn't expect was that Ethan was completely serious.
"The name Thea. Just hearing it, you can tell she's a powerful warrior, the kind that could kill gods. That is, if she learns the Pegasus Meteor Fist..."
"Wha... what fist?"
Compared to Oliver, who directly dismissed Ethan's words, Thea was still holding on to a bit of anticipation. So she paid close attention to what Ethan was saying. When she heard that she could become a powerful warrior capable of killing gods, she still thought it sounded ridiculous. But deep inside, she felt secretly pleased. Then she started wondering if that "fist" was really that powerful. Could it really kill gods?
Of course, the god-killing part was probably just bragging. She thought it would be great if she could beat someone strong like Oliver.
"Ahem, it's a technique used by a warrior who served a goddess. This warrior used this technique to defeat countless enemies, and even directly fought against a hostile deity, injuring the deity's divine body..."
"Didn't you say he killed a god?"
Ethan paused, then finally shrugged helplessly. "I just remembered, in the end, the goddess herself killed the enemy god. But as a human, being able to injure a god's divine body is already an incredible achievement."
"..."
Thea pouted. Even though Ethan made it sound impressive, she still didn't care much about things like gods or warriors of goddesses. She figured these were just stories people made up. Probably something Ethan had just made up on the spot.
"You say it's that powerful. Can you show me?"
"Sure."
No amount of talking could compare to seeing it in action. Ethan walked to the side and waved at Oliver.
"Give me a hand."
Although Oliver thought Ethan was spouting nonsense, he suspected that Ethan might possess some kind of magical power. If he could take this chance to observe it, he didn't mind playing the target for a bit. He assumed Ethan wanted to spar with him to demonstrate the technique.
What he didn't expect was that this technique was completely different from the kind of martial arts he knew. When he saw Oliver walk in front of him and take a fighting stance, Ethan was briefly stunned.
"What are you doing?"
"Didn't you want to demonstrate the fist technique?"
"Oh, I just want you to help operate this."
In Oliver's secret base, there was a shooting range he used for archery training. It was a long, empty corridor with several tennis ball machines set up. When activated, these machines would launch tennis balls, and Oliver would practice shooting them mid-air.
What Ethan wanted Oliver to do was activate all of the machines and launch as many tennis balls as possible.
Although Oliver didn't understand why Ethan wanted this, he still did as asked.
"Ready?"
Seeing Ethan stand at the usual shooting spot, assume a stance, and nod at him, Oliver flipped the switch.
Those watching Ethan closely saw blue and white lights suddenly appear on his body. The points of light slowly spread like flames, covering him and lighting up the previously dim area like daylight.
"Watch closely. This is..."
Ethan moved his hands through the air a bit, then took a punching stance again.
"Pegasus Meteor Fist!"
As his right fist punched forward, Oliver and Thea saw their vision filled with blue and white light. In a daze, it felt like they weren't in the basement anymore, but under a vast night sky, with meteors streaking across the darkness.
"Meteors!?"
It didn't last long. In an instant, the night sky, the meteors, all of it vanished. But the tennis balls that had been reduced to fragments, and the wall covered in dense, fist-shaped dents far in the distance, clearly proved that it wasn't an illusion but something that really happened.
Oliver swallowed hard. Before this, he hadn't taken the "Pegasus Meteor Fist" seriously at all. Even when Ethan said it was a technique from a warrior of a goddess, one that had defeated countless enemies and even injured a god, he thought it was nonsense.
But now, seeing the results... and those numerous fist marks far away on the wall, despite the distance, he had to admit the power was astonishing.
"Could this really be a fist technique taught by a deity?"
Ethan retracted his punch and stood properly again, casually brushing back his hair that wasn't messy at all. He said arrogantly, "I just showed you what the technique looks like. Its true power is far beyond this."
"Just... this little bit?"
Oliver even walked over to the wall and gently touched it, only for a large amount of dust to fall off. The surface was deeply indented, and there wasn't a single piece of debris left. It had clearly been pulverized into dust by the meteors Ethan unleashed.
And yet, he said that was just a little bit? What would the full power look like? Would the concrete wall be completely turned to dust?
"Of course. Did you think ordinary concrete could withstand this move?"
"..."
Oliver suddenly felt that Ethan genuinely had no bad intentions toward them. Otherwise, with that move he just used, no matter how many of him there were, it wouldn't be enough to survive even a single punch from Ethan.
He didn't think his body was tougher than the concrete wall either. He definitely didn't want to know what it felt like to be turned into dust.
Oliver had seen many magical things. Ethan's display was shocking but not entirely unacceptable. He had long accepted that the world wasn't as simple as normal people believed.
But for Thea, watching nearby, this was a massive shock.
Is this something a person can do?
One punch, a shower of meteors. Not only did it shatter many tennis balls, but it also stripped a layer off a solid wall. It was simply beyond her understanding.
"Could this be... magic?"
Ethan originally wanted to say no, but just as he was about to speak, he realized he wasn't entirely sure if it counted as magic or not.
What exactly was Cosmo? Were the techniques used by Saints considered magic? Or superpowers? Or something else? He couldn't say for certain.
All he knew was that this kind of power spanned a wide range. It involved spiritual levels, some theoretical principles were highly idealistic, and the effects when using these moves were quite similar to magic, involving energy manipulation.
If you said it wasn't magic, Ethan, who didn't fully understand Cosmo, could still reproduce the moves using magic. Just not at light speed like in the original.
"It's hard to explain the specifics... So, what do you think? Want to learn it?"
How could Thea not want to? She very much wanted to. Who wouldn't want to learn such a powerful move? Not just Thea, even Oliver was tempted, though he was too embarrassed to ask.
"Didn't you say my strength was too weak before? Can I really learn this... Pegasus Meteor Fist?"
"That is indeed a problem."
How could a Saint be weak? The basic requirement to become a Saint was to train one's body beyond human limits. Only with a strong enough body could one unleash powerful moves.
For example, the Pegasus Meteor Fist wasn't that complex in principle. It was just throwing countless punches in an instant. The person who used it to defeat countless enemies initially could only throw three punches in a moment. That number increased as his strength improved.
Ethan's imitation version was different from the original. In the original, each punch unleashed a meteor strike. In Ethan's version, one punch sent out many, so the speed requirement wasn't as strict.
The problem returned. Thea didn't have magic power or divine power like he did, so even the imitation version would be hard for her to learn.
Going in circles, it still came back to the same issue. Ethan realized that after all this, what he could teach was still magic.
"Do you want to sign a contract with me and become a magical girl?"
(To be continued.)