Seeing the astonishing changes on the system panel, Ciel couldn't help but gasp. Serpensortia had directly soared from approaching the Silver tier to the Platinum tier?! This change was almost comparable to harvesting rewards!
"What exactly is going on?"
It wasn't until after a long while that he, coming to his senses, began to understand. "Could it be because I've been trying to learn the underlying mysteries of Serpensortia? If I could fully penetrate all the underlying mysteries, then my mastery might rival that of Serpensortia's original creator. That would definitely be Legendary-tier mastery. Because of this, even just gaining some insight on this path could cause spell mastery to soar."
After understanding this, his eyes showed some delight. This really gave him a hint. Perhaps he could walk this path again with other spells.
"Not enhancing mastery through blindly practicing spells, but starting from the spell's foundation, achieving rapid advancement in mastery by grasping the spell's underlying logic."
The difference between these two approaches was obvious. The efficiency was worlds apart! The only pity was that with his current magical mastery and magical perception, attempting this was still too difficult. In the short term, it probably wouldn't be as stable as practicing effects.
"But after I accumulate for a while more. Especially after my magical perception breaks through to a higher level, perhaps I can start attempting it. By then, my speed of learning new spells will also significantly improve!"
He nodded with satisfaction. Then his face showed anticipation. "I wonder what changes Serpensortia will have after advancing to Platinum tier. After all, it's currently my only Platinum-tier attack spell. This effect shouldn't disappoint me."
Then Ciel raised his wand and thrust it forward sharply. "Serpensortia!"
The next moment, he had a strange sensation... the smoke bursting from his wand tip and the black venomous snake condensed from the smoke seemed to be under his control! He held his breath and flicked his wand. The smoke that was about to condense into a snake outline suddenly bulged up a section. Then two snake hisses rang out. A venomous snake over eight meters long crashed heavily to the ground.
The strangest part was that it actually had two heads. This was a two-headed snake!
His eyes lit up. Though this would be somewhat smaller than an ordinary black snake, the threat of a two-headed snake was much greater than the previous ordinary snakes! Moreover, two heads might not be his limit.
He seemed to have discovered a new toy, continuously waving his wand. The snake before him kept turning into smoke and recongealing. Each time it congealed, it would gain another head. Until he felt his control over Serpensortia had reached his current limit, before him stood a massive five-headed snake, roaring with raised heads like a mythological monster!
His expression was quite satisfied. Regardless of this five-headed snake's lethality, just its appearance and massive upright body would probably terrify many people. Unless they were battle-hardened wizards, most would feel fear encountering such a sight.
He had long understood that determination was an important condition for successful spellcasting. In other words, facing this Serpensortia, many wizards might not even be able to cast spells successfully!
"Additionally, there seems to be another type of change. Different from altering the snake's size but changing the quantity."
He murmured to himself. With a wave of his wand, the five-headed snake before him scattered into smoke. Then he shook his wand sharply, as if trying to scatter the smoke. With one shake, the smoke was actually divided into twelve parts. The next second, as he waved his wand again, twelve black venomous snakes appeared, slithering forward.
Though their size and lethality couldn't compare to the five-headed snake from before, such quantity would greatly enhance their ability to distract enemies. They would also be excellent auxiliary means for detecting environments and searching locations. If he could make further changes... like transforming the snakes into ropes or flying knives... their practicality could climb even higher!
After quite a while, Ciel finally put away his wand with satisfaction. The Platinum-tier Serpensortia didn't disappoint him.
Then his gaze fell on Transfiguration, which had advanced to the Bronze tier. Though it was merely Bronze tier, his joy over Transfiguration's advancement even exceeded that of Serpensortia. Transfiguration was the foundation of many magics. Black Iron-tier Transfiguration was equivalent to Platinum-tier mastery in many spells! One could imagine how rare Bronze-tier Transfiguration was.
Among all the students at Hogwarts, probably few could master Transfiguration at this level. As for first-year students, there were none. Even Hermione was still far behind.
He carefully felt the changes after Transfiguration's advancement. After a moment, his expression showed wild joy. His gaze fell directly on the other spells he had mastered. Platinum-tier spells like Lumos, the Soil Loosening Charm, etc., had been stuck for a long time due to his magical perception becoming a bottleneck.
