Mercer’s attitude towards Eric could only be described as exceptionally attentive.
Whatever Eric asked for, Mercer was almost invariably willing to provide.
The moment Eric made his request, Mercer immediately turned around and led one of his employees off to search through the shop.
As the most famous bookshop in Diagon Alley, Flourish and Blotts possessed an impressive collection.
It wasn’t long before Mercer emerged from the basement carrying a thick, beautifully bound volume, which he presented to Eric.
The book had an unusually substantial cover, and even at a glance, it looked expensive and finely made.
Mercer drew his wand, pointed it at the book, and murmured an incantation.
With a soft whoosh, a gentle breeze swept across the volume.
The pages began flipping rapidly in a steady rhythm, carrying away years of accumulated dust.
Once the spell ended, Mercer carefully inspected the book again.
Only when he was satisfied did he hand it to Eric.
The cover now looked as good as new, revealing several large gilt letters.
The Standard Book of Spells, by Miranda Goshawk.
“This is the book you wanted, Mr Clapton.
Please, don’t mention it.
As I said, consider it a gift from Flourish and Blotts,” Mercer said.
“In that case, I’ll gladly accept it.” Eric didn’t stand on ceremony.
He reached out and took The Standard Book of Spells from him.
This book was the real reason Eric had come to Flourish and Blotts.
He genuinely needed a spellbook with a broad range of material.
To tell the truth, Eric couldn’t place particularly high expectations on the lower-year Hogwarts curriculum he would be taking over the next few years.
First year especially was largely intended to help new students adjust to life in the magical world.
The spells taught in Charms were all relatively simple and fundamental.
Considering Eric’s current abilities, there was little reason for him to devote too much effort to progressing at the pace of those lessons.
From the perspective of someone who already had a rough idea of what would happen in the future, that would simply be far too inefficient.
If Eric wanted to deepen his understanding of the magical world as quickly as possible, reading was undoubtedly one of the best methods available.
The sheer number and variety of spells recorded in The Standard Book of Spells had left a deep impression on him.
It contained the Disarming Charm, the Mending Charm, the Levitation Charm, and countless others.
It even included the Patronus Charm Eric had only just learned.
Essentially, if Eric could teach himself everything contained in the book, it would be equivalent to independently completing most of the material covered by Hogwarts Charms classes.
That was why he had been determined to obtain a copy somehow.
Most importantly…
Eric flipped to the final page.
Sure enough, buried among a line of small print was the book’s recommended retail price— Thirty one Galleons and seven Sickles.
A price Eric had absolutely no hope of affording at his current stage.
For a young wizard who hadn’t even started school yet, it was an enormous sum.
For comparison, an ordinary wand generally cost less than ten Galleons.
Eric had no money, and he had no interest in spending half a month or more working odd jobs, scrimping on every expense, and painstakingly saving enough just to buy a book.
Now that he had an opportunity to obtain the spellbook directly, of course he wasn’t going to refuse.
Sometimes, the only drawback of expensive things was that they were expensive.
Besides The Standard Book of Spells, Mercer also gave Eric a considerable pile of other things.
These included every first-year textbook he would need for the coming term, an elegant quill, and a travelling trunk in which to store everything.
To Eric’s surprise, it was actually the unimpressive looking trunk that delighted him most.
He personally watched Mercer take more than a dozen books which, stacked together, were nearly as tall as Eric himself and place all of them inside.
Yet the trunk’s exterior didn’t change in the slightest.
Eric immediately realised that it was a magical object enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm.
The Ministry of Magic strictly controlled the use of the Undetectable Extension Charm and did not permit it to be used for private purposes.
Apart from certain products that had undergone Ministry inspection and received approval, objects enchanted with the Undetectable Extension Charm were, strictly speaking, prohibited items.
Since Mercer could openly take this trunk straight out of his shop, it had obviously passed Ministry inspection.
And magical objects like this certainly weren’t cheap.
A thought crossed Eric’s mind.
His Mental Field immediately opened.
His vision instantly faded back into grey and white, and the familiar dazzling sphere of light reappeared beside his feet.
After his experience dealing with more than a hundred Monster Books, activating the Mental Field had become remarkably easy for Eric.
He encountered almost no resistance at all.
With a thought, he directed the sphere of light into the trunk.
━━━━ 🔮 INFO 🔮 ━━━━ [Falkner’s Travelling Trunk] In reality, this is merely an ordinary travelling trunk enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm.
There is nothing particularly unusual about it— Just kidding (⸝⸝> ᴗ•⸝⸝).
On the surface, the trunk has been enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm, allowing it to hold approximately ten times as many belongings as an ordinary travelling trunk.
However, sufficiently powerful detection magic will reveal a small hidden room built into the trunk, complete with a Semi Permanent Life Support Enchantment System.
Of course, that assumes the detection magic is powerful enough.
As for precisely what qualifies as powerful enough, the trunk itself makes that determination.
Whether you’re heading out for a picnic or need to carry prohibited items around with you, this trunk will make an excellent companion.
━━━━ Note: 📜 The first person to use the hidden room inside the trunk was its creator.
Therefore, anyone planning to enter the trunk and explore should first make certain they can return safely.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Eric hadn’t expected there to be more to the trunk than met the eye.
It was actually a rather unusual magical object.
After obtaining the information he wanted, Eric dismissed the Mental Field and slowly considered the sensations that had been transmitted back to him when the sphere of light entered the trunk.
An extraordinarily large space was hidden inside that seemingly ordinary case.
One portion consisted of storage space expanded by the Undetectable Extension Charm.
The other contained a small, mysterious room.
At present, there was nothing inside the room.
It was completely empty.
According to the information Eric had obtained through his Mental Field, ordinary detection magic wouldn’t be able to discover the additional chamber at all.
It reminded Eric of Newt Scamander, the author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Newt also possessed a travelling case capable of housing the magical creatures he loved.
Of course, Newt’s case was considerably larger than the one Eric had just acquired.