The Arena

"Moving on to the second question, it was caused by a treaty being broken. The Cherokee devils are giant carnivorous apes with hypnotic, occlumency and legilimency abilities. Similar to the wampus cats but much-much deadlier. They lived in the dense mountains where no humans can reach. But due to the constant expansion of human civilisation, they were being left with less and less territory. Finally, it reached a point where they waged war. Thousands of non-Maj died and a massive suppression act was announced by MECUSA.

It lasted several months, and the end result was the Cherokee devils signing the pact to avoid extinction and being relocated into the almost infinite forest and mountainous area of Ilvermorny. We even have one of them teaching the elective defence against Legilimency. The position was offered as a way for the clan to earn more resources and live better lives. Every party wins. That's what it comes down to. Anymore questions?" he asked.

I was surprised by his answer. Especially the second part. Defence against legilimency? That seemed incredibly important to simply be an elective.

"Why is Defence against legilimency an elective? Shouldn't something so important be made compulsory?" I asked.

Walter nodded but then shook his head, "in a perfect world, that would be the case, but learning occlumency is simply an arduous process involving many years of hard work. Something that depending on talent, may prove to even be fruitless. So it is an elective that is made available instead of simply discarding it since some might be able to succeed where most can't. any more questions?" he asked patiently and calmly.

I shook my head which prompted a satisfied nodded from the teacher.

I, on the other hand, was very interested in visiting this defence against legilimency professor. Simply because they could help alleviate the massive headache that was plaguing me. I had made zero progress with Occlumency for a while now. And no matter what I did, it wouldn't increase. It was incredibly frustrating. I assumed this to be my limit and therefore stopped wasting my time on it all together, but now, there might be some hope I could use my devour ability and copy the natural affinity they had with hypnosis, occlumency, and legilimency to boost myself again. It would also be saving time.

"Now that all the questions have been answered, I think it's time I talk about the thing that's on every one of your minds. The arena. For the sake of Thomas here, I'll be explaining how the arena works. So, please do be patient.

Without further ado, the arena is a place that allows students to earn points by challenging beasts. The school thought it was a good idea for honing the combative skills of young wizards attending the school. Since beasts tend to be much more unpredictable than humans, it serves as a good way to hone themselves.

But there is a catch here, the beasts are mere illusions, or better to say they are copies of their actual selves. Through the power of an ancient artifact found within an ancient Aztec temple 145 years ago, we have been able to do this. using that as the basis, the arena was formed.

It completely mimics the beast's identity, in essence, you are actually going up against the actual thing. But it is a sustainable way of going about it without endangering the species itself. This means that the students can challenge the arena whenever they want.

Now for the details of the arena itself. It is sectioned off by floors. You have the beginner stage for first and second years who, let's be frank, suck at combat and don't have much interest in the place but want to get some easy points every now and then." He said before pausing and looking at Jenna reproachfully.

"Don't look at me like that, I simply have no affinity for it. I prefer maps and adventure over battle." She said dismissively.

Walter sighed, "how many times must I tell you, adventure is full of dangers, if you can't defend yourself, the only thing you'll be exploring is your grave." He said seriously.

"Bah! I have brutes like Abby who lolly-gag over combat to protect me." She said casually. Abby was incensed at Jenna's words but was quickly diffused by the joint effort of Robert and Walter.

The Professor stopped trying and focused back on the introduction.

"As I was saying, the first floor is for people who want easy points. You can get 2 points a day for challenging the first floor. Not much since you're only going up against Doxies, double eared newts, giant dung beetles, gringwart goff's and so on and so forth. The point being their incredibly weak monsters that have no combat power. It is usually meant there to give the more timid people a boost in confidence. The limit of two points is so that people cannot abuse the system. A similar system is put in place for the entire arena. A maximum of 3 beasts can be challenged per floor and obtain points from. Beyond that will only serve as training.

But then there are also people like ROBERT, who completely disregard the idea of fighting because 'harming beasts unnecessarily is unethical'. His words exactly." Walter said in an unsatisfied manner. Clearly disappointed.

I looked over at Robert only to see him scoffing and turning his head to the side in defiance. There was a small chuckle in the class due to his actions. Walter sighed again and shook his head.

"Anyway, from the second floor up, you will begin to face challenges. It really depends on your level of ability though. Those who have weak combat abilities will find it relatively challenging on the second floor. Those who are like Percival, Abby and Fred will find it a walk in the park and will instantly try higher floors.

And finally, there is anomalies like Thomas here who could face dragons alone. Usually I would only have you facing dragons as a class after much-much training and studying. And even then, the strength of the dragon is lowered by half." He said seriously.

I raised my hand, "Sir, why is it so hard to take down a dragon?" I asked. Although I had a strong guess, I wanted to make sure.

"Because they have incredibly high magical resistance. Although they can still be hurt with physical spells that create objects or attack physically, they still resist it heavily. They are a nightmare for any wizard. That is why we have the entire class go up against one. Because they need large amounts of co-ordination at an almost flawless level to achieve it. Naturally, the more experienced wizards can make use of the biological weak points of a dragon, those being the mouth, nose and eyes to have an advantage. But winning even while adopting such tactics will be a strenuous task.

As for why I said that you would be able to do it alone, well, your performance yesterday is more than enough evidence to show that freezing the dragon completely is not something beyond the scope of your capabilities. Right?" he asked with a smile.

I simply nodded, neither arrogantly nor meekly, just a normal nod. I doubted I even had to cast a single spell though since I could control the dragon to kill itself due to having Drak and Achlys, REAL dragons around me giving me that ability. But it was something else I would have to test out.