The battlemage didn’t waste time, getting closer with his staff in hand Gilliam quickly found that a shield didn’t mean anything for him.

Using the staff in both hands Ghaos put one side around the corner of the shield, then with raw might he flung that sideways, not only did this send Gilliam severely off balance but it also moved the shield to the side.

Ah yes... Even if you have an indestructible shield it’s still attached to your arm... This thought passed through Gilliam’s head a split second before the other side of Ghaos’ staff did the same.

Like before Gilliam came-to on the ground. Though, the casting of the shield and stopping of the exploding crystal had shown Gilliam that there was a chance, it was slim, we’re talking snowball’s chance in a forge slim but it was there!

And so started their back and forth. Ghaos would win some exchanges, Gilliam would almost win others. In short Ghaos kept wiping the floor with him.

The few spells Gilliam managed to get off just hit nothing but the barrier walls. But he did manage to get more and more spells to actually cast.

This went on for considerable time, due to focusing on the madman in the dome with him Gilliam didn’t properly have a control over the passage of time. He had no idea if they had been in here for minutes, hours, days or even weeks. It felt like weeks but logically speaking it should be the same day still. If nothing else based on the people outside. But it still felt like weeks. He had been ‘killed’ a lot of times, broken all kinds of bones, ‘woken up’ from what he assumed was head damage more times than he cared to count. The sadistic maniac of a teacher kept at it. Every time Gilliam improved a little or realised something it seemed like Ghaos did something, adapted somehow and made whatever Gilliam realised, worthless.

Suddenly Gilliam’s first attack connected!

He had managed to bring up a smaller shield, almost like a buckler of sorts, and rather than blocking an attack from Ghaos’ staff he managed to redirect it, putting the battlemage ever so slightly off balance!

Having realised that smaller spells take less time to channel, thus are faster to cast, using third of a second from Ghaos being ever so slightly off balance Gilliam had managed to raise thin spears from the dirt ground. It was a handful of small spears that penetrated Ghaos’ legs and arms.

Either the surprise of this action, or just that the spears pierced muscles or tendons, actually had the murder machine drop his staff!

Not wasting a second Gilliam sent out a telekinetic strand and yanked that staff to his own hand! It felt like a strong victory just getting to this point, he had disarmed the battlemage!

This lasted a total of at most two seconds before Gilliam found that Ghaos had closed the distance, already had his hand back on his staff and a fist was en-route to Gilliam’s face.

Ah yes... That makes sense... He started out with hand-to-hand combat, why would it be a problem now.

As his nose cracked itself back to where it should be and healed, Gilliam still took the short-lived disarming as a huge success, it gave him a motivation and had proven that there was a chance! Small and hard to take advantage of but it was there!

This didn't change the power balance at all, Gilliam would have to figure out something. He was still riding on the high that he disarmed Ghaos a mere few seconds ago but that wouldn’t help in the long run. He only got the simplest of spells to cast at all, but they rarely hit, and the few times they did they didn’t have enough punch to do anything. This usually followed up by something breaking or waking up after having his skull caved in.

There must be something he’s missing, trying to take in the options he had available, there had to be something missing, something he could do.

His thoughts were often broken up by Ghaos’ attack actually breaking something. He most likely still pulled his punches, he also seemed to always wait enough to let Gilliam heal up before continuing. This was most likely part of his plan to crash-course Gilliam into learning something, but what, there had to be something he was waiting for.

Trying to defend himself just fell short, Ghaos’ expert skill worked around that easily. Trying to attack either missed, Ghaos dodged or in the off chance that it hit, it didn’t do enough damage. Gilliam just didn’t have enough time to channel enough energy to have it matter.

Well, there were a few times he attacked instinctively... No... wait... That might be it... He never wanted to hurt Ghaos, did he instinctively hold back? Like biting your own finger, you have the power to bite through a finger easily but you stop yourself subconsciously, it feels like you’re not able because your brain pushes the brakes.

No, that made sense! Gilliam so far had just been attacking to attack, to try to cast a spell. The shield always had enough energy to withstand even a hard blow from Ghaos himself, why else does he work around and not just power through. But when attacking he suddenly didn’t have enough power?

No, it was never about the lacking power, it was the breaks kicking in. This was a superpowered healing area, this had been proven again and again, Gilliam had felt this working fine to the point where he should most likely have died. Shattered bones fix themselves in seconds, even having some of his fingers torn off from a well placed blow mended themselves in just seconds. Ghaos himself said that this thing could regrow limbs easily.

