Chapter 18      

Alex watched it all from the side lines, waiting for the right moment to interrupt them. He glanced at the high table where all the professors sat and saw professor McGonagall look at the crowd.

When she was about to get up, he rushed in and calmed the crowd down with a single announcement.

"Hey, stop that Malfoy. Anyways, I am here to collect all my boards and to show you all my new invention."

The whole crowd went quiet and handed over the boards and the small cuboids. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Professor McGonagall settle down back on her seat but she still had her gaze fixed on the crowd.

Alex looked at the crowd before taking out a small cube from his pocket.

"Can someone clear out all the food from this table please?" he asked and some of the kids in the crowd came out to help.

A few seconds later after he had enough empty space, he placed the cube on the table and tapped it thrice.

First, the cube got bigger and then, there were a few words written on it.

[Number of players?]

"Eight."

The cube shook for a seconds before transforming into a large circular board.

"Alright everyone, I'll pick two players from every house. We already have two from Gryffindor… Ron and Harry, come over here please."

Alex then looked at the Slytherin trio, "Any two of you, stand there."

"Hannah Abbot and Justin from Hufflepuff, Michael and Padma from Ravenclaw."

The eight of them took their places as Alex instructed and held the small pentagonal wooden token that was placed on the border as they were told to do.

"Sit down now and say, I am ready."

Harry was the first one to lose consciousness as he was the first one to mutter those words. A small version of Harry appeared on the board and unlike before, it also had the colors.

Alex looked at the others and said, "What are you all waiting for?"

The others hurriedly said the words and instantly felt their surroundings change.

Eight wooden puppets that looked almost like the original, stood on the large circular stadium.

They couldn't see nor hear anything from the outside.

Harry was pulled out of his trance when he felt himself flying. A small red bar at the top left corner of his sight reduced in length.

He instantly understood what it was and looked up to see the person who attacked him.

It was Malfoy as he had already expected. He turned to look at Goyle who was pinned on the ground by Ron who was blindly pummelling him with a flurry of punches.

Harry returned his attention to Malfoy and charged, only to see his opponent take out a wand. It took him less than a second to realise that it was already too late to find his wand, let alone attack.

Malfoy smirked before shouting, "Confundo!!"

Harry felt his sense of direction go haywire as he stumbled midway and fell face first as he cursed his luck.

He saw the length of the red bar reduce again and before he could stand back up, he saw that the red bar kept decreasing in length and that he was unable to get up as someone was stopping him from doing so.

The crowd outside saw Malfoy stamp on the back of Harry's head until the wooden puppet vanished.

Harry opened his eyes and saw Goyle sulking on the other side. Before he could focus on the fight inside, he saw Malfoy also open his eyes and felt a sense of happiness well up inside him.

"Argh! That filthy blood traitor!"

Inside the transparent dome that covered the board, Ron was obliterated by the other four that remained inside.

He looked proud to have eliminated both the Slytherins by himself and didn't really care about his elimination when Harry gave him a thumbs up.

The four of them from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw simply stared at each other as they didn't know any spell that could help them out in a fight. They weren't like Malfoy who had a lot of heritage and training before even coming to Hogwarts.

The rest was just fist fighting where Justin from Hufflepuff remained standing in the end. When everyone was out, Alex transformed the board back into a cube and shrunk it down before putting it in his pocket.

"That was just the first mode where you do not feel any amount of pain and you will have very less durability. There are two more modes where you can feel pain from 10 to 50 percent and the third mode where you can feel pain from 60 to 80 percent.

The durability of the wooden puppet will vary depending on the modes and the pain factor can be changed to anything you want from ten to eighty but do keep in mind that there are only three tiers of durability for the wooden puppets and that depends on the different pain levels.

Basically, 0% has lowest durability. 10 to 50 has a decent durability and the 60 to 80 has the height durability.

The fights between older students will be more exciting as they know quite a few spells that are useful for duelling unlike the first years like me who fought just now.

I recommend using the 10 percent pain infliction and gradually go up if you really want to feel the thrill of real duels."

After he finished explaining, he placed all the boards on the table.

"Now, I will begin the rentals. You all know the prices and these will be rented on a first come first serve basis. I only have eighteen boards currently so line up after the count of three. Cutting the line is not allowed so please act like a decent human being.

One… Two…. Anddd Three!"

The line was formed in a mere second and Alex began renting them all out. Not a single board for rented for a single day as everyone took it for a week, earning him a total of eighteen sickles.

"Alright then… time for the big boy."