Chapter 23: Basic Training (2) (Edited)

After Shanna finished her "Golden Snitch Training," the two siblings headed to the second training room.

This second room was the same size as the previous one but had many facilities inside. Some targets, round stones, and other objects were used for practicing spells and evaluating their power. However, what stood out in this room were the magical statues. There were five different types of magical statues: soldiers with shields, soldiers with spears, soldiers with bows, cavalry, and gargoyles. Each type represented a different attack style, whether melee, ranged, assault, or aerial attacks, and there were twenty sets in total.

"Shanna, why don't you start first? Remember not to rush into the attack, wait for the right moment and build up power," Bell told his sister.

"Understood!"

Once the house-elves had cast their protective spells, Shanna activated a set of statues.

The eyes of the statues lit up in red, and before reaching the center of the training field, they immediately started attacking. The shields protected the soldiers with spears as they approached Shanna, the archers kept their distance from the shields, ready to provide support at any moment, and shot arrows at Shanna. The cavalry moved around Shanna, preparing to charge, while the gargoyles flew through the air and attacked as soon as they saw an opportunity amidst the crossfire of archers and cavalry.

As usual, Shanna first protected herself with a Shield Charm and, while deflecting the arrows shot at her, prevented the soldiers with shields and soldiers with spears from getting close, all the while keeping an eye on the cavalry and gargoyles.

Soon, the cavalry charged towards her. Shanna tried to create an obstacle on the ground to interrupt their charge, but the cavalry jumped over the obstacle and continued attacking. Shanna attempted to create a crater in the ground to trap the cavalry, but before she could do so, the archers and gargoyles attacked.

In the end, Shanna had to give up on attacking the cavalry. She leaped backward to dodge the arrows, simultaneously casting a spell that brought down the gargoyles.

However, these statues had been treated with protective enchantments and had the ability to repair themselves, making it challenging for Shanna to break their cores with the power of her spells.

Bell watched attentively as Shanna fought.

There was no doubt that Shanna's level already far exceeded that of other wizards her age, and if an adult wizard were to lower their guard or underestimate Shanna, they could be defeated by her. Although Bell had never explicitly told Shanna this, he thought the current situation was perfect. He had never seen Shanna become arrogant or satisfied with herself, nor had he noticed her effort diminishing.

Shanna had always considered her brother her role model and didn't truly know how she compared to other wizards her age. She often lamented her clumsiness. Whether her frustration was genuine or just an attempt to seek comfort from her brother, only she knew.

Spell flashes constantly flickered in the training field: fire, hurricanes, lightning, ice. Different elements moved across the field, creating powerful explosions that shook the training field's ground.

Perhaps due to the snowball fights they used to play as children, Shanna was particularly adept at using ice magic for both offense and defense. However, unfortunately, the cold and slowing effects of ice had no impact on the insensate statues. Additionally, the ice arrows she could instantly shoot weren't strong enough to break the statues. Therefore, Shanna had to resort to more explosive attacks to try to destroy them.

The battle continued for about 15 minutes, during which Shanna used hidden traps to knock the cavalry off their horses. Then, she injected a large amount of magic into a shield spell and withstood the attacks from archers and gargoyles. Finally, Shanna seized an opportunity to use a tornado and disable the shield-bearer before destroying the archer.

However, that was as far as she could go. After a prolonged battle, Shanna had very little magic left, and the shield-bearers and spearmen couldn't get close to her. It made no sense to continue.

"Brother, I still can't defeat a set of statues," Shanna said with some sadness after the training. Although this was expected, she still hoped to impress her brother.

Bell consoled her with a smile. "You're very close. You just need to make your attacks a bit stronger to inflict effective damage on the statues. When you do, you'll be able to take on three sets at once."

With that, Bell entered the training field and activated ten sets of statues. Fifty statues advanced toward him with coordinated steps, their presence intimidating enough to make an ordinary person collapse on the ground.

The way he fought against ten sets of statues was completely different from when he fought against just one. If one set of statues was like an expedition of adventurers, then ten sets of statues were like a small war. Arrows rained constantly, riders charged, and gargoyles filled the sky.

A wall of earth suddenly rose, blocking the arrows and the view of the riders. Bell appeared abruptly in the air above the riders, casting a powerful explosive spell in the middle of their formation and destroying two of them.

The gargoyles took the opportunity to approach, but Bell created a tornado around himself, not only blocking the gargoyles' attacks but also deflecting the arrows shot at him.

Compared to Shanna, Bell's flight speed with his enchanted shoes was much higher. Despite the statues' attempts to catch him, he always managed to escape at critical moments. Even if he couldn't escape, he had the ability to use Apparition. So his figure appeared and disappeared in the field, one moment he was in the air fighting against the gargoyles, and the next moment, he was standing on the head of a shield-bearer, crushing it in a single blow.

The riders were the first to fall, all of them shattered into pieces by Bell. Then, the other four categories of statues were defeated one after another, and after 20 minutes, only 20 statues remained on the battlefield.

Bell seized the opportunity of having a clearer field and accumulated a powerful flow of magic, casting a large-scale transformation spell. The earth sprouted from the ground, turned into solid rocks, and combined to form a stone giant.

The stone giant knocked down one by one the remaining statues, and finally, before Bell exhausted his magic, it toppled all the magical statues.

"Brother, you're amazing!" Shanna stood up excitedly and applauded loudly.

The house-elves began cleaning the battlefield, taking care of repairing the statues and analyzing the battle situation. They updated the combat programs of the magical statues to ensure they continued to exert pressure on Bell and provide a constant challenge for his training.

To achieve this, Bell had also assigned the house-elves the task of learning about spells, and he often discussed combat strategies with them himself.