8 Grinding in da forest!
When Sebastian woke up, his mouth felt dry, and his stomach growled.
Rays of light penetrated the walls of the tent and indicated that it was the next day.
Instead of standing up, Sebatian reached to grasp the exchange book and opened its second page which read '50'. Sebastian smiled happily as this number represented his successful killing of the wolf the last evening, or at least what was left of it.
He started browsing through the book and tapped on a small bottle and a bread which suddenly appeared in front of him with a pop. Now, only five points were left.
The tent he had bought last night was a starter tent which only hid him from mundane animals. Therefore, it wasn't very expensive and even the cheapest spells were all a bit more expensive than it.
-HP-
After eating the bread and drinking the bit of water he had gotten for himself, Sebastian checked his body for any injuries even though he could hardly do anything about them if they were serious. Luckily, he didn't have any except a few blue marks left from the wolf's fangs on his arm.
Sebastian proceeded to pack his stuff but stopped when he remembered what had happened the last time he had cast a spell. To make sure he wouldn't be lying somewhere outside if it happened again, he decided to stay inside for a bit longer and try again.
He took his staff and focused a bit; he imagined a soft light glowing at the tip of the staff. The last time, imagining the spell helped, though it was a bit too much.
"Lumos.", Sebatian said softly, and a light began glowing at the tip of the snake's nose.
He nodded, satisfied with the result, and said: "Nox."
The light disappeared. He hardly even had to concentrate.
'It seems that turning off a spell is way less difficult than casting it.', a thought ran through his head.
Wanting to try his first spell again, Sebastian took out his water bottle, opened it and pointed his staff at the opening.
"Phewww.", Sebastian exhaled slowly.
'Visualize the spell: Aguamenti. It has to summon water. What kind of water? Clear and drinkable water. How much? Just a soft stream like out of the tap. Good. Imagine it. Picture it coming out of the staff.'
"Aguamenti."
Nothing happened.
"Aguamenti."
A small drop of water formed in the air.
'Still not correct. A little more concentration.'
"Aguamenti."
A soft stream of water came out of the snake's mouth and missed the bottle as it had a bit more pressure than Sebastian had aimed for but he didn't fret on it and quickly pointed it inside of the bottle.
After the bottle was halfway full, Sebastian felt tired and the air felt dry. He concentrated again and imagined the water stopping. Something inside of his body he hadn't realised had been moving towards his staff stopped and the stream of water with it.
Sebastian had a satisfied grin on his face.
'Aguamenti successfully learned!'
As the other spell were nothing he could try inside of the tent, Sebastian went outside and took a short break. After a few hours he was only able to cast the Knockback Jinx successfully on a rock. Whether it was because he didn't have any living target to practice on or he didn't have any talent for the other spells, he didn't know.
He refrained from casting the transfiguration spell though, and he remembered McGonagall lecturing very often about how dangerous transfiguration was and that the students shouldn't try it without supervision. He didn't want to take the risk.
-HP-
After strolling through the woods for a few hours, Sebastian had fruitfully hunted a few birds, a rabbit and three mice.
He had started by observing them and went on to cast a levitation spell on the rabbit and the mice, lifting them above the ground and then smashing them down. After the endeavour with the wolf, he didn't have any qualms about doing this. He realized that either you eat them and are careful and deadly or you get eaten.
Sure, a rabbit isn't deadly for him, but he had to start somewhere.
He went a different route with the birds. When he saw them sitting in the trees, he tried to cast a knockback jinx on them so that they would hit branches or another tree and drop to the ground. After missing a lot because of his ungodly bad aim (as of now) and experimenting with the focus put on knockback, he had hit a few birds to the ground and sometimes he had to knock them on the head with his staff to relive them from their pain.
Three birds, three mice and a lot of blood on his hands later, Sebastian had enough points to exchange for a small booklet on how to skin and gut animals and had successfully gutted the rabbit and three birds. The other two birds had to rest in pieces and were also exchanged for points.
-Hp-
Sebastian proceeded to make a small fire near a stream and cooked the rabbit and the birds, eating two of them and preserving the rabbit and a bird for later.
Being satiated and rested, Sebastian spent the rest of the day practicing the Knockback Jinx, the levitation charm, Lumos and Aguamenti. He aimed to be able to control the Water Summoning charm to condense in a high-pressure stream to cut though little animals and maybe cut off branches to make it easier to get them, but it was a hard endeavour and so far he could only massage his hand with a bit of pressure.
-HP-
The next three days were spent repeating the same routine. Hunting, gutting, eating, collecting points and training, though he sometimes exchanged points for small pills that gave him all the missing nutrients so he wouldn't get sick and to protect his body.
As he got better at hunting, he was able to collect a lot more points and he was able to get back the points he had spent on the tent, which showed how hard the school thought it to be for them to hunt a wolf.
This also meant that he had nearly enough point to exchange for a spell and Sebatian settled for the Stunning Charm 'Stupefy. It wasn't supposed to be easy but also not the hardest combat charm to master, as Harry was able to learn it with relative ease, though it sometimes failed in dire situations. He vowed to himself to always stay coolheaded and to put enough intent after he had practised enough.
Therefore, two more days passed, during which Sebastian had to run away a few times, as he nearly met a wolf pack and one time he heard loud stomping noises, and he REALLY didn't want to meet the creature that made this noise just by walking.
Then it was finally the time: He tapped on the page reading 'Stunning Spell' and a page like out of a book appeared in front of him with a soft pop.
Just before exchanging for this spell, Sebastian had been thinking deeply about whether to buy this spell or something more deadly, as there were a few relatively cheap spells, that were very deadly, but also very dark, at least from what he knew from Harry Potter, as he didn't think that a spell that makes blood boil in a small area of the body or a spell that makes your legs atrophy were classified as hexes or jinxes and as of now, he didn't want to learn them.
It became clearly easier to kill animals and Sebatian had realized that when hunting or concentrating on something dangerous he was able to stay surprisingly coolheaded. So maybe there was some kind of mind magic he was talented in, who knew.
-HP-
"Stupefy!", Sebastian yelled, and a red light rushed towards a rabbit, but because the rabbit was able to hear him shouting it was quick to react and jump away from the red light and disappear into the nearby bushes.
"Shit!", Sebastian cursed. Yelling 'Stupefy' made it damn obvious that he was there, but he had realized that shouting this incantation made the spell way stronger. And then there was this dumb red light. Could it be more obvious? If only that could be gone.
Sebastian turned around abruptly and yelled, "STUPEFY!", hoping that this shitty light was to disappear.
And it did! The was barely a small red streak rushing through the air like the beam of a big, oversized laser pointer.
"TWANG", the spell hit a branch which snapped upon contact, stunning Sebastian as if he were the one to be hit, looking at the direction he had fired the stunner with a gaping mouth.
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Remember, it's my first fanfiction.
Feel free to comment and correct my grammar and writing, or to leave suggestions for the story's future development.
