Ian sat in the eerily silent room, staring blankly at Claire. Outside the window stretched the boundless, pitch-black cosmic starry sky, and it felt as if the entire world were slumbering in primordial stillness.
There was no ticking clock, no whisper of wind, only the bubbling of Claire's simmering cauldron, its mysterious golden froth slowly churning like the heart of some ancient ritual still in operation.
"You're saying..." Ian finally spoke, his voice dry. "The people of House Dumbledore originated from a bowl of soup?"
As he spoke, his brow furrowed so deeply it could trap a fly, his eyes conveying a complex mix of disbelief and complicated expression that said, "Are you kidding me?"
Hearing Claire's words, Ian was utterly dumbfounded.
He had pondered many theories about the origins of House Dumbledore before, but he never imagined their roots could be traced back to a bowl of soup.
'This is getting a bit too absurd!'
The phoenix didn't end up in the soup, but the Dumbledore House's power originated from a bowl of soup?
"I mean, the Phoenix's power comes from my Phoenix, and the Dumbledore House's affinity with the Phoenix stems from this soup," Titan said, sounding like she was on a quest straight out of a history textbook.
She corrected Ian's wording, leaving him to open and close his mouth, unsure how to respond. He covered his forehead and asked again in disbelief.
"Alright, even if that's true, the fact that the Dumbledore House's Power of Bloodline originates from this... is honestly beyond words. You've really pulled way too many crazy stunts."
That was Ian's sincere feeling.
However, faced with his complaints, Claire only laughed softly. The steam rising from the bowl swirled before her, deepening the shadows in her eyes.
"It's mainly because I have a great Professor."
She even added some green vegetables to her soup, a type Ian couldn't identify, showing she had carefully considered the balance of meat and vegetables.
"…"
Ian fell silent.
If he remembered correctly, Claire had called that person her professor.
Her Professor was Raven.
"The Dumbledore House originated with you, and its lineage stretches back this far?" Ian changed the subject, still mindful that they were in an era before the Gods had even been born.
If the Dumbledore House had already begun developing in this age...
Aside from asexual reproduction,
Ian could only imagine crossbreeding with the Gods, yet the later Dumbledore House showed no trace of divine lineage. This contradiction piqued Ian's curiosity.
Hearing the question, Claire, who was gently stirring her soup with a spoon, looked up and spoke with a mysterious smile playing at the corners of her lips. "That depends on how you choose to see it," she replied, her expression carrying that familiar, scheming, riddler-like quality that Ian recognized.
"Huh?" Ian blinked, confused. "What do you mean?"
The young wizard immediately pressed for clarification.
Claire answered at once.
"Time has never been a linear force," she said slowly, her voice soft yet carrying an undeniable air of authority. "Do you think history flows from the past to the present and then to the future? No, it's more like a river. Sometimes it loops, sometimes it flows backward, and sometimes it starts again from the source."
This explanation was far too philosophical for the young wizard to grasp.
"Can you speak plainly?" Ian sighed, exasperated.
"You'll understand it eventually," Claire replied.
Claire replied in the same cryptic tone, her lips curling into a mysterious smile. Her voice sounded ethereal, carrying a sense of transcendence beyond time itself.
'Hmm.'
In short, she was putting on airs, not unlike those pretentious posers with fake deep voices.
Ian looked up at her. She still wore that unfathomable expression, like a sage standing atop a mountain, looking down on all living beings.
Meanwhile, he was just a bewildered mortal, having barely climbed halfway up the mountain.
Wasn't this just another form of psychological manipulation?
"Riddle-spewing weirdo, get off Earth!" Ian muttered, rubbing his forehead in exasperation. Throughout his life, he'd loathed three groups: people who didn't like him, people who talked in an affected pretentious way, and people who didn't allow him to act pretentious.
"Hmm?" Claire blinked at his retort, her tone remaining calm. "But... this was never Earth to begin with."
"This is the Cosmic Starry Sky, are you still half-asleep?" she said, her expression radiating self-assuredness. Well, this place was floating above Earth.
It didn't belong to Earth's domain.
Logically speaking, Claire was the true owner here. It wasn't just an ancient era; there was no Hogwarts or any other magical world he recognized.
The room was located within a Titan castle floating in the cosmos. Fragments of stars were embedded in the walls, and the air carried an aura foreign to any known civilization.
