Why would James want to fight me? 

There are few possibilities that I can think of to name a few. 

First possibility could be that I beat up his son so bably that he wants to get revenge but it is not possible since I think he is happy about me beating some sense into him.

Second possibility might be that he wants to test my strength since it has been a while since we fought but he might have heard from his son how strong I am.

Third reason is the most likely option of the three. 

He wants to make sure that I haven't passed him in strenght due to hearing from James how strong I am.

I looked at James while we were walking torward his clans arena where we can fight all we want due to the arena being reinforced with magic to make it be able to take all the damage in made by our attacks to the arena.

"So, Allen, there is another reason why I wanted to spar with you", James said with a serious tone and face.

"You know how your parents' died seven years ago", James said while I sensed that he was being cautious.

"I want you to know that they were some of the strongest fighters we ever had in our village",  James said.

"But now it seems that you have caught up to them and probably surpassed them and I want to test that have you really surpassed them." 

Now I understand why he wants to spar with me. He wants to test if I have surpassed my parents. 

"But your parents were diffrent individuals meaning that I never fought them both at once because it would be impossible for me to last even a minute while fighting them."

I know the stories about my parents from the clan of light and darkness being the greatest couple in the entire village, which could kill anything that the village leaders want, but then the masked man attacked and killed most of the clans of light and darkness in a single night while the clans were sleeping.

We arrive at the underground arena and James had reinforced himself with mana already with his 8 cores and was probably ready for my attack. 

I started reinforcing myself as well so I'm ready once he attacks.

"So, you are ready as well", James said.

Did he sense my reinforcement? 

The arena got enveloped in a barrier once James started moving torwards me.

I decided to throw balls made of darkness at James to make some cover for me in this arena that had no real cover at all. 

James just went through the darkness that came from the balls and now he is just shooting lightning at me.

Probably testing me when will I go all out. 

I'll use one of my old moves I used the first time we sparred few years ago to confuse him into getting more serious about fighting me so I can measure his strengt properly. 

"So, you are not going to fight seriously yet fine I'll show you the way and you follow", James said while the air around him started glowing blue.

James appeared on front of me with a blade made out of lightning ready to hit me.

The blade hit my arm, which made me fly across the arena. 

"Allen if you are not going to fight seriously you will get too injured to leave for the expedition that your grandpa has planed to the other village across the world", James said with a serious face.

Fine, I'll use all of my cores to prove that I'm worthy to be sent to that expedition.