However, after Transfiguration's advancement, the luster on these spell texts seemed almost substantial, shining as never before. Their mastery had all improved significantly! On Sectumsempra, golden luster had spread over most of it in the blink of an eye. Clearly, the progress toward advancing to Gold tier had been greatly accelerated.
His eyes sparkled with wonder as he gained increasingly clear perception of Transfiguration's importance. "Even when magical perception hits a bottleneck, improving Transfiguration can directly help these magics' mastery break through some bottlenecks. If my magical perception had no limitations, some spells might even approach the Diamond-tier advancement threshold. Also, when learning spells in the future, as long as they're not extremely difficult spells, my mastery speed will be astonishingly fast. And I definitely won't need to start building mastery from the Black Iron tier... at minimum it'll be the Bronze or even Silver tier! This is the effect of Transfiguration as the foundation of magic."
Adding that the Patronus Trees had also gained the [Occlumency Enhancement (Bronze Tier)] reward, he felt excited. This time, he had definitely profited immensely!
But soon, as the excitement gradually cooled, his expression became grave again. A large part of this harvest was because he had extracted some knowledge from Voldemort. Otherwise, waiting for him to find the errors in his Transfiguration research direction might have taken another week. He might not even figure it out until detention ended. In that case, his progress would have been much smaller.
But there were pros and cons. Having swindled knowledge from Voldemort, the double agent probably wouldn't let it go easily.
But after a moment, his mindset returned to stability. "Even if I hadn't swindled him, he would still come after me for the Devil's Snare. Rather than thinking about those irrelevant matters now, it's better to continue improving my strength as much as possible."
His gaze fell on Sectumsempra, where silver and gold luster intertwined. He clenched his fists slightly. "Strike while the iron is hot. Advance Sectumsempra to Gold tier as soon as possible. By then, no matter what situation arises... anyone wanting to move against me better be prepared to get splattered with blood!"
Coincidentally, after his Sectumsempra mastery improved another level, processing the variant Devil's Snare's secondary nodes was now a sure thing. Improving Sectumsempra and cultivating Devil's Snare could proceed simultaneously.
He drew his wand. Not satisfied for even a moment with his dramatically improved magical strength, he continued throwing himself tirelessly into work. Even because of the threat from the double agent after detention ended, under this pressure, he became even more focused and concentrated.
The passage of time became meaningless. He entered a flow state again, achieving complete absorption. He even forgot about the parchment fragments buried under the Patronus Trees.
At this time, fragmented text was still appearing on the parchment. "Junior? Are you done with your bath? Why are you bathing for so long? Junior???"
On the other side of the parchment, Voldemort's eyes were full of fury. "Damn it! I had clearly broken through this little Hufflepuff's defenses... I was just one step away from extracting the variant Devil's Snare's weakness. What exactly went wrong? Why isn't he replying?"
Quirrell said fearfully at this time, "Master. Could this little Hufflepuff have been deceiving us from the start? After getting the benefits, he threw away the parchment?"
Voldemort said decisively, "Impossible! From the moment he wrote the first word on the parchment, he would be under my influence. That's definitely not something a first-year student could break free from. Moreover, Hufflepuff students wouldn't do something so shameless, would they? Unless..."
His expression fell into gloom. Clearly, he was brewing with rage. "It was Dumbledore. That old fool must have sensed something wrong and cut off my conversation with Ciel. One step... I was just one step away from success. Dumbledore, you old bastard, you deserve to die!!!"
After his fury, Voldemort panted heavily. Quirrell's face was also pale, weakness wrapping around him again. "Too much power consumed. The power recovered from hunting the unicorn last time is completely gone. Fortunately, Ciel's defensive line is now practically nonexistent. No matter how strictly Dumbledore guards, once his detention ends, I can find an opportunity to get it from his mouth. The urgent matter is no longer Ciel. Continue hunting unicorns... need to hunt as many as possible. The next breakthrough attempt must succeed in one try!"
After these instructions, Voldemort fell back into slumber on Quirrell's body. Quirrell, regaining control of his body, completely destroyed the parchment. Then he dragged his weak body step by step toward the Forbidden Forest.
In a flash, another ten days passed. During these ten days, without Quirrell's interference, Ciel's daily life could be said to be extremely regular and fulfilling. After tending to the plants in the little greenhouse each day, he devoted almost all his time to magical practice. Over ten days, the results were remarkable.