Why was he holding back? Well, the logic of not wanting to hurt someone, sure but... This was the only perfect place to do it. Not only will he get practical experience without the side effects of long lasting damage or death.

He could go nuts, just...

Getting up from a broken leg, it mended as he used his other leg to support all his weight. Ghaos stopped in his tracks for a moment as he seemed to have noticed something. Gilliam thinks he knew what it might be but right now he needed to let loose!

He had a straight up cheating level of potential knowledge about magic circles, the mythical runes mages use time to research he could read as words and concepts, he could make them on the fly.

A grin formed on his lips, though a bit too soon as Ghaos didn’t plan to wait, Gilliam’s jaw made a sickening crack as Ghaos’ staff impacted it at great speed. Like before Gilliam found himself on the ground shrieking in pain. If this didn’t affect his focus nothing would, a shame that it affected it very, very much.

A few seconds of healing and it had healed, Ghaos was more on the offensive than before but Gilliam needed to do something.

Before he got back up he cast a spell on the ground, he didn’t think too much about it as there weren’t many consequences in here. The five point magic circle flashed and disappeared as fast as it appeared. In the instant the circle disappeared the ground shattered. Like someone had just broken a glass plate the ground beneath them had large cracks, loose rocks and a lot of instability. As he got to his feet two glowing circles with the rune for Stability had attached themselves to his feet around his ankles.

Ghaos had to widen his stance and move around a little to find a non-broken patch to stand on. Gilliam was standing on rubble but his feet acted as if he was standing on solid ground.

Turning towards Ghaos he didn’t waste time, he was going to ignore elements or anything fancy, he was going to treat this as the dirty fight it is, he wanted to win. Heavens how much he wanted to win this.

Pointing his palm towards Ghaos, Gilliam formed a five runed circle. The five used were Aether, Ball, Power, Swift and Speed. The circle flashed like the others had before, the energy was drawn and a super fast yellow orb of energy blasted out from where the magic circle was only a fraction of a split second ago. Ghaos instantly recognized where the aim was and dodged to the side. However he was too slow.

Even with his trained reaction speed he didn’t manage to escape the speed the double velocity rune could produce. Though he had moved his leg a little the sphere still burst through his calf like a bullet, trailing blood and bone splinters, kicking up dust and debris as it hit the dirt behind it.

Ghaos seemed to have realised something else and took an aggressive stance, his leg mended as he did and as soon as it looked fine he took towards Gilliam. This time he pulled out two magic crystals and threw them at Gilliam.

Gilliam didn't waste time, acting on instinct and not thinking more than needed seemed to be what did the trick. Incoming bombs, they were either a distraction or the main attack, easier to just block them all at the same time.

Flinging up a Barrier he made it through Unstructured magic at the moment, it was easier. Tapping into Aether he created a dome around himself, this would stop the bombs as they detonated against it, but also stop Ghaos. To make sure it was strong enough he gave it a lot of mana. A split second later a deep emerald green dome formed around Gilliam, this had Ghaos stop in his tracks but the two gems shattered against its surface, exploding in multi-colored light.

Gilliam had on purpose made his dome floor-less, this let him connect to the ground which was his next step. Forming a magic circle on the ground the ground around Ghaos suddenly sent out tons of spikes. He had made the targeting area larger than needed to accommodate any dodging, overdoing it a bit for the example.

This worked exactly as planned, the battlemage jumped surprisingly high to the side, but the spikes covered this area as well and shot higher than anticipated. Most of them missed, breaking themselves against the dome above them, but the ones under Ghaos contacted and pierced the battlemage. Ghaos remained hanging, impaled in the air, his grasp on his staff failed and it fell to the ground with a metallic clang.

Had this not been a healing charged area he would without a doubt have died from this. Dismissing the spell had the magic effect stop, but the spikes were actual earth so they didn’t disappear. To make it a little easier Gilliam broke them through the use of unstructured earth magic.

The battlemage fell to the ground with an uncomfortable thud.

He was still moving, but it took a few long seconds before he was able to stand again. Gilliam gave him a few solid seconds until he could move again, though he was still standing in his shield dome.

Ghaos ended up with a palm towards Gilliam, looking defeated.

“I think we’ll call it here, you learned what I wanted you to learn and I can tell from this point, you would end up just overpowering me again and again.” He looked defeated but oddly proud.

“Oh... I thought we’d be continuing.” Gilliam sounded a bit defeated as he cut the energy to the barrier, having it flicker once and disintegrate.

