The air in the Advanced Charms Club's practice room was so silent that one could hear their own heartbeat.
Dozens of students had instinctively formed a tight circle, every one of them holding their breath, eyes locked on the center of the room.
There stood two "creators."
What had begun as playful teasing from the Weasley twins had somehow escalated into the highest-level duel in the club's history — an impromptu challenge of original spellcraft. The tension in the air could've been cut with a knife.
Penelope Clearwater — Ravenclaw's acknowledged prodigy of charms — was performing something close to an art form.
Her movements were graceful; her wand danced between her fingers like a ribbon of light, tracing elegant arcs through the air.
Before her floated several distinct spell effects, shimmering like ethereal paints:
the pale blue of the Levitation Charm,
the heavy ochre of the Impediment Jinx,
the crimson flare of the Disarming Charm,
the pure white glow of Lumos,
and the cool silver hue of Alohomora.
Five basic spells — five different kinds of magic — no longer stood as isolated enchantments, but as five streams of the purest magical pigments.
Penelope's expression was one of focus and rapture. The tip of her wand flicked, drawing a trace of blue, then blending it gently with a streak of yellow — like a painter mixing colors on a palette, she delicately harmonized two opposing magical natures.
Her creative process was guided not by theory, but by intuition — by inspiration. Each spell she shaped was more like a stanza in a dazzling, unfolding poem. The shifting light and magic formed a vision of beauty that left the crowd breathless.
But on the opposite side of the room, Alan Scott's performance was the complete opposite — eerie, motionless, and utterly silent.
He stood with eyes closed, as still as a statue carved from marble. His holly wand hung loosely by his side, untouched.
"What's he doing? Did he… fall asleep?" someone whispered, unable to contain their curiosity.
To the onlookers, he seemed dazed — wasting precious minutes of the duel.
But they couldn't see what was happening inside Alan's mind.
Within the depths of his mental "Mind Palace," a storm far more violent than anything in the physical world was raging.
In that dark, abstract mental space — there was no art, no inspiration. Only absolute cold logic.
The five foundational spells before him were being torn apart into their most primitive forms: ancient runic commands, raw lines of magical code.
[Spell: Wingardium Leviosa – Deconstruction complete.]
Core commands: [Force Vector: Upward] [Energy Consumption: Low] [Duration: Variable]
[Spell: Impedimenta – Deconstruction complete.]
Core commands: [Kinetic Absorption: True] [Target Deceleration: High] [Area of Effect: Focused]
He was like a master programmer seated before billions of lines of code — constructing in his mind the most optimized defensive program possible.
His fingers didn't move in reality, but in the architecture of his thoughts, countless magical "commands" were being typed out at blinding speed.
// Primary Objective: Build a passive defensive barrier capable of automatically intercepting small flying objects.
// Core Modules: Call Levitation Charm repulsion matrix; call Impediment Jinx kinetic reduction algorithm.
// Logic Framework: Enable "Multithread Casting Protocol" — ensure both modules run simultaneously and stably, with linked energy feedback.
While Penelope was still delicately testing how to merge two conflicting spell energies without collapse — Alan suddenly opened his eyes.
In those black pupils, there was no trace of emotion — only a deep calm that seemed to reflect endless streams of data.
He raised his wand.
The motion wasn't elegant — it was efficient, mechanical, precise to the smallest detail. Every angle, every flick, was executed with surgical perfection.
Two entirely different spells were released at the exact same instant.
A low, resonant hum spread through the room — soft but carrying incredible force.
Centered around Alan, a nearly invisible half-spherical force field, about a meter in diameter, formed and expanded instantly.
It didn't blaze with light like most shields. It simply existed — stable, subtle, and shimmering faintly at the edges with microscopic ripples of magical energy.
Anything attempting to cross it was gently but firmly repelled.
Fred Weasley, unable to resist, gave a loud whoop and hurled an inkwell straight at him.
The bottle traced a dark arc through the air, speeding toward Alan.
But just before it could strike — something strange happened.
The inkwell hit what looked like empty air, but it was as if it had plunged into an invisible jelly. Its speed instantly dropped to zero, then a soft, unseen force bounced it back out, sending it tumbling harmlessly to the floor.
Not a single drop of ink spilled.
"It worked!"
"Merlin's beard — he actually did it!"
The club members burst into a wave of barely suppressed exclamations. Everyone's eyes were wide open as they stared at the nearly invisible force field, faces filled with disbelief.
Penelope, too, froze in surprise. She could sense the magical fluctuations of both spells, yet she had absolutely no idea how Alan had managed to make them work together so perfectly.
However, Alan's goal clearly did not stop there.
Inside his mental palace, Owen's cold and precise voice echoed once again.
"// Secondary Objective: Integrate Disarming Charm module — grant the passive force field active counterattack capability."
It was an extremely complex — almost insane — attempt.
This was equivalent to asking a defensive program, one already running stably, to load and execute an entirely independent attack program in real time without crashing.
Alan focused all his mental strength. His brain operated at unprecedented speed, attempting to "compile" the third spell — the Disarming Charm — into the already-formed "Suspension Force Field."
He could feel his magic being drained from his body at a terrifying rate. His mind was stretched to its absolute limit.
Just as the blazing energy of the Disarming Charm was about to be forcefully injected into the field—
It happened.
"Zzzzzzz—!"
A harsh, grating sound like grinding metal erupted without warning!
The wand in Alan's hand — the fine holly-and-phoenix-feather wand made by Ollivander — suddenly vibrated violently under unbearable pressure.
The wand grew scorching hot, the temperature so high it almost burned his skin!
From its tip, a thin wisp of acrid, smoking fumes rose into the air.
"Bang!"
The once perfectly stable "Suspension Force Field" collapsed instantly with a deep explosion, like a soap bubble being pierced — vanishing completely into the air.
The challenge was forcibly terminated.
Alan lowered his head, staring at his wand — still trembling slightly, its shaft radiating heat — and fell into deep silence.
Inside his mind palace, a line of crimson text, the result of countless collapsed data streams and analysis, appeared before his eyes, occupying his entire vision:
[Computation Failed: Hardware Performance Bottleneck]
[Failure Reason: Wand, as a conduit for magical transmission, cannot support simultaneous execution of multiple independent spell modules due to insufficient energy throughput per unit time.]
[Additional Cause: User's own magic output limit insufficient to sustain stable operation of such complex program.]
At that moment, he understood — deeply, painfully — that his theories and ideas had already far outstripped the era he lived in.
His "software" — the revolutionary system of magical programming he had developed — had reached a new, breathtaking level.
But his "hardware"…
— whether it was the wand as a tool, or his own eleven-year-old, still-developing body as an energy source —
had become gravely inadequate.
They were now the most fundamental, inescapable bottlenecks holding him back.
He deduced that if he wanted to truly realize those more complex and magnificent spell-programs — the ones worthy of being called applications — he would have to search for, or rather create with his own hands, an entirely new medium of magic, capable of carrying and running far greater, more intricate enchantments.
A path toward the future had been laid out before him —
but now he realized that the carriage beneath his feet could no longer move forward.
~~----------------------
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