“No sleeping allowed here.”
Madam Pince instructed animated books back to their shelves.
The lively volumes dusted themselves off as they moved, slowing down and reducing the flapping of their pages as they passed Mason and Hermione, who was slumped over a pile of books.
But the librarian was far less gentle; she patted Hermione’s shoulder and called her awake in a low voice.
“I’m sorry, Madam Pince.” Hermione rubbed her eyes in disbelief, an imprint of a book cover still stamped on her red forehead.
Hearing her response, Madam Pince nodded and went back to casting protective charms on the ancient books on the shelves.
“Oh goodness!” Hermione’s voice was slightly raspy.
“I only remember you touching the back of my hand with your index finger, and then I completely passed out—I dreamed my dad was holding pliers to pull my teeth, but they were out of anesthetic, and no matter how I ran, I couldn’t get out of the clinic…
How long was I asleep?”
“About half an hour?”
Mason pointed to the clock on the wall.
Hermione had fallen for Mason’s trick around 4:03 and slumped straight onto the desk.
“This is even more effective than a Sleeping Charm!
But you said earlier you could transfer more than just fatigue…
Where did you pull that out from?”
Mason pulled a cup of house-elf special lemon tea from his bag and handed it to Hermione—black tea base, no ice, ten percent sugar, sprinkled with plenty of piya…
chopped mint leaves.
“It should be.
Although I haven’t tested it, most statuses that harm the body or are subjectively perceived as harmful can be transferred to non-hostile servants and companions.”
“If you keep transferring drowsiness to others, can you study twenty-four hours non-stop?” Hermione’s eyes shone with envy.
“My dear young lady, status transfer is more like magic intercepting the alarm sent by the body to the brain, disguising it, and passing it off to someone else.
It doesn’t actually eliminate the physical need for sleep.
If you kept doing that, Hogwarts would end up with a few unlucky souls who only want to sleep all day, and one corpse from sudden death.”
Once Mason clearly explained the risks to Hermione, he wrote down the specific application techniques of this transfer method on a piece of parchment and handed it to Hermione, who was still eager to try.
“In fact, I think this technique would suit a skilled psychologist better.
Certain accumulated emotions can kill a person, not to mention wizards whose casting abilities are heavily tied to their emotions…
Oh right!
After graduating, I could open a psychological therapy clinic in Hogsmeade.
I could teach Alchemy at Hogwarts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and sit in my shop waiting to do therapy sessions for everyone on weekends.
Wouldn’t I make a fortune?”
Mason boasted endlessly about the knowledge he gained from the Codex of All Magic, while watching Hermione’s expression.
She wasn’t overly affected by his words.
After all, with him acting as a buffer, Hermione’s interpersonal relationships hadn’t plummeted to the rock-bottom state of the original story; she remained a strong, intelligent young witch.
“Hold my hand.” Hermione held the parchment in her left hand and extended her right hand to Mason, her eyes deeply focused.
“You spent half the text describing how to capture the flow of magic, but when I follow your method, I only see complete darkness.
I need your help.”
Mason gently took her right hand and tried to draw out a small portion of the magic flowing inside his body.
Light blue specks of light, visible only to him, radiated from where their hands met.
Hermione read over Mason’s written words a few more times, closed her eyes, and silently felt the magic perturbations in the air.
Three Ravenclaw students happened to pass by and greeted Mason.
He didn’t speak to disturb Hermione, choosing instead to smile and nod in response, before raising his right index finger to his lips.
*Are you arm wrestling?* Mason guessed the question from the lip movements of one of the girls.
He picked up a quill and quickly wrote a word on paper:
[Meditation]
Seeing the serious and resolute expression on Hermione’s face, the three girls didn’t think much of it.
What books were they borrowing?
Did the tallest senior among them reply after receiving a love letter from an upperclassman?
Had they also set up a stall at Lockhart’s exchange meeting?
How much longer was Hermione going to meditate?
Why had I suddenly become so gossipy?
Mason suddenly realized his curiosity was like a summer downpour, crashing down unexpectedly and submerging everything in his field of vision.
“Did you succeed?” Mason could have manipulated his magic to cut off the status Hermione was transmitting, but he was curious about her progress and adaptability with magic techniques, and curious about what she would look like after losing her drive to explore the magic world.
“I succeeded.” Hermione’s tone was calm, like a scholar who had seen many grand scenes.
“After you released your magic, I also perceived the difference between magic and the air around us.
Laughably, my magic can’t be clearly observed after dispersing in large amounts, but it’s enough to transfer statuses according to your method.”
“Then I remembered you saying subjectively harmful statuses could also be transferred, so I decided to transfer my desire for exploration to you.”
“And then?”
“There is no ‘and then.’ You said that rashly transferring too much status carries risks.”
Keen observation, clear self-awareness, brilliant ideas, and restraint in experimental methods that most wizard scholars should possess.
It was just a bit boring.
The two severed the connection and recoiled as if struck by electricity, looking at each other with lingering fear.
“I never want to experience that a second time,” Hermione said with lingering apprehension, recalling her state ten seconds ago as if observing someone else’s life.
“Plus one.”
Mason discussed Transfiguration insights with Hermione for a long time until Harry and Ron, growing anxious from waiting, popped their heads in at the library entrance.
Only then did Mason remember he hadn’t delivered the materials to Harry yet.
Harry: *Haha, I was dying of anxiety.*
Sending off the slacker duo, Mason said goodbye to Hermione as well.
He needed to go to Hagrid to get some sprouted potatoes, then head to the Room of Requirement to try crafting spell scrolls.
Twenty minutes later, in a corridor on the eighth floor of the castle.
“I want a sturdy room to transcribe scrolls, I…” Walking back and forth three times while chanting silently, the magical door opened for him.
Mason pushed open the door of the Room of Requirement.
The first thing that met his eyes was a square altar built from obsidian bricks.
Five snake-fang-shaped stone statues were arranged in a pentagon around the altar.
Iron chains hung from the tips of the statues, binding green flames at their ends.
Etched into the middle section of each snake-fang statue were numerous names of people with different surnames.
The first letters of these names were capitalized, forming a sentence in an identical sequence:
“The blood of the enemy.”
Haha, no wonder there’s a reddish glow on this obsidian.
Turns out it’s haunted by aggrieved spirits.
Mason took out blank paper and the Beginner’s Journal, using his magic to mimic a Severing Charm to cut paper into sizes similar to his spellbook.
He placed them on the altar, along with a small bottle of ‘Medusa’s Blood’ and the sprouted potatoes.
Mason pressed his hands on the three materials, and the Codex of All Magic promptly provided the knowledge for making a Spellcrafting Station.
With Mason’s current level of Alchemy, he couldn’t replicate it at all, so he placed his hands back on the altar and got the answer he wanted.
This obsidian altar, likely created by a Slytherin, could be used as a Spellcrafting Station.
Transcribing spells of the Crimson School on it even yielded an extra 5% boost to spell power.
“This item is fated with me.”
After double-checking the usage instructions included in the Spellcrafting Station crafting knowledge, Mason took action.
“Step one: Refine the attribute magic of the target school.”
Mason swung his Elder Staff twice vertically and once clockwise in a repeating sequence, creating a powerful magical vortex of suction.
Emerald-green bands of light were pulled out from the potato sprouts, gathering at the center of the vortex.
The potatoes, full of vitality, quickly shriveled up.
However, the emerald-green nature magic was far from enough to temper the paper.
Fortunately, Mason had picked a big basket of sprouted potatoes from Hagrid; he pulled out another half from his bag and tossed them near the vortex in midair.
After a while, the magical vortex seemed on the verge of bursting from the abundant nature magic, suddenly disappearing into thin air.
Mason knew the refinement was complete.
“Step two: Temper the spell medium.”
Mages’ requirements for spell mediums had always been “as long as you can write words on it.” The primary reason was that tempered mediums lost their intrinsic magical identity; they were replaced inside and out by the school’s magic.
This was why spell scrolls buried for thousands or tens of thousands of years in deep, desolate mine pits remained plug-and-play ready.
This step was also the biggest test of a novice Iron Magic user’s precise control.
Mason needed to inject the refined nature magic into the paper, constraining it to perform only conceptual assimilation without leaking more than 3% of the magic, or else it would fail.
If an accident occurred during this step, the wild nature magic would explode right in Mason’s face, turning him into a literal ‘vegetable’.
Mason’s magic acted as the ‘straw’ between the paper and the nature magic.
He noticed that the nature magic he refined was even more volatile than described in the materials, likely due to differences between worlds.
Mason had to expend much more effort on guiding it.
“Phew~” When more than half of Mason’s 150-point mana bar was depleted, the nature magic was finally driven into the paper completely.
He pulled out honey candies and chocolates stored in his bag and forced them into his mouth despite his dizziness to offset the physical fatigue brought on by mana regeneration.
“Wow, this is sickeningly sweet—” Mason’s face contorted as he pointed his Elder Staff downward, nearly letting the nature magic break through the seal due to a moment’s inattention.
Another five minutes passed.
The original white of the paper completely turned into the emerald green symbolizing the Nature School.
The second step of crafting the spell scroll was complete.
“Step three: Transcribe the spell runes.”
While someone in the wizarding world might replicate Mason’s actions in the first two steps, this final step was impossible to copy.
First off, transcribing spell runes mostly involved otherworldly script, which could only be observed by creatures that understood its meaning after being enchanted.
This made it a key method for Iron Magic users to screen apprentices.
In the wizarding world, the only person who understood this script was Mason.
The magic contained in ‘Medusa’s Blood’ interfered with the precision of controlling a quill with charms.
Until his magic reached a certain threshold, Mason had no choice but to transcribe it manually.
“I hope this bloody smell all over me won’t raise suspicions.”
The magic ink falling onto the paper through the pen nib was absorbed by the nature magic within three seconds, so even if he wrote a character wrong, there was time to correct it.
As Mason transcribed, he tried to comprehend the meaning of these runes—in just four short sentences, he gleaned at least three wand movements that could be applied to Transfiguration, along with a small amount of insight into plant transfiguration.
He tried analyzing the broken-down runes together, but it caused a faint, sharp pain in his brain, preventing him from safely processing the information within.
“Last line.” Finished!
[Entangling Roots – Superior] (Rank 2): Nature School spell.
After selecting a target, cast with a 2-second incantation to summon roots that bind the creature, leaving it unable to move or fly.
Mana Cost: 70 points.
Spell Duration: 6 seconds.
Mason opened his spellbook.
The freshly made Nature School scroll seemed guided by something, turning into a ray of green light that darted into the book.
He looked thoughtfully at the altar, then extended his right hand forward and shouted:
“Bluesilver Bind!”