“If you absolutely want to fight more, I’m sure that Kintas out there would gladly be of assistance.” he gestured towards an oddly interested looking Kintas outside of the dome.

Taking a look around Gilliam could now properly see what was going on, this event had pulled a serious crowd. There were kids... discussing with other kids where some looked very victorious and the other looked defeated, this felt like betting. Most looked oddly terrified, potentially from the treatment of these two men in here... it was brutal.

Petal was just confused and Savia just sat in her hands with a satisfied smile.

The sun had set and it was getting dark fast, it was late in the evening. They started this midday or so, meaning they had been going at it for.. What.. 10 hours?

Gilliam really did want more... but at the same time he was uncertain if that was smart. He had made progress but if the Battlemage said that he was done, but Kintas could take over... Just how skilled was Kintas?

“How good is Kintas?” Gilliam asked instead of wondering, often a better way of doing things.

“I haven’t won against him yet.” he looked super defeated at his own answer.

This answer also had Gilliam absolutely not wanting to fight him, remembering back to the invasion he was the one tasked to stall the Gatemaster as well...

Kintas might be dangerous.

“I think I’m good.” Gilliam replied a bit defeated. If he was that dangerous then perhaps in the future once as a test but... it didn’t sound fun.

Kintas looked a bit sad outside of the dome, he clearly wanted a round but Gilliam was happy that Kintas respected his wishes.

“But... Why did you have to be so insanely rough? You could have told me what you wanted to teach me, that could have saved so much pain...”

Gilliam was whining a little bit, but it was more a question for curiosity. Oddly enough now that it was over and the pain was gone, it’s not that bad. It was a nightmare when they fought and his bones kept breaking but it felt oddly far in the past.

Only now did Gilliam properly realise that his clothing was, well, damaged was an understatement. It was to be expected but he hadn’t realised during the ordeal. He would have to inform the reception later.

Ghaos pondered for a second before he answered.

“I could have told you that I wanted you to learn to let go of your restraint, the fear of hurting someone. But I have found that explaining this to someone doesn’t have the same effect as having them realise it themselves.”

This made a bit of sense, in a lot of cases realising something for oneself has a stronger epiphany sense and might stick better, rather than just being given the answer.

“I didn’t want to hurt you but... Well, I have done this for quite some time, the fastest and best way is to create hate or dislike. Breaking you over and over makes it hit better.”

It really did sound like he knew what he was doing...

They started leaving the dome as Gilliam pondered, one side of him wanted to report Ghaos for the hours of torture, but the other side of him couldn’t exactly fault the results.

Due to the situation Gilliam was forced to figure out a lot of things. He got a good grasp on instantly using magic circles, before he had to think about them properly and draw them properly, now he could just instantly project them. He needed to think a lot about the usages of which runes for what effect, though he still needed some thought in it, the process was more fluid now. Getting direct experience like this, since it felt like they were in there for weeks there was something very different in how Gilliam felt about combat now. Before he had never been in a proper fight, now he went from cowering and trying to dodge, to being able to defend himself. Sure; in a legit fight Ghaos might just instantly end his existence due to his own self preservation, but Gilliam felt he had made considerable progress.

Though very, very few times, Gilliam did manage to best the trained battlemage but it was only the times that he stopped holding himself back that this worked out.

So the main lesson was to overcome the fear of hurting him. It might sound dumb but for Gilliam it honestly felt like something clicked in his brain at that moment. If your life's on the line, it’s you or them, and you better make it you who comes out of it.

“Well... All things considered, it wa*” As soon as Gilliam set foot outside of the magical dome they had been in for hours, something happened. His legs gave out, his body didn’t want to listen and he toppled over, face planting in the dirt.

Kintas laughed, Savia laughed, Petal didn’t know what to do and Ghaos chuckled. “I might have forgotten to mention that the construction here feeds you with energy. When you leave it, well... You have been fighting for hours.”

Ghaos smirk hinted that he might not have forgotten, but rather chose to not mention it.

And this made sense. Given the healing boost within the dome, and that he didn’t feel tired a single time, yeah it made a lot of sense. The feed of energy was cut, and as a shield spell it would stop working. His body didn’t have energy so it gave out.

Managing to force himself to his legs he realised two things. Ghaos is an ass, and Ghaos is super well trained for being able to walk normally. Gilliam eventually got to his feet with the aid of Petal, but he was incredibly unstable, and hungry; oh wow he was hungry.

