27 The Bullet Storm!

"Bang...bang...boom...!!"

There was a continuous sound of explosions in the arena mansion. A figure could be seen moving swiftly among a few wooden dummies. There were constant flashes of light and then the entire mansion was covered with slight mist and the floor was filled with burnt marks.

The figure running around was obviously Harry. He had been training in the arena for almost six hours now. This was the last round for his first session.

"Boooooooom....!"

Suddenly there was a loud boom and three dummies were blasted away together. Harry was panting heavily and couldn't help but kneel on the ground filled with broken parts of the dummies. At this time, he was again covered with a fog and slowly as the fog cleared up, he saw that he was back in the usual room of requirements.

He slowly got back up and went out of the arena. He took out his water bottle and emptied it in one go. Afterward, he sat down and started controlling his breath. His first session took a huge toll on him. He didn't think it would be this demanding on his stamina and mana capacity. His body was practically empty right now. However, as he started his recuperation, he realized the benefits of his training. His body was absorbing mana at a much higher rate as compared to before and also he could feel his mana veins becoming a little sturdier. Although the improvement wasn't that much, it was still something that he got after just a single session. So, if he kept doing this, it won't take long for him to achieve a quantifiable progress.

This exhilarated him as it was a similar kind of progress when he started his meditation training a few years ago but it's effects eventually wore off as he got stronger.

But seeing that his training session gave him similar results he was really ecstatic.

He only used magical attacks during the entire session. His physique was automatically getting exercised due to all the running around.

After an hour of recovery, he opened his eyes. He then started analyzing the entire session.

The goal he set for himself was to master the spells till the fifth year. The first two rounds were pretty simple and the dummies only used basic spells like 'Incendio'. But starting from the third round, things became more complicated. The dummies started coordinating with each other.

This raised the difficulty level by a huge margin. However, it was still at a level Harry could manage. But the fifth and the sixth rounds were an absolute nightmare. He now had to face multiple attacks from different directions and he had to choose which ones to counter and which ones to dodge. This was because the power behind each spell wasn't the same. So, facing a powerful spell head on would waste a lot of magic power and stamina whereas dodging them would save his already depleting mana pool.

This required him to use his utmost concentration and judgment ability. Even with his powerful soul strength, he couldn't perfectly differentiate between each spell and read them wrong a few times. This was the reason he could barely stand at the end of the training session.

But the benefits he reaped from it was also considerable. He realized his inefficiencies and could now focus on the areas that required more work.

In the end, he concluded that he needed to work on his dynamic vision and learn to use spells more economically. He wasted a lot of magic power for the same power level as compared to the dummies. He could feel the mana fluctuations from them and eventually realized his mistake. By the end of last round, he got a little better but he was still far away from truly mastering this aspect of magic.

Done with this, he went back to his dorm. It was almost two in the morning as he jumped into bed. Since he already meditated just now, he directly fell asleep. He got up at around six and took out the time turner. He turned back time by six hours. So, he went back to the time when he was still inside the room of requirements and wouldn't be coming out for another two hours.

According to the rules, he wasn't allowed to meet his past self while using the time turner. He didn't know the consequences of this but still decided to be cautious and not experiment. As such, he decided to wait for the past him to finish his training and in the meantime, he would go to the library to read up on his books.

At around two o'clock, he went to the room of requirements since by that time his past self would have reached the dorm and gone to bed.

As he entered, he saw it was exactly like how it was previously so he went to the arena and activated the training module.

He had four hours left to train before the time limit of six hours on the time turner was over and he had to return to his own timeline.

This time, he decided to not use his wand in the first few rounds.

So, as he was transported back to the same mansion door, he put his wand back inside his robe and prepared himself to use wandless magic.

After exactly ten seconds, he saw his first enemy. It turned around the corner and faced Harry with its wand stretched out in front.

Harry raised his hand and started channeling a fire arrow spell through his mana network. As the spell reached his palms he let it out with a swoosh. The entire process was a little faster than when he uses his wand.

The fire arrow struck the dummy head on and blasted it into pieces. Harry ran past it and entered the central hall. It was connected to various rooms and hallways where there were many enemies waiting for him in ambush.

He knew that the position and order of ambushes would be different than the first time. So, he released his soul force and tried to sense his surroundings. He detected various mana signatures all around him. He chose the leftmost hallway. It had the least amount of enemies so he decided to start from there.

He put a 'Muffliato' spell around him to muffle the sound of his footsteps.

