Lilia's Tale

Chapter 56: Mock Battle

The first thing that struck me as I entered was a feeling of déjà-vu. It was likely due to the sand scattered on the floor, or the overall appearance reminding me of the arena from back when I was with Olivia. There were quite a few groups training, leaving little to no place for us to be left in peace.

"Let's go over there," Father offered as he pointed to the left wall.

From what I could see, it seemed like the area with the most space. It kind of surprised me, but I didn't want to complain, so I nodded and we headed there.

Once near the wall, I stretched and prepared myself mentally to be blown away by how bad my magic had gotten. My first experiment was matter manipulation: I used magic to pick some of the sand up from the ground and form a ball in the air.

It went successfully. The sand ball in the air was now completely controllable; I could move it in any way I wanted as precisely as I wanted, or split it into multiple pieces and handle the pieces separately. I was happy about the result, but I wanted to try with larger quantities.

"Can I use the sand under your feet?" I asked Father and the guard.

"You want to test with more matter?"

"Yeah."

"Be careful with manipulating what's underneath our feet. If you move it carelessly, we'll slip because of it."

"Ah, you're right. Well, how about this."

I lifted a large amount of sand from next to them until the bare rocks under the sand were exposed, and joined it to my ball.

"Can you two go on that rock?"

"Be careful not to lift too much sand," Father warned as he moved.

The guard seemed reluctant, but eventually moved. Once they were both safe, I did the same for myself, then took control of all the sand in roughly a one-meter cylinder around us. I then used that sand to create a similar hollow cylinder around us. From the feedback I got, the dome wasn't particularly thick, but spanned around five meters in height, telling me there was quite a lot of sand in there. I made sure to leave the top open so we could breathe.

"W-What is this?" the man suddenly yelled.

"Ah, I'm just testing larger quantities. I don't feel anything wrong."

I move the sand at the top two meters around in different ways, making sure always to be careful to not hit anyone that could potentially be outside of this newly made dome.

"Yeah, everything's okay," I added.

I then slowly returned the sand to its original position manually, by filling the area from the sides inwards. I used the sand that was closest to the bottom by moving it inwards, then moved everything else down. I eventually reached a point where I had to remember that I couldn't fill it up under our feet, so I created three small hills. I stepped on one and turned around to look at Father and the guard.

Father had already figured what I was going for, so he had stepped on the one I made next to him. However, my stalker didn't seem too eager. I could tell from his face he was impressed, although there was some fear as well.

"Can you step on that small sand hill please? So I can finish filling the place back up."

"Ah, yes, yes I can."

He hurriedly stepped on it, so I focused on moving the rest of the sand back into its place. In the process, I took particular attention in not bothering the sand that Father and the guard were stepping on, as I still had control over it. Once everything was flattened, I let go of my control over the area, sighed and said: