IHPM Chapter 176: Rapid Casting and the Language of Gods

IHPM Chapter 176

With his planning complete, Chris was free to enjoy the matches as he pleased. The matches were turning out to be much more entertaining than he'd imagined.

One thing to be noted is that very few magical communities are actually united as a country like France and Britain. And this is not a competition between Magical Countries, but Magical Communities.

Though most communities have a magic casting structure similar to Magical Britain, many powerful communities which have been reclusive and secretive for all these years have their own brand of magic which they don't share with anyone.

Chris is going to pay special attention to these communities as he can get inspirations for new types of magic from them.

After the first matches, the next set of opponents arrived on the eight stages. And this time, there was someone noteworthy among the contestants as well.

The commentator Makar always does a small intro of all the participants, which is usually just their affiliations and names along with a few key descriptions of the association. And this one caught Chris's attention since it was different from the others.

"Ohh, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a student from the extremely secretive and powerful Egyptian International School of sorcery, the 'House of Life', in the dueling circuit right now. The students they accept are all special and gifted."

Chris looked at Fleur.
"Dad told us about this one, right?"

Fleur nodded.
"Their wizards are called scribes. Their runic research is considered the most advanced in the whole world."

Chris nodded. He really wanted to stea— take inspiration from them.
These people are making advancements in runes with each year. The Egyptian Runes are called hieroglyphics. Their origins are unknown, but they're powerful and secretive. Chris couldn't find their detailed study in all the libraries he had visited.

That's why he's paid attention to the representative. The student from House of Life, Khons Soliman, was a 16-year-old boy with a thin frame. There would have been nothing special about him if his wand and his whole body except his face weren't wrapped in bandages.

From what Chris had gathered, the bandages were there to hide the runes carved on his body and wand.

Yeah, Body Inscription, carving runes on one's body. It might seem simple, but an uncountable number of wizards have died or got disabled attempting it. Chris never tried it due to the high risk and high pain.

Inscribing runes on wands is yet another thing they are special at. Generally, speaking, most wands contain small amounts of runes on them including Olivander's. But these people inscribe a better sequence.


But Chris has succeeded at inscribing runes of wands as well after a lot of experiments by using his unique advantages. Though he's not suicidal enough to try that with his body… yet.

Most of the audience including Chris were focused on this guy's duel.

"START!" Announced Makal and the duels started in all eight dueling rings.

And—

*DRRRRRRRRRBAM*

His duel was already over.

'What the—' Chris's mouth fell open along with everyone else's.

"OHHHH WHAT AM I SEEING?! Khons the Egyptian Champion has already taken down his opponent! What WAS that Casting Speed?!!!"

Chris had the same thoughts as the commentator. Khons had just raised his wand, and the spells had come pouring out of it like he was firing a machine gun.

Though the speed of spells is obviously much slower than a machine gun's. It's just a way to describe how fast his casting looked in comparison to others' spell casting.

"It seems that the House Of Life has progressed further in the decade they haven't participated in any outside events. And today, they've made a shocking comeback!"

Seeing Chris's surprised face, Fleur nudged at him after overcoming her own surprise.
"Can you dodge that?" She asked somewhat playfully. She just felt like teasing him. After all, he did mock her badly when he dodged all of her spells while making it look effortless.

The most embarrassing one was the dodge he had performed in their very first duel. The one where she'd fired her best spell after her trusted combo and he'd dodged it easily while letting the spell beam fly through the gap he'd created between his thumb and index finger, all the while not even looking at the spell since he was too busy giving her a mocking smirk.

Needless to say, it had left an impression.

Hearing her question, Chris clicked his tongue. This girl is getting cheekier day by day.

"It's your match in the next round, right? You should have better things to focus on." He muttered.

Normally, no, he might not be able to dodge this guy without conjuring shields or counter-attacking. But who's gonna tell her that it's child's play in Super Trigger Blue? Who's gonna tell her that he doesn't even need to move if he just activates the invisible Corpomency?

Chris was just surprised right now, but not much impressed. He can easily discern that the power that the boy gained has many disadvantages. It's not worth it. Aside from the speed, the power behind the spells is average and he can't perform complicated spells with that speed.

That being said, it has given him some inspiration and he also has to admit it would be difficult to beat this guy while hiding more than 95% of his power, an amount he'd estimated would be enough for 16-17 year old kids.

The round was soon over and Fleur stood up confidently as she did some light stretching.
"This one's for you, my princess." she said to him with a wink before departing like a gallant knight.

"...."
Yep this girl was becoming too cheeky for her own good.

Yang Wei, who was sitting beside him, nudged him on his side as they both stared at the departing Fleur.
"Brother Chris, is she your...girlfriend?"

Chris shook his head as he paid attention to the other participants who were being introduced.
"Nope, she's a family friend. My girlfriend is someone else."

Yang Wei's narrow eyes widened, "What?! Y-You already have a girlfriend?! And you are that close to this girl?"

