Chapter 109 Beating the Pride Away

Still in a somewhat battle ready state of mind, Azi was taken off guard by the sudden volley of fireballs coming at him. He quickly made use of one of the tools he had created for the blacksmith's meeting but didn't get a chance to use it since it was more effective as a tool against magic attacks than it was with monsters.

Reaching behind his back, Azi took out a pair of black daggers from the metal sheaths attached to his toolbelt. These blades had slots in the pommel of the hilt and they were there for the input of blood steel squares.

With the blood steel already loaded, he pushed magic energy into the handles of the daggers to activate the dagger's runic engravings that were written along the blades' edge.

With quick slashes, Azi drew sharp lines in the air as he cut the balls of fire in quick succession while evading the others by a hair's breadth. The obese he slashed began to break apart into red motes of light that dissipated throughout the air.

"NO WAY!!!"

Touma's students were utterly shocked by his display of dispeling their fireballs with physical force. They had no idea how Azi was able to pull off such a feat and their scholarly minds piqued, but before they could ask Azi prompted a question.

"Are they also part of the sparring session?"

Shizu gave Touma a look and he gave a small nod to her which promptly made his student go pale in the face.

"Yeah! Go nuts but be sure not to injure them too much. These guys bruise easily." Affirmed Shizu.

"NO! Wait! I'm not a part of this. Master Touma! PLEASE!!"

His students promptly got on their knees and began to beg their teacher to let them off the hook for their actions but while Touma came across as a nice guy he was more interested in seeing what Azi's new magic tools could do. So with an intimidating smile that sent a foreboding sense of doom down his student's spine, he looked at them with sparkles in his eyes.

"Anyone who does not finish what they started will no longer be my student. Now! I believe you have a lesson to learn."

The students hesitated for a moment, but when they saw Touma's creepy smile of intrigue they knew they had no chance of getting their teacher on their side. After a collective sigh, they then began to begrudgingly shuffle onto the stone platform and took up a formation of four groups of five that were spread out as a way to delay Azi as they needed time to cast their magic.

After letting his opponents settle, Azi quickly charged at the first group of five that was directly in front of him. The student's strategy was the proper one to employ as the first group did not get a chance to cast a spell and were thoroughly assailed by his magic tethers that wrapped around them and promptly threw them out of bounds.

Azi could tell from his short encounter with the group that Touma's students did not have any kind of formal close combat training. When compared to Touma, they were like baby birds as Touma could at least fend off monsters by using his staff.

After making the comparison and seeing their shortcomings, he sensed the accumulation of magic at his right and left. He knew what was coming and braced himself.

"We got you now you muscle head! Take this!!"

The students cried out the best battle cry they could muster and promptly fired off a volley of spells. These were much faster and powerful than the initial volley as the first were done in simple jest to harass Azi as their output were much lower than.

With assured grins, the students thought that Azi was the same as Shizu's soldiers and wanted to make him understand his place in the hierarchy of the army, which was beneath them to serve as the useful cannon fodder in war.

Not able to dodge or cut down the numerous spells with his daggers since he had not reloaded them with blood steel, Azi quickly grabbed a couple of blood steel squares into his palms and gripped them as he crossed his arms in front of him in a defensive stance. Letting his magic tethers from his palms connect to the blood steel, Azi felt a small flow of magic energy rush into him.

This allowed him to cast a simple spell in quick succession as the needed magic was already flowing and being supplied to his whole body. This broke from the norm of thaumaturgy as absorbing magic into one's body was difficult and painful. But if one could do so, the casting of spells would be streamlined as the needed time to allow the collection of internal magic energy would be shortened.

With the necessary energy flowing into his body, he casted a barrier spell that covered his body for a few seconds as all the spells began to barrage him.

From the student's perspective, an explosion rang out where Azi stood and they thought that they had won. Initially they worried that they might have gone overboard as the amount of magic energy they each used was enough to destroy a small house.

This thought faded as their pride began to show as shit eating grins formed on their faces and they started to pat each other on the back.

"DON'T GET COCKY. YOU BRATS! TAKE A CLOSER LOOK!" Yelled Touma.

Surprised by their teacher's harsh words, the students abruptly stopped their prideful actions and casted investigation magic on their eyes. Gazing into the smoking cloud surrounding where Azi was standing, they saw a blue blob which prompted them to start casting another spell as they knew that this meant that Azi was not down for the count.

