Chapter 4: Strength from loss

Two days after the bully incident Trip started to find shadows watching him. At first he was confused, but eventually he realised the bullies were stalking him. It seemed they were still confused by how Trip had managed to knock them out almost instantly. Trip realised that he could not rely on water magic to protect himself, unless if he was willing to have everyone know he was a magical genius. Thus he spent a lot of time in his room doing physical training. He would do push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, weight training, anything which could allow him to get stronger quick. He would also run every day.

Trip was not afraid of pushing his body to the limits. The training which he made himself endure was torturous, as an 8 year old child who was still developing it was incredibly difficult to lift weights, but his work was paying off. After only a couple of days of torturous training he was clearly developing muscle mass and he became mentally stronger as well. He was always very mentally strong, but he never really experienced much pain. Trip had always locked himself away from the rest of the world; there were never any opportunities to get hurt, and through training he had developed a higher pain threshold and he became more confident walking around, knowing that he now had a way to defend himself, which didn’t involve revealing any secrets he didn’t want revealed.

This was how Trip felt, but he didn’t realise that he was being quite naïve. He was inexperienced with fighting, so even if he had the strength, if he did not know how to use it he would clearly lose. Unfortunately he would learn this the hard way.

Around 2 weeks after he began his strength training he was walking outside in a fairly unpopulated school area. The bullies saw

Trip being alone with no one else around, they had not seen how he was special in any way over the last 2 weeks, so they saw the previous incident as a fluke, and that it was now safe to start their revenge.

8 older children appeared in front of Trip, they all seemed around the age of 10 to 12. Trip immediately recognised that these were bullies searching for revenge. At first he was at a loss, after all seeing 8 older children wanting to beat you up was rather terrifying, but he was confident in his abilities. There were no words exchanged, just fists. He realised that in order to gain the advantage he would have to hit first. He quickly hit one of bullies and immediately knocked him out. While Trip’s strength did shock the bullies, it was nothing crazy, and they were not all inexperienced fighters like the one who had been knocked out. One of the older ones immediately attacked him with a punch to the solar plexus. Trip was shocked and was completely winded. His shock was naturally taken advantage of, as the 7 remaining bullies simultaneously attacked him. Trip was kicked down to the ground and beaten for hours. Only after he was covered in injuries did they leave. Leaving him lying there in pain.

Trip pathetically dragged himself back to his dorm room. The entire time he was thinking ‘Why? How? I trained so hard, I should be stronger than them! So why?’. Only after healing himself with Water Healing and critically thinking about what happened did he realise his mistake.

‘Strength does not display skill.’ Trip thought ‘Any idiot can lift a couple of weights and endure some pain, but skill… skill is much more profound. To know where to hit, how to dodge, how to take a hit… That is skill, and with skill can one gain a much more profound strength than one can gain by merely gaining muscle.’

He was excited again. He realised his mistake and found a solution. The next day after school he went to the library and asked the librarian if they had any book about fighting.

The librarian looked at Trip for a second and said “Um kid, we’re a magic school. Not a warrior school.”

Trip seemed confused for a while, and then asked “What’s a warrior school?”

The librarian shook his head in disappointment and replied “If a child has undergone Hyuru and has been found to have no talent for magic then they can go to a warrior school, where they learn to become either soldiers or mercenaries.”

Trip was rather disappointed; he only wanted a book to learn how to fight, when suddenly an idea popped into his head “Sir! If you have no fighting books, then do you have any books on human biology?”

The librarian merely pointed to the direction of the books on human biology and went back to reading his book.

Trip spent days learning about the human body. He decided to delay his studies into ice, and since none of the books he wanted arrived yet, he could put his full attention towards this. Trip’s extensive studying mixed with his natural intellect meant that he was able to memorise entire books on human biology in only a couple of days.

Trip’s aim with reading human biology books was in order to understand where the human body is strong and where it is weak. This is so that he would learn where to hit the target. While Trip could develop a seemingly perfect method this way theoretically he still realised that he needed actual fighting experience in order to be able to develop any fighting styles and techniques. He pondered for a while and realised that he really did not want to be caught in a painful fight like he was last time, so instead he thought of another idea. Trip could of course train with Alex.