"Brother Chris… why does your face suddenly look so punchable right now?"

Chris ignored Yang Wei since he saw another interesting participant in this set of 16 people.

One of the people there was a student from Taxila, the temple of Magic and Knowledge, located in India. Once again, it does not represent India, which is a very vast, populated, and culturally diverse country. There are many Magical schools in India, like Taxila, Nalanda, Mithila, etc. And all these have history at least as old as Hogwarts.

Though putting aside all their advantages like a huge variety of subjects, huge libraries, and a large number of students, the main strength of these schools was actually the oldest language in the world: Sanskrit.

This language is so old that it's called 'Devbhasha', the language of Gods. This language, if spoken correctly, can make your spells stronger and even infuse the magic power of the world into your spells.

True Masters of the Magical Language just have to speak whatever they want in the language, and the magic just flows, doing their bidding.

Though it can't be that simple can it? Of course not. Just pronouncing the language correctly enough for magic casting needs years of practice, even for the natives. You have to stress the words right and all. After that, there are some other requirements as well which Chris doesn't know that need to be fulfilled before you're able to bring any results.

Your average student would take a long time of practice to do the magic that Hogwarts first-year students can perform in a week. But, once you have the basics down, the results pay off. And if the student is a talented Prodigy who's been trained from childhood? The result will be seen by observing the representative.

The representative from Taxila was a black-haired brown-skinned boy named Akash Acharya. He was dressed in traditional Indian garbs and had on a gold bracelet on his arm which Chris was guessing was his magical conduit.

Glancing at Fleur's dueling ring, Chris saw that Eugene the asshole, her opponent from Britain who had tried to pick on Chris earlier, was saying some things to her while looking in his direction.

Chris didn't know whatever he was saying, but he was sure that it wasn't anything good. At first glance, Fleur seemed unfazed. But Chris could tell that she was angry.

And you don't want to be in the same dueling ring as an angry veela. Especially if you're weak as fuck.

Chris had to focus on two duels at the same time. As the start signal was given, he saw Eugene starting to cast his spell, but multiple jets of light were already heading towards him, all of which were a part of a combo.

"She really was angry," muttered Chris upon recognizing the combo Fleur had dished out.

The first few spells were all meant for restraining, so that he can't surrender or run and before those spells could even hit, vicious spells were on their way to him, so that the referee doesn't get the chance to protect him or call off the duel.

Chris drew in a cold breath when he saw the result. The women around him are all a bit scary if you get on their wrong side.

On the other side, Akash's opponent had cast his spells at him too, though the speed, power, and number were much lower than Fleur's.

Akash looked unimpressed. He raised his hand in front of him and said something in Sanskrit.
"#Stop#"

And for the second time, Chris's mouth fell open.

Because the spells… were all actually stopped in mid-air.

"#Enhance# #Return#"
Akash spoke two more words which Axel didn't under while pushing his hand forward.

And under everyone's surprised eyes, the lights of the spells intensified and returned back to the opponent, with about twice the power!

The girl who was his opponent tried defending but got done in by her own spells in the end.

"AND IT SEEMS THAT TAXILA HAS PRODUCED ANOTHER PRODIGY! Would you look at that?! As expected, the power of the Language of Gods! It's simply unreal!
AND THE BEAUTIFUL FRENCH ROSE TURNED OUT TO HAVE DANGEROUS THORNS! I pray for the British representative. I think that was personal because it seems like the British representative will be staying in the hospital for the foreseeable future..."

"So, did you enjoy the show?" Asked Fleur as she came back.

Chris nodded. The Indian representative was indeed good. This power had no harmful side effects. The only weakness is that it can't be cast non-verbally unless you're at the grandmaster level and the casting speed can be a bit slow.

Fleur was still looking at him expectantly and it reminded him of Esmee and Gabrielle so he just patted her head.
"Good job,"

"??!!"
She made to swat his hand away, but her hand stopped mid-way, as if struggling between whether to keep her pride or keep the feeling of accomplishment she was getting at being praised like this.

She ultimately swatted his hand away and tidied up her meticulously styled hair which was ruffled by him.
"Chris Martin! Do not treat me like Esmee and Gabby! Need I remind you that I am three years older than you?"

Chris laughed at her.
"I think you need to remind yourself of that first. You certainly didn't seem to dislike it."

Fleur felt like she was sister-zoned which was unacceptable. So she just pouted and sulked for the rest of the next few rounds.

?!?!?
After a few matches, Chris almost stood up from his seat in surprise.
"What the heck?! Am I dreaming?" He exclaimed as he saw one of the contestants in the upcoming matches.

***

A.N.: My exams are still ongoing, hence the delays these days. Did a lot of research for these contestants from different countries, my google is filled with more than 50 tabs. If only I could have so much dedication for studies... There's a few more interesting opponents may one, may be two. It'll be interesting to see them duel against each other or see how Chris handles them while hiding from Vlad.
And, why was he surprised just now?