Ch19. The first lesson of the School of Magic

Another year passed and the islands were marred with many high sturdy elaborate towers reaching for the sky.

The navy contained numerous warships filled to the brim with cannons and various magical weaponry. Needless to say, now the shipwrights could really proudly shout they were the best this world had to offer.

Seeing the success and influence the magic had on the populace, Irene decided to make a big step forward and after plentiful deliberation and debates with her bond-mates, the plan of making a School of Magic started.

The Magical School of Belserion.

Each student had to be above fifteen in age and sign various contracts stating they will not teach the numerous dangerous spells they learn there, nor will they spread the knowledge of magic to 'outsiders' without the approval of the authorities. Which basically meant the secretariat Yara created to help her govern these matters.

Their career path then diverged from joining army slash pirates slash spy network slash merchants that Irene planned to send all around the world, help in developing the magic, various government positions, numerous magic-requiring jobs, and so on... their prospects were incredible. Irene made sure of that since she wanted the society of Thomas's lands to be semi-dependent on magic and strive to improve it.

Thomas and Bellatrix stood opposite each other on the training grounds of the said newly constructed school that resembled a castle to satisfy Bella's sentiment. They were about to duel to give the students a better perspective of what it means to wield magic.

Irene calmly sat in the stands among the students as she focused on feeding the barriers around the training ground a sizable amount of her magic, just in case. She did not want to think about what would happen if her loved ones spells accidentally breached the shields because she slacked off. They, after all, destroyed various mountains she had to rebuild with her magic after their spars and was very aware of the destruction that was to shortly occur. No matter if both Thomas and Bella would significantly hold back to not completely spook the first batch of the students.

"Ready Tommy?" Bella teased with a haughty tone and cocky seductive grin as she leaned forward, showing him her cleavage.

"Sure Bella." Thomas smirked in amusement and fastened special, black, silky gloves with a pentagram on their upper side on his hands. Despite the delicate appearance of the gloves, they were even more dangerous and durable than Targaryen steel and definitely packed a lot more enchantments than said steel.

Irene sent sparks into the air signaling the start of the match.

Bella's eyes quickly sparked dangerously as Thomas suddenly found himself facing two massive snakes made of sharp jagged rocks, flying straight at him with open maws, one from the right and the other from his left side.

He sighed calmly in exasperation at her showy Transfiguration opener as he flared his magic, affecting the weight of the snakes when they reached ten meters range from him. The massive rocky constructs veered slightly to the right and left respectively and sailed right past him, missing his body by three meters on their respective side as they harmlessly impacted the ground, unable to move due to its new weight. Thomas found himself standing surrounded by unmoving long rocky bodies of these snakes, staring at Bella in front of him.

"Bella," Thomas sighed in exasperation. "Too flashy." He deadpanned when he suddenly got a bad premonition as he saw her mile-wide smirk.

He quickly understood what she aimed for when the remaining magic in the previously animated transfigured snakes shifted, multiple wolf-like rocky creatures started appearing all around him, completely surrounding him. He groaned as he saw their hideous appearance caused by incredibly sharp spiky rocks marring the bodies of these creatures.

They pounced on Thomas as he decided that nope, he ain't gonna play by Bella's terms and jumped upwards, lowering his weight to be feather-like as he pulled himself up with the gravity, instantly reaching high enough the transfigured creatures couldn't reach him.

In retrospect, that might not have been such a bright idea as he yet again saw another rocky snake flying right into his face and barely managed to adjust his weight and the gravity to somersault above it, making it miss him by an inch.

Before he could rejoice, he was greeted by a disgusting amount of stunners, banishers, and magic disrupting spells courtesy of cackling Bella as she enjoyed the game of chase in the air covering it with her less deadly spell.

Thomas flailed, swung, and twisted his body in the air, barely dodging the spells. In the first breather he got, he controlled the pull of gravity on his body to the side, sending it flying through the air at speed barely visible with the human eye. As his form neared the ground a hundred meters away from Bella and her creatures, he willed his body to halt, his feet harmlessly impacting the ground, barely bending his knees to mitigate the remaining force of his fall. He instantly started saturating the ground around himself with his own magic, preventing Bella from transfiguring it into creatures, cornering him.

He heard the astonished gasps from the audience and suddenly felt immensely awkward, knowing that two years prior he was among those gullible enough to be astonished by these spells.

He shuddered remembering Bella's spar with Irene where she used her entire repertoire of lethal dark arts and covered her transfigured creatures in all manners of corrosive curses, acidic liquids, poisons, and dark arts residue, painting the rocky monsters in a palette of sickly, dangerous colors where one touch, no matter how glancing, could be fatal.

No, the way she fought now was nothing but a show for those too new to realize they were just playing around.