During this time Alex was quite annoyed. Trip was supposed to be his friend, but Alex only saw him during class, so of course Alex was excited when Trip asked him to help him practice. What Alex didn’t know was that it meant that he would be used as a human punching bag for several days. Technically Trip would fight Alex, so Alex would be allowed to hit back, but in actuality Alex only got one good punch in during the entire experience, and that was just because Trip felt bad for him. Despite how painful the process was for Alex, he did actually learn how to handle himself in a fight. This was of course planned by Trip. If Alex learned how to fight he wouldn’t be bullied, so he acted almost as a tutor for Alex in both magic and in fighting.

Several days passed and the boys had both grown significantly. Trip felt happier knowing that Alex would be able to handle himself in a fight now, so if Alex was ever bullied he could prove that he was no pushover. Trip did not feel a need for revenge, but he did feel safer knowing that if the bullies ever tried to bully him again he would be able to fight back and win quite easily.

During this time Trip and Alex became quite famous at the Wearhearst Elementary School of Magic. To other children Trip and Alex were quite strange. They were always so close, yet they were always so serious. The other children had never seen Trip or Alex play together and they rarely even smiled. People were almost afraid to go talk to them, as they seemed so intense all the time. There were rumours at school that they were constantly training, and that they were really strong.

Trip and Alex did not notice this of course, they did not pay attention to anyone other than themselves. The rumours were noticed by the bullies however. For them to be told that these little kids were really strong was a joke, after all Trip was beat up by the bullies and Alex would have been too if it wasn’t for Trip helping. The bullies were furious and due to their pride there was no way they would just sit and accept the fact that they were weaker than Alex and Trip.

The bullies decided to have a public fight with them. While Wearhearst was a school which did not permit fighting, it was alright as long as it was stated as a duel. To be fair the match would have to be a 2 vs 2 match. Alex and Trip did not even know of the fight until an hour before it happened. Trip knew he would be ridiculed if he rejected the fight. It was only a 2 vs 2 match anyway it should only take a couple seconds for him to win. Therefore Trip and Alex accepted the fight.

When Trip and Alex arrived at the fighting location they were shocked. There were hundreds of children there to watch. Since it was a duel there had to be a teacher referee in order to ensure no one got hurt. The victors were decided after either one team surrendered or if one team was incapable to continue.

The moment Trip and Alex arrived the teacher started the match countdown.

“3, 2, 1! Start!”

Hearing this all the children went crazy. Hearing the screams of everyone Trip smiled, he felt rather at ease knowing that he would beat up the opposition easily, and was of course very confident with his chances. Alex however was a different story; his knees were shaking and he was clearly very nervous.

The bullies were overeager. Trip realised this, so he let them attack first. The bullies launched towards Trip and Alex. Trip signalled to Alex that he would take the right one down. This calmed down Alex, as he realised that Trip would be there to help him. Trip took a deep breath and managed to dodge the right bullies strike. Trip then twisted his body and threw a punch towards the right bullies’ temple. Trip did not use full power as he realised he could seriously hurt the person in front of him. Trip hit the right bully just enough to knock him out, making the crowd go crazy.

Meanwhile Alex had his hands full with the left bully. The left bully was more experienced than the right bully and Alex was not as strong as Trip, thus the disparity in strength was not as large. Alex thrust his fist towards the head of the left bully, but due to his arm being rather short he was unable to reach the bully. Realising that he completely made a fool of himself Alex became very anxious. The left bully smiled as he realised that his prey was ripe for the picking. Trip quickly looked over and saw the situation. He dashed over and blocked the attack that was meant for Alex. At this point Alex woke up from his trance and punched the left bully straight in the middle of his chest. This caused the left bully to be unable to breathe for a while as he lay on the floor wheezing.

“Trip and Alex win the match!” The teacher said, clearly shocked by the result

All the children went wild. It was insane, to have two first year students defeat the strongest bullies in the school was really something that would happen only in their dreams, but it actually happened. Unfortunately for Trip, this made both him and Alex legendary figures at the school. Meaning they were constantly followed around. This annoyed them, as now they could not go into the forest without being seen or followed.