The entire island served as the Titans' spacecraft.
So, in reality, Ian was standing on someone else's territory.
Ian: "... "
Speechless and dumbfounded, he could only stare at the three-meter-tall otaku Titan. She swung her feet smugly, like a child who had just pulled off a successful prank.
"Want to know the answer?" Claire suddenly leaned closer, her silvery-white hair cascading down, the tips shimmering with starlight. "Then you'll have to go to Earth and gather some things for me too."
Claire set down her spoon, folded her hands in her lap, and looked intently at the young wizard.
Ian frowned. "Why aren't you going?"
As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them.
He knew why Claire was alone.
Sure enough...
Her expression dimmed instantly. She sighed heavily, and her earlier playfulness vanished, replaced by a lonely calm.
"'Exile' means I can't enter any other part of Earth except for the area around the small island you landed on." Her fingers unconsciously rubbed against the spoon.
"Titan exile isn't just about being banished... it comes with a power that restricts us." Claire lifted her head, gazing at some distant point in the void.
"Even though the Titans are gone, this power remains. It's an iron law within our race's ancient agreement," she said, revealing a reason that sounded strangely like science fiction.
'Law.'
Ian couldn't shake the feeling that she was taking advantage of his ignorance of ancient powers. Yet, looking at her current expression, he found himself inexplicably thinking... perhaps what she said was true.
It was clear that as an alien species, the Titans possessed their own civilization and laws.
These laws didn't vanish with the deaths of the Titans on Earth. Rooted within each Titan's very being, they represented a more advanced form of social management for these communal creatures.
Ian couldn't discern the exact blend of magic and science at play, but he could tell that Claire wasn't lying. Perhaps this recluse hadn't chosen her solitary existence willingly.
Across endless years,
Being confined to one place...
Wasn't that a kind of imprisonment?
In such a life, finding even a shred of amusement would be a kind of solace. At that moment, Ian felt he understood why the Claire had come up with so many elaborate projects.
Pokémon, Digimon, the Asgardian gods, and this perpetually modified spaceship... perhaps it was all because Claire simply couldn't find any other way to pass the time.
A brief silence fell over the room.
The flames crackled in the fireplace.
Its firelight illuminated Claire's gentle profile, but it could not reach the shadows in her eyes.
"If you want to go home," Claire suddenly said, her voice light and breezy as if the earlier gloom had never existed, "then you'll have to help me with this, oh~ "
She tilted her head and blinked, looking exactly like a cat begging for snacks.
Ian: "... "
'She's got him cornered.'
He sighed heavily and rubbed his temples. Whether to unravel the secrets of the Dumbledore House or to return to the real world, he seemed to have no choice.
"Fine," Ian agreed reluctantly. "What needs to be gathered?"
Claire immediately perked up, pulling a roll of parchment from seemingly nowhere. With a flourish, she unfurled it, revealing a list of materials written in dense, meticulous script. At the top, in extravagant cursive, was the title:
"Claire's Materials List (Deluxe Edition)"
"No way! This is definitely harder than what Dumbledore had to do!" Ian stared down at the [ Claire's Materials List (Deluxe Edition) ], his eyelids twitching. His gaze landed on absurd requirements like "lava crystals freshly mined from an active volcano" and "nectar from ephemeral flowers that bloom only on the night of the full moon."
It was utterly ridiculous.
He suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to travel back five minutes and strangle the version of himself who had so readily agreed to this.
'Helping?'
These tasks were clearly epic-level fetch quests.
"Of course not." Claire tilted her head, her silver-white hair cascading over her shoulder as she spoke with a sly smile playing on her lips. "To those who are capable, much is expected. Dumbledore couldn't manage it, but you can."
Her tone carried a hint of 'there's no other way' feeling.
"Huh?" Ian frowned. "You mean... to say that I could do things that even Dumbledore couldn't?"
"Exactly," Claire nodded calmly, as if discussing the weather. "Because he is Dumbledore, and you are you. You are the most special individual in the universe."
"What kind of reason is that?" Ian complained.
"Because you possess something he doesn't." Claire set down her teacup and looked at him intently. The line clearly carried hidden meaning.
"Hm?"
Ian's gaze returned to the list, fixating on the item "Volcano Lava Crystals." His brow furrowed as he slowly lifted his head, a sudden realization dawning on him.