Yet another mass of jagged rocks flew at Thomas with a widely opened jaw as he found it tedious and repetitive, despite the still astonished exclamations of their audience. He flexed his gravity and weight control to its maximum, making the huge flying snake crash down, its body crumbling, breaking down into small candy-sized bits due to the crushing force his two magics exerted on it. Needless to say, that construct ceased to be dangerous when any further transfiguration wouldn't be able to produce anything threatening.

It was now his time for the offensive and Bella knew it. She surrounded her body with her puppets as she created bigger, more dangerous ones all around the field under her influence while the smaller ones charged Thomas to the territory saturated with his magic.

Thomas grinned and stomped his feet on the ground, using his most recently learned magic, Vibration magic. Vibrations spread through the ground around him, rushing in Bella's direction as they progressively built their force by each meter they traveled. Not unlike a tsunami, the ground was quiet until the spell left the edge of Thomas's territory when suddenly the ground snapped up, lifting itself twenty meters into the air and came crashing on Bella's head.

Bella, with a vicious snarl, frenziedly snapped her wand from side to side as she swished, weaved her transfiguration. The wave of earth parted, separating into two as it was about to impact the ground. When the dust cleared, Bella was standing in her starting spot in pristine condition with a sullen frown, debris and piles of earth and rocks all around her as every single of her transfigured was crushed to its untimely demise.

All of sudden, her eyes widened, her finger quickly twitched, raising a sandy, dusty shield from the earth on her right side as not a second after it was created, Thomas's fist impacted it, crushing it.

Bella sprung into action and leaped away from Thomas using the fact he is in an area filled with her magic to create more creatures, sending them at him. She was unable to create earth spikes right under him because he was flooding his immediate surroundings with his own magic. Bella was cursing the moment he found out how to counter her transfiguration as she instead created iron spears in front of her, banishing them at him at breakneck speeds.

Thomas weaved through the spears flying at him, not finding any reason to pay them more attention as he punched, kicked, or magically crushed the creatures springing at him. With every touch, his Vibration Magic ripped them apart from inside alongside Bella's magic effect on them, making it impossible for her to reform them.

This had a massive influence on the fight since her fighting style was mostly geared towards the recreation of her disabled creatures when the opponent stops paying them attention or creating nasty traps out of them.

Thomas leaped closer to Bellatrix, pressuring her with his magic as he raised the gravity on her while raising the weight of her nimble body. The effect was however minimal as she was used to training her body under his magic and knew how to flex her own magic to diminish his hold on her.

Thomas was trying to hit her with a brutal flurry of kicks and punches as she always created yet another earth shield when he was close enough, shielded with a creature, or even sent a Bombarda in between them sending herself flying backward from the impact only to prevent him touching her.

Bellatrix was covered in sweat and dust as she again ducked a kick from Thomas aimed at her shoulder. She thanked her natural agility because right now it was the only thing saving her from losing. With a sharp twist, her body spun to the right as spike raised, flying through the spot her body was located just a second ago, aiming at Thomas's feet as he had no other chance but to jump to the left, creating a gap between them. Bellatrix used this gap to create a huge rocky hand behind herself that promptly grasped her around her waist and threw her away from Thomas while she continued creating iron spears and hurling them at Thomas, preventing him from approaching.

She was aware that one, no matter how gentle, tap would disable her. His Vibration Magic was not good only for sending her into orgasmic bliss but it was also a terror in hand-to-hand. While her body was too strong for the tap to be considered lethal, Thomas would be still able to rupture her less important organs and muscles, crippling her body. She had to do everything in her power to not let him get closer. She continuously reminded herself... not even one tap!

Thomas sidestepped yet another spear as he made three more miss him with his gravity control as a whistle went off, signaling the time ran out.

The cracks and crumbled rocks of various sizes covered the battlefield as it stilled only to boom in deafening applause a second later. The audience seemed to be quite excited, Thomas mused.

He approached panting Bella who was bent forward, her hands supporting herself on her knees, and patted her head.

"You were marvelous." He affectionately whispered, earning himself a grateful but tired smile.

"I lost." Her smile faltered slightly but her eyes still happily devoured the concern gushing from Thomas through the bond.

"No, you did not." He hugged her, ignoring the wolfish whistles. "You were marvelous, Bella. You had to limit yourself because your normal fighting style is too lethal for a mere show. You yourself know best that if you coated the creatures in your 'Bellatrix Trademark Corrosive Dark Arts' it would be a bloody fight."

"You are not a front-line fighter yet you had to fight against someone preferring close-range while having to limit yourself and be in the enclosed arena without any chance to make me chase you all around the islands." Thomas pecked her on the lips and cooed. "I am proud of you."

In the stands, Irene contently observed the students, remembering those that looked thoughtful. For those who understood the meaning of this show were the most probable to become strong themselves.