With a hand, Shizu waved to Touma to bring himself and his group over. The two groups then began to mingle but their interactions were somewhat tense as there was a certain amount of discontent that these two groups had for each other.
Shizu's soldiers value physical strength over the thaumaturgic arts, while Touma's students valued the thaumaturgic arts as gospel. This caused heads to clash on which practice was more beneficial for the nation as patriotism was prevalent amongst the common people of Kujyuri.
The woman in red armor scoffed and whispered in contempt under her breath as she sneaked a derisive gaze at Touma's students.
"Puny mages."
Returning this in kind, a hateful mage muttered just loud enough for the women near him to hear.
"Muscle brain wenches."
At this point, Shizu's soldier's were raring to beat the arrogant students into submission but Touma intervened and bonked the hateful mage on the head with his staff. "Ouch. What the heck was that for Touma!"
"I will not allow my students to be so disrespectful to their comrades. Now you better play nice with these young ladies or I'll expel you from my tutelage."
Overhearing Touma's threat, all his students paled and began quieting down.
"Thank you Touma." Said Shizu, she then looked over to her soldiers and gave them a steely gaze. "The same goes for you as well, especially you! Vice captain Sumi!"
With her captain now pointing at her, the woman in red armor huffed but soon nodded her head in agreement. After Sumi did so, her subordinates also began to settle down.
While this was occurring, Azi shot a gaze at Touma as he wondered why he would be here. This situation was strange as Shizu's sudden action to wave Touma over seemed planned. Seeing Touma give him a look similar to Shizu's, it again clicked in Azi's mind on what Touma wanted him to do.
Nodding back, Azi walked over to where he could start his demonstration. He positioned himself at the edge of the training ground and looked over the numerous trees that were growing nearby.
The castle's courtyard was so large that it had multiple facilities that the servants or soldiers could use for whatever they needed, but to ensure that the place wasn't too barren Ozen had it decorated with trees and other plants that grew somewhat haphazardly.
Eyeing up a large tree that was 3 meters tall and about a half a meter wide, Azi nodded in satisfaction and began to prepare himself.
"Lady Shizu, what is he doing?" Asked Sumi.
Forgoing an answer, Shizu just began giggling in anticipation. "You'll see. For now, just watch and learn."
Not wanting to question her captain, Sumi and the others started to pay more attention. They wondered what Shizu thought such a frail boy could teach them, their initial evaluation of Azi was that he was likely a blacksmith as the hammer at his waist gave away his profession.
Their attention was then drawn to his arms and they began to notice a white glow coming from his body that seemed to propagate through the veins in his arms and legs.
Sumi could recognize it as a form of reinforcement magic but was shocked by how powerful Azi's casting was. This did not change her opinion of him being weak as she began seeing him as a weak fighter who depended on magic.
Not minding the looks he was getting, Azi resolved himself to show his capabilities so he didn't hold back in the amount of magic energy he was using. Feeling that enough power had propagated throughout his arms and legs, he began to dig his hand into the large tree that was in front of him.
At first the tree did not budge and the onlookers began to verbally jeer and jab at him, but they soon started to hear an ominous creaking. This was the sound of the thick roots starting to come loose and the onlookers began to see that the dirt under Azi's feet were beginning to crack and loosen as the tree's roots began to surface.
Their jaws dropped when Azi had successfully lifted the tree from the earth and was shouldering it like it weighed nothing. With a strained cry of effort, Azi then hurled the tree over to the stone platform that was situated in the training grounds.
The women of Shizu's groups were all dumbstruck by the amount of strength he was able to draw out of his small body. Reinforcement magic would allow a person to run faster or lift more weight, but for it to increase a person's strength to the extent that Azi had gone was ludicrous.
They began to have somewhat scary smiles on their faces as their battle lust was thoroughly stoked. While their opinion of him as being a weak mage was still present, they now wanted to really test his physical abilities.
On the other hand, Touma's students were unimpressed. "So he's a muscle head as well." The other students began to laugh from the belittling comment made but Touma warned them.
"Again, you best play nice or you might end up like the tree."
"What do you...!" The words catching at the end, their attention was drawn to Azi as they could sense the magic that was being conjured into his hands.
Taking a blood steel square out from his toolbelt, Azi loaded it into his now equipped right gauntlet that he was able to make temporary repairs on with a few reinforcement runes. With the blood steel loaded, he added a bit of his own magic to the runes activation as he wanted to really get the point across to his audience.
Jumping up to build his momentum on the way down with gravity, Azi bore down on the tree with a right straight that first punctured the tree trunk. With his fist now inside, Azi activated the runes on the knuckles of his gauntlets, and a fireball was conjured inside the tree that subsequently blew the middle section of the trunk into millions of splinters while the remaining two ends burned away.
As all the onlookers witnessed Azi demonstration on a tree bigger than himself, Touma's students trembled in fear and awe of the majestic magical might Azi had demonstrated. They could tell that his gauntlets were like their magic staff as their training had taught them how to recognize a fellow mage.
The interests of the mages piqued and the same could be said for Shizu's group of soldiers as they were also trembling from excitement as they knew what Shizu had in store for them.
"Azi! Let's move onto sparring. Let's go for a 1 hour period?"