Three days ago, his Sectumsempra mastery had officially advanced to the Gold tier. Its sharpness had probably nearly doubled compared to before. The Devil's Snare tendrils that could previously resist Sectumsempra were now completely cut like tofu... the metallic surface could be easily sliced through.
But there were pros and cons. This also meant the current Devil's Snare tendrils had much less effect on improving Sectumsempra. Fortunately, over these days, he had processed all the secondary nodes of these Devil's Snare roots. It was just a matter of time before they grew new, more resilient tendrils. He estimated that at least until Sectumsempra advanced to the Platinum tier, the variant Devil's Snare could still be useful.
Besides Sectumsempra's huge improvement, another spell he learned from the Half-Blood Prince's textbook had improved even more dramatically. That was Levicorpus. Even before Sectumsempra advanced to Gold tier, Levicorpus had already reached Platinum tier.
This spell's Platinum-tier qualitative change somewhat surprised him. Besides the hanging weight and duration both increasing, concealment had also greatly improved. That is, the magical fluctuations when casting Levicorpus had significantly decreased.
Though this couldn't let him use this spell as artistically as Snape, ordinary opponents... even some Aurors... if they lacked sufficient combat experience, would probably fall victim to Levicorpus on first encounter. In chaotic battlefields, it would be even harder to detect. It was almost a matter of pointing at whoever to make them fly.
The fate of being suspended upside down on a battlefield needn't be elaborated. Snape back then was indeed someone who had to fight in school daily. The spells he created were truly extremely practical. Levicorpus combined with Sectumsempra... anyone careless could be instantly killed!
Scanning across the system panel, he let out a light breath, his expression satisfied. Compared to three weeks ago, his magical strength was now on a completely different dimension.
"But tomorrow, detention ends. Sigh, beautiful times are always so brief."
He felt some sentiment. Then, after tomorrow, he might face the double agent's threat again. Perhaps because he had swindled him, the revenge methods would be particularly vicious. The moment he left the little greenhouse, he might be greeted by a curse!
Thinking this, he didn't dare be careless. With the remaining time, he didn't immerse himself in magical practice again. One day's time, with most magic stuck due to insufficient magical perception, achieving any qualitative change was nearly impossible.
But there was one project he could practice: actual combat!
His gaze fell on the Devil's Snare and Shadow Thorns in the little greenhouse. Under his care for three weeks, these dangerous plants had all grown to some degree. The Devil's Snare needn't be mentioned... after processing secondary nodes, the previous tendrils had also become more robust.
As for Shadow Thorns, their spikes had become increasingly dense, giving people goosebumps just looking at them. If the current Devil's Snare and Shadow Thorns attacked Bozo Chalman, he probably wouldn't even have a chance to escape to the door before being whipped to death!
But he, after taking a deep breath, looked bright-eyed and beckoned. "Shadow. Lead the Devil's Snare and other Shadow Thorns to attack me. Use full strength. Also use your ancient shadow magic."
After pausing briefly, Shadow executed his command without compromise. Instantly, clusters of Shadow Thorns and Devil's Snare were entangled together by shadows. Thorn whips formed one after another. On the ground, numerous shadows writhed like tentacles. The next second, whistling sounds filled the air.
His eyes burst with brightness. He entrusted his body to magic, to feel, to dance, weaving through thorn whips and shadows! But with the density of thorn whips and shadow magic, it exceeded the limits of human reaction speed. No matter how much he dodged, he still inevitably got hit repeatedly.
The spikes on Shadow Thorns and the power of ancient shadow magic, though not enough to cause him serious injury... wounds could heal quickly... the pain was undiminished. One strike that made Bozo Chalman scream in agony, falling repeatedly on him, made his cheeks tense and expression contorted. His lips were bitten through by his teeth. Drops of blood fell from the corners of his mouth.
At this time, Shadow's movements paused. Lines of text formed by shadows appeared. "Father. Need a rest?"
He slowly wiped the blood from his mouth and squeezed out words: "Continue. Full strength, no holding back."
Then, receiving his command, Shadow again led the Devil's Snare and Shadow Thorns to lash at him. Wounds on him constantly accumulated, then constantly healed. But pain always clung to him.