It was a really convenient spell invented by Snape. It could fill the ears of anyone in your vicinity with an unidentifiable buzzing sound. It was used to mix your sounds with the surroundings so that the listener couldn't differentiate between the two. It gave the opportunity to launch a pre-emptive strike.

He then locked on to the dummies moving inside the chosen hallway. His soul force was following each one of them and as such he could directly fire his attack without worrying about targeting his enemies. It was like a radar that was constantly updating the enemy position.

He readied his spell and rushed into the hallway. He timed it so that the dummies were concentrated together. He then raised his hand and chanted in his mind - "Fire Bullet Storm".

A huge ball of fire went out of his palm and shot off towards the dummies. The dummies were alerted to the presence of magic and they turned around. But by then the fireball had already reached them and started dividing into smaller versions of itself. As the spell reached the group of dummies, it had taken the form of a rain of fireballs. The smaller fireballs struck the dummies constantly and after five seconds the spell finally stopped.

Harry immediately ran off into a nearby room and started preparing a second 'Fire Bullet Storm'.

As he expected, there were many dummies rushing towards his location due to the commotion he caused. The entire hallway was filled with smoke and it provided him with some much-needed cover. He then waited for the new dummies to approach the center and fired the same spell a second time.

The outcome was the same. All the dummies that came to the center were blown off into pieces. Only a few still remained out of the range of the spell so Harry took care of them with a few quick fire arrows.

He then left this hallway and went to the next one. The same strategy was followed again and this time also he succeeded.

However, as he came out of the hallway to go towards another one a third time, he found that a lot of dummies were rushing out simultaneously towards him.

'This must be the self-adapting ability of the training system. It's impossible to follow a single strategy to clear out the entire floor' thought Harry as he saw the oncoming horde of dummies.

He then started running back to the hallway he just came from.

It still had some smoke cover so he could use it.

He prepared another spell but this time it was a water-based version of the 'Fire Bullet' Storm. He called it the 'Water Bullet Storm'.

It was like rain but the raindrops were a little bigger in size and their speed was almost ten times that of normal rain.

He fired off the spell the moment the first dummy entered the hallway.

This way, by the time the spell took its effect, the hallway would be completely blocked.

The raindrops struck the dummies like bullets and penetrated inside their bodies. Although they couldn't completely go through the dummies, they still broke the outer shell, disabling them.

This was a category of spells he created with all the elements.

So, as his 'Water Bullet Storm' spell ended, he shot an 'Earth Bullet Storm'.

This spell used the floor along with the debris spread around as bullets.

The broken pieces of wood worked as stones and got mixed with the floor to create a combined version of Earth and Wood Bullet Storm.

Ten seconds later, Harry was standing in the destroyed hallway filled with broken bits and pieces of dummies.

He was satisfied with the power of his spells. It was more than enough to cause some serious trouble to a group of normal wizards.

This AOE type spell category was one of the large-scale spells he thought of that could be used by multiple wizards combining their powers.

Imagine this spell on a battlefield fired by a hundred wizards.

It would literally cause a rain of blood.

Harry then went towards his next target. He didn't have time to waste admiring his own spells.

So, for the next four hours, he kept fighting the dummies and as the limit for his time turner arrived, he stopped fighting and came out of the arena.

He didn't take out his wand until now and had already gone through the fourth round successfully. He knew that it would be impossible for him to clear the fifth round wandless but he would still give it a try the next time.

Then, he spent the next few minutes analyzing his training and recovering from fatigue.

As the six hours were up, he came back to his original timeline.

This was the first time he used the time turner and he was truly impressed by its ingenuity. It was an amazing feat in magic as time was the most difficult element to control. He also tried out a few spells related to time and it was not easy to master. The Hour Reversal Charm used to create time turners was something that was almost impossible to be used by a single wizard. It required an insane amount of mana and the only way Harry could think of using the spell alone was to use a magical storage device of some kind. He would need to engrave the spell on an artifact and he would need a constant supply of pure time element mana to do so.

This was the reason ministry kept a very strict control over all the time turners. It was a pinnacle of enchantment and could cause almost catastrophic consequences if not used properly.

Harry decided to study this enchantment in order to better understand Time and maybe somehow use it normally like other elements.

"Well, all that for another time. Right now I need to go attend Herbology. Professor Sprout might not like me being late to her first class."

With this, he got up and walked off to get ready for his next class.