“Mason!”
Inside the temple, the fallen black-haired young man opened his eyes.
Barely five minutes had passed since the end of that relentless, breathless battle.
The blood of the snake-witch beneath the stones was still warm, and he desperately wanted to lie there in the pool of crimson and sleep forever.
But who was shouting?
Did he have a companion named Mason?
Or was that an alias of the local guide who had been smashed into countless pieces?
“Mason?”
Are they calling me?
Am I not… Perseus?
The young man scrambled up with great effort, staggering over to the shard of a shattered mirror shield.
He gripped the fragment with a trembling hand.
Its sharp edge cut into his palm, but the sharp sting failed to rouse his alertness.
He stared intently at the reflection in the mirror, mouthing each word distinctly:
“I am… Perseus.”
“Mason…”
entered the temple as its heavy doors were slowly pushed open.
Blinding light reflected from the mirror fragment in Perseus’s hand straight into his eyes.
He was forced to drop the shard and raise an arm to block the glare, cautiously sizing up the newcomer.
“Are you named Mason?”
Perseus froze, then clutched his head in agony.
Something was stirring massive waves inside his mind, attempting to breach the lockdown of his subconscious.
“I haven’t seen a new intruder in this temple for many years.”
The local girl from Perseus’s memory—the one who had begged them for help—now walked into the temple holding a wand.
“You are the only survivor.”
Perseus sank onto one knee, clutching his head as he let out a pained roar.
The girl extinguished the light at the tip of her wand.
Her purple priestess robes swept across the dust and gravel as her bare feet moved rhythmically across the floor.
Stepping up to Perseus, she pressed her wand against his forehead.
A cool surge of air rushed into his mind, halting the violent clash between the two consciousnesses.
“Where am I?”
Mason regained control of his body and looked warily at the priestess before him.
“A dream?
An illusion?
The spirit realm?” The priestess’s voice resonated in Mason’s ears and inside his mind at the same time.
Lowering her wand, she gave it a casual flick.
Time within the temple reversed like a film playing backward.
He watched as “Perseus” separated from his body, replaying every detail of how he had defeated the snake-witch—especially the decisive moment when Mason had calculated the position to summon a magical shield for the kill.
The priestess let out a soft exclamation of admiration.
Soon, the temple restored itself to the moment right before Mason’s arrival: loose stones strewn across the floor alongside the unconscious Perseus, while the snake-witch coiled around a pillar nearby, poised to strike at any second.
“Or perhaps… the Underworld?”
“Then what is my current state?” Mason held up his hands, then tilted his head to look up at the priestess, who towered two heads above him.
That was right—he was back to being a frail, delicate white-haired little wizard.
He also noticed her right hand squirming beneath her robe, seemingly itching to reach out.
“You’re so small!” The priestess reached out and ruffled Mason’s white hair, only to have her hand annoyed-ly slapped away.
“Though I’d love, love, love to keep you here to keep me company, it’s a pity you bought a round-trip ticket.”
“Then bye-bye.” Mason waved at her.
Sure enough, he felt a strange trace of foreign magic on the back of his right hand.
Instinct told him that activating this magic would return him to reality.
“Wait!” The priestess didn’t manage to catch Mason’s hand in time.
The next second, having activated the magic, he vanished from the hazy illusion.
“You could at least chat with me for a bit…”
Cold.
Shaking.
“Mason!”
It was Hagrid’s voice.
*Oh no, I haven’t checked the enchantment progress on the magical ink yet!
He won’t send me to the hospital wing, will he?
Man, I miss Perseus’s robust body after twenty years of hard training.
The ancient Greek wizards in his memories were built like brick houses—a single punch could leave an ordinary wizard crying in a corner for hours.
When doing good deeds in chaotic city-states, forget wands; they didn’t even need to draw a sword.*
Mason tried with all his might to take back control of a body that had mistakenly thought its soul was offline.
His five senses gradually returned amid the struggle, and he realized his body wasn’t in motion.
He focused his attention immediately and forced his eyelids open.
There, Mason saw three figures—or rather, two and a half.
A centaur with platinum-blonde hair, a half-giant, and an old man who held up half the wizarding world.
“Professor Dumbledore?!”
Scared fully awake in an instant, Mason leaped up from the ground.
Instinctively applying the force-generation technique he had learned from Perseus’s body, he didn’t stop to think whether his own body could handle it.
Jumping three feet into the air, Mason landed with severe cramps in both legs.
Hagrid reacted quickly, catching him and setting him gently on the ground.
It was so cold.
They hadn’t even laid down some dry straw for him.
Dumbledore wore his purple wizarding robes, which looked remarkably like a nightgown.
If an ordinary person dressed like that, people would probably stay far away.
Yet Dumbledore’s subtle, authoritative aura always made one unconsciously overlook his attire.
He spoke slowly, his voice laced with curiosity:
“Mr.
Jones, I almost believed you were dead.”
*Ah?
Are you unhappy that I’m not?*
“The centaurs have been quite anxious lately.
They came to me saying the night sky has been remarkably active.
Pity an old man like me had to climb up to the Astronomy Tower in the dead of night, shivering in the cold wind without tea or sweets for company—and then, I saw you.”
“Firenze found me in the Forbidden Forest,” Hagrid said anxiously.
“First thing out of his mouth was that a young wizard was dying!
By the time I rushed here, I saw Dumbledore holding you and laying you on the ground, surrounded by all those strange characters and setups.
Mason, what on earth did you do?” He had nearly lost a friend he had known for less than a day.
Mason widened his eyes, attempting to play dumb.
Firenze was still gazing up at the stars, muttering in a language incomprehensible to others, a thread of excitement hidden beneath his flat tone.
“Let our young gentleman catch his breath.
Perhaps he truly endured a most perilous trial.” Dumbledore waved his wand, summoning a piece of chocolate from somewhere and handing it to Mason.
Dumbledore had arrived at the ritual site while Mason was unconscious.
Out of caution, he hadn’t rashly interrupted.
After a preliminary study of the runes on the ground, Dumbledore judged that Mason’s soul had been guided by the ritual to a special place unreachable by the living.
Until the precious metals and gems above the stone basin were exhausted, Mason would be safe for the time being.
Now it seemed Mason’s ritual had been a complete success.
The stone basin in the center brimmed with a bright red liquid, far more abundant than the ink he had originally poured in.
“If you intend to stay and teach after graduation, I might be able to establish an Alchemy discipline for you at Hogwarts,” Dumbledore joked.
Mason offered an awkward smile.
The bright red liquid gave off a faint metallic scent of blood.
Any wizard smelling it would assume it came from some magical creature.
But Dumbledore knew that an hour ago, this ‘blood’ was nothing more than ordinary ink, the kind Hogwarts students used up by the barrelful every day.
Dumbledore looked at Firenze.
The centaur seemed to recognize the magical product Mason had crafted.
“Medusa’s Blood,” Firenze said.
“It is still ink, yet it can be utilized in additional ways as though it were the blood of Medusa.”
“You have completed the trial of Perseus.
Your bravery will become famous among all centaurs.”