Unfortunately, two of the groups didn't get a chance to cast their spells as they were soon wrapped in numerous magic tethers that glowed white. In their panic and pride, they had not noticed the magic tethers that were using the smoke as cover to circle around them to flank the two groups of five that were at Azi's 2 o'clock and at his 10 o'clock.

Using the blood steel square to supply the creation of his magic tethers and the needed energy to move them that far, Azi had used the remaining blood steel he had left on his toolbelt.

With only one group of five remaining at his 12 o'clock, Azi dashed forward as he began to conjure a small fireball the size of matchstick into his right palm. He then absorbed it into his body which made his right arm's veins glow a red hue.

The final group attempted to slow Azi down and all five of them casted a binding spell that they dearly prayed to work in pinning him to the ground. This spell was similar to what Touma used on the captured prisoners but this was the unhinged version as it was casted by five panicking mages at once.

The student's staves glowed a colorless light that then shot out in an invisible trail of gray that they could only see. All five students hit Azi with their binding spell and they held their breaths in hope that it was enough to stop him from moving since they feared the amount of brute strength he really had.

For a moment, Azi's pace slowed and soon stopped dead in his tracks. To Azi, the binding spell felt exactly how Touma had described it to him. He felt slow, weighted down, and sluggish as each step was hard for him to make as it felt as if he was walking through a thick mud that clung to his legs like glue.

Still attempting to move, Azi was not one to give up so easily. Straining his body, he began to emit his internal magic energy through his veins and they began to glow white. Sensing and seeing the abundant white magic energy propagating through Azi's whole body, the students intensified the power of the binding spell which promptly made Azi fall to his knees. Yet, even still Azi crawled forward.

"How the hell can he still move!"

"Who cares! Just focus on empowering the binding!"

The student's were shocked by how Azi could still somewhat move and this soon turned to fear as they saw the red hue of his right arm which they knew meant he was powering up one of those fireball infused punches.

Initially, they sneered at the barbaric way he used magic but they were more occupied with their fear of ending up like the tree Azi had brutally destroyed.

Now unable to make any definable progress forward, Azi thought of a way to get out of this situation. Remembering that he still had the absorbed fire magic in his right arm and recalling what he did with Shizu's weapon in the past, he placed his right palm on the ground and focused on redirecting the energy.

A thin line of red traveled from where Azi was keeled over and made its way to where the remaining group of students were standing. Straining themselves in fear as their staves glowed brightly, they did not see or have the sense of mind to check their surroundings.

This played into Azi's advantage as it let him conjure a spell that he would not usually use without his magic tools.

*Kaboom*

Ringing out in vengeance of what was once done to him, Azi let loose a remote fireball that blasted out from the floor in front of the five students. This sent them flying out of bounds and released Azi from the binding spell since the students had lost their focus.

Getting up, Azi then looked at Shizu and Touma. They motioned their heads side to side and Azi thought to himself. 'This is going to be a long day.'

The sparring continued into the early evening and after another long bout, Azi again looked to Shizu and Touma.

"Phew, Do you think that was enough, Shizu? How about you, Touma?" Ask Azi as he wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

Surveying his surroundings, he saw the results of his sparring matches as numerous mages and soldiers were panting out of breath while some were lying face down on the ground as if they were corpses.

After Azi had defeated Touma's student, Shizu suggested that they continue the sparring match as they had plenty of time today. Her soldier's were somewhat up to the task as they wanted a rematch.

This unfortunately caused Touma to agree which in turn had him thoroughly "coax" his students into joining in as well.

The subsequent matches were more tame than the first as they began to fight one on one, but this became somewhat boring. So to spice it up like the first match, Azi was facing off groups of 10 people at once. They also made Shizu's soldier's fight alongside Touma's students which was difficult for them as they still held their prejudices against each other.

Over time, after being beaten back by Azi, they learned to better coordinate their attacks and the taunting Azi gave acted as good motivation for them.

While the situation was unfair for Azi, who complained that he was going to die from magic energy exhaustion at this rate, he persuaded Shizu and Touma to agree that his opponents could only use hand to hand combat skills and basic magic that would not seriously injure anyone.

When the groups began to work together more, Azi at first began to lose a few times as he didn't have any more blood steel to fuel what Shizu called his bag of tricks. While the soldiers and the students were learning how to work together, Azi got better at avoiding everyone as he started to rely less on his reinforcement magic and picked up on how to monitor the movements of more than one person.

Taking a look at himself, he saw that he was less roughed up than the others but to his begrudgement Azi had to thank himself mentally for how short and small he is when compared to everyone else who were at least a head or more taller than him.