He certainly didn't have masochistic tendencies. Ciel simply understood that though his magical strength had grown much during these three weeks of detention, it was still limited. If facing the double agent, he had absolutely no chance of winning based on paper strength.
Of course, if there was any possibility of avoidance, he wouldn't fight the double agent head-on. But not everything was decided by him. If it really came to that situation, at least he hoped to buy more time until Dumbledore arrived for rescue.
Suffering more pain now to make his reactions sharper, movements faster, and pain tolerance stronger was better than being killed or controlled by the double agent. Therefore, even with pain attacking his body and piercing his bones, he still tried his utmost to maintain combat rhythm, constantly dodging and counterattacking.
Compared to the previous situation where time flew by, this time could truly be described as seconds feeling like years. Even a grind-master like him felt almost numb. But whenever thoughts of giving up arose in his mind, scenes flashed before his eyes.
The Sprout family. His aunt. And Antonin Dolohov... He was definitely stronger than Quirrell. Even stronger than Snape. And he had to kill him in fifth year! With his current strength, he was still far from enough!
He gritted his teeth and quickened his pace again, dodging incoming attacks. Until the thorn whips and shadows slowed down, and Shadow was almost lying on the ground. He panted heavily, his eyes somewhat dazed.
After a moment, he came to his senses and couldn't help but let out hearty laughter. At this time, dawn was breaking. Faint morning light entered the little greenhouse. His laughter gradually stopped as he collapsed on the ground ungracefully, calming his still-painful and tense nerves.
Outside the little greenhouse, the protective magic disappeared. His expression became grave again. He was prepared for Quirrell to be waiting outside. Gripping his wand tightly and taking a deep breath, he walked slowly toward the outside of the little greenhouse.
The next moment, as soon as the little greenhouse door opened, a chaotic wave of sound... cheers, applause, and deafening crackling... poured in from outside, engulfing him.
He, whose steps had already unconsciously shifted to dodge incoming curses, suddenly froze seeing the scene before him. Little Hufflepuffs? Leading them was Cedric. There were also Quidditch team members. Hannah, Susan... they were all here, all wearing new badges.
At the very front of the crowd was Professor Sprout with red-rimmed eyes, constantly wiping tears. The moment she saw him appear, Professor Sprout could no longer hold back. Sobbing, she stepped forward and gave him a forceful hug.
"Ciel, welcome home."
His agile steps stopped as he stood somewhat at a loss, being embraced by Professor Sprout. Warmth flowed through his heart. He wanted to say something to Professor Sprout.
"Aunt. I took good care of the little greenhouse. The Devil's Snare, Shadow Thorns, Patronus Trees... all are excellent. There are also some discoveries that might surprise you... probably another top journal publication."
But Professor Sprout didn't care about any of this. Even so-called top journals meant nothing to her. She just squeezed his arm and said with heartache. "You've gotten thinner."
He showed a bitter smile. After a long while, Professor Sprout finally controlled her emotions, wiped her tears, and released him. But at this time, someone else started crying. That sound, like a massive pipe organ, made everyone's chest cavity resonate. It was Hagrid!
He constantly wiped his tears with a handkerchief, pushing through the crowd with tears and snot, reaching him, and giving him a forceful hug. "Sorry, Ciel, I'm late. I should have been waiting here earlier. But there's good news... yes, it's like even Merlin is celebrating the end of your detention. Couldn't be better news."
His eyes suddenly lit up with strange light. "Hagrid, could it be..."
Hagrid lowered his voice and said in muffled tones. "Yes. Norbert is about to be born. Should be tonight!"
He suddenly clenched his fists. Norbert's birth meant he would have a stable supply of fresh dragon blood. Then Blood Jade could begin mass cultivation. According to Professor Sprout's previous research, as long as they solved the need for powerful magical blood at Blood Jade's key growth nodes, it matured quite quickly.
This should be the fastest-maturing Silver-tier plant he currently has. The hematopoietic function enhancement it brought could accumulate to extremely high levels in a short time. He felt anticipation as his gaze fell on [Legendary Vitality] and [Legendary Strength] on the system panel.
Perhaps these two abilities could take substantial steps in their advancement toward the Mythical tier?!
[Chapter Complete]
***
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