“Go eat something.” Ghaos smiled. “I recognise that look from when I first fought in the dome.” His smile was knowing and empathic, it really did seem like he knew.

“Go to bed after, there is no bell tomorrow, school isn’t exactly active when there is an imminent attack, after all”

He gave a little wave to them before he walked over to Kintas, talking about something.

He might be a bit weird with his teaching methods but he did have a lot of good points. Gilliam hated the pain but oddly enough, experiencing that much of it lessened his fear of it. Perhaps that was part of the plan?

This was the last thing Gilliam thought about before he blacked out from exhaustion, he never even made it to get any food.

Waking up, Gilliam felt heavy, Mentally he was fine but there was this odd weight on him, making it hard for him to move. It was too dark to properly see anything and.. No.. wait.. That’s wrong.

Moving his hand to his face he picked a sleeping Savia off it... That fixed the problems with the light... Why did she decide to sleep on his face, and how is she still sleeping now that he’s basically grasped around h* ... hold on... Why is Petal sleeping on top of him... At least they were both clothed so it hinted to nothing of that sort happening.

Playing back the evening before in his head he realised that he must have blacked out, but this way of waking up was... Weird.

A quick glance confirmed that he was just laying on the bed, on top of the blankets and everything, Petal and Savia sort of made up for that by laying on top of him.

It was not all bad but it was weird. It made sense for Savia to do things due to the straight up soul bond they shared, but what was with Petal. She had known him for less than a day, and she had been in this world for like three days, two of which she was imprisoned...

Savia woke up in his hand, which felt much like holding onto a feathered insect as she spazzed about for a second. Gilliam still really didn’t know just what she was but feathered insect was not incredibly far from it.

“Master!” she shouted out with a happy smile, this caused Petal to wake up and start some morning stretches, still laying on top of him.

“Sooo... Mind explaining what’s going on?” he asked the demon blanket on top of him.

Seeing her glowing eyes this close was strange, interesting but strange. He had never actually seen glowing eyes before, light reflected in eyes; sure, but never generating their own lightsource. It was not enough to light up anything proper but it was enough to give the iris a blue glow.

“You passed out. I carried you over here, your feathered friend showed me where to go.”

She looked a little proud of this, given that she was a solid head shorter than him, it must have been a weird thing to see. But given what her ‘job’ was before, she would probably be much stronger than her petite frame would hint.

“So... Why are you on top of me?” there was no annoyance in his voice, just confusion and curiosity. Which was true, it didn’t seem to be done with any negative meaning behind it but... it was still an odd thing when only a few days ago he was alone, with that Angela left to meet her father.

“You seemed cold, so I thought to keep you warm.” she answered this in a tone like it was the most natural thing ever.

“I assume you don’t know what a blanket is?” As soon as he asked it he realised how insensitive it could sound. Not only as a condescending question, but also considering that she was basically a slave barely given scraps in her homeworld.

She replied by just looking at him with curious eyes as she shook her head.

“If you get off me, I can show you.” Gilliam was not against intimacy, she was not bad looking even with the whole demon thing but it felt weird given that they met yesterday, and even weirder when considering that according to this world, he owns her. It just didn’t feel right.

Though, since this was done on her own thoughts he felt a little better, he just didn’t like the thought of the forced aspect.

She climbed off, letting him move properly again. Following and getting out of bed as well he could finally stretch a bit. Opening his hand let Savia fly off as well as she had been in his hand this whole time.

Turning around he lifted up the blanket and showed Petal. “We usually just sleep under this cloth, it can warm more or less than clothing depending on what it’s made of and how thick it is. Like this.”

Holding out his hand near Savia, she landed in it without question, he proceeded to put her to bed and put the blanket over her as one normally would with a person. Though it was surprisingly hard given her diminutive size, it still ended up looking somewhat correct.

Savia enjoyed this a lot, a huge satisfied and amused smile was on her face the whole time she was ‘put to bed’.

“It’s a bit hard to show with Savia as she’s so tiny, but you get the point.” he smiled a bit to himself as he looked over his little friend in bed. She was practically beaming.

“It’s like a cloak, for sleeping.” Petal analysed, and she was actually pretty spot on.

A cloak, hooded or not, was usually just a piece of cloth you draped around you. Not considering rainproof or whatever it did serve a similar concept.

“Kind of, yes. We usually don’t wrap it around ourselves but just lie down on the bed, pulling the blanket over us. Perhaps not everyone but most of humans tend to do this at least.”

Realising that this was only partly correct, as he didn’t know exactly how this world worked to that degree nor would it cover those unfortunate enough to not have beds, but it was close enough for this explanation.

“So next time, just put me under the blanket.” He smiled. Though she had done a weird thing in his mind, it was done with the best of intentions so there was really not much more to add there. He just realised that he might have to teach her the basics of certain things.

Now that the surprise of his sleeping situation had passed he realised that on his round table was a few plates of food!

He didn’t have that there before, or at least he can’t remember that... But then again it had been a few days since he had been in his own room, given that he fell unconscious after the invasion and had to recover elsewhere. He also saw his bag on the table, it seems that someone moved it here when he was in the recovery room.

Petal saw that Gilliam noted the food, she smiled widely and oddly satisfied. “You couldn’t eat before. I went down and brought food after carrying you up here.”

One plate had only a stack of meat on it, the other had a very random assortment of a little of everything. “Eat!” she practically pushed him over to the table.

He was hungry yesterday, and this had absolutely not changed overnight, he chuckled a bit as he was following orders from his slave, perhaps this weren’t going to be as bad after all.

Sitting down he started eating, she followed suit instantly afterwards, starting to scarf down the stack of grilled meat on her plate.

Savia seemed to be content in bed at the moment, so he just put a little food on the side for her, she could eat it when she wanted. Though it was cold, some parts had gone a bit stale, it was still a perfectly edible and a hearty breakfast.

Once they had eaten, Gilliam decided to give her a tour and explanation of the basics of how humans did things. At least according to Gilliam’s mind for some of them as he was the one explaining.

Given yesterday, and that his attire was quite damaged, and though he had healed he was still somewhat drenched in things... So a shower was probably not a bad idea, he was frankly rather smelly.

Preparing what he needed for a proper shower he explained all the things as they went. He didn’t have any spare clothing for her, so that had to be fixed somehow. She seemed rather clean from after she came out of the cell, odds are she was cleaned while down there or something. Luckily there were private individual shower booth things. Meaning you entered and exited into a small two-room situation, a dressing room and a shower-room. This felt appropriate to avoid bullying or other scenarios.

The deal was the same with toilets. Gilliam liked the privacy, this also made things much easier for Petal when time came.

The toilets were instantly used by both parties, and Gilliam had a shower afterwards. He brought Savia with him, giving her a small shower as well. Asking her she used to just bathe in pools of water before, but this was much more fun and effective. Though with lack of hands she was not exactly good at soap usage, though this was an easy ordeal with her size, she was clean in no time.

Gilliam took a bit more time to get cleaned up, some of the gunk had dried, but eventually he found himself refreshed.

The main problem was drying Savia, her feathers were mainly on her arms which could be flapped dry relatively easily. Her body was mostly skin or scales so that was also not a problem, but her long hair was odd to dry, only due to its size. A simple unstructured magical wind took care of this in the end.

After getting dressed, having used the same hairdryer spell on himself to dry Savia’s spot in his hair, he went back to his room with the things. After getting proper, he continued the tour and explanations for Petal. At least bringing her up to an acceptable level of knowledge about the minor things. Though a lot of it was repetition for things she already knew, there were a lot of new things in how people act with each other and just how certain things are used. The concept of queueing was foreign to her, as an example.

They got looks, many, many looks. Though Gilliam was glad to notice that even the angry looks of people wanting to do something instantly quelled themselves. He was not sure if it was his threat, his reputation from before or the fight in the dome that did this. Not that he cared as long as people behaved but he still felt the need to keep an extra eye out.

Going to the reception he spoke with the old man working there, explaining the situation with his shredded clothing, something the receptionist assured would be fixed by tomorrow, and asked about details regarding the language spell for Petal.

The latter was also a simple task, there was no time planned for this, just ‘today’. When he was available he should just go up the spiral staircase and mention it there, they would just find someone that could do this and get it done.

Thanking the man they left for the central staircase, going around it upwards this time they found themselves in front of a door. Entering the door they came into a second reception, this one a bit simpler and less fancy than the one below. It kind of looked like an office.

A young girl sat behind the desk, on a very high-chair looking seat and reacted as they entered.

“What can I help you w*?” She started a well-trained simple sentence but it was interrupted with a surprised sound as soon as she saw Petal coming into the room. The clear reaction of ‘gotta hit the emergency button’ could be seen on her entire body, she clearly wanted to do ‘something’ about the situation.