"What volcano is this? This volcano... it couldn't be that volcano, could it?" He stared at the words, his brow furrowing deeper as realization dawned.
Claire smiled faintly, as if she had anticipated this question all along.
"It's exactly that volcano," she said, winking. A mischievous glint flashed in her violet-gold eyes. "To do what you need to do first, you'll naturally need the crystallized lava from the Twilight Zone's volcano."
This made perfect sense. Ian had already suspected something was off about that volcano, and now it was confirmed: that volcano possessed a power unlike anything found elsewhere.
"... "
Ian took a deep breath, struggling to remain calm.
"I can only enter the Twilight Zone once every seven days," he stated, telling the truth.
He was telling the truth.
"That can wait," Claire waved dismissively, her expression nonchalant. "You can focus on other things first." Her slender finger traced the list. "Epiphyllum Nectar, Eternal Ice Crystals, Stardust Sand... These are scattered across different eras, so..."
"So, I need to travel through different time periods?" Ian asked, frowning.
Claire nodded with a smile.
"Is this a Quest only I can complete?"
"Exactly~"
Ian stared at her for a few seconds, then his eyes widened slightly. "Because I can interfere with destiny?"
Claire's smile deepened, a hint of approval flickering in her eyes. She clapped softly. "Brilliant! Just as I'd expect from my senile Professor Raven."
This wasn't a personal attack anymore.
It was a spiritual achievement.
Ian fell silent for a moment, then looked up, his gaze burning with intensity.
"Are you going to teach me time magic?"
He was genuinely shocked by Claire's methods.
"No." Claire shook her head, still relaxed. "I'm going to build you a time machine."
It was clear.
She truly possessed the power to interfere with time. Perhaps the Titans had lost this power precisely because she had taken it, which is why the Gods created afterward lacked such power?
"... "
Ian's expression froze for a moment.
"What?" He almost thought he'd misheard her. "You said 'build'? You mean you built it yourself, with your own hands?"
"Yep," Claire said with a shrug. "I've got plenty of time on my hands anyway."
Her words left him speechless, as always.
Ian opened his mouth to protest but ultimately decided to drop the topic. Instead, he asked another question that had been bothering him.
"Then... can I just use the time machine to return to my own era?" He asked tentatively, his eyes fixed on Claire, watching for her reaction.
Claire couldn't help but laugh. She reached out and ruffled Ian's hair. He tried to dodge but failed, the three-meter-tall Titan sounding perfectly casual.
"My power has its limits, you know. The time machine I built can't travel that far~" She paused, then added, "Besides, you wouldn't abandon your headmaster, would you?"
"... "
Ian fell silent, speechless.
'This woman... she knows me too well.'
He sighed, resignedly spreading his hands.
"All right then. Go ahead. Show me."
He wanted to learn some of Claire's alchemy techniques.
However...
Claire's eyes lit up, and she immediately bounced over to the table in the room. With her three-meter-tall frame, the movement shook the entire room.
Then.
The giant loli pulled open a drawer.
"???????"
Ian's eyes widened.
"The time machine? It's been finished for ages!"
Claire proudly displayed the contents of her drawer. In the pitch-black interior, Ian recognized a familiar object: a small time machine with a peculiar design, its surface covered in intricate runes.
It looked exactly like the time machine from a certain anime.
"..."
Ian stared at the "time machine," so obviously inspired by Doraemon's design, his lips twitching.
"You didn't even spare Doraemon?" he said, his voice filled with exasperation.
"Art imitates life, darling~"
Claire stood her ground, defiant.
"Besides, don't all time machines look like this?"
She had the authority to define what a time machine should be.
Ian remained speechless, his gaze fixed on the time machine, his heart churning with conflicting emotions.
He had always thought of himself as an ordinary magic student. Yet now he found himself relying on a "drawer time machine" crafted by a Female Titan to traverse time and collect alchemy materials.
Suddenly, he realized he was no longer just an ordinary student. He was now part of a journey far grander and more profound than he had ever imagined.
And the starting point of this journey? A pot of Phoenix soup, even after digesting this information for over ten minutes, it still felt utterly absurd.
"What am I even doing?"
Ian clutched the checklist and climbed inside.
The room fell silent again, save for the persistent bubbling of the soup pot.
(End of Chapter)
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