Challenge accepted...

[The Magus of Flowers says that he can't understand this no matter how many times he sees it.]

"I win." Bell declared, revealing his cards and taking all the gold he won.

That's right, he played poker again! But while others were playing poker, he played blackjack but somehow won despite that. 

His ability to win poker games while playing completely different games was amazing and definitely abnormal, but he ain't gonna complain.

"That's it! I'm not playing with you anymore!" A guy said and threw his hands in the air. He played 3 games with Bell and he still didn't understand how the boy won despite intently staring at him.

"Fair." Bell shrugged "I'm done playing anyway. See ya later guys!" Leaving the group, Bell walked toward Rivira hoping to spend his newly acquired gold on something interesting.

There wasn't anything to do ever since the second-class and first-class adventurers of the Loki familia went into the deeper floors. There was this Palum girl that approached him once and said some gibberish before running away, but Bell never saw her again after that.

He still isn't sure if she tried to confess to him or if she wanted something else.

Other than that he occasionally saw elves taking glances at him while others glared at him. There was even one that bowed his head to him as he passed by.

This, of course, was the result of his reputation as the "Teacher of Lady Riveria".  From what Bell learned, Riveria is a genius that needed only books to learn magic, and always embarrassed every teacher that tried to tutor her in the arcane arts.

In other words, she got a great reputation that every elf is proud of. Yes, that's right, the elven race is proud of the talent that their princess possesses. And ever since she so lively asked to teach her the Rasengan once she witness it against his spar with Aki, not to mention that she TOUCHED HIM which is a big deal for elves, rumors spread like wildfire! And apparently, every elf that wasn't a dark elf was questioning Bell's ability to teach their princess.

Some even felt their pride being wounded at the thought that a mere human child is teaching their genius princess magic.

…elves and their pride, am I right?

Well, at least some accept Riveria's judgment since there was that one elf that bowed his head to him as I mentioned before. It's a shame that they are a minority tho.

"Swords! Swords, shields, and anything else you need!"

"Magic stones for cheap prices, come and get them!"

"Whoever wins a wrestling match against me will get 100 gold coins! Come and test your might!"

Rivira is as lively as always. Or at least, the merchant district was.

People were shouting about their products, some even performed a simple demonstration, while others decided to keep quiet and interact only when the customer approached them.

Bell approached a couple of stands where people sold armor pieces. After he sold his one when he was drunk he bought plain-looking Brown shoes, black pants, and a white shirt. The shirt was cool, it was one of those shirts with a hood on it.

Call nim edgy If you want, he likes hoods and he will wear them If he has the occasion.

He sighed quietly, none of the armor pieces sold in the merchant district were to his liking. Some would say that he isn't in a position to be picky and that it's hypocritical of him to act this way when he is the one that called out Lefiya on the poor choice of clothing she took when entering the dungeon.

Well, guess he is a hypocrite.

'Nothing interesting…ill just go train fire magic.' With that thought, Bell excited Rivira and made his way toward an area clear of trees. Nothing but grass all around him, a perfect place to practice fire magic without worrying about causing a major fire.

"Huh?" Bell exclaimed as he saw someone staring at him a little far away from him, but still visible because of the flat field. "I should figure out a radar spell or something familiar." He mumbled once he realized that he had no idea that he was possibly fallowed and didn't know about it.

Bell positioned himself in a way that would allow him to keep the unknown person in his line of sight, he doesn't know if the person is hostile after all. Taking out the notebook of the fire mage that he bought some time ago, Bell started practicing.

The first couple of pages were filled with easy spells like {Fire Bolt}, {Fire Stream} etc, and the author tried to modify them to make them stronger, but his solution was simply to change the chant in a way that would cause his magic to keep being pushed into part of a fire spell.

And while it worked, it also consumed a lot of mind.

It was not until he wrote about a "colleague" telling him that burning the air to the fire allowed it to be stronger. After that, he changed the Aria for the spells to work around that method.

"So people figured out that fire needs air to burn?"  Bell mumbled. This may be in some parts a medieval fantasy world, but there were a couple of things here and there that didn't fit.

Like lamps or more specifically, lightbulbs (powered with magic of course). This world has even plastic! Fucking plastic containers and other plastic products. The best part about this? The plastic was biodegradable…

How did people achieve this? Simple.

Gods.

It was a bit of knowledge that the Gods shared with mortals.

"Although, to be more specific, fire needs oxygen… so if I change the part where it says air into oxygen…" holding the notebook in one hand, Bell raised his free hand and began to chant the spell.

"O' Flames, devour Oxygen and strike my foes." He said while pushing his magic into the words and the magic circle for the {Fire Bolt} spell that materialized in his mind. 

A bright blue flame came to life and formed in a roughly circular shape before it shot out into the distance and caused an explosion that no normal {Fire Bolt} should cause.

Bell hissed and looked at his hand. 

His palm was burned, thankfully it was nothing serious. 

This was the first time when something like this happened.

He shot {Fire Bolts} before and didn't get burned nor even felt the heat of the flames that he conjured.

'So why did this happen?' Bell questioned as he gazed at his burned palm, trying to understand what was different. Was it simply because the flames were more powerful than normal?

"You dare!" Someone shouted, "You burn yourself with an apprentice-level spell and dare call yourself Lady Riveria's teacher!?" The person that was previously observing Bell now was furiously approaching him with a scowl on his face. 

Bell blinked.

"I knew it, you are a fraud! You are nothing more than an inferior human who is leeching off our lady!" The male elf accused while pointing his finger at the white-haired boy. He spoke with such fury that spit flew out of his mouth with every word that left his lips.

'Is this actually happening? Am I having the first encounter with one of Riveria's simps?' Bell thought.

"You are to resign from your role as a teacher and bow down to her in hopes of forgiveness!" The elf demanded while glaring.

"That depends on her, not me. If she doesn't want me to teach her anymore then that's that. If not then I will keep doing it." Bell smirked and crossed his arms.

At this point, the elf was filled with such fury that veins were visible on his face, and his skin gained a hot red color. The only thing that was missing was steam escaping his ears.

"You little-!" Grabbing Bell by the collar of his shirt, he was about to spew more hate-filled words but was cut off by a fist smashing into his perfect elven face causing him to lose his footing and land on his ass.

"Don't touch me." Bell warned with a dangerous edge to his voice. "If you have a problem then notify Riveria of what you saw and let her decide what to do with me." Closing the notebook and putting it in his shoulder bag, Bell started to walk away.

"It's 'Lady Riveria' you damn peasant…" The elf whispered to himself while holding his nose. "Stop." He said, his voice not reaching Bell who was already a small distance away. "STOP! I CHALLENGE YOU TO A MAGE'S DUEL!"

Bell froze mid-step, a dangerous smile adoring his face one his brain processed what the elf said.

"Okay. Let's do it."

=========

damn...Bell is gonna kill that dude, huh?