"I'm alright with that. I feel a bit different from usual so go easy on me Shizu."
"No! I won't be sparing with you." Shizu then turned to her soldiers and with a small jerk of her chin they began to charge at Azi.
Taken off guard, Azi took a hit from Sumi who had dashed at him at a speed similar to Shizu. Putting his guard up with his left gauntlet, he blocked the strike from her wooden long sword which had a great heft to it. The wooden blade did not do any real damage as his left gauntlet had casted reinforcement magic which made it seem indestructible.
Shaking off her surprise by tightening her grip on her weapon, Sumi backed off and let her subordinates have a go at him. One wielded a wooden warhammer while another fought with a pair of wooden short swords. Bringing his fists up to a standard ready position, Azi backstepped to get some distance so that he would not be taken off guard again.
Now with enough time to think, Azi began blocking each strike made by the soldiers with a palm strike or a knife hand. While he still believed himself an amateur, Azi was gauging his skill based on veteran warriors like Shizu and Kajima so his scaling was a bit skewed.
Thanks to this he was able to deflect the flurry of incoming attacks from the woman with a pair of short swords. For the other, who had followed behind the first, he had to dodge out of the way as her wide strike with her wooden warhammer made it difficult for him to evade as she had a larger range than his fist. While he could have dodged, he needed to make a point in this fight.
Ensuring that his opponents saw him use magic he continued to block the incoming attacks that seemed to come without pause. This was somewhat difficult as he was not used to fighting multiple human opponents at once but he was at least able to stay unscathed using his hours of hellish training with Shizu that involved avoiding certain death for a period of time.
This would not last as more of Shizu's soldiers began to swarm him as they began to surround him on all sides. Seeing him use magic on himself so blatantly, the soldiers began to glare at him in contempt.
Their glares deepened when he was able to handle them in groups of two and three, but they soon realized his weakness to overwhelming numbers and coordinated attacks.
One woman, who wore metal knuckles, had followed up on a rotation of attack they had adapted and was able to land a hit on Azi cheek which made him stagger back a bit. Thinking that this sent him reeling, everyone felt somewhat satisfied that their efforts were able to land a decisive blow on him.
Wanting to continue, the other soldiers began to move to follow up their comrades' strike but they paused a bit when they heard their comrade's response.
"Ouch! Just what is he made of?!" The woman with metal knuckles flinched back in slight pain since the strike on Azi, while effective, had some blow back as she felt as if she had just punched a solid piece of metal with her bare hand.
At the back, Sumi was unaffected by the sudden outcry and commanded her comrades.
"Just keep attacking! He can't maintain his magic forever. If we break it once we can win this."
Nodding in agreement, the group of 30 soldiers began to accost Azi with their weapons. Attacking one after the other, they slashed and bashed at Azi using the reach of their weapons but Azi kept strong and stood his ground.
With his reinforced gauntlets, they were unable to commit to a close quarter battle as it would have given him the advantage in close range. Some were able to match his close combat skills, but the magic he used on his gauntlets made them feel cautious and were unable to push past their anxiety.
They feared that they might end up like the tree since the stunning sight of a fireball ripping through it gave them a deathly chill down their spines.
Continuing their onslaught, they attempted to whittle him down but Azi took it in stride.
While it looked as if Azi was able to weather the attacks, his stamina would stay otherwise as the use of reinforcement magic on his whole body for so long began to take its toll. Azi could not tell how long he had been fighting for as he lost himself to the thrill of battle, but even with his increase in magic energy capacity Azi could not last forever.
Luckily, he still had the leeway to think clearly so he ruminated on how he could subdue or ring out his opponents. Like in all spars, the last person to stay standing on the platform would be considered the winner.
So, to Azi's relief, he didn't have to use any of his more powerful magic that would be life threatening to his opponent.
With so many combatants charging him, Azi had an ample number of people he could use to try his new idea on. Dodging to the side of the oncoming attacker, Azi conjured a magic tether from each hand and wrapped them around the waist of his opponent. With a heave ho, Azi threw the combatant out of the ring by taking advantage of his opponent's momentum.
"That's one. Only 29 left." He then sighed and took up a fighting stand with his magic tether wrapping around each of his arms. Letting out a somewhat intimidating pressure of seriousness, the remaining combatants steeled themselves.
All of them began to back away, but Sumi stood her ground and attempted another strike with her long sword. Reading her movement, Azi was able to knock her strike away with an out block made by his gauntleted left hand.
With the tether on his left hand so close, Azi willed it to slither its way around Sumi's long sword which rooted her in place as she was unable to pull her sword away.
With a forward kick to her stomach, Azi knocked Sumi away and over the edge of the stone platform. Tossing her weapon aside, he then charged at the remaining soldiers and began to disarm or throw them out of the ring with his magic tethers.
Azi spared no expense and made full use of his magic energy to enhance his speed, strength, and magic tethers to move the way he wanted.
Thanks to his training with Ougi, Azi was able to now grapple well against humans as he had to learn the hard way of how to not get his butt thrown to the ground repeatedly and to instead return the favor.
Shaking his hands to get the tension out of them, he turned in the direction where Shizu was. But instead of seeing her crimson eyes he instead saw red and yellow fireballs the size of snow balls coming at him.