Alex simply looked at the man and said, "Rules?"
"Same old. Knock out, surrender or death.", he said in a gruff sandy voice, grinning.
Alex nodded, "I have to warn you though. To me, duels are a fight to death. Which means, if you don't surrender in the first five seconds, I will kill you."
"Hahaha, sure. We'll see about that."
Alex simply shrugged in response and took out his old wand, pointing at the man as he waited.
Nyeta stood near the door and glanced at both of them, "Let the duel officially begin."
Alex's main strength lied in alchemy and alchemy wasn't too useful in proper duels except for the elemental control part. If he had to depend on his other spells, he would have to go all out and even if he did go all out, knocking someone out or getting them to surrender was harder than killing them.
He sighed as he waited for his opponent who stood still for the first ten seconds before opening his mouth, "I've been waiting for too long. Why am I not dead yet? Hahahahah."
Alex didn't respond and simply waited for his opponent to move. His wishes were fulfilled but he was a bit disappointed when a simple stunner shot at him.
With a wave of his wand, the ground in front of him shot up and blocked the spell for him.
"Hey… my classmates cast better stunners than you, big guy."
Instead of receiving a reply, he got a few stunners and hexes which were all either dodged or blocked.
"Okay, never mind. I expected too much from you.", he said as he shot a fireball at him. The man used protego to counter it but the fireball stopped midway and circled around Alex as he grew bigger, taking a form of a large snake.
The other three stood in their respective places, stunned as they stared at the snake.
"Oi, give up or I'll really kill you."
This time though, Alex was taken seriously and the man forfeited.
Nyeta agreed to go with him and the reunion with her mother was something Alex didn't want to see so he dropped her in his home and left saying, "I'll be back during Christmas. Until then, stay here and don't go out. Toffy will take care of your needs but do remember that he is not your personal elf. He's mine."
The two women nodded and the two kids simply looked around curiously as Alex vanished along with Toffy.
**************
A few minutes ago at the Ministry of Magic, a middle-aged man ran to his superior's office. He pushed the door which had bold words written on it, which said, (Head of Improper Use of Magic) and headed inside.
"Sir Travers, I've spotted underage use of magic in Egypt."
Travers looked up at him with both his hands on his large belly, "Underage magic in Egypt? All the registered kids from England are at Hogwarts or other magic schools. There's no chance of magic being spotted in Egypt and even if there's a kid from our country, we have no authority to act in Egypt.
Check if there's a child who is missing as this could be a sign for help but if there is no one missing, just let it go. Egypt is too far and sometimes we do get wrong readings so it's fine."
The middle-aged man nodded and left the room to complete the task he was given while Travers took out a magazine that he had hidden before the man came and continued reading.
********
On his bed, Alex stared at his palm, deep in thought, 'I felt the weird thing again…. Wait… is it related to underage magic? If it is, I should do some research on it but right now… there's a huge chance of a letter coming for me…'
He waited for almost an hour and after seeing that there was no letter for him, he went to sleep.
The next day, Alex and Aman sat together in the Defence against the Dark Arts class with the Slytherins. Every single thing that Lockhart said was boring and almost useless but most of the girls still fawned over him.
To add to his annoyance, Lockhart was the only one who seemed to get extremely offended whenever Alex read books in his class. Books on other subjects.
It was the only class where Alex had to try his best to not sleep or jinx Lockhart. Hours passed by and after all the classes were done, Alex was off.
He stood in the Room of Requirements and looked at the almost empty room which only had two wooden dummies. Ignoring the wooden dummies, he began working out which didn't last long as he stopped just after a few minutes.
"…..", he silently stared at the ceiling as he felt his muscles crying.
'Weak…. Extremely healthy bodies but weak ones. Even muggles have better physical endurance according to the books that I've read. Or is it just me who has a weak body? Doesn't matter, I guess I'll just push through.'
He left the room and entered it once again as that was the only way he could change the inside of the room. A familiar scene greeted him as he looked at the large cauldron and bookshelves.
"Hmm…. Not many pills are useful for this except one and potions have immediate effects so they are better. All right, let's get started with the pill first."
It was a pill that had no name but its recipe was recorded so he knew it. The only reason he picked the pill was because it made him feel less pain for a whole day and provided a lot of nutritional benefits for the body.
It was a pill developed by one of the Chinese kings when the country was still divided into many small kingdoms and was used as rations for his soldiers. It was easy to carry and consumed less space which enabled the army to move faster and not having to rob the poor villagers during their journey.