A Personal Status Panel too?
At a thought from Eric, a translucent panel immediately unfolded before his eyes.
Detailed information about him appeared across it, complete with the corresponding ratings.
━━━━━ STATUS ━━━━━ Name: Eric Clapton Magical Power: Top-Tier Mental Power: Top-Tier ━━━━ [Spells Mastered] Charms: None Jinxes: None Hexes and Curses: None ━━━━ [Skills] ⟡ Muggle Studies (Ultimate) ⟡ History of Magic (Basic) […] ━━━━ [System Note 📜] All skills, including spell proficiency, can generally be divided into five tiers: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, Top-Tier, and Ultimate.
Intermediate represents the average level of the majority of people.
Taking magical power as an example, a student who currently graduates from Hogwarts with standard results would generally possess a Magical Power rating somewhere between Basic and Intermediate.
The above ratings are approximate evaluations made by the System according to the host’s current abilities and actual circumstances.
They are for reference only.
Actual performance should be taken as the final standard.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ After quickly scanning through the panel, the first things Eric focused on were his Magical Power and Mental Power.
Above Top-Tier, there was still another level, Ultimate.
Eric immediately thought of Voldemort and Dumbledore.
The two of them stood at the very pinnacle of combat power in the wizarding world.
If one compared nothing but the quality and strength of their magic, there was no question that they belonged at the very top of this world.
Eric didn’t need the System to tell him that, in terms of raw magical power alone, he was already extremely strong.
But battles between wizards weren’t decided by magical power alone.
Having enormous reserves of magic meant nothing if you didn’t know any spells.
Eric himself was the perfect example.
At present, he didn’t know a single spell.
If he genuinely found himself in a fight, or even simply encountered a situation where magic was necessary, all he could do was stand there and stare.
His magical power might have been tremendous, but he couldn’t simply shape raw magic into a direct attack.
There was a limit to how much power could be released without a spell.
At most, he could do something like what had happened earlier and blast Tom off his feet.
Spells were the true means by which a wizard controlled and directed magical power.
Right now, Eric possessed tremendous magic but no spells whatsoever.
If he encountered a genuinely skilled opponent, he probably wouldn’t even have the chance to bluff his way through.
Spells themselves could also be divided into several broad categories, much like what Eric remembered from the original books.
Common spells that were not primarily intended to injure someone, such as the Disarming Charm and the Unlocking Charm, were generally classified as Charms.
Jinxes, meanwhile, referred to spells that caused discomfort or relatively minor harm, such as the Knockback Jinx and the Impediment Jinx.
Beyond those were Hexes and Curses, forms of Dark Magic capable of inflicting considerably greater harm.
Of course, in reality, the boundaries between these categories weren’t always particularly clear.
It was quite common for a single spell to fall under more than one classification.
Finally, Eric turned his attention to the Skills section.
His Muggle Studies skill had received an outright Ultimate rating.
Perhaps it was because he had lived two lives.
When it came to understanding Muggles, there probably wasn’t anyone in the entire wizarding world who knew more than he did.
As for his Basic rating in History of Magic, that was most likely thanks to his familiarity with the plot.
He knew at least a little about several famous events in wizarding history.
That already put him far ahead of someone like Harry Potter, who had entered the magical world knowing virtually nothing about it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Seeing Eric standing motionless again, Tom began to feel uneasy.
“Is something wrong, Mr Clapton?” Eric immediately came back to himself and dismissed the Personal Status Panel.
“Nothing.
Let’s go buy my things.” With that, Eric took out his Hogwarts letter and headed towards the nearest shop.
Along with the acceptance letter had come a list of supplies, the same sort every incoming student received.
It laid out in considerable detail everything a student was expected to prepare before starting school.
A wand, school robes, textbooks, and all sorts of other necessities had to be purchased personally.
As he walked and read through the list, Eric noticed that Diagon Alley looked somewhat different from the version he remembered from the Harry Potter films.
More precisely, the real Diagon Alley seemed much larger.
He couldn’t even see where it ended.
Eric remembered Diagon Alley in the original story as a relatively small shopping street.
There weren’t all that many witches and wizards in Britain according to the books, so naturally Diagon Alley, the country’s primary magical shopping district, had never seemed particularly large either.
Reality, however, was clearly different.
From what Eric could see, Diagon Alley covered far more than the equivalent of a single street.
Several neighbouring streets appeared to be connected to it, forming something closer to an entire commercial district.
Everywhere he looked, the place was bustling with people.
Curious, Eric asked, “Roughly how many witches and wizards live in London?” Tom blinked.
He clearly hadn’t expected Eric to ask something like that.
After thinking for a moment, he replied, “No one knows the exact figure.
Not even the Ministry.
But as far as I know, Hogwarts takes in at least a hundred and fifty students every year.” Tom knew that figure very well.
Nearly every first-year student passed through the Leaky Cauldron each year to enter Diagon Alley and purchase school supplies.
Even children whose parents were witches and wizards would usually be brought to the Leaky Cauldron sooner or later so they could learn the route for themselves.
The Leaky Cauldron wasn’t merely a point of contact between Diagon Alley and the outside world.
It was also connected to the Floo Network.
Any witch or wizard travelling to Diagon Alley by Floo would arrive at the Leaky Cauldron.
Eric nodded.
As expected, the wizarding population of this real world differed somewhat from the figures he had imagined.
Hogwarts provided seven years of schooling.
If it admitted roughly a hundred and fifty students per year, that meant the school had more than a thousand students at any given time.
Taking the proportion of secondary school aged children in the general population into account, and then factoring in the birth rate among wizarding families, Eric made a rough estimate.
Britain probably had somewhere between fifty and seventy thousand witches and wizards.
No wonder Diagon Alley was considerably larger than he’d expected.
With Tom accompanying him, Eric didn’t have to concern himself with all the little details.
Tom handled the payments as well; everything would simply be entered into the Student Loan account in the end.
Following the list, Tom took Eric from shop to shop, purchasing his cauldron, dragon-hide gloves, school robes, and the rest of his required equipment.
Eventually, they arrived at Flourish and Blotts, the most popular bookshop in Diagon Alley.
Every one of Eric’s textbooks had to be bought there.
Even through the front windows, he could see shelves crammed full of books.
Walking into the shop looked as though it would be like stepping into a world made entirely of them.
Unfortunately, they seemed to have arrived at a rather bad time.
The bookshop was in complete chaos.
The owner and several employees stood near the entrance armed with feather dusters and various other stick-like objects, swinging them wildly through the air.
And the things they were attacking were books.
Living books.
Dozens of furry volumes were flying through the air in front of them.
Unlike ordinary books, every one of them possessed two rows of viciously sharp teeth.
At that very moment, they were savaging one another.
Some had locked their jaws together and were wrestling in mid-air, while others viciously tore at their neighbours’ covers and bindings.
Scraps of paper flew everywhere.
For a moment, it almost looked as though snow were falling outside Flourish and Blotts.
The books darted wildly back and forth, utterly obsessed with biting anything they could reach.
No matter how furiously the owner and his employees battered them with sticks, they simply refused to stop.
Tom and Eric spotted the commotion from some distance away.
As they approached, Tom called out, “Mercer!
What happened here?” The bookshop owner, Mercer, answered furiously, “Don’t even ask!
It’s all because of these blasted textbooks some idiot professor decided to assign.
They’re about to destroy every other book in my shop!” While he was still speaking, another book was torn cleanly in half.
Riiip!
At the sound, Mercer’s face turned ashen.
It looked as though his